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

hass, from ages ago; I agree that there's no objectively correct and entirely right time to raise a child, when all the conditions are right. The best you can do is vaguely aim for it.

Please, Wurfle, not *that* old saw again! Please...

Hello, Father Brendan! It's so good to hear what you have to say, but I am sorry to hear about your fibromyalgia.

Della
I think that my growing belief in reincarnation is due to my own logicality about life on earth as we know it.
I cannot believe in a creator and the diversity of a one off life.

The one off life does not square with my sense of justice, or my own feelings of what we are all here for.
I cannot see the justice in the murdered child on a spiritual and physical level, unless there is opportunity for that child to have again the chance to live and experience another different life.
If I consider that spiritual life is about personal experience as an evolving through learning process, and that we can only learn from our personal experience fully , not that of others, then it seems logical to me that every soul has the opportunity to choose to live those various experience enhancing lives.
In this life I have now, I can only experience those things set before a 21st century woman living in the UK.
I cannot experience and learn what it is like to be a man living in a tribe in Borneo, for instance. Unless I get the opportunity to live it and learn from it by living it.
Every life I live, gives me personal experiences, which because of their personal nature I am affected by . My soul takes these 'lesson', evolves and when all is fully understood I can move on.
If this seems garbled it's because i'm having a hard time being writing what is in my mind.

Plus.The idea of reincarnation does not comfort me.
I find life quite tiring and more often than not would prefer not to re visit the planet to struggle to survive all over again.
I say this in case anyone suggests that a belief in reincarnation is some kind of crutch.

annie

you wrote:
I find life quite tiring and more often than not would prefer not to re visit the planet to struggle to survive all over again.

HEY, I THINK LIFE IS QUITE TIRING, TOO! AND I WOULD ALSO CHARACTERIZE IT AS A "STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE"...

hey, have you ever watched Groundhog's day with bill murray?

peteY out

Pete

No not seen Ground Hog day (I have a peculiar aversion to Bill Murry, which you would not be able to understand unless you were me and had the experience I had which indirectly involved him ! ) )
but I know the story line !
and yes that is a microcosom of the macro as I see it
Here's another free thinking idea or thought.
What if multiple universes, were individual universes?
We all have our own universes which run parallel with each other.
We ARE the centre of our own universes !

annie

I, too, have a peculiar aversion to Bill Murry, but just because he looks funny

"Here's another free thinking idea or thought.
What if multiple universes, were individual universes?
We all have our own universes which run parallel with each other.
We ARE the centre of our own universes !"

that's an awesome idea!
fantastical
you get an A+ for creativity!

so, each subjective state [each individual] is correlated with its own universe.
i HAVE heard of theories that propose that there ARE parallel universes, but according to these theories, all of us on Earth are in the same universe. gravity is thought to be related to our universe and some other universe.

%-| ?

Replying to posting 4483 from mwpulley:

I don't agree there's "no magic formula for God". Try this:

God = the universal consciousness.

That is simple, short, and fine for me.

Well, ok . . . the unsimple part is "What is consciousness?"

Dan Dennett wrote a good attempt at an answer in the book "Consciousness Explained". Trouble (for this thread) is, he concludes that consciousness is . . . a useful fiction.

Which lands us back where we started. God: fact or fiction?

Answer: 42

Ah, parallell universes, and reincarnation. I reckon that you are reincarnated, but in the body of one of your descendents. And as for parallell universes, I'm going with the trousers of time theory, whereby every time you make a choice a timeline starts in a new universe where you made all the other choices.

For example, if there are three dates you can go on holiday, there will be a universe for each one. You yourself will only experience one of them (the one YOU chose) but the other two will also happen, just not in this part of the space-time continuum.

Dragonlover

the thing is that's (god=universal consciousness) not really a formula or a proof, it's just circular reasoning.

my whole point was that god is fundamentally a mystery and while i think that it is intelligible and we are capable of discussing god we'll never figure it out, there's no one clear answer.

however, most people would like to believe there was, but really, what's the fun in that? if all god was simply a complicated math problem what's the point?

Hmmanother question
We've had quite few batting back and fourth questions about ;is space finite or infinite?
So, is the mind/imagination/subconscious finite or infinite ?
Is inner space actually larger than outer space?

Dragon lover. I used to go with the trouser theory .
If everyone inhabits their own parallel universe there are a given number of universes. Perhaps this is easier for me to handle at present!
When we interact these universes 'collide' momentarily.
When we love these universes join momentarily.

Being your own descendent works too, but is limiting. It also has problems for those who die before reproducing.

mwpulley
I think that the reason we have multiple lives is so that we do in the end 'figure it out'
Every experience we have brings us closer to remembering what we already know, but have forgotten.

4511 mwp: "the thing is that's (god=universal consciousness) not really a formula or a proof, it's just circular reasoning."

Steady on; that's not reasoning, circular or otherwise. Nor is it a proof. It is a formula if ever I saw one.

'God = the universal consciousness'

You've inadvertantly demonstrated the very point you're arguing against - I simply have to ask you to prove it!

- Jordan

yeah, it might be some kind of formula but it's the same thing as saying ice=frozen water. it doesn't really say anything at all.

OK, I have to be a little more specific - the 'magic formula' bit was leading on from the previous statement, which indicated that God's existance could not be /proven/. The implication was that, from an appropriate proof, a 'formula' could be derived. In this sense, I think sie meant formula in the literal sense of 'an established rule' - emphasis on the 'established'. So you don't have a formula, you just have a /hypothesis/. A formula stems from demonstration.

- Jordan

Um... most formulae are in that form. The '=' sign indicates that the relationship between the two sides of the equation is contained in the subset of relational operators known as 'equivalence relations,' which include 'equals' and 'implies'. Almost every formula includes one of them.

- Jordan

In a sense this is perfectly true and uncontroversial of course.
"The world of th unhappy man is a different world to that of the happy man." - Wittgenstein
Of course, from a different point of view it's also the same one. Ah, the subtleties of language!

God=Universal consciousness. I hope this doesn't mean we have to start over with the question: Universal Consciousness - fact or fiction?

Noggin