h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In terms of physics matter can neither be created nor destroyed. It can be converted into energy of course. I therefore don't see why the matter of your body (or mine for that...erm - matter) shouldn't last for ever.

1. Excusion - we would lose the ability to consider a number of factors and issues that philosophy could address. That's why maths is only a subgroup of philosophy, it's a restricted form.
2. Extended - I wanted to use that word first! Anyway, I think that sounds fine, but how is energy extended?
3. Anti-matter - the anti-particle of a given particle is another with the same mass as the particle but with the opposite charge, charm, spin etc. So the anti-particle of the electron /weighs/ exactly the same as an electron, but has a positive charge rather than a negative one, and the anti-particle of a proton has a negative charge instead of a positive one. See? Like positive and negative numbers - +2 and -2 have the same magnitude (length, if you like) but opposite sign. They're both still numbers.

'...but doesn't interact with it...'

Is that a joke?

- Jordan

Hmm, a definition of 'exists', eh? Not asking for much, are we?

Exist v.t. to be; to have a being whether material or spiritual.

Useless b****y dictionary.

Exist vb. to be a cause

Noggin

It'll decay, though, and at some point I recall hearing that all 'matter' would become energy. Nasty. Wonder if we'll (as a race) live long enough for 'neutron decay' to become a life threatening disorder?

- Jordan

Well, if energy has to be extended also, I guess it passes or transmits something from one location to another. Can't see energy doing much if it could only affect its source. 'Action at a distance', as they used to call it.

Yet the 'big bang' was all energy. Well, certainly no matter was involved anyway. So in which direction does entropy shove things?

<>

Tongue in cheek. CDM has a gravitatinal effect (that's how we know it's there), but doesn't seem to do anything else. What it is is one of the major unanswered questions in cosmology.

Noggin

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)


Existence \Ex*ist"ence\, n. [Cf. F. existence.]
1. The state of existing or being; actual possession of
being; continuance in being; as, the existence of body and
of soul in union; the separate existence of the soul;
immortal existence.

The main object of our existence. - Lubbock.

2. Continued or repeated manifestation; occurrence, as of
events of any kind; as, the existence of a calamity or of
a state of war.

The existence therefore, of a phenomenon, is but
another word for its being perceived, or for the
inferred possibility of perceiving it. - J. S. Mill.

3. That which exists; a being; a creature; an entity; as,
living existences.


WordNet (r) 1.7 [wn]


existence
n 1: the state or fact of existing: "a point of view gradually
coming into being"; "laws in existence for centuries"
[syn: being, beingness] [ant: nonexistence, nonbeing]
2: everything that exists anywhere; "they study the evolution
of the universe"; "the biggest tree in existence" [syn: universe,
creation, world, cosmos, macrocosm]


THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]


EXISTENCE, n.

A transient, horrible, fantastic dream,
Wherein is nothing yet all things do seem:
From which we're wakened by a friendly nudge
Of our bedfellow Death, and cry: "O fudge!"

- Jordan

My earlier post should obviously have read

useless b****y dictionarIES

Noggin

Too right, Noggin. Dictionaries aren't much help with philosophy are they!

Talk them out of it for preference, Mandragora. I have had 3 children, and only the last of them was to a man with whom I had had a *good* relationship, and even he turned into a pod person! So, I know I can separate the child and the pregnancy from the father and the circumstances. Maybe not every woman can do this, but I wonder how
many are given the chance to try? It has been my observation that women are offered an abortion straight away, as I was at one point! (Being unmarried. I told him what I thought of that in no uncertain terms, and he, who thought he was being generous, was *most* offended!)
Mandragora and Hasslefree, in the developed world, a vanishingly small number of women are genuinely in the circumstances you mention - raped or physically at risk. Pro-abortion campaigners (60-70% of them male) *all* talk about the 'hard cases' as if they are the majority, when they make up 2-3% of pregnancies

He was referring to a typo!

I best add this to Noggin's list of mistakes:

'Entry 1: Noggin makes a typo. ~23:30 GMT, 24/02/03...'

- Jordan

hey toxxin getting back to wat u said, the sky wouldnt be as bright of the sun because either,

A)The light hasnt reached us yet
B)Its not powerful enough to reach us, or
C) there would be and infinte number of black holes in all directions we looked out so the only stars we see r infront of them,
C, is my theory

"Oh, no, the matter of my body will live on for, oh, another several hundred billion years. "
no denying that.

But define the use of the word 'living'in this context.
I think exist is a better word.
YOU. The thing that makes the body you
will have vacated the 'premises'

A) The universe isn't expanding faster than light. So its reached us. Even the 'fossil' radiation from the big bang is observed.

B)Radiation continues forever unless something stops it.

C)The gravitational attraction of all those black holes would have the nearer part universe expanding at almost the speed of light I guess - and the further part coming back in. Doesn't happen does it? Nice try tho.

I stand corrected, Jordan. Just a bit of a dig at Austen's school of philosophy intended there anyway. 'Sense and Sensibilia'!

"A) The universe isn't expanding faster than light. So its reached us. Even the 'fossil' radiation from the big bang is observed."

But if the universe was infinite it wouldn't be expanding - the space itself would just be infinite, regardless of what was happening to the matter in it

Toxx
I believe that it is not necessariy part of the objective to retain the same body eternally.
If life is to gain experiences by living them, as I believe, then we need various bodies in various situations, to gather those experiences.
If transference of an 'eternal' energy is easily done, why not in the form of what we call reincarnation?
Out with the old on with the new.

Gaffer. You just seem not to accept the standard view that space is a function of matter. It is something, not empty nothing! It has dimensions and curvature depending on the matter it contains. Even the infinite can expand. Consider the infinite set of odd numbers, then add the infinite set of even numbers. You get an expanded infinite set of all positive integers.

We observe the expansion on the basis of the evidence of 'red shift'.

Hass, you need to know what you mean by 'the same person'. What is it for a person X today to be the same person as person Y tomorrow? Is it having the same body? Is it that the person forms a continuous path through space and time? Do you have an answer that fits with this 'body swappiing'? If not, how do you know that the person with the new body would be you?