We Are Not Alone

Are we alone in the universe? Humanity has been asking this question for millenia. Our creation of thousands of gods, spirits, and intelligent creatures is fueled, in part, by our intense desire for cosmic company. As long as we have been asking this question, there have been a plethora of answers. This quest for company continues today—embodied predominantly in the study of extraterrestrial life. Today our big questions take the form: “Is ET out there? If so, is it intelligent?”

With our present telescopes comes the ability to peer deeper into space than we ever have before, and the findings in recent years have been immense. This has dramatically changed the potential for extraterrestrial life. In the observable universe there are about 100 billion to 1 trillion galaxies. Spiral galaxies like our own have about 100 billion to 1 trillion stars. Elliptical galaxies like Maffei 1 have about 1 trillion to 10 trillion stars. Since elliptical galaxies make up about a third of all galaxies, the number of stars in the universe is about 100 sextillion to 300 sextillion: “or three times as many as scientists previously calculated. That is a 3 followed by 23 zeros. Or 3 trillion times 100 billion” (Borenstein, “Number of Stars”).

What does all this mean for extraterrestrial life? There are 50 billion or more planets in our galaxy. “At least 500 million of those planets are in the not-too-hot, not-too-cold zone where life could exist” (Borenstein, “Cosmic census”). This means that one of every two stars has a planet and one of every 200 stars has a planet in the habitable zone (Borenstein, “Cosmic census”). If you do the math, that's around 50 sextillion planets in the universe, conservatively. Around 500 quintillion of those are habitable. That's 100 billion times 5 billion planets that could harbor life like us.

Professor Andrew Watson of the University of East Anglia estimates that the chances of life like us occurring is “less than 0.01 per cent over four billion years” (Science 2.0) The oldest known planet is around 13 billion years old (Savage, Neal, and Villard). This means that a very rough estimate of the number of Earth-like planets with life like us on it is 16.25 quintillion, or 16,250,000 in our galaxy. Now, when I say “life like us” I don't mean that they will look a lot like humans. I mean life that shares four similar formational attributes. However, even this estimate may be far too narrow: “if life originated independently, even within our own solar system, it might have nonterran characteristics and, thus, not be detectable by NASA’s in situ or remote-sensing missions designed explicitly to detect terran biomolecules or their products” (National Academies: Space Studies Board). In other words, life could be drastically different from us and could exist in greatly varied environments.

This is all well and good, say the skeptics, but what is the likelihood of us actually coming in contact with anything intelligent if there are such life forms out there? That question is answered by the Drake Equation. “The Drake equation was developed as a means of predicting the likelihood of detecting other intelligent civilizations in our galaxy” (Astrobiology Magazine). The Drake equation takes the rate of star formation per year, the rate of production of new planetary systems per year, the number of planets in the continuously habitable zone, the fraction of potentially habitable planets that actually give rise to life, the fraction of living systems that give rise to an intelligent species, the fraction of intelligent civilizations which give rise to a technology which we might detect, and the longevity of such a civilization and returns the number of communicative civilizations (Astrobiology Magazine). Frank Drake's current solution to his equation is 10,000 such civilizations (Ford).

The final issue with extraterrestrial intelligence is if there are really that many civilizations out there that we could have come in contact with, why haven't we come in contact with them yet? This question is known as the Fermi Paradox. The problem with the Fermi Paradox is that it assumes that extraterrestrials haven't already attempted to contact us. There are a number of sufficient explanations for why they may already have been (or are) in our solar system and we simply cannot observe them yet. Freitas says, “The current observational status of the Solar System is insufficient to support the assumption that ETI are not here. Most advanced civilisations also would be either invisible or unrecognisable using current human observational methods, so millions of advanced societies may exist and still not be directly detectable by us. Thus the Fermi Paradox cannot logically be raised as an objection to the existence of ETI until these major observational deficiencies have been corrected.”

Ultimately, there is still a lot that we don't know about space, life, and intelligence, but what we do know so far is overwhelming support for the existence of extraterrestrial life. Not only are they out there, but some of them may be intelligent, some may be contactable, some may have already attempted to contact us, and some...we may yet be on the verge of discovering.

Bibliography:
http://www.rfreitas.com/Astro/ResolvingFermi1983.htm
http://www.astrobio.net/index.php?option=com_retrospection&task=detail&id=610
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/01/number-of-stars-in-universe_n_790563.html http://www.webcitation.org/5wg3VVKg4
http://www.science20.com/news_releases/the_mathematical_probability_of_life_on_other_earth_like_planets
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2003/jul/HQ_03234_Oldest_Planet.html
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11919
http://www.setileague.org/general/drake.htm

Copyright © 2011 Josie Stewart. All rights reserved.

Not All Who Wander...

My good friend Kevin recently started a blog. His first post is a little more eloquent than mine. Now I'm wishing I had put a little more effort into my first post. Maybe I would be a little more frequent on my blog if I had. Anyway, this was just an excuse to post something new.

Not All Who Wander...
http://tckevin.wordpress.com/

"Not All Who Wander" is the property of Kevin Jackson. All else is the original content of Josie Stewart.
Copyright © 2011 Josie Stewart. All rights reserved.

Turning a Place into a Home

In December last year I got engaged, and in January my roommate got married and moved out. Since then I have had my apartment all to myself, which at the start of the semester wasn't much of an improvement. I'll be honest: I had papers all over the floor, practically no furniture, junk that I had nowhere to put--at least I normally managed to keep most of my dishes washed. This was not the end of the disarray that my apartment was in. It really wasn't much of a home--it wasn't really even much of a place. I really didn't have much to do with it (having no furniture) or much time to arrange it.

The funny thing is that it is really the closest thing my fiancée and I have to a home. For me it wasn't much more than a place to do work and sleep. For her it wasn't even that--just a place to visit me. Both of our parents lived abroad, and so we never really had much of a stationary place. Don't get me wrong; she and I both love the experience and insight we gained from living abroad, but any home that we had in the past was no longer our own. Her parents are now living in Georgia in the U.S. Mine are still abroad. The house in Georgia isn't her home: she doesn't even have a room there. Where she's living now is not her home--she's staying with another family until we get married. The room she's staying in is not hers, and she'll have to leave it in May.

So we found ourselves with this cluttered, unfurnished apartment that was the closest thing we really had to home. We still loved it. We were desperate for a home. I would ask her, "When are you coming home?" She would ask her co-workers, "Can you take me home?" We both meant the apartment. It just came naturally because it is really the closest thing we have to one.

However, it bothered me that the place we called home was not much more than a dump. Finally, within the last week, we've been able to bring in a couch and shelving. We've cleaned up and sorted out our stuff, and made the place look really neat. We still don't have a dining table, a desk, and some other things, but we suddenly had this great relief that the place was starting to look a lot more like a home.

I thought over this for a while, sure that it must be something besides just organized stuff that made it more home-like. Finally, I realized that I was right--it wasn't just putting in some furniture and cleaning things up that made it better. What is transforming it is that now it is a shared place of rest that we can invite other people into. It's not just having a couch; it's having a place for people to fellowship. It's not just having a shelf for TV and decorations; it's having a capacity to entertain. It's not just having our stuff together; it's having our interests together, mixed in a unique way that makes it our house. It's not just having things tidy; it's having a place to present to guests as a comfortable common area.

As we continue to get more furniture and unpack more of our stuff, it will gradually become even more home-like. Once we are married, it will be final. The sharing will be complete, and rest will be at hand. We will no longer have just a place; we will have a home. The best part is that it's not just this apartment; it will be wherever we move, wherever we take our combined culture and establish a place of rest.

Copyright © 2011 Josie Stewart. All rights reserved.

The Light of the World

"Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of the light?" - Maurice Freehill

"Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." - Chinese Proverb

"There are two kinds of light - the glow that illumines, and the glare that obscures." - James Thurber

Sometimes I think it's great to look at the wisdom of humans before I dive into a spiritual topic. As wrong as we can be sometimes, there is still some great stuff that has been said.

Today at Park Hill Baptist Church in both our college fellowship and our main sermon we looked deep into LIGHT - and it's importance in our lives. We looked at 1 John 1:

"This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all." - 1 John 1:5

"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin." - 1 John 1:7

We also looked at Matthew 25:

The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

"At midnight the cry rang out: 'Here's the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!'
"Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. ⁸The foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.'
" 'No,' they replied, 'there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.'

"But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut. - Matthew 25: 4-10

We got to talking about what this light really meant. If God is light and light leads us into fellowship, then light is our sharing of the goodness of God, that is sharing the fact that Christ was here in the flesh and is our hope. Even more, though, it is following in the footsteps of that fleshly Christ who showed us that it is was possible to live in the flesh and live in the light. So what is it then? It is living like Christ did, which means sharing living like Christ did. We need to shine our lights. We need to be open, honest, and exposed to the world; and what is exposed should be the goodness and love of Christ himself. Our oil should be plenty because we draw from the Holy Spirit. If we run low, it is of our own foolishness. Our wicks should be trimmed. The charred part that build up from our old lives needs to be cut off. Only the pure burning part should remain. The charred part will come so we need to be ready to trim. We're not denying our imperfections, but we're cleaning them away as they are made visible by the light. Pray that we can be accountable in this.

In His salvation,

The Voyager

"Park Hill Baptist Church", in reference to the church in Arkadelphia, AR, is the property of Park Hill Baptist Church, Arkadelphia. All else except the quoted content is the original content of Josie Stewart.
Copyright © 2010 Josie Stewart. All rights reserved.

Rethinking Things

[Edited to add bracketed comments below]

I realize that I have not always been very dedicated or consistent with this blog, and I apologize for that and for my lack of humility and better judgment. The whole reason I initially set out to write this was to Chronicle my Voyages of faith. I have been very lax--no, I have completely failed to do that. I want to tell you what the Voyager is doing now, starting with the events that led me to rethink why I post here.

[Lack of humility--very much so. That said, the blog was supposed be about life and not just faith, and I think I was going through a time of peer pressure from church to be more "churchy".]

Prayer is one of the most essential, driving elements of my life. Along with the reading of the word of God, prayer is what keeps me devoted and focused. For this reason and the sake of my future journey--which I will explain more at a later time--I asked God, before I even came to college, to give me a strong group of guys here to pray with consistently.

[I honestly can't say I even understood what really meaningful prayer was at the time. That is, I knew all the details that evangelicalism taught me thoroughly, but I no longer find that concept meaningful. Prayer as a meditation on the communion of life through the vehicle of the mind could be helpful, but I would not place it as an essential element of life. I no longer agree with the theology that uses the term word of God to refer to the texts known collectively as the Bible. Reading the Bible, on the other hand, was incredibly instrumental to my deconstruction, and Bible fluency continues to be useful for helping others of Christian heritage navigate unfundamentalist belief. I also wish to say that I reject the inherent patriarchal and binarist notions inherent in me supposedly requiring a group of guys specifically.]

My whole first semester I kept on begging him to raise up the group that I was not seeing. Toward the end of my second semester I began to doubt that I was going to see such a group in my first year as I had originally thought. God had not forgotten me. Not long after spring break God rose up a group of guys and revealed them to me--all ready to pray. We kept in touch over the summer and now that we are back together we meet to pray every day. At first we thought it impossible, perhaps even unnecessary, but the more we prayed together, the more we realized it was necessary and we did have the time. So every day now at 10 pm we pray--we pour out our emotions, our requests, our frustrations, and our praises to God with each other.

And now God has led us to raise up a similar group among our friends--among the girls that have expressed interest in our prayer group. This is the first thing that brought me here: our body has begun to grow and it is properly planting a new body as it should. Tonight is the meeting in which we will bring together these girls. Pray that it will be holy and fruitful. Pray that as these girls meet to pray with us and as these two groups pray together, that more groups of guys and girls will be planted.

[More patriarchy and binarism...sigh]

Not long after the idea of this new plant came to me and my brother-in-Christ (that I will here call the Asker), a wasp flew up from by the benches, as we walked away, and stung me on the palm of my hand. So today my entire hand and wrist are swollen so that even typing these words to you now is a stretch. This is the second thing that brought me here: seeking something to pass the time as I let my hand heal.

But my blog was not the first thing I thought of when going to the Internet to pass the time. After stumbling aimlessly around different sites, I went to YouTube and was reminded of the ministry of some older brothers and sisters in a foreign country. This was the last straw that broke the camel's back--that is, my pride. I at last remembered my initial purpose for this blog and immediately dashed here (typed in the URL) to tell you all this. Now I hope that from here on I can continue to tell you about my prayer group, my ministry, and what God has done that has made him great.

If you are reading this now, know that I am praying for you. Grace and peace to you in the Lord Jesus Christ who sees your pain and listlessness, as he has mine.

In His salvation,
The Voyager

Copyright © 2009-2020 Josie Stewart. All rights reserved.

Ironing Out the Space-Time Continuum

(Edited to note that this post made as a very naive college sophomore probably misses the mark on the science. At the very least, time is not modeled as exactly the same kind of dimension as space, the details are a bit obscure and involve higher mathematics that I honestly can't say I fully grasp myself.)

When physics turned around and labeled time as a dimension, it caught many of us off guard. It makes sense; we had just never conceived of it in that way before. Despite this concept having been around for a while now, popular science and the general public still has a little trouble getting the idea right. We have questions like "How can time stop? It would then have to stop for a certain length of time, injecting time back into the equation." These kinds of questions present a fundamental misunderstanding of exactly what it means for time to be a dimension.

In order to help everyone wrap their heads around this, I am going to draw parallels to dimensions we are familiar with: space. Time is a dimension just like space. We do not say that space moves, neither does time move. Space is the realm in which mass-energy moves. The difference between two positions in space is called distance. In time we call this same difference in position duration. Distance does not move. Mass-energy can, however, move a certain distance. In the same way, duration does not move--mass-energy can move a certain duration.

Using this reasoning, we should easily see that time does not truly stop. Time was never moving in the first place. Objects move through time just like they move through space. If an object, say a photon, were to achieve the velocity c (commonly known as the speed of light in a vacuum), then that object would cease to move through time relative to the plane of reference that observes its velocity as c. Time does not stop, but objects can stop moving through time. Other apparent paradoxes can be explained in as similar manner.

For further study:
General and special relativity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativity
The Velocity chttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light
Vectors
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclidean_vector
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector

Copyright © 2009-2020 Josie Stewart. All rights reserved.

Computer Geek? I think so...

Oh my gosh! I just retook the computer geek quiz and....man, remember how last time I was 70? (http://voyager-chronicles.blogspot.com/2008/01/just-for-fun.html) Well, this time...



The images and "computer geek quiz" are the property of Darrell C. Sydlo. All else is the original content of Josie Stewart.
Copyright © 2009 Josie Stewart. All rights reserved.

The Great Nerd Test 2.0

Yes, I have taken the Nerd Test 2.0 yet again. I don't know why I have to do it because I know well enough what I am, but taking quizzes online is just so fun. So since my scores have risen again, here they are:



The images and "Nerd Test" are the property of Darrell C. Sydlo. All else is the original content of Josie Stewart.
Copyright © 2009 Josie Stewart. All rights reserved.

Open Melody

I've started taking a look at a new open source publishing platform (i.e. blogging platform) called Melody (http://openmelody.org/). The reason, I think, that Melody is most exciting (besides being another open source blogform like WordPress) is that Melody wants to be completely open: not just in source, but in community effort. In the words of Byrne Reese, one of the creators of Melody, "A core value of the Open Melody Software Group is transparency, or a promise to develop and discuss the product out in the open so that everyone has an equal chance to participate, audit our process, influence our roadmap and share in the excitement of building a product together." Melody is currently in the alpha release stage, and I may decide that I want to download it and try to run a server on my desktop just to test it. Regardless, I look forward to its full release, and I hope that the Open Melody team looks into getting a domain for running the first blog server using Melody at that time.

UPDATE: The Open Melody team will be running a blog server on their site. In a message to me on Twitter: "We plan on running Melody on openmelody.org as soon as it's stable. I'd say once it hits beta, we'll unleash it on the site." I'm excited! :)

CORRECTION: We had a confusion of terminology about "blog server." Open Melody will not be running a hosted environment on their own site. Hopefully someone will catch on though. Thanks, Dan!

"Open Melody" and "Melody" are the property of the Open Melody Software Group. "WordPress" is the trademark of the WordPress Foundation. "Twitter" is the property of Twitter, Inc. All else except for the quoted content is the original content of Josie Stewart.
Copyright © 2009 Josie Stewart. All rights reserved.

Poll Comments

Feel free to comment on why you chose a particular character in the poll.