bismillahirrahmanirrahim...

it seems that wisdom not within me these past few weeks, my brain has simply frozen from the tonnes of other stuff that i was unable to think about stuff that i like most...

well, anyways, it was a bang in the head that made me thinking, so i suppose it would be fun to post it here...

it was simply today en route to my computing lab that my head made acquaintance with the door of the Ethos gym, which was, i may add, not too pleasant an experience...

but that set in motion the thought of how wonderful our brain and us being alive is...

i mean, the amount of information that is available in this world of ours, even with only a limited array of sensory inputs, is so very immense that it is mind boggling how our brains manage to keep up...

a simple example, when one gets up from bed, all the 5 sensory organs are activated, though some maybe more sluggish than other, but that's the idea...

even when we are devoid of light and perhaps sound, with the existence of the semi-circular canals in our ears, with the help of the electrical signals coming from the nerves at the ends of our skins and also some memory of the layout of our room, will aid us in finding our way to get some illumination in the room, via a flick of a switch...

this is rather an interesting point, because curiously, we tend to forget that electricity may not be available at the time when we are opening the switch. we seem to trust our memories, and trust that with the movement of the switch, electricity will flow into the light bulb or whatever bulb and through the laws of physics, we will have light. why? i have no idea...

if the idea that time is simply a statistical averaging of the universe, than it is most curious that we trust our memories, because it may not be apparent at that particular point of averaging that the same result will always be true for the same action...

coming back to the story, we then have some illumination, which will serve to guide us along the maze of solids around the room; that which we call furniture...

the we start to balance our 2 feet on the floor. and with a series of controlled falls that we call the action as walking, we commence our journey to the end of the day...

all this while, the brain is very2 careful not to let anything harm the body. that is, if we are about to fall from our bed, we will impulsively stretch out our hand to cushion the impact. from past experiences (again, the memory argument), we know that by cushioning the fall, it will do less damage on the body. and we register the damage that is done to the body with what we call pain, another instrument of self preservation. what is interesting is that the brain seem to be doing all this at the same time; receiving impulses, processing them with what we call rational, giving out impulses all the while trying to keep the whole body to function as a unit, from the muscle contractions necessary for the eyes to function properly to the regulation of enzymes in the stomach...

all that is fine, but what happens if we daydream or sleep?

that is an interesting question to answer..

why is it we lose touch with reality, when all our senses are still 'online'?
why is there a sort of 'virtual reality' projected in our heads?
why do we need these worlds?

if we are daydreaming (like i was) it becomes more interesting...

because we seem to live in a sort of parallel world, where we are aware of the real world, yet we are somehow sucked into an imaginary world inside our heads..

i find all these very2 stimulating to think off...

wallahua'lam

bismillahirrahmanirrahim...

always wanted to write on this, now i will...

editor's note:this is based on what is known to the author at the time of writing. hence there may be questionable facts in which the author hopes the reader will bring it up so that the article can be improved, and knowledge can be spread...from ALLAH is all knowledge...

in all the hype of evolution and creationism, i find it interesting to note that there is NOTHING in the Quran that is against evolution. there is only the creation of Adam a.s. which is detailed in the Holy Book of Quran, but nothing about the creation of other life forms...

but before we continue with the discussion, i would like to point out that i will not indulge too much in the evidence for and against evolution, nor the possibility of having other species of humans, as was pointed out in Saifulislam.com, rather, i would like to focus the argument on more logical aspects of the theory, and try to come to a conclusion whether or not we need to invoke the supernatural to explain life..

firstly, let us assume that we are in primordial earth, where the conditions are just right for the formation of life..

the argument goes that organic molecules are formed out of this 'primordial soup', or from other parts of the galaxy, and then slowly develop into life.

now, the more perceptive of you would by now say, 'no, that is impossible! how can such a thing occurred? it simply is appalling to logic!' well, the thing is, the entire world is in front of you. and you cannot simply say that that is impossible, because it appeals not to logic. if you say that is the case, then we physicists can't use quantum mechanics, because its illogical, but is proven to be true in some aspects of the micro universe.

