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

i'm wondering, like maniac101d, if you mean > 1 life in parallel or in series? i don't believe in serial lives [reincarnation] b/c there is no evidence of such and it is apparently an absurd notion. likewise, i can see no reason to believe that i have more than 1 life running in parallel.

peter out!

oops... i meant, maniac1701d.

I see reincarnation as an option to experience several lives and the answer to the meaning of life would be to experience things in the physical body that you can't experience without one.
The best lesson you'll ever learn is the one you experience yourself.

Some people have a past life recall, this would be their individual experience though and one we couldn't 'believe' in unless we had a similar thing happen to us.
For instance as a female I can't know what it is like to be a male.
All experience equals growth. Growth equals evolution.

I got a friend that say that 7 is the ansver to life, because 42/2=21 21/3=7 7=a primnummber.

42 Don`t Panic. or as we say in swedeish Ta det Lugnt.

hey, hasselfree. i just skimmed over your bio. very nice
i think that you and i see things quite differently, but i'm open minded and don't dismiss other's ideas outright even if they are completely discordant with my own and even though TO ME, of course, it seems as if my own ideas are the most accurate

you are correct in your statement that one can only understand and/or believe in things that one has experienced oneself. however, i still cannot help but be skeptical of others who claim things that one cannot provide evidence for. for example, i cannot bring myself to believe people who state that they recall experiences from previous lives.

i tend to consider this to be not a weakness on my part, but rather my rational thinking that leads me to choose other, apparently more logical and likely, explanations. of course, i necessarily don't see my ideas as a weakness because of my inherent bias.

do you have recall of experiences from previous lives?

Peter OUT!

Do I have total recall of previous lives?
No.
And I'd have to say that sometimes recalling this one is bad enough.
There's a purpose to not remembering.
The majority of us do not remember the trauma of birth and yet we know it happened.
As a near death experiencer, I believe that this isn't all we get.
I didn't sign up for the after death experience, it just happened and made me think about things differently.
When I apply logic to man's situation it seems that there is a purpose to even the smallest and shortest life.
Now perhaps this is wishful thinking on my part, a need to resolve why we all go through stuff, the answer to the question 'what is the meaning of it all?'
I'd much prefer to have "Moving On To Another Place" on my grave stone than "Is that all there is?"
I discovered that in actual fact there is no such thing as reality!
Since the human mind, 'sees' things so differently to each other, how can any situation be counted as real?

What people believe, is true for themselves.
and what we perceive as true we make real.
It is a sensible thing to believe in only the things you can see, touch, taste, hear and feel and then something odd turns up and makes you re evaluate everything you understand to be true.
You just know that you're never going to convince anyone else, unless they've experienced it too.
Me ? I'm just waiting for another N.D.E to turn up on H2G2, and then we can have an agreeable chat
Meanwhile I'll hang on to my experience which leads me to believe that when you die, there's a part of the consciousness that remains alert to other possibilities, until someone tells me that death is the total end because they have experienced it that way.

hasselfree,

we see life and stuff quite differently, but, of course, you would expect us to, as our experiences are different.
still, i've read some of your stuff and, to me, you seem to be extremely intelligent [according to my definition of "intelligence": the ability to engage in information processing and manipulation in ways beyond that of today's computers' capabilities. "creativity", etc...]. anyways, even though i think i'm open minded, i tend to be somewhat dismissive of other people's opinions and ideas if they are completely discordant with my own. but, with you, i am not dismissive at all. and, i think that's an indication of your eloquence and the "intelligence" that you convey in your posts

Peter OUT!

Good Grief
Too much ......

..... and thank you.

Great stuff. Isn't it true though there is one small part left over when you are dead and gone ie your gene and this can be traced back for ever!

Interesting. Tell me more.

Amanda

Are we still talking about the meaning of life? I've found one. It's in a dictionary I have. Strange thing is, it says something about some poor guy's life imprisonment. Ah, wrong definition. I've got a definition to life. It's 'the logical layout of illogical obstacles in what humans tend to call "that damned, wretched thing (i.e. life)".'

Half of you will probably laugh at that.

Jordz

Are we still talking about the meaning of life? I've found one. It's in a dictionary I have. Strange thing is, it says something about some poor guy's life imprisonment. Ah, wrong definition. I've got a definition to life. It's 'the logical layout of illogical obstacles in what humans tend to call "that damned, wretched thing (i.e. life)".'

Half of you will probably laugh at that.

Jordz

Yes, we are talking about the meaning of life still. Me and Peter tend to go on at tangents sometimes.

Life is a journey.

Amanda

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.
Even the genetic material passes away.
But I'm assuming you may mean in our children?
Do you think it's possible that we leave a record of our personal experiences within our DNA as well as our physical characteristics?
It is true that we're all the perfect products of a few millennia of evolution. If we were imperfect , we wouldn't be here. Our genetic lines would have failed.
There's still a few teething problems , but we'll get there.
I believe the unconscious is an organic DVD player.
It records everything we ever do and think about what we've done.
It seems a bit wasteful of nature to 'build/evolve' this thinking, evaluating, experiencing 'machine' to throw it all away.
Ok the 'computer' wears out, but the backup disc remains.
Building this program, through lifes actions, is what is the meaning of life.
Every single thing that happens to us all, whether we perceive it at first to be good or bad, is part of this recording program that makes us something else.

oh. Thanks.

i talking about deep stuff with other "smart" people

to maniac1701d. right on about us having tangential threads
i don't even pay attention to what the conversation was supposed to be about...

to hasselfree. you remind me someone i know who's so freegin eloquent that he can make ANYTHING sound good . not that i'm knocking your ideas. just wanted to point that out.
And, here's my response to your last post. don't consider it a brutal attack , but just another thinker's ideas , formed by totally different lifetime experiences .
i'll put your stuff in quotes.

"Ashes to ashes and dust to dust."
"Do you think it's possible that we leave a record of our personal experiences within our DNA as well as our physical characteristics?"

ME: Based on my understanding of genetics, i do not think that any of our personal experiences can be encoded into our DNA to be passed along as copies into our children. my reasoning is that, although all of our experiences change our brains in specific ways [chemically, electrically, and even structurally, these experiences do NOT change the copies of our DNA in our ovaries/testes [the DNA that goes into creating our kiddies.]. thus, NO experience is "saved" and "transferred" directly across generations. an analogy is Lamarck's theory on evolution. he thought that giraffes' necks got longer because they kept stretching their necks to reach food higher up on trees. darwin proved this theory incorrect, pointing out that the increasing length of necks was due to selective advantage and thus selective reproduction of those giraffes who happened to be born with longer necks [or the genes to eventually have longer necks as adults].
now, experiences are "transferred" across generations of humans as IDEAS... we teach our kids stuff and that is the way that we transfer our lifetime experiences onto them.
did you fall asleep yet

"It is true that we're all the perfect products of a few millennia of evolution. If we were imperfect , we wouldn't be here. Our genetic lines would have failed."

ME: i agree with this to an extent. i agree that our very presence now indicates that we [and our ancestors] have been relatively successful. however, we are NOT perfect. all we had to be was GOOD ENOUGH to survive. . so, i'd say that humans, as well as all other animals and plants that are not exist nowadays, are "good enough", at least until now.

"I believe the unconscious is an organic DVD player.
It records everything we ever do and think about what we've done.
It seems a bit wasteful of nature to 'build/evolve' this thinking, evaluating, experiencing 'machine' to throw it all away.
Ok the 'computer' wears out, but the backup disc remains."

ME: are you making this analogy?
computer-----------------our brains
backup disc--------------encoding of our lifetime experiences into our DNA, which is copied/reproduced into our kids?

"Every single thing that happens to us all, whether we perceive it at first to be good or bad, is part of this recording program that makes us something else."

ME: i have a similar view. i think that we can think of ourselves as different people across time, across each moment, as we experience life, we change. we are always changing. that is why when we look back at what seemed to be so important before when we were younger...some of those things seem silly now
plus, most of our cells turnover, so physically, we are different.

well that's my take on dna and stuff
again, i'm not being dismissive at all, i'm just giving everyone my own perspective, not necessarily more correct than anyone else's

PETER OUT!

I have to agree with Petey.

If you took someone's DNA at birth and compared it with a sample at their death. It would match perfectly. (allowing for any degeneration)

Immperfect things can evolve!
Survival of the fittest.
Oh, I think thats what Petey said.

Sorry, I am half asleep here.

Amanda out,

you called me "peteY"! awww
hey ! i was gonna say that exact same thing about our DNA being identical, birth to death.

about evolution, does anyone think that it would be "bad" if artificial intelligence emerged and sencient mechanical beings took over Earth ? like in terminator...

i personally don't think so. most people, i would imagine, wouldn't think twice about it, believing that this would be catastrophic and tragic. period.
i would say that it certainly can be considered catastrophic for humans, but, overall, there is nothing intrinsically "wrong" or "bad" about it. just as there was nothing wrong with humans taking over Earth.

hey, going on a tangent here, does anyone have a good definition of "consciousness"?
and, if so, what is capable of being "conscious"? humans, apparently. monkeys probably. cats and dogs? probably. but where do we draw the line and say that something is too simple to have a "consciousness"? is an amoeba too simple?

petey OUT!

It would be bad for us if terminator type beings took over.
How scary!!!!!

They would be stronger could harm us. :O(

argh

oh, i just read about your anticipation of star trek nemesis in your bio... so, you're considered boring and sad?
how's THIS for sad... i've been waiting anxiously for terminator 3 to come out for about 6 months now... about 1 year before it's actually gonna be showing [july 2, 2003]. how's THAT for pathetic?!