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

Honestly, I think human lifespan is already getting too long. We are obsessed with this notion of living longer, without considering our own body and mind's ability to sustain this on its own. I don't ever want to get to the point where I'm basically incapable of looking after myself just for the sake of Having A Long Life.

and that, Mr. D, is a nimportant point. Who's going to finance my and your and her healthcare for another nine centuries or so?

I'm convinced that Religion is caused by a lack of imagination. People see themselves in the world, and can't imagine the world continuing to exist without them, so they invent an immortal soul, heaven, hell, judgement and all the other stuff. HonestIago's post should be framed for all to see.

From what I have learnt many people don't understand religion, even those that claim to be religious, but that is a debate for another thread. Personally I find religion more imaginative than what the nay-sayers can imagine and more imaginative than what the literalists believe.

Anyway back to life ... this is something from TS Eliots Four Quartets "you are the music while the music lasts".

Which seems to be a poetic way of saying something within Epicurean thought about 2300 years ago.

>> this universe exists perfectly happily without me <<

But this is pure conjecture on your part ... solutions to mathematical representations of the universe require an observational process lieing outside of those equations (e.g. schrodinger's cat). And who can tell whether the universe is happy or not without you.

Only in the Copenhagen Interpretation. The Many Worlds Hypothesis requires no observer.

Occam's Razor does do away with the many worlds hypothesis, although the razor does assume simplicity is "best".

I'm a great believer in Occam's razor, although I have a beard.

>> Personally I find religion more imaginative than what the nay-sayers
can imagine and more imaginative than what the literalists believe. <<

There-in lies the magic of spirituality, the twice dimensional dynamic
of an expanse that grows infinitely, exponentially and eternally but
is still basically rooted in human consciousness and therefore
confined to existential limitations (aka demographix).

~jwf~

I agree that HI's post should be framed and - er - immortalised.

Could someone explain Occam's razor?

occams razor: http://h2g2.com/approved_entry/A21648783

The woe of mortality makes humans God-like. It is because we know that we must die that we are so busy making life. It is because we are aware of mortality that we preserve the past and create the future. Mortality is ours without asking--but immortality is something we must build ourselves. Immortality is not a mere absence of death; it is defiance and denial of death. It is 'meaningful' only because there is death, that implacable reality which is to be defied.
ZYGMUNT BAUMAN

>> The woe of mortality makes humans God-like. It is because we know that we must die that we are so busy making life. It is because we are aware of mortality that we preserve the past and create the future. Mortality is ours without asking--but immortality is something we must build ourselves. Immortality is not a mere absence of death; it is defiance and denial of death. It is 'meaningful' only because there is death, that implacable reality which is to be defied.
ZYGMUNT BAUMAN <<

People in power realise this, this is why hereditary titles were created (Baron this ... Duke that), or institutional offices (Bishop this ... Archedeacon that ...), it is so the ruling elite and their powers continue in perpetuum (that coupled with inheritance practice and laws).

"It is because we know that we must die that we are so busy making life."

I'm not sure about that. I think orgasms play a bigger role than the knowledge of mortality.

Indeed we are all at the mercy of our ids. Id has a lot to answer for.

"monsters from the id..."

Not exclusively so, Stone Aart, Quite often your ID can answer for you

Yeah I wanna get me one of them photo IDs.
The when they say, "Oi, take a picture it'll last longer."
I can say no probs, mate.


~jwf~

Mine answers back

Ozymandias the Im-morter

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Mr Percey Shellac