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

I do believe you're right! What a perceptive dude you are djsdude. Consider chucking that book and finding a more interesting one

I'm afraid my present goal, is to finish that book, and I am a goalkeeper.

And please, please, please...never believe I'm right. I never do.

Keep on smiling

djs

But you'll never finish that rubbish book with all these distractions. ..... Hey, wait a minute......your goal is to finish a rubbish book? Consider dumping that goal and finding a more interesting one

And face it: you may accidentally have been right about something

someone a few posts ago said that there must have been something before the big bang. this is a common falacy, as if you take a good look at the theory of singularities (which includes the big bang) you find that before the big bang, you have no spacetime, and thus no time in which for there to be a "before". having said that, it looks like that type of physics is due for a shakeup again.

Tibley Bobley said:

"Some people look for something else after they've rejected the religion they were "brought up" in. Those people cook up a story for themselves that seems nice and explains stuff that seems to need an explanation. If it covers all the angles, they settle for it."

Is that a bad thing? After all it explains stuff that seems to need an explanation and covers all the angles.

Am I missing something here?

agcB

Xyroth, I still don't buy it. Firstly, the theory of singularities is just theory - they can't ever hope to observe one and find out. Secondly, what about cause and effect? What caused the Big Bang if there was no spacetime for a cause to happen in? Either it's something so totally weird we can't imagine it or they're wrong. I suspect both may be true.

If you've come to your own conclusions*, then it suggests that you no longer have to suffer
1. resentment from being asked to believe something that doesn't sit right personally,
2. fear that what you're being asked to believe could create internal conflict which could prove debilitating, and
3. guilt from not exercising free will in coming to your own conclusions, and not allowing yourself
4. the pleasure of knowing your own mind and being comfortable with your conclusions*, which is the most liberating experience.

That's what I believe anyway.

*subject to change

Yes, what about cause and effect? If the Creator was around to create the universe "before" the big bang, then who created the Creator?

Current theory has it that the Big Bang wasn't "created" as such, but was caused by a random quantum fluctuation. I agree that they are probably wrong. I also think quantum physics is getting pretty close to being stranger than anyone (at least I) can imagine.

IMHO, there is really no such thing as a beginning or an end to time, in the same way as there is no definite starting or ending point in space. So I don't see a need for a Creator.

Hope that wasn't too much physics for you

Hi agcBen. Was I right then? I only said what I thought appeared to be happening, not whether it was a good or bad thing. Personally, I'm not keen on it though.

One reason that I'm not keen on making up stories to explain life is because it can make communication difficult. Even friends I've known for years, when they've dreamed up or adopted some belief about how the world works and then go on to talk and behave as though their little story is the real reality for everybody else too, make it hard to communicate with them. I suppose that's why people who belong to cults take themselves off to live together in small groups. It's easier to have a sensible conversation with people who share your version of reality.

My mother used to explain the fact that the boys in our family had so many odd socks by reference to the "sock goblin" that lived in the washing machine. How odd would I seem to people if I REALLY believed in the sock goblin and talked to people about what a problem it was to have one of these invisible creatures living in my washing machine and speculated about how I must have inherited it from my mother because now she lives alone, she doesn't seem to lose socks any more? I think it would be very disconcerting for anybody who didn't share my strange belief and they would probably avoid conversations with me in future.

Quantum physics and all this bigga-banga stuff seems a valuable attempt by clever people to create an equally unsolvable and equally unprovable puzzle to replace the unfathomable, unbelievable, improbable, unprovable notion that a single supreme being thought all this (the universe) up. Call it god or call it bigga-banga or hojo or whatever, but it's the same conundrum.
The origins of the universe will remain a mystery of gigantic headache proportions, but everyone has to take a crack at it and realise for themselves just how impossible it is to understand. Once you've accepted that, try instead to understand where we are now, where we might be going, how we want to get there. And with whom.
I believe Ford Prefect offered similar advice to Arthur Dent shortly after the Vogons blew up planet earth. Now *there* was a bigga-banga!

If you really believe in the sock goblin, I'd never hold it against you and go out of my way to ignore you unless you tried to force me to believe that the sock goblin existed.

As has been said before in this 'ere thread, it's the capital "F" Flamers that are the ones to look out for. The ones who refuse to see your point of view and who are convinced that there's is the only answer. Those are the ones who ostracise themselves, who make their own lives difficult.

It wouldn't surprise me if that's how all religions start. Some chap thinks he knows the answer, convinces a whole lot more that he's right, they tell their chums and so on and so forth.

Sceptical perhaps, but it would make sense. "If I went around saying I was 'emperor' cos some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away" ... and quite right too!

Hang on - what's all this about the sock goblin not existing? Of COURSE you can inherit sock goblins.

My ex and I are currently discussing who gets to have ours. I want him to have it, and he wants me to.

Amimony, shmalimony - the Sock Goblin is the big one.

agcB

I think my own beliefs will not be so very weird and hard for other people to understand and accept if they only take the time to really listen to me. By the way I seem to be thinking very much the same way as djsdude and some others here. I say that in your beliefs you have to account for what seems to be the truth, scientifically speaking, but you can go beyond science. Science is concerned with rigorous truth but most of what we know or need to know in our lives we don't know or cannot know rigorously.

