I’m tempted to say, “Quo Vladis,” in a bad pun, but I know where Vladis Kletnieks of Clarkson University is going: Straight to debunk someone’s suggestion that “aliens” might have been responsible for the Big Bang. The question and Kletnieks’s response, posted on Quora (online digest) indicates for me the problem with our educational system. We haven’t as a group been taught to think critically, to weigh rationally, and to prove methodically. Whatever one wants to posit as a “truth” soon becomes a conspiracy and the theory du jour.
Here’s the question he addressed: “How plausible is the idea that the Big Bang was caused by an advanced species experimenting with a light speed (infinite energy) engine?” As Vladis asks, “Where was this advanced species living before space and time existed?” As Vladis demands, “So, show us your math.”
In the age of unsubstantiated accusations and conspiracies spread at the speed of the Internet, the wildest imaginations distract us and require our taking time to offer refutations and explanations. Apparently, the manner of the day is to take anything that pops into our heads and propose it as the truth.
Where are we going? Or, quo vadimus? Big Foot, Ancient Aliens, No Moon Landing, Hollow Earth: Just a small sampling of unhinged “theorists” saying whatever they want. It doesn’t matter whether or not what is suggested is provable or plausible; it only matters that “it” is said. Saying has become confirming. Asking has become answering. Suggesting has become concluding.
So, when Vladis Kletnieks answered the question posted on Quora with some sarcasm, I did not see any cruel intent that would send the questioner into a “safe space.” Kletnieks doesn’t shut down the question without listing the parameters necessary for its truth. He also writes that there is a “total lack of connection between the conjecture and how the first few minutes of the universe unfolded….”
The specifics aren’t important here. What is important is that last statement by Kletnieks: “total lack of connection between the conjecture and…” whatever. That seems to be the way of the modern world: No one needs to connect accusation with proof; no one needs to connect conjecture to truth. Anyone can say anything. By the time conjecture courses through the veins of the Web, it becomes the lifeblood of truth.
I’ll ask again, “Quo vadimus?”
*Quora at https://www.quora.com/
Question answered July 22, 2019, by Vladis Kletnieks
Here’s the question he addressed: “How plausible is the idea that the Big Bang was caused by an advanced species experimenting with a light speed (infinite energy) engine?” As Vladis asks, “Where was this advanced species living before space and time existed?” As Vladis demands, “So, show us your math.”
In the age of unsubstantiated accusations and conspiracies spread at the speed of the Internet, the wildest imaginations distract us and require our taking time to offer refutations and explanations. Apparently, the manner of the day is to take anything that pops into our heads and propose it as the truth.
Where are we going? Or, quo vadimus? Big Foot, Ancient Aliens, No Moon Landing, Hollow Earth: Just a small sampling of unhinged “theorists” saying whatever they want. It doesn’t matter whether or not what is suggested is provable or plausible; it only matters that “it” is said. Saying has become confirming. Asking has become answering. Suggesting has become concluding.
So, when Vladis Kletnieks answered the question posted on Quora with some sarcasm, I did not see any cruel intent that would send the questioner into a “safe space.” Kletnieks doesn’t shut down the question without listing the parameters necessary for its truth. He also writes that there is a “total lack of connection between the conjecture and how the first few minutes of the universe unfolded….”
The specifics aren’t important here. What is important is that last statement by Kletnieks: “total lack of connection between the conjecture and…” whatever. That seems to be the way of the modern world: No one needs to connect accusation with proof; no one needs to connect conjecture to truth. Anyone can say anything. By the time conjecture courses through the veins of the Web, it becomes the lifeblood of truth.
I’ll ask again, “Quo vadimus?”
*Quora at https://www.quora.com/
Question answered July 22, 2019, by Vladis Kletnieks
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