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

I'll go with the Doctors' prescription

Hmmm, more than a little drift in this conversation Maybe we should carry it on in the Forum&Firkin?
Latest round:

http://www.h2g2.com/forumframe.cgi?forum=24306&thread=44100

Can I have lemonade?

Yes, but would a whale desire lemonaid if it knew how wonderful a cool glass of lemonaid can be? I think it would, if it did.

A whale drinking a cool glass of lemonaid seems much like a person explaining the unifying theory of physics. It might be nice, but darn near impossible. Not that I think we should not persue it to the Xth degree, but maybe whales wouldn't like lemonaid at all.

How do you know whales don't find it very easy to drink a cool glass of lemonade? Have you ever watched one trying?

I believe I saw that trick once, just before I said excuse me to a double headed individual with shocking dress sense..

Did you really? What sort of a whale was it? And ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY SURE YOU WEREN'T HALLUCINATING? It's just that you never know what could have been put into something that you have consumed or incorporated into yourself. This is yet another of my theories as to how I became non-existent...

(If you want further explanation on this, see my homepage)

The fact is that nothing exists.

Prove it.

You can't can you?

"I can." said the whale as he sipped his lemonade, "but I'm not telling! Ha Ha!"

Damn W(h)ales

A whale drinking lemonade is plausable enough but everyone knows whales can't talk...don't they???

Well that really depends on your definition of talking. I mean, you wouldn't want a whale sitting around on the lounge all day, watching TV and ordering our for pizza whilst draining the fridge of any and all amber liquids now do you? So nature has provided certain "back stops" to protect us against this. A whale talking is actually more like a tree moving....

And let's face it, we've seen what problems moving trees caused to MacBeth...

Bananas sharing 50% of our genes explains certain Freudian, banana-shape-type obsessions,
but falls short of explaining our obsession with discovering the secrets of the universe; The GUT and
the thing with whales and lemonade.

Why would a lemonade-drinking whale be interested in the GUT?

I have heard of the whale and the tree who used to spend almost all of their time conversing on grand theory.

I believe the whale thought that the tree did move only it was always outwards. But the tree was very sensitive and told the whale to clam up.

The answer to the question, "Does anything exist?" has been answered by the physicists. The proper question is, "Why is there something instead of nothing?" The proper answer is, "Because nothing is unstable." I would provide proper attribution if I could remember who said it. Having a senior moment.

STOP WITH THE W(H)ALES! THIS IS A FORUM ABOUT THE UNIFYING THEORY OF PHYSICS, NOT A BAR, OR A BUDDEST(sic) TEMPLE! (Y'know, that stuff about desire leading to suffering is one of the major Buddest(sic) truths.)

P.S. I'm not Buddest(sic)(if I were I'd know how to spell Buddest), I've just got a test on them tommarow in school.

Just what have you got against whales?

Exactly! Too many people trying to kill them as it is.
Anyway, what about this unifying theory of physics? Sounds a bit stupid to me. If we could solve the Schroedinger equation over all space, we would be able to predict exactly what would happen in the future. Therefore, if there was a unifying theory of physics, it means that free-will is an illusion. Seems to me that ignorance is better. That old Heisenberg chappie knew what he was talking about, anyway.

Physics demands destiny (it falls apart without the ability to predict) especially General Relativity, which is really indisputable.

In order for there to be destiny it must be impossible to know the future, otherwise we'd change it and then there wouldn't be destiny.

QED: Destiny must exist but it can never be known. Not even God (whatever that is) could know it as he surely he would want it changed (unless he wanted life to suck all along) and besides; this the only way he can be absolved of all blame (sneaky huh, God is a lawyer).

The important point is just because it exists does not mean it is decided. Yje only thing in the universe that can work out the future is the universe itself and even then it can do it no faster than realtime. If you want ot know what's going to happen in ten years time then the universe will work it out for you. It'll take about ten years if you're prepared to wait.

To quote Bob Marley:

Anything can happen.

Hi. I'm new here but so far after reading all the posts to this particular question is that :

Basically what all of you are saying is, Out there somewhere is a whale and a cat, in a closed box, that might
be alive or dead, drinking lemonade continously, contemplating, wether or not we exsist, waiting for the future
to come around and wondering if they are truly happy drinking this lemonade and will they be destined to be
happy drinking it in the future? .

I truly understand now why I never took advanced physics in high school.


.

While my understanding of physics is imperfect at the best of times, I do know a bit about philosophy. The way I see it, if everything is predetermined, but we cannot see it ourselves (i.e. predict the future), then, as far as we are concerned, we have free will. Whether we do or not is irrelevant, as that knowledge is permanently inaccessible to us. Problems start coming in if we can predict the future. Surely the very act of predicting the furute would change it, and the future you were looking at would constantly be in flux. Therefore, if you could predict the furute accurately and in detail, then free will is an illusion as it means that we cannot change it.
I think.