So here goes ... I come from a family where supernatural experiences are/were rather common. My grandmothers could both see ghosts. My fathers mother had a strong sense of precognition, she saw the ghosts of family members at the times that they died far away. My mother's mother, and father, late in life left their traditional church and joined a rather weird cult that saw and communicated with spirits, and they told stories of seeing weird kinds of entities. My father is a very rational and learned man, he has a doctor's degree and is a university professor, but he also has the gift of dowsing! He never uses it but he can demonstrate it any time. I've seen him do it and there's no question of trickery involved. I myself have a limited degree of precognition, for instance I was not surprised to learn of Douglas Adams' death, I had been expecting bad news; I also experience a very large amount of synchronous happenings, and a very large number of my prayers have been answered but if I boast about it or try to prove it I'm sure I would be disrespectful to the force behind it.

However I believe if I had not been brought up in such a strict scientific way my abilities might have been greater and I might have had many more experiences of a supernatural nature. Most of my life I have adhered to the rational, materialistic, reductionistic view and it is only in the last two years that I have been forced to open up to allow some other interpretations! And those other interpretations have been liberating to me in many ways, there are many things that now make sense to me that I was unable to account for in the past!

That's wonderful - I hope you continue to find such wonderful things. I've long thought that we don't use anywhere near all of our potential, but I've never had more than glimmerings of the edges of possibility, usually with dreams. I have strange dreams, but sometimes (I have no idea if this is unusual or what) I can sort of doze and drop into a lucid dream of a kind, or I do it while I'm in the process of waking up. Dreams are something I'm very interested in, although I never quite seem able to summon up the motivation to do all the things that are supposed to help with remembering them and thus to lucid dreaming. Whether it's actually real or not I don't know, but it's certainly interesting.

I am also certain that I've woken up on two occasions about fifteen seconds before the Hall fire alarm has gone off - this may be my memory modifying itself after the event (which I believe is easily possible) but it's a very strong remembrance. Thankfully I'm living out next year so no more 3am fire alarms unless there's actually a fire! Woohoo! (We have smoke detectors of course).

There is _dfiniteley_ more to life than the reductionist, purely scientific view of the world allows. And if some of all of it is pure imagination - so what? I'm not hurting anyone with my weird dreams.

I occasionally think I have minor psychic powers, and whenever I come up with a really great video game idea they make it about a year later. I bet they're spying on me...

I once telekinetically moved a piece of cereal, but I might have imagined it. I was about 6 at the time...

Oh, and one time a friend and I wrapped a tennis ball in duct tape and we were both convinced that we could mentally control its weight...

Then we spent half an hour trying to convince ourselves that we couldn't...

Occasionally I worry that I'll have to save the world...

...

I'm sure you'd be better at saving the world than some people... like the people you'll no doubt have to save it from.

I'll help.

You can have the job, if you want it. I can't deal with the responsibility.

Wow, I'm really glad I put off responding directly to the Pillowcase prior to this and possibly sidetracking him. Now, we've really drawn him out! And we should all be glad we did. I know from lurking at his many fine entries that he is an honest and sensitive person. Not only do I believe and accept at face value everything he said, I'm buoyed by his conviction. It is easy to doubt one's own sanity in a skeptical scientific world, and I have often been put down for my experiences and had to wonder if 'maybe' I was delusional.
Perhaps this kinda stuff (especially water divination) is genetic. I have heard it said that this particular skill runs in families and P-case seems to have a healthy dose of 'witchcraft' on both sides. More power to him.

The different levels of consciousness that MaW is becoming aware of are the key to any understanding of this paranormal stuff. First we have to accept that there really are other levels than the sober shared realities of the 'real world'. Each of our individual minds has a highly personal, subjective viewpoint of reality. But this is usually snuffed out by education and social pressure to be 'normal'.
The trick is to not doubt your own mind. Then overcome the fear of being ridiculed by 'rational' people. And yet, at the same time, stay 'sane' enough to function in society. This usually means not telling 'normal' people about your powers, because those who deny the inner mind and their own unique perceptions, especially extra-sensory perceptions, are the real lunatics and they want to hunt us down like dogs.

Phew! So I might not be hallucinating after all.

Not that I was planning to stop anyway - somehow I don't think my mind would let me even if I wanted to. Thankyou people, you've given me the confidence to continue exploring.

Hmm, I wonder if my sister is reading this? If you are FABT-darling, do you ever have semi-conscious or lucid dreams? That might be genetic too.

Hmm, I am really interested in the paranormal. I would really wish something paranormal had ever happened to me

As for the Big Bang. The "Clockwork God" is a nice idea because it doesn´t seem to be very dogmatic, and it doesn´t go against whatever reality might be. But saying that Jehova created the Big Bang seems stupid. If you use cause and effect to show something must have caused the universe you´re missing three things. The cause of the universe could have been a hippo in a ballet skirt, as well as a God. And you would have to expand it as to explain what caused God. Or the hippo. And if the laws of nature were created in the Big Bang, cause and effect isn´t necessary.

I personally think the idea of a reproductive universe seems to be the best, but it will be such a long time before we will have an idea so it is rather useless for building any theories on.

Quantum mechanics, yeah I don´t like those either.

Maybe science can´t explain what thoughts are. But unless the explanation you have is better, it´s best to stay "agnostic" about it.

A university professor that does dowsing. Far out What does he teach?