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

Have we considered that they might all just have converted to Sith?

The Queen of England is also the head of the Church of England.

The British monach has about as much political influence as the Church of England which is virtually none.
The leading politician in the UK is the prime minister who has a lot less power than a US president.
Of course your point about world leaders mixing politics and religion is well made - Miission Accomplished - but doesn't really apply to the frumpy old woman on our bank notes (although there is a lovely picture of Charles Darwin on our £10 so it's not all bad )

@jwf:

"There is however an undeniable and elemental connection
between the physical cosmos and the human psyche which
can be employed in manipulating our relative dimensions in
time and space. Otherwise we wouldn't even have a word
for 'Luck'. "

I'm delighted to be able to quote none other than Obi-wan Kenobi: "In my experience there's no such thing as luck."

""There is however an undeniable and elemental connection
between the physical cosmos and the human psyche which
can be employed in manipulating our relative dimensions in
time and space"

That would be feet

Gary Player(other sources are mentioned) said after holing along putt and someone saying 'that was lucky': "The more I practise, the luckier I get"

Hoo, tuc, Alf...

None of you believe in Luck?
And presumably have no belief in coincidence,
ESP, transmigration of souls or the possibility
of emotion or intelligence in the 'lower life forms'...

I empathise. Which you will no doubt see as a pathetic
human response, but at least that confirms my humanity.
So I empathise.


~jwf~

You don't have to believe in coincidences. They happen. But to assign some higher meaning to coincidences is unnecessary.

Luck and coincidence are manifestations of the random nature of an uncaring Universe as it spirals towards entropy.
Accepting that all things are transitory, existence is an illusion, and still feeling compassion towards all other beings without expectation of any "divine" reward or punishment or "transmigration" transends mere humanity.

Anything "extra" that you percieve may not exist outside you own conscience.

I do not know what "lower" life forms experience, but as I stated above one should still act compassionatly towards them.

"None of you believe in Luck?"

Speaking entirely for myself - absolutely not.

"And presumably have no belief in coincidence,"

Of course I believe in coincidence. To do so would be obtuse to the point of irrationality.

For instance: the other day I was out for a drive. It had been raining. I came round an unfamiliar corner and hit a deep puddle. Not too deep, got through it with some grumbling from the car. Drove round the town for about ten minutes, then headed back. Arrived back at the puddle to find a man in the middle of the road picking up an object that had been lying face down in the puddle. He picked it up and threw it across to the side of the road, where it fell once again face down. For less than a second, as he flung it, it was possible to tell what it was - the front grille and number plate off my car, which had obviously come off ten minutes earlier. It would have cost over £100 to replace. Coincidence? Obviously. Lucky? You might say so. Preordained? Nope. In any way significant? Nope. Just one of those things that's bound to happen to someone, sometime.

"ESP, transmigration of souls"

Nope, and nope. Much as I'd like to, there's a disappointing lack of EVIDENCE for either any form of ESP or the existence, much less the transmigration, of souls. So, no. No wish to delude myself.

"or the possibility of emotion or intelligence in the 'lower life forms'... "

They simply don't have the equipment. If a creature lacks eyes, it's blind. It's not "empathic" or "sensitive" to impute to it the ability to see when a simple anatomical examination rules out the possibility. Similarly, if its nervous system is too simple to support complex concepts necessary for emotion and intelligence, like a sense of self distinct from others, then any attempt to impute those features is just juvenile anthropomorphisation.

*whispers* could someone explain what Hoov's last paragraph means? *ta*

< juvenile anthropomorphisation.<

= Spongebob Squarepants

He was calling me a silly billy.

But I'm glad he found his registration plate.
Hate to see anyone lose 100 like that.
And I have every confidence that at some level
of ESP, Hoo timed his return to be there at just
the right time to prevent the loss.
Time is money after all. And whenever possible
get someone else to fish around in the muck.


~jwf~

The ability to sense light exists on the cellular level. I'm sure that Hoovooloo knows about this. Phototropism probably does not equate to sight, though.....

Why not? If not that what is sight

?

"We *all* know it's a *joke*. Some take the joke more seriously than others - like that American woman who was excused jury duty after she turned up in her Starfleet uniform or the guy who tried to raise his kid bilingual in English and Klingon - but we are all, without exception, I think, joking, and know it." [Hoovooloo]

I hope you're right when you say that all the Jedis realize it's a joke. Even as obviously parodic a "religion" as Flying Spaghetti Monsterism may be taken seriously by some.

Have I mentioned that I'm an ordained minister in the Church of the Subgenius? We promise eternal salvation or triple your money back.


That's pretty serious.



BoB wants SLACK!

Hoov's last paragraph makes perfect sense to me, but I'm not sure it's the sense he intended, because it's late and I'm tired and operating on little sleep, so I might just be reading my own sense into what he's saying.

TRiG.

It made sense to me and I was wide awake. I just didn't agree with its conclusion.

As to the intelligence of "lower" species... Well, that's a bit arbitrary, but let's posit that humans are the most intelligent and self aware species on earth (sorry mice and dolphins). Does that mean we are the ONLY intelligent or self aware species on earth? We're not done evolving. There is no goal or finish line we cross and are done evolving. The same applies for all species. Some species are not evolving in ways that increase their intelligence. The intelligence of jellies has probably been pretty well constant. Swim, catch some nutrients, swim some more, split off a clone or offspring once in a while. However, some species definitely demonstrate some level of intelligence. Crows in Japan that use traffic crossings to crack nuts and wait for the signals to change to retrieve the meat. Dolphins that obviously murder for fun. Chimpanzees that demonstrate more efficient problem solving skills than human children. Apes that learn extensive vocabularies in sign language and have expressed distinct emotions. And my favorite, octopuses off the coast of the Yucatan that, due to over fishing and scarcity of food sources have been observed to teach each other methods for gathering food. This is unique and a fairly recent development as octopuses are very solitary creatures by nature and the mothers die in the incubation period of her clutch of eggs so no generational teaching is passed down.

What all these examples and more suggest to me is that there is a likelihood that sometime in the not too distant future we, as a species, will have to recognize the sentience of other species we share this world with. I do believe we are "in the lead" but there is nothing that indicates we're alone in developing intelligence and sentience.