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Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

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11–20 of 189 posts

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#11
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does “direct democratic” mean in this context please?

Each universe has one vote, and they vote on whether to keep the computer running or not. We haven't figured out how to vote yet.

Tech's general atheism has left many tech people with a somewhat compromised ideological immune system: preposterous magical thinking is laundered with sci-fi language and accepted as plausible. (cf. the simulation "hypothesis", Roko's basilisk, paperclip maximizers, etc)

Why not stipulate that the Flying Spaghetti Monster oversees the elections like an FEC commissioner? It is equally rational: the only difference is that it doesn't jive with sci-fi aesthetics, just like how Pastafarianism doesn't jive with Catholic aesthetics.

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#12

It fits the theme that, according to Webb, the universe developed a lot more quickly in what we think were the first billion years... Most likely the "first billion years" were more like five billion years.

This galaxy in particular must be one of the first galaxies ever formed. If galaxies are more mature than initially thought, what does this imply about our previous models and imply about what might actually be happening?

There seems to be a large region of the universe, beyond furthest edges of the observable, but "in front of" the CMB, that is already outside of our past light cone due to expansion of the universe.

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#13
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each universe has one vote, and they vote on whether to keep the computer running or not. We haven't figured out how to vote yet.

Tech's general atheism has left many tech people with a somewhat compromised ideological immune system: preposterous magical thinking is laundered with sci-fi language and accepted as plausible. (cf. the simulation "hypothesis", Roko's basilisk, paperclip maximizers, etc) Why not stipulate that the Flying Spaghetti Monster oversees the elections like an FEC commissioner? It is equally rational: the only difference is…

Nobody dogmatically believes in this. This is not an "ideology", just some people having fun speculating existence. A far cry from religion and conspiracy nuts. Stop being so grumpy!

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#15
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does “direct democratic” mean in this context please?

Good question, I'll try to cram it but it's a whole book based on 3 years of modeling ultimate futures: imagine all the universes from the most dystopian to the most utopian. Ours is in the middle. If you want to go to an above average one - no problem, many will join you to "the party". If you never helped no one and was in the most perfect utopia all the time and now want to go to a below average world (probably fo…

> Good question, I'll try to cram it but it's a whole book based on 3 years of modeling ultimate futures: imagine all the universes from the most dystopian to the most utopian. Ours is in the middle. If you want to go to an above average one - no problem, many will join you to "the party".

Is there a literal book about this? Can you point us to it?

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech's general atheism has left many tech people with a somewhat compromised ideological immune system: preposterous magical thinking is laundered with sci-fi language and accepted as plausible. (cf. the simulation "hypothesis", Roko's basilisk, paperclip maximizers, etc) Why not stipulate that the Flying Spaghetti Monster oversees the elections like an FEC commissioner? It is equally rational: the only difference is…

Nobody dogmatically believes in this. This is not an "ideology", just some people having fun speculating existence. A far cry from religion and conspiracy nuts. Stop being so grumpy!

Pray tell, what do you think of the etymology and construction of the word "ideology"?

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech's general atheism has left many tech people with a somewhat compromised ideological immune system: preposterous magical thinking is laundered with sci-fi language and accepted as plausible. (cf. the simulation "hypothesis", Roko's basilisk, paperclip maximizers, etc) Why not stipulate that the Flying Spaghetti Monster oversees the elections like an FEC commissioner? It is equally rational: the only difference is…

Nobody dogmatically believes in this. This is not an "ideology", just some people having fun speculating existence. A far cry from religion and conspiracy nuts. Stop being so grumpy!

I didn't say "dogmatically believe," I said "accepted as plausible" - Nick Bostrom built an academic career out of this nonsense! Effective altruism people uses these theories to justify their advocacy. I would guess most tech people agree the paperclip maximizer is a serious concern.

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#19

Anyone else think this is a huge non-story? Like, of course there's going to be oxygen in distant galaxies. Why wouldn't there be? It would be far more interesting if there wasn't oxygen in distant galaxies.

> Why wouldn't there be?

Because the light we're seeing from this galaxy is from only 300 million years after the big bang. Elements like oxygen primarily form in supernovae, and the abundance of oxygen and other heavy elements in this extremely young galaxy is ten times higher than expected.

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#20

Anyone else think this is a huge non-story? Like, of course there's going to be oxygen in distant galaxies. Why wouldn't there be? It would be far more interesting if there wasn't oxygen in distant galaxies.

Based on our current models, it takes a long amount of time for elements as heavy as oxygen to be formed, especially in large enough quantities that it can be detected. And when looking at a very distant galaxy, what we're seeing is an image of how it looked like very early in its lifetime. So, the expectation based on certain models was that oxygen would not have yet formed at the time in the history of the universe when this image left towards us.

The expectation is indeed that all galaxies will have more or less the exact same elements that we have at ~13 billion years of age. But the image here is from a galaxy that was, at the time the image was emitted towards us, much younger than that.

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