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

hi Fnord,

<>

I'm repeating myself?????

Well, wouldn't be the first time. Happily I never remember what I say so if I repeat myself I am mostly unaware of doing so.

Gee, hope I'm not being boring! And if I am, well, people can always just skim through my postings anyhow. No pasa nada.

az

No pasa nada indeed. Ahem.
Not that you're being boring, it's just that your views aren't changing all the time, as you would expect someone of your philosophy to do. Not repeating per se, just restating.

ahem,

My views don't change as often as they used to, this is true. But they are also not written in stone. They are open to influence and experience. Perhaps I am just needing some other new experience or some new ideas to help keep me opening up?

az

Maybe. Perhaps you should do what I've started to do. When I'm debating and someone's said something clever and apparently unflawed, I don't waste time arguing semantics, ignoring it, reasserting my early points, or returning to relativism. I just say, "Okay, I'm wrong".
Hootoo should be enough of a stimulus.

Your imperial observations have been noted Fnord, but perhaps others will forgive my restating that for some the greatest meaning life can have is the opportunity to be critical.

~jwf~

Duly forgiven by me at least. That's a good personal meaning. It brings elements of chaos and order into the mix, too.

Wow, it is good to come back and to see some names on the front line.
I agree that critical remarks add much meaning to some human lives but when witty they make me laugh or at least smile so why mind it.
As for chaos, I am not quite sure about its relation to criticism but it doesn't matter.
The funny thing is that over the past decade I have been trying to find (not wholeheartedly however) some logical, rational and meaningful explanation of some global and personal aspects of the universal/my life. The moment I had even the subtlest feeling that maybe I have discerned something, it all fell apart and was overwhelmed again with the chaos. Finally to me chaos is an almighty ruler.
Well, laziness is overwhelming me again. I am fond of Fnord and Az's postings.

hi Fnord,

<>

Usually when people say something clever and apparently unflawed I am quite delighted and impressed. And depending on what was said, I may either be 'wrong' or just hold another viewpoint. One doesn't actually have to agree with someone else in order to appreciate what was said by them. In the very few instances that I believe I am 'right' about something and remain somewhat inflexible, this is because I feel I am right for myself and my beliefs, etc. It doesn't mean that *my* version of what is right is right for everyone (or even anyone else). It also doesn't mean that my version might not change tomorrow. So I guess this means that I don't believe in absolute truths all that much. No doubt this makes me an annoying relativist (is that a word?) in your eyes.

az

hi milkchocolate!

Nice to see you back - have you been on holiday?

>> I am fond of Fnord and Az's postings. <<




>>Finally to me chaos is an almighty ruler.<<

Well, I think the only thing we can ever be sure of is that nothing is ever for sure or forever. But somehow I find this idea rather comforting. Don't you?

az

for me too!
milky, my girl, you ought to be a Discordian. Entropy is, after all, life, and the reverse is a product of it, so it's unavoidable when we discuss the meaning.

Entropy is not life

Entropy is randomness, chaos, unpredictability, but life is the order which springs from it. Be proud of the distintction.

I'm going to repeat myself, because I'm fascinated. Who has got any ideas about what meaning we should give to our lives? I mean a meaning that actually has a meaning, not vague rubbish like "entropy". How do you base your life around entropy? You roll a dice to decide what to do next? You do completely random things? You don't walk or talk coherently? Doesn't sound that useful

*distinction

Hello? Door? Did I ever mention at any point that we should base our lives on entropy? Nope. I said life springs from entropy, which you agreed with. But life is, and let me space this out for you as much as I'm spaced out right now -






















NOT order. Or Order, or even "order".

Given all life converts energy, it is responsible for generating entropy. It's a bit of a paradox: on the one hand we have life that brings order out of chaos and on the other it generates more chaos.

Why does everyone assume that life is order? It doesn't bring it about. It merely changes the chaos.
If you think I'm wrong, please provide me with concrete definitions of order and chaos, and why one is better than the other. Remember, an alternative word for order is stagnant.

Hi Fnord!

Chaos!!!! = my "life" at the moment!
Order = my life yesterday.....

Anyway.... I vote for "Chaos"....!

I'm so busy at work! It's Monday 12:45 pm here in NY
(I live for this stuff!)

News: I got a haircut!!!! (not that anyone really cares........but .....what is life without a haircut?

Hi Az! Did it cool down over there?
Temps drops here so we can finally "breathe"....

....and Fnord....where the heck have you been? Indeed...gone a week....check out the silly birthday party update!

Barb

"Why does everyone assume that life is order?"

Go to a museum and take a look at fosilized remains of things that crawled on the earth about a billion years ago. Or better still, go to NE Australia or Belieze (bringing your mask and snorkel) and take a squiz at the big calcum deposit known as a coral reef. Those organisms, like us, take carbon from the air and calcium from water and from it into cells and skeletons. So otherwise chaotic, randomly distributed atoms are formed into organized structures.

Order/zero entropy. Wherever you are, and in whatever direction you look, everything is exactly the same. As disorder/entropy increases this becomes less and less true. Life decreases/maintains its entropy by exporting entropy into the universe at large.

We all like to think we remain flexible and open to new ideas as we get older. Would it were true; truth is as we get older we meet fewer ideas that we haven't come across before, and found wanting, and there's more to be discarded if something fundamental *does* have to be changed. The effort of change increases, and the availability of energy decreases. Eventually you'll end up like me.

Noggin

Interesting idea. We're an entropy/negentry live Maxwell's Demon...

"Life decreases/maintains its entropy by exporting entropy into the universe at large."


Entropy always increases. That I recall from school. It will increase with or without the presence of life. It just increases faster in the presence of life.

There's a notion I came accross recently that spoke of the human life force being represented as a commet that leaves behind a trail of dust in its wake. In other words, it leaves more chaos in it's wake.