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yeah the moons of saturn and juipter are pretty interesting in terms of searching for life. Enceladus is especially interesting as it looks to be shooting geysers of liquid water from under its surface into space. Also Ganymede is thought to have an ocean of salty water, and also has its own magnetic field that may offer protection from radiation. ESA is planning a mission to Ganymede in the next decade or so, and NASA is going to choose between mars, titan and an asteroid for its next deep space mission (http://www.nature.com/news/nasa-set-to-choose-low-cost-solar-system-mission-1.10982#/three). Titan's liquid hydrocarbon oceans are quite incredible so I hope they select that one. but the moon and mars are important logistically, as if we can set up outposts there then we don't have to haul so much fuel all at once to the outer planets. also it takes 8 months to get to Mars, 8 years or so to get to the moons of saturn and jupiter. so mars = more results in quicker time with less risk, which is good for apply for funds etc.

can't wait to hear it, too serious is probably better than too loose when it comes to this contentious area.

Nice one ID, love a bit of David Attenborough. Haven't seen the life of plants but the 1984 series the 'living world' is really great too. His enthusiasm and insight into the workings of nature is infectious. So maybe the purpose of single units of life is to exist in such a way that supports the general project of life collectively? But are we single units of life? Billions of micro-organisms live inside and on us. Life is a continuum of animated matter that cycles energy through itself and between its sub units. Seeing animals be consumed by others in these nature documentares (and in real life from time to time) really drives home the 'life as a continuum metaphor'. I often think, what is going through that caterpillars head as the swarm of ants slowly devour it? In the end we must all recede back into the energy reservoir that other life feeds upon. Until then I think your right, we should seek to live symbiotic existences with our trees and fungi of life.

nice one, sounds like a good opportunity to get your message out there! yeah totally grill saffran on why he dismissed the psychedelic plants after that half hearted peyote session. if he had done a proper ayahuasca or iboga or mushroom ritual, i'm sure he would have found what he was looking for. discussing the catholic church's use of a benign sacrament (i.e. bread and wine), and john allegro's theories etc might make an interesting conversation with father john.

yeah its an enjoyable read but is not ground breaking, much of it is just an amalgamation of other authors ideas. also I didn't like how he belittled traditional tryptamines in favour of 5MEO, surely they all have their place. but for sure its entertaining and the toad hunting adventure in the sonaron desert and description of the resulting experiences adds a lot of credibility to what he is saying.

^ lol don't bother putting your stocking out this year whitewind Everything can be distorted into darkness, or brought into the light. I don't think Santa is necessarily bad, its just that capitalism has latched on to it as a way to peddle more junk. In fact many childrens first taste of the 'other world' is through Santa Claus, a mystical figure that can fly and generously gives to the children of the world. It is interesting that the colours of red and white and the amanita mushroom motif are also used extensively to represent pharmacies in europe. Also I have found amanita to be more medicinal than psychedelic in the classic sense, so maybe this mushroom was quite important as a medicine in centuries gone by. Also I think their is some truth to the notion that the amanita mushroom was used a 'red herring' to hide knowledge of the psilocybe mushrooms from the general population. It suits this roll as it is certainly psychoactive, but nothing like the psilocybes (although there is some anecdotal evidence that amanitas can contain tryptamines), and gives enough of a stomach ache that most people would quickly lose their interest in the idea of 'magic mushrooms'.

heh thats cool that you remember your mum making that cake for you chilli. we take so much in when we are young, and the smallest things give great pleasure. I remember cutting/stealing lettuce with a plastic saw from the neighbours garden when I was 3, and mum making me a salad sandwich with it. and I remember the night Hayley's comet passed through the nights sky... that was 9 February 1986 so I wasn't even 2 at the time!

