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

As I stated, and others before and after, the ripples in the pool are our effect on the world. As another hitchiker pointed out the ripples remain long after the stone dissapears. Using this as a metaphore every person that has ever lived is both immortal and has died trying.

To continue the analogy...

the effect remains long after the stone has gone but the effect is diluted over time until memory of the original effect is lost. Not truly immortal then?

Also, to continue this slightly overused metaphor, the ripples from any particular stone mingle so quickly and so heavily with overlapping ripples from other stones that one signal is impossible to distinguish among the noise. Then, if as others have said, immortality is a clear and everlasting ripple in time, then the equivalent of a ripple that's instantly lost among others is instant death, surely?

It can be assumed that the sphere of human knowledge has progressed throughout time, the teacher giving their knowledge to the student giving that knowledge tho their student etc. Through this model it can be assumed that the ripples of past generations are still in existence. As long as there are people to both teach and learn every person that teachs another person something is immortal.

No, that doesn't quite work. If the works of Aristotle are passed down from teacher to student for the last few millennia up to now, still, the only thing that lasts is the current student and Aristotle.

using the Aristotle example... each successive teaching would take with it a "flavour" of the teacher, their "spin" on the initial theorem, if you will, without cahnaging it fundamentally. So unless the original is imparted with absolutely no variation then the model does work.

I have a broom here. It's lasted me a long time. I got the head replaced seven times and the handle got replaced only last week! But I've had this broom for seventeen years, and it's done me well. And I've made a great saving in brooms.

Is it not conceivable that so much flavour will be added that it will eliminate the original taste? Perhaps not with someone like Aristotle, but this theory is meant to be universal.

and not with the broom either, even 8 'generations' later it is still a broom and unless you add something to it that it never had it will never cease to be a broom ( but it will begin a new existence with a new function). Even when it ceases to be its reason to be stil exists. which brings us back to us.

We exist... we cease to be. what is our "reason to be"

I don't know if this makes sense, It's late here and I'm tired

"and not with the broom either, even 8 'generations' later it is still a broom and unless you add something to it that it never had it will never cease to be a broom ( but it will begin a new existence with a new function)"

Quite. It is still 'a' broom, but my point was, it's not the same broom.

To go back to the now very tired metaphor of the ripples, there are plainly ripples, but that they somehow contain the very first ripples, that is more contentious.

Back to Harold Stotle, (bad philosphy pun, I know...) but in this particular case, we are talking about two and a half thousand year's worth of teaching. Even assuming one teacher per generation, that's one every thirty years. Quite a lot of accidental fundamental changes can be made in that time. Like Chinese Whispers.

If we throw a whole bunch of rocks one by one into a pond, all we'll end up with is a random bunch of noise and a nice view of the top layer of pebbles. Nothing's immortal. Hell, even if Aristotle's works were perfectly preserved and handed to me, I'd still form my own unique take on it all, so he isn't alive to me.

a pun is still a pun (not 0.54Kg)

So the thought processes and the 'essence' of the man would not be part of the teachings regardless of time since writing them down (or whatever method of passing them on was used)and you as the recipient would not use this 'core' as the baseline for your own spin thus making his thoughts, and therefore his psyche, a part of your own philosphy.

There is very very little that is new... just variations on a theme. There is, however, the eternal unanswered statement/question...

I am! what is my purpose?

Could it simply be that we are now get on with make sure that we continue to be. Our immortality as a species lies in A-T, G-C?

At the moment we are like Platos people chained to a wall seeing the universe and our place in it as shadows and subtle changes in the depth of the darkness, unable to comprehend the true nature of things.

We are standing too close to the elephant to know it's an elephant

I'm on a quest to metaphor this thread into the record books

"for your own spin thus making his thoughts, and therefore his psyche, a part of your own philosphy."

In this case, when you read and understand Aristotle's philosophy, either:
a) even with your own spin on it, it is still part of Aristotle's philosophy
b) your own spin changes Aristotle's philosophy so it can no longer be considered Aristotle's philosophy.

Now, being as we are perhaps two and a half thousand years after Aristotle, from teacher to pupil, there has been a lot of spin added. Let us take another example -- Jesus. Jesus' teachings have had so much spin on them that Thou Shalt Not Kill has somehow turned into "it's ok to fight religious wars" (crusades), and I'm sure there are plenty of present day examples about. The point there was, spin changes things.

Which leads to option b), in which case Aristotle's thoughts died with Aristotle.

You are all assuming that life actually exists and is not a figment of your imagination!!

But if you have an imagination your must exist, Cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am)

So you exist but do I exist? Can you be sure? Do I just imagine you exist, if so am I talking to my self, this would make me mad, I am mad?

What is madness, who is to say that 1 view of life and meaning is anymore relevant than any other.

Sorry have to sign off now, as my head just exploded.

'But if you have an imagination your must exist, Cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am'

Yes but what do you exist as, is imagination purely the product of a physical 'I' ?

I know I'm going to sound ridiculous, and Iknow that you will say I sould be in the thread next door. But nevertheless:
The meaning of life is Jesus.

I know I'm going to sound ridiculous, and Iknow that you will say I should be in the thread next door. But nevertheless:
The meaning of life is Jesus.

hi Polomint,

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Oh, don't start! That sort of talk always gives me the metaphysical heebie-jeebies.

Usually when there are a lot of here-and-now survival issues that need to be taken care of we don't have the luxury of wondering whether we actually exist or not, because not taking care of these things would probably ensure that we won't be existing long enough to worry about it.


az

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Yes. And this follows from the normal sense of the words being used, whereby we make a distinction between "real" and "imaginary".

To change the usages (meanings) of the words would be to ask a different question.

Unless you're asking whether the imagination is a product of a non-physical 'I'? But in this case too the meaning of the question still depends on the way that you use/define the words.

"The world is all that is the case" - said Wittgenstein, meaning that everything that is the case constitutes the world. But this is employed as a *definition", not a description.

One may then define physical as the whole of everything that is the case (as I do, at least for the purposes of metaphysics), or you may choose to subdivide everything that is the case (by means of different definitions) into physical or non-physical. Both the nature of the discourse involved and the basis of the distinction being made should then be specified.

Noggin

I know you haven't heard from me in a long time and I'm sorry, I obviously still had a lot of work to do. I promised you I would find the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything. It's the truth. I promised you there was ultimate truth, and I promised you I could give you ultimate truth because I knew there was one. The truth is you're right, the truth is we are all right. The problem is in the words. The problem is in the misconceptions and the unexplained, not in the mind.
I know you want to hear more and I wish I had time right now but I know you're going to have a lot to talk about and think about and I'll be back on my website now, and here, and I"m working on publishing The Nature of the Universe and The New World Dictionary, (to give a global definition to the words and words for the not yet defined), and a satellite radio station, The New World Order, The New World Tour, blah blah blah there's so much more. I can't wait. YAY

meaning and reasoning is of the mind. so when i hear someone say what is the meaning of life, they merely ask what is the meaning of thought.