hence, from the argument above (that there is life in this world already), we can assume that the probability of such occurrences to happen is not zero, but from logic, we can deduce that it would be very small. why? because although demonstrated in the lab that it is possible to for organic chemicals to come into being in certain conditions, for it to organize itself into a living organism seems, to me, rather ambitious. but again, the probability is not zero.

taking that stand, we can now say that indeed evolution may have been the method in which life came into being, and because we are here observing nature, it is possible. but there is just one thing that it must comply to: thermodynamics. the 2nd law of thermodynamics (i am being simplistic and taking a broad view of the law), is related to a concept called entropy, which provides a quantitative measure of disorder [c.f. Young and Freedman, University Physics with modern physics, 12th edition]. systems tend to move from order to disorder, and the sudden rise of life would mean that for some reason, disorder has decreased on earth. as pointed out of a very good friend of mine (read the comments), entropy could decrease (entropy in a closed system cannot be decreased, but in an open system it may decrease). and since earth can be considered an open system, entropy might decrease. but i personally think that successive decrease in entropy is rather hard to be realized..but, life have no reason to exist in the first place, so why is it developing?

and with the existence of life, it seems that life becomes more and more complicated, which is weird because life, in the early stages, have no reason to do that. i mean, we are to take a simplistic view on this, then we might say that life have no reason to continue living, because it may not be optimal to the physics of the environment...

so the question arises, why is life so persistent? and why should it develop consciousness? we are often bombarded with the notion of struggle of the fittest, but we never really thought about why there must be a fittest in the first place. we know so much about HOW things are going about, but we never question WHY it is so.

and interestingly enough, if we humans are not here, who would give meaning to all of this? if there is no human intelligence, we wont even saying stuff like this, and the universe will still function (as far as conventional wisdom holds)

so, it after reading this, it is up to you to decide what to believe in...

wallahua'lam

[revised at 2330 on 06-01-07]

assalamualaikum,

this is mainly to rebut the claims made by this person, and is by no means meant to shame this person in any way...

the purpose of this article is to make us think of how we approach scientific stuff related to Islam...

how critical we are to stuff like this...

insyaALLAH i will try to make it as clear as possible...

let us analyze his claims, i will not indulge in all of them, not all of them are within my sphere of knowledge, but i'll try my best...

claims and counter claims

1. what Neil Armstrong said implies that ALLAH hung the earth

i make it clear 1st that i believe ALLAH hung the earth.

but, it must be remembered that Neil Armstrong was not a muslim then. so, how is it possible that he made such a connection?

he is an astronaut, as such, he must have known that the earth is surrounded by a vacuum, and floats in space.

it must be remembered that the reason why we are on the ground is because of gravity.

without it, we will simply float in space.

hence such a thing should be hardly surprising to an astronaut.

and what is more, he should've seen the moon being hung even of Earth, and if he were to makes such a connection, he need not go to space; the sky is hanging in the atmosphere, right?

hanging, as conventional wisdom would have it, would imply that it is being pulled down or up by a force, and then applying a similar force to countereact that force (think about how a ball would hang). is this the way the earth is?

the earth is floating and moving due to the effects of other celestial bodies that are present...

2. the discovery of a mysterious radiation was posted for 21 days in the internet and then taken off by the censorship from NASA

the internet was developed by the US military precisely because there is no central server in which a hacker can gain access and take control of the system. and the internet was popular only by the 80's.

when did the moon landing take place?

not in the 80's i can assure u..

and to be honest, if NASA did ever do that, then the whole scientific community will be outraged, since they have published it, then took it away without giving reasons why. findings are not theories, rather, they are imperical data which is taken from Nature. NASA will have a tough time if they were to do that.

even if he did post it on the net, the fact that hardly anyone has a computer then, and what more an internet connection, make this point rather shaky

3. Kaaba is radiating some sort of short wavelength radiation which is infinite. he then continued by making a connection between this radiation and Baitul Makmur.