Yes the meaning of life may be pointless, but surely a purpose of life is more useful in that it provides a direction to proceed. For example: Maybe the purpose of life is to experience all that the physical body has to offer, to revel in our existence as physical beings; feel the warmth of the sun on our skin, the touch of a loved one, all the positive and negative emotions that go with being social creatures. Perhaps by fulfilling the possibilities of our physical bodies, we release our spirit from dwelling in this world so that it can move on to some more angelic existence.

^ nice animated gifs. it requires a very specific initial condition to generate that "shooter" example, I wonder how they went about working that out? yeah I think your right, there is something innate in humans that finds certain patterns the universe produces beautiful. beauty is a really interesting thing. why do we find fractals so aesthetically appealing? why do psychedelic experiences involve cascades of patterns that we find beautiful? projected onto another person, beauty can be explained to have an evolutionary advantage in that it is a vector for finding the most appropriate sexual partners for us. we all have different genetic makeups, so we all theoretically should be attracted to different types of peoples, and we are. so if beauty has a purpose, why is it important for us to find abstract art like this beautiful? perhaps the universe wants us to understand and make use of certain patterns, so as to create a more streamlined existence.

that is really cool, especially the genetic algorithm part. amazing that something so apparently rigid such as computer code, with input from human 'intelligence' via the selection process, can generate such beautiful images. it goes some way to convincing me that a scientific/mathematical description of reality does not take away its beauty, quite the opposite really. if such complex images can be formed simply by enormous numbers of iterations on simple equations, then maybe its entirely possible life as we know it evolved purely out of the billions of years of iterations the universe has produced? but these images required human input to select the best features, what is the equivalent in the universe?

wow, that second link is awesome! simulations of turbulent fluid structures can generate some pretty awesome art too:

^^ nice post betaluntmuffin How do we define the science box? Scientists answer: Phenomena that can be explained as occurring through processes that we have experimentally proven to exist. Magicians answer: Phenomena that do not require the interaction of matter and consciousness to occur. How do we define the magic box? Scientists answer: Phenomena that cannot be explained as occurring through processes that we have experimentally proven to exist. Magicians answer: Phenomena that require the interaction of matter and consciousness to occur. Not sure what my point is really.

god I hope the greens have a future... if not we are all screwed. if environmentalism isn't a key part of our future, then what kind of future will it be? I like the way they keep their integrity while the other politicians behave like total c#*ts trying to one up each other. I hope they stick to their values as in the end that will win over the voting public.

I wonder if such a time will come to the west in our lifetimes? It certainly has already come for many people in developing countries. in many ways they are better prepared than us as they already supplement their bought food with crops and animals they grow themselves, and are not 100% reliant on electricity and gas. I guess we can try and shift our reliance away from commodified goods so that its not such of a shock when it hits. easier said than done though.

Nice work man! How old is the kanna? And any tips for germinating viridis? I've just started some trichs, nicotianas and chillies on my 'sill: )

Yeah I got it thunder. l upload it somewhere when I get home. This has been great publicity for his book dunno why Dennis would object.

hey mutant, I'm in germany and really missing my cacti back in oz. if you have any cuttings or seedlings spare I would be grateful. I have some seeds from Koehres-Kakteen to trade if your interested too.

The fact that many people on this apparently alternative forum link to News Limited articles demonstrates the degree to which their bias is accepted in the community.

The monotonous rush from home to work with no time for anything else may very well be the cause of the anxiety in such cases. Somewhere deep inside us, we realise the insanity of this existence and the body/mind/soul cries out in protest via anxiety attacks. I think the role of anxiety is to force us to examine our lives and make positive changes. Suppressing anxiety via medication is a recipe for disaster down the road.

healthy living (i.e. exercise, good food, minimal intoxication) definitely helps, but as planthelper said the real solution is to understand your anxiety and take measures to change your life to remove the source of it. your body is saying there is something not right with the way things are, and you gotta listen.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply Ballzac. I totally agree that science has great practical utility, but its philosophical utility is currently limited. I guess one may argue that if science continues on its rapid rate of advancement, it will one day obviate the need for philosophy by being able to predict the behaviour of all systems in the universe and its very existence. But currently there are many complex systems that science cannot predict the behaviour of (e.g. the human mind and the existence of the universe), and therefore I feel that science should not proclaim itself as a metatheory that all ideas must pass through to gain credence. This is why I referred to science as being a "Catholic-creator-god paradigm": It is interesting that many of the foundering personalities of modern science where devout Christians. Whether or not they believed in the finer points laid down by the Romain Catholic Church, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Decartes and many others, were devout believers in God. Science may have been conceived as a reaction against the divine creationism of Christianity, but it inherents many of its basic tenets, such as cause-and-effect. The bible says "in the beginning was the word, and the word was made flesh". The word of God (cause) creating the universe (effect) is a basic principle of christianity. Maybe science has subconsciously inherited this meme from Christianity? The physicists in the article linked in the OP can be paraphrased to say "in the beginning were the laws of physics, and the laws of physics made the universe". For all its sophistication, science too requires an act of God (i.e. a singularity) to kick start the universe. The data source science is missing is the experience of human consciousness. In your first sentence you said that for science to be useful we have to assume that the universe exists objectively. The reason why I and many other people feel that science does not have all the answers, is that it is possible to have experiences where the physical world around us seems to react to our mentation of it (i.e. it can behave subjectively). If we can find a way to incorporate subjectivity into the scientific method, then maybe we really will have the ultimate philosophical tool. We shouldn't have to rely on God or a big bang or any such singularity to explain the universe, but we need to make theories using all the data available to us not just that which can be physically measured.

So it seems CERN has finally found the elusive Higgs Boson (to 5 sigma probability anyway), the carrier particle for the Higgs field proposed by the Standard Model to give mass to particles. Nature: Physicists declare victory in Higgs hunt Phys.org: CERN physicists report strong evidence of Higgs boson This goes someway to verifying the basic postulates of the Standard Model, although it appears its behaviour is not entirely as predicted. Quite amazing the that in one quiet corner of the universe, a bunch of monkeys have built a massive underground doughnut to smash protons together to discover the building blocks of matter. Reality really is stranger than fiction! Would be cool to start a discussion of what people think about the search for the Higgs Boson and the Standard Model of particle physics. Will this model or a variant thereof and experimental facilities such as the LHC be able to prove the existence of dark matter and the proposed extra dimensions of space time? If so, what does this say about the universe we live in and does it have any repercussions for the study of life and consciousness? Exiting times! Reading these articles makes me wish I had studied physics instead of engineering

A "succession of causality" seems too simplistic, no matter if you put physics or God or the great question mark as the initial element. It implies that the current state of the universe was inevitable given some condition of the universe at an infinitesimal time after the big bang (i.e. given a sufficiently large computer the progression of the universe could be modelled using this boundary condition and the laws of space-time). I think science is still stuck in the Catholic-creator-god paradigm in that it is looking for some Ur event or force or law (i.e. something of materiality) that will explain everything. What if the material universe is a manifestation of the mental universe, and vice-versa, and therefore inherently irrational? Maybe a "cycle of interactions" is more appropriate that a "succession of causality"? This is more inline with Eastern spirituality than western religion that seems to have given birth to modern science.

wikipedia says the budget for the LHC is 7.5 billion euros. that about 1% of Australia's GDP, so yes a lot of money! I think its a great thing that our society can see value on spending such a large amount of money on a purely intellectual excercise with no immediate material benefits. But then as you say we are spending even larger amounts of money on killing machines, and there are some countries in the world that cannot feed their people. Should the goal of humanity be to spread all resources equally and make sure no one falls under the poverty line, or should it be to push the boundaries of creativity or novelty at all costs? I guess the answer is a compromise between both, as both are probably important for our future world.

I think the CERN people feel they need to do these spectacular press releases to keep the funding coming, and to justify their research to the public. Scientific research institutes are becoming more and more like businesses, and at the end of the day must get paid to operate.