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

http://www.bbc.com/h2g2/guide/A639489

Seems factual and accurate enough for me.

right but somehow it appears to be lacking a bit of flesh

Theanthrope, I'm surprised you accept taxes as a certainty: are you sure you're in Italy?

Content aside, I hate to be a killjoy, but did you write this? Are you and Froodboy the same person?
If not, does he know this is in PR?

I'm not anymore, actually. But when I was there, even when I was there illegally, I paid taxes in the hope that it would aid my pursiut of legal existence. The codice fiscale is remarkably easy to get.

Hiya!

Something my pathology lecturer told me:

There is only one thing that is certain, and that is death. Not taxes, not going to the football match, not seeing the latest films, but death.

Stay ,
WD

Change is a certainty - except from vending machines.

Ugi

In fact change is the only certainty... Death just falls into this category as the ultimate change. In the event of anarchy, no one would be too worried about paying taxes...

This seems to be more of a comment than an actual entry, and as such will probably need some more "flesh" to taken seriously....

-Hiram Abif

But I suppose we all fall under the third category.

Heisenberg would beg to differ...

Also, as your basic premise, you assume that life is certain ..

And did you also know that there are three kinds of people? Those who know how to count, and those who don't..

life is certain because you are reading this..... it has already happened... what life is, however, is not so certain... Perhaps a flea had a dream, and for that dream invented a world in which the action takes place...what happens to that world when the flea wakes up? On a similar note: "Chuang Tzu once dreamt he was a butterfly...when he awoke he did not know if he was Chuang Tzu who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly now dreaming he is Chuang Tzu..." So the real question is, are we awake at all?

I, personally, do not take life to be a certainty....only change....change is the essence of reality....

Yes. Life indeed appears to be certain. Which makes four certainties, doesn't it? -- Life, death, taxes, and amateur philosophers...

And who says there are even any dreamers? Or indeed, any 'things' at all, such as fleas, butterflies, or ancient Chinese Taoist sages...

But that's not the topic of this article..

I disagree...the topic of the article is certainties... wherever we can find or dispell these certainties we find the point of this article... So we cannot be "certain" that are any "things" at all (besides amateur philosophers) that was really my point after all... change is not a "thing". So we will assume that nothing exists at all. From there we will try to determine what "IS" we have only one means of doing this, our own perception... now there is no perceiver, because that would be a thing, so there is only perception. So what is it that perception perceives?

..whatever it wants to, I suppose..

( For some reason, this reminds me of the 'Doors' tune .. 'The future's uncertain and the end is always near..')

And I agree with you, of course.

I think ..

Which was the reason for the Heisenberg quip earlier on... in reference to the eponymous Uncertainty Principle...

But I think we are semi-serious here... this is, after all, a zany guide in the vein of the original, so within this dream, this illusion, this ~maya~, which we seem to share, let us agree to the paradox of certain uncertainties -- otherwise we may ratiocinate ourselves out of a job

Totally off subject: "Peace will enter when hate is gone"

Very similar to what Krishnamurti says "good is not the opposite of evil, it comes into being only when that which is evil has utterly ceased" Will humankind ever awaken?

Hello,

This is FroodBoy. I am not theanthrope. I have read with interest your conversation aboutmy entry, and I have now become aware of it's being in PR.

I am sorry my article is lacking in flesh, but it is a short, snappy parodic (though nevertheless true) misquotation, rather than an informative article.

Humour does not always have to be strictly accurate... And while this may never get into the Edited Guide, (although as 'skeletal' as it is, it makes more sense than some that already are!!), it is nonetheless amusing, and we can all use a little more humour these days..

Hi Hiram,

You do have a knack for questions, don't you?

And strictly speaking, it is off topic -- although one could argue that a discussion of certainties has rather a wide range...

Yeah, I wonder that very same thing... Pessimistically, one could say we humans have a very long way to go. Optimistically, one could say we have travelled far already..

And as Gerry Garcia once said, 'what a long, strange trip its been!'