Existence is hella weird. We grew out of a floating space rock which flies around a ball of fire. Shit. Is. Weird.
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Why does anything exist at all?
- Thread starter Metanoia Prime
- Start date
My wife had a friend. When we were introduced she said "this is Allison, you will never meet a better human being. She's Christian but never judges, compassionate but firm. Her heart is the purest, her intentions are always for the greatest of good".
I would later find out that Allison:
- littered and refused to recycle because "god gave us this earth to destroy so we could hasten the apocalypse and Rapture, would literally say "I can't wait until the planet is destroyed"
- believed that voting didn't matter because God ultimately chose the candidate; but then took the day off work to vote for the first time because it looked like Obama was going to win and she said God gave her a vision to go vote because Obama was the Antichrist
- maybe worse of all: that Heath Ledger was burning in hell because anyone who would willingly portray a gay person was a pervert who excitedly wanted to be gay and gay people all go to hell.
When I brought these up to my wife she said "it's not us to judge what is good. It's up to God."
"okay well I think Allison is fucking evil."
"That's pretty harsh."
"It's not up to you to decide that. It's up to God"
I sometimes have this when I walk my dog. I look at houses and suddenly I realize there are people behind those walls.
Now I can already hear people say "no shit sherlock". But especially when there's no one else around it's easy to feel like you're really alone. Like you're in some kind of movie scene where the buildings are just backdrop with nothing behind them. But there are people living there, hundreds of them in my local neighborhood alone... whom I imagine feel the same way about my own house when they pass it by.
Evidently, something.
At least that's what anti-matter proves... I think?
I think the question "why?" for the universe existing isn't really a helpful one. "Why" implies purpose, intent. The universe just is.
Now, if you're asking "why is there life?", then I would direct you to the words of Carl Sagan: "We are a way of the cosmos to know itself."
But I also agree with Thomas Ligotti that as human beings, our level of sentience was an accident that shouldn't have happened, and has cursed us. It's why so many crave escape and retreat into magical thinking.
Now, if you're asking "why is there life?", then I would direct you to the words of Carl Sagan: "We are a way of the cosmos to know itself."
But I also agree with Thomas Ligotti that as human beings, our level of sentience was an accident that shouldn't have happened, and has cursed us. It's why so many crave escape and retreat into magical thinking.
(I asked my wife why she doesn't talk to Alison anymore: "oh I didn't tell you? she wanted us to move to Texas and join her cult")
in theory but not in practice, i.e. the number of things thought of is limited by the number of thinkers to think them
OP
OP
mindblown.gif
With you until that last line. I'm sure the majority of folks around us don't entertain such thoughts.
Also, Main Character Syndrome.
Personally I'm pro-matter.
Theory is practice in this case
A real missed-ionary opportunity there
I dunno man but maybe we are nothing
you know how hot/cold or high/low pressure or high/low energy always try to equalize, and when there's an imbalance things like wind and weather and motion and light happen? there's an idea I've read that the universe we experience is the imbalanced form of nothing/neutral. that "empty" space is still a sort of medium that experiences fluctuations where a 0 point can instead turn into a 1 and a -1 pair (technically still equals zero but in a new form), and suddenly there are energy forces in play from "empty" space. So all of existence may be a fancy form of nothing that's clumped together in interesting ways, and the heat death of the universe may return us to equilibrium.
🤔
you know how hot/cold or high/low pressure or high/low energy always try to equalize, and when there's an imbalance things like wind and weather and motion and light happen? there's an idea I've read that the universe we experience is the imbalanced form of nothing/neutral. that "empty" space is still a sort of medium that experiences fluctuations where a 0 point can instead turn into a 1 and a -1 pair (technically still equals zero but in a new form), and suddenly there are energy forces in play from "empty" space. So all of existence may be a fancy form of nothing that's clumped together in interesting ways, and the heat death of the universe may return us to equilibrium.
🤔
If life on Earth as we know it is just here and nowhere else in the entire universe, then our concept of life is either a mistake or miracle. Think about it, