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

Cheers, Sue. There are problems with supposing that the universe is actually inifinitely old. Here is an introductory link: http://www.religiouseducation.co.uk/school/alevel/philosophy/cosmological/critique_cosmo.htm

No, I'm not about to appeal to Occam's razor here, but only because I don't need to.

toxx

Okay here's something, if time travel is possible, then the universe wouldn't have to be infinitely old. Instead, it causes itself, when it ends all the leftover energy gets clumped up again because it shrinks into a dot... and the force of it all goe sfaster than the speed of light so time goes backwards, ending up with all the energy at the beginning of the universe, all over again.

Hi, AK. Your point indicates the key issue. Whatever the age of the universe, does it have a beginning? Maybe you are saying that it has many beginnings. That's fine, because either way, the first beginning must have had a cause. So I can run the kalam argument.

Of course if you were correct, there couldn't be any remaining evidence. This time I do have to drag in Occam's razor and suggest that your suggestion in unnecessarily complex.

toxx

THe only findable evidence would be available at the end of the world...

<
theoreticlly, by my theory at least, if the contracting universe went fast enough it would travel faster in time...>

anyway?

In my earlier posting, I quoted the beginning of Mostly Harmless, but I skipped the last sentence. Now seems a good time to quote the whole thing:

Anything that happens, happens.
Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen.
Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again.
It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order, though.

Clearly Douglas Adams thought the same thing, about the universe causing itself (or at least he thought it would be a good idea for the beginning of his book).

taht all has somethign to do with the fact that Mostly Harmless really has no relationship to the other books at all

Still a good book though.

yes...



absolutely NO losing the subject! *whacks people's heads with a stick*

*grabs stick and whacks AK Schmay's head back*

Actually, the real subject, which was lost quite a while ago, was to address the fact that according to Douglas Adams, the real Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, to which the answer is forty-two, is "How many roads must a man walk down?" Now, actually, DNA never actually says that's the question, he just says that that's the question Benjy Mouse and Frankie Mouse came up with to bring back to their higher dimension when they realized the Earth was destroyed and they had lost their chance to pry the Ultimate Question out of Arthur's brain, and they didn't want to get in trouble.

But the main point I'm trying to make here is that Mostly Harmless' status as a good book is actually closer to the original topic than ideas about God, creation, or even my own discussion of cause vs. purpose.

well I was talking about the last subject that wasn't banter that was introduced

To WIJ(I know I'm late, but better late than never, right?)

I have the book right here. Ford said;

"Probably the wrong one, or a distortion of the right one."

I'm sorry I have nothing insightful to say, but you all got to it ahead of me!

When you speak the truth, there is generally no argument...

Interesting... Was copernicus lying then?