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

According to Kant the three overidingly important topics of transcendental metaphysics are God,immortality and freedom. Doug Adams had somewhat less to say on the matter when he said the meaning of life was 42. Another writer and BBC thinker and talker said..`I have never shared a belief in God,and i do not see what such a belief would explain,since the existence of God would then itself require explanation!(Bryan Magee) Sir Les Patterson Australian cultural attache to the court of St James said...`What stupid bastard would call himself dog spelt backwards?`(actually he used some very naughty words that we dont normally use in polite circles) Immortality was first taken seriously by little bugs and creepy crawly thingys who hopped into oozing Amber and were thought interesting enough for Sir David Attenborough to take up an entire hour of Television time millennia later, thus securing their .err..immortality. Following the example set by post amoebic insects,Egyptian Pharoahs with aspirations of eternal life and god hood(I,m sure Sir Les would have something to say on Anubis the dog-headed god) got themselves washed,pickled,wrapped and placed in really big structures. Where they lay waiting, again for millennia for Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon to discover them and give birth to some truly silly moments in film and TV(think the Mummy and Chariots of the gods!)Immortality yes,but at what price? Now as to freedom, well its a subject much loved by politcians and dictators. Usually you have it and they would like to take it away from you or at the very least to make you pay for your freedoms. Free choice is the one type of freedom that is undeniable and is an inescapable part of our makeup. Next time you select a beer from a choice of many,inform the barperson of the Kantian ethics involved in this and i,m sure he/she will roll their eyes and engage you in discussion of the priciples of nature,thought and all things abstruse......ummm....I,ll go now......

Not exactly sure what this piece is doing here, but you may want to work it into an entry for your personal space; and perhaps, once complete, submit it to Peer Review.

Just to clarify, I'm not particularly religious but I see some things you may need to consider.

Writing that DNA said the 'meaning of life was 42' is perhaps a bit simplistic. 42 was the answer to the 'Ultimate question, of life, the universe, and everything'.

The writer who tried to ascribe a sort of circular reasoning argument against the existence of God, or of gods, as requiring an explanation, does not understand his place in the universe. Should a god or gods exist, we may feel we require that their existence be explained, but the gods would probably be quite cool to the concern.

Most gods of our plane't societies did not require a beginning. The fact that we do begin implies, but only in our minds, a strictly linear perception of the universe. Gods would not necessarily be bound to linear time-space-existence. He was thinking to anthropomorphically, and too small.

As to the name bit (and I realize that these arguments are always in jest) is simply not a 'god' problem. He or they did not write our language, or even create the alphabet with which we put sounds down as symbols. The answering question should be, why should it matter what a human word means when spelled backwards. Only dyslexics would care.

It would be the 'stupid bastard' who attempts to ascribe some meaning to the human made and accidental coincidence.

If Kant truly felt that human immortality, in human form, was an 'overidingly important topic', it would be foolish indeed. If his concern was with immortality after death, in some form that contains our (for the lack of a better word) essence, he may have something to chew on at least.

Freedom? I'm not entirely sure that we really have a good definition of this, for I cannot think of a single person who has ever truly experienced 100% complete freedom. If we merely mean having choices, as you indicated - and I'm perfectly willing to accept that as a working definition - then all people, at all times, have 100% complete freedom. If that is truly the case, then freedom just becomes part of the natural experience of living and can hardly be pulled out as anything special or even nameable.

Barpersons often understand this, and will just nod politely as we rant. I think I had better leave as well.

I think DNA sid shortly before his death that the real answer to Life, Universe and so on was 36. I still don´t understand why. Maybe it´s about 1*1*2*2*3*3 or something...

Re the historic utterance 'what stupid bastard would call himself dog backwards? I am intrigued that in the same contribution there is reference to the Egyptian Pharoes. Having read the 'Syrius Theory' I find that a 'Doggon' is supposed to have preceded the birth of the Egyptian religion; a sort of intelligent fish in the wake of flood waters.A novel search for why they believed anything -just that. Being inventive,I could not help thinking a side-track. ie that if one spells this backwards it is more of a tilt at the modern inability to pin down an Absolute G;although nuclear buddies of the astrophysicists still reckon they might find out from their extreme test procedures. Like the gods influences,G is a probable illusion with which we are mechanistically obsessed. So returning to the subject matter proper,whatever was said by Sir Les at the court of King James,we can say better.That is a contribution to human freedom,surely,to find one can think beyond the historical insult? Progress has been made philosophically if the old dog is surely a dead one on hyperspheric principle?

An anomaly of sorts:

At the risk of sounding untrue to my towel; if we take into consideration that immortality is in-directly a method of getting us into the future. I say that we have ourselves cryogenically frozen (which I believe is a possibility). Until our bloody installation of Earth becomes wise to the notion of time-travel; by then which we may live out the rest of our biological lives dwelling on the past (ala Futurama). Which may be one way to experience these kinds of benefits. Either that or the sun dies out and we become frozen (but alive) forever... whichever comes first. A touch away from the topic I know, but immortallity is a fairly thought provoking subject in itself.