Webbly

CraigD, thanks again for a very precise breakdown of the question. Probably it cannot be explained any further - ie., what you haven't answered is what I'm not capable of asking. I hope to return after a bit of heavy reading and actually frame my real puzzle intelligently - unless it is one of those useless wonderings, like "What was before the big bang?" Answers like this quote in a similar forum suggest I had better lay off till I know more. Thanks all, but feel free to bite into that if it takes your fancy.

Thanks CraigD for picking up on this. I really need to do some revision to help put the question more intelligently, but haven't had time. You have probably given a definitive answer to how respondents so far have interpreted this question, and looking back it was an interesting question, but not the one I intended. :) Can we try another direction, another attempt at the intented question? And let's lose the astronaut. ------- In deep space, again. A sphere is "rotating around its center of mass" because we say it is. The universe is happy with this, all laws being observed. Increase rotational speed and - how do you say it? (centrifugal forces begin to exceed centripetal forces?) the sphere begins to disintegrate. (Kindly correct that if I've misused the names, concepts and natures of forces). The question is "what absolute authority defines not only this state (the body is about to fly apart) but even the fact that it is spinning and has to fly apart"? Previously I said 'how does x know it is spinning' - which simplification was meant to ask 'wrt what is it spinning that would create rotational stress?' Or, 'what universal laws define anything as spinning?'

You'll have to excuse me for not being sure how to precisely put the question, and so (with respect to replys above) may I restate it with my example pushed a bit harder? Spin a body (or anything) on Earth and it eventually disintegrates if the rotation becomes fast enough. Our astronaut turning on some bodily axis would be fatally affected as RPMs increase. On Earth this seems obvious and common sense, but transport the situation into deep space and with respect to what is the astronaut rotating (not to mention that spot on the planet's surface, that happens to be scribing some odd spiral itself)? If the answer is he's spinning wrt our galaxy, communities of galaxies, all the way up to the universe, then I'm still wondering what forces define him as spinning (that make his body try to tear apart) compared to a body 'at rest'? To make it worse (for me) consider two bodies: one spinning, the other not. The non-spinner sees the other spinning. The spinner finds the non-spinner in orbit about him (I'm having a paradox moment here!). The answer might be high school physics 101, and if so I was certainly asleep that day. So I'm fascinated. Someone point out the obvious.

Slight change of subject, but seems a good place to ask (point me to a thread if I missed it). A body in deep space: how does it "know" it's spinning? For example, if the body is an astronaut, his spaceship explodes and he's violently sent hurtling off in his space suit (so we can discuss his demise in the seconds that follow, if need be), and we define him as spinning relative to stars/galaxies, on an axis within his body. Though common sense says centripetal and centrifugal forces operate on his body - in deep, really deep, space, with respect to what?

Well, Boerseun, if this thread lacks anything, it’s not grandeur and depth of your avatars and signature quotes. Hmm, in these echoing chambers a note to myself. For little it’s worth, I wuz having a thunk, something I do best when the thread is long deserted. Strange, too, because when this discussion began all those months ago I had nothing original to offer and could only barrack for poor old MagnetMan, but chose to participate because there was something important here (though couldn’t quite finger it). Today, over morning tea, discussing with a colleague something or other led to me saying “.. but the Asians generally are far more spiritual than western cultures." To which she countered “Not at all, that’s a mere perception. There are equally spiritual people anywhere, any culture.” Dang, thought me, neutralized again. This can only end in a statistics competition, and that would be resorting to damn lies. Tonight, ten hours later, the idea suddenly firmed (a little) and memories of this thread jumped into my internal spotlight (in which I stand interminably monologuing). Animism is what I vaguely had in mind as ‘spiritual’ (and modern westerners are anything but animistic) and it extends across all continents, still, today. Then the vision of imperialism played in my head, depicting greedy ‘westerners’ spreading like a plague, corrupting and consuming ‘primitive’ and (mostly, including ancient European – am I correct?) animistic societies and cultures – progressing thus to this moment in its maturing phase. Though a poor student of history - and even a good student might find the edges rather blurred – I might assume that with migrations and invasions par for the course of history, and pre-history, there must have been the seed of ‘non-spiritual selfishness’ – an unbeliever, a non-innocent – that became a disease of the mind (a culture) and brutally spread, evolving into classic imperialism – and it’s equally classic corruptible and cynical power centers (religion/state/corporate/military) - we know and love today. So, to the question: “Colonialism: Imperial greed or evolutionary imperative?” Well, to answer “both” might be a cop-out, but it’s a chicken and egg question. Aren’t they all? In everything humankind has done there was a choice. But, like all choices involving competitively-selfish individualistic (the cult of ‘I’) entities, rationale intrudes to falsify motives. The only ‘choice’ remaining for such self-serving entities (individuals, cultures, societies, and civilizations) is to benefit from the moment ‘because if I/we/nation/corporation doesn’t, another will – and we can’t let that happen, can we!! This one primal consideration overrides all choice at all levels, from individual through corporation to nation - short-sighted, ignorant, greedy, and foolish. One might say the animal is choosing, not the human - even say it of corporations, with both their shareholder-obeisant helmsmen and the unspoken rules of engagement with opponent behemoths. Grand if not grave philosophical implications flow from this regarding our future. This so-called ‘choice’ is the pointy end of a natural (noospheric?) force that drives modern commerce, government, and science, and has us all on a roller coaster to nowhere, a random walk into an unplanned future. Choice no longer considers what is best for us, or the planet – only for ‘me,’ now. Would the noble savages we smothered decide the tribe’s future that way? That’s another debate, for anthropologists.

Zee, if really 120 you'd be helping the medical science forum. And orbsycli, that's not a real name, I checked Wikipedia. You can't believe forum posters.

MagnetMan, I can’t believe you are the same person who began this thread with such a lucid, eloquent introduction. Reading your increasingly less dignified defensive swipes at the heel snapping, I see a wounded deer soon lying torn apart in the snow. I’d prefer you continue and skip distractions. Forums are more blood sport than tools for consensus. As soapbox prophets in Hyde Park soon find, for every convert a hundred mockers are just rattling your cage. [“ .. this prophet ended by being locked up in an asylum, where he will have to convert the doctor before he can recover his liberty."] MM, I followed your signature to that website and found a noble-minded if audacious theory - difficult to disprove, impossible to prove. If you authored those ideas, and are such an old hand on the forums, surely you can do better than this.

Gentlemen, no fighting in the war room!

I'll admit some difficulty warming to the thread exactly as titled, which is why I haven't attacked colonialism (yet!) - plus more than slightly suspicious M'Man is gonna spring some heavy contrary positions on if I do. Eclogite's got it - no one’s denying the problems and we haven't the heart to lump it all on colonialism, even if it's the most prominent candidate. It might help if MM plays devil's advocate to kick things along. [PS: This is what I like. A nice relaxing quiet forum after ten hours enduring the madhouse bunfight that is my company workplace]

Okay Define colonialism for the purpose of this thread. Are we talking primarily about Europeans in the last 600 years, or most every migration since our ancestors stood upright? The focus appears to be the former. Other than "US Imperialism," of the last 100 years - openly berated by Communist Chinese forty years ago - the European push is the most significant and recent, and there seems a long wagging of a colonial tail. To quote an acerbic Inga Clendinnen: "Recently we have been extending the reach of democracy [in Iraq] by killing people in the hope that the survivors might get to vote." Not to mention (so I will) the tremendous amount of commercial activity still protecting assets and resources for "the haves" who, when I last looked at the contents of my home, are doing far too well, thank you very much.

I know we are 'hard-wired' to see patterns in the noise, and have no trouble making coincidences fit slim facts, but I'll grant you for now an ingenious explanation prophesying colonialism. Remarking, also, that while most such attempts to fit forebodings to future events go clean over my head, this one makes me shiver a little. Give such thoughts an inch and they take a mile in the imagination. But then, the alternative, in our abject ignorance, is to simply deny all. Where's the fun in that? Do continue, I seem to be the one hand clapping.

I'm happy to let ideas unfold here and, honestly, know too little for serious comment, though the stupendous overview being attempted has my devout attention. Juxtaposing Christ's brief impromptu with the Anti-Christ's perrenial Juggernaut reminds me of something I find perplexing. Raised Christian I acquired agnosticism with puberty (but wouldn't be too shrill about it). That said, I am fascinated by the apparent naive preachings from (a possible person known as) Christ - if not all the 'messiahs.' How do such gentle and essentially pure ideas propagate to survive the barbarity and dishonesty that is our past? Religion is a great organiser but, if you strip it away, what really captivates people are noble ideas, or ideals. (Why?) Oh, and Boerseun, thanks for putting your finger on it. Till now I dimly sensed there were additional reasons I married an Asian :0

This might be a ‘science’ forum but I suspect an issue like this will generate keen debate and some fairly exciting, if not zealous, posts - yet never be resolved. Even if a formidable expert or two were to weigh in and present detailed proofs that bolt the matter down, I can’t imagine that will either impress or assist those who nevertheless still wish to know what we can actually do about it. MagnetMan, whilst ‘conquest’ is a feature of life itself and colonialism might have followed such an imperative, I lit upon the ‘imperial greed’ component when your post appeared. It is this greed that today is shaping our future and driving commerce, if not science. Good old modern everyday greed, a descendent of imperial greed, is overriding intellect in most every decision-making process. Decades ago whilst at high school I envisaged a distant twenty-first century having swept ignorance aside. You mention Christian ‘missionary zeal.’ Last week in Australian news an outspoken Aborigine proclaimed he converted to Islam because of his hatred for the destructive Christian church. Such comments rarely reach mainstream press and, instead of alarming me, it simply rang true! So please, MagnetMan, draw the curtain aside and let us have it.