4. the radiation has special properties

let us consider what he said: the radiation was infinite, has special properties, is known to man and has a short wavelength. now, there are only a few radiation having the ability to travel in a vacuum, and the more likely candidate for this is the electromagnetic radiation, like light, since if it is a concentrated, collimated beam (like a laser), then the beam would hardly be dispersed, which would mean that the energy will not be dispersed too much. taking this stand, a short wavelength of electromagnetic wave would suggest some harmful radiation such as gamma radiation, which means that it will require a lot of energy before having it released. thus the question arises, whence did the energy come from, why is it not detected nor reported nowadays (ignore the conspiracy theory, i trust scientist will publish their findings), and if the earth is emitting such things, it will require quite a big amount of energy which means that the earth will lose its energy. again, the source of energy is a big question mark since even stars need huge masses before being able to emit light, due to the nuclear reactions in the star. they need huge masses and densities. in comparison, the earth's composition does not favour such a theory. and it needs to be said here that the crust is moving, hence we would need more supporting evidence for this claim.

5. in the middle of the earth, there is a place called the magnetic equilibrium zone, where apparently the magnetic field has no effect

the magnetic north pole is actually, on a normal magnet, the south pole; that's why compasses show north. and the field lines are from the magnetic south pole to the north. if u want to have a magnetic free region on earth, u will have to put an opposing magnetic field that is enough to cancel the effect of the first one. it must be said that the earth's magnetic field is not really that strong, but to have an opposing field to permeate the whole of Mecca, it would be a monumental taskl, even for the brightest of engineers...

and from what i know, the earth's magnetic field is beneficial in that it stops harmful solar radiation from entering earth. physically, it doesn't seem right.

6. people living in Mecca is less affected (among other things) by gravity

last time i checked, gravity is a force exerted because of the existence of mass. since the mass of the earth is there, how are they affected less by gravity? i don't get it. the calculations here are complex (we must take into account the various masses in all the space dimensions before being able to calculate the true effects of gravity), and i will not attempt it here

7. the rocks in Mecca are the oldest in the world

8. rocks from mecca are not from this solar system

i cant answer claims 7 & 8 because it will require further study in the subject matter...

so, how many of u, having watched the film, thinks that these are the things that proves Islam is the true religion?

i hate to say it, but his arguments lack evidence, and does not appeal to logic.

my point here is that not that i am saying what he said is absolutely wrong, its just that some of what he is saying is very2 questionable, and as Muslims, we should not simply take it without having analyzed the whole thing first, and then using it as a tool for dakwah.

this is true of all things about science; we cant make any relations unless having studied the field first. dan maafla saya cakap ni, kadang2 ustaz pun bukan autoriti dalam bidang2 ni.

this is the common mindset of Muslims nowadays, taking stuff without thinking about it first. its fine if its things concerning religion that we can't simply say without having knowledge, but we can always research science on the net, yes?

so, brothers and sisters, i am not saying that we should not use science as an argument for dakwah, just proper, researched science, one that u know all the sources.

this is especially true about darwinism and evolution, where muslims are the most sensitive about. don't simply take other people's word for it; there are proofs, undisputed proofs for evolution. and a theory that survived almost 100 years of rigorous testing must have at least some validity in it..

maybe u'll say that u dunno who ask. my answer is, many people can answer, u just need to know where to look for. post it in iluvislam.com, insyaALLAH it will be answered.

and start thinking about Nature. i know not everyone can do this, but u can try. cuz even ALLAH tells us to do that. how many of us think about, say, an ant, while waiting idly for a bus? or about how great the feat of walking is (scientist called it a series of controlled falls)?

i do personally think that this is a habit, and everyone has the capacity to do it. its just a matter of whether u do it, or not.

the way we think usually will reflect in our actions. so if we don't think critically enough, we may make decisions that are not so good for, say, Islam...

i apologize to ALLAH for any short comings in this article.

wallahua'lam