Originally Posted By: kallog
Originally Posted By: samwik

I still think "dark" stuff has only been postulated, based on other measurements, but not itself directly measured or "sensed or perceived" in any direct manner; but


That's a long way from God which hasn't even been sensed or perceived in any way whatsoever, outside of imagination - the same imagination that created two-headed flying dragons in the Alps, Loch Ness monsters, etc.

Furthermore, dark matter and dark energy are only defined by what we've found out about them. Physicists haven't taken the extra step of claiming imaginary extra properties for them just because it feels nice.



Nor was I or anyone here trying to equate Dark stuff with anything spiritual (or with "imaginary extra properties"). And probably we agree that science is the perfect tool to use for understanding the material universe.

Again, it's just that we know enough of the material universe to see how limited our perceptions are, so anything is possible in the bigger picture. It seems that the material universe is an emergent phenomenon of some more fundamental reality, so why limit youself to only material-based understanding. There are patterns within material-based emergent manifestations that 'hint at' and suggest the nature of the more fundamental reality, but I think that so far the Humanities (literature) expresses those hints better than Physics, but physics is getting closer.

All the metaphors are beautiful and useful in their own way; personally I like the Flying Spaghetti Monster, since spaghetti works well as a metaphor for all those "higher" dimensions out of which energy and spacetime manifest as artifacts. Do you think there are really atoms flying around like "little billiard balls" as the models (scientific metaphors) suggest, or is that just how we perceive and usefully define them? C'mon, reality is really just like a big ball of spaghetti... but we can only perceive the intersections of the strands.... Or words to that effect. Those links may provide better metaphors.

~ wink

Pyrolysis creates reduced carbon! ...Time for the next step in our evolutionary symbiosis with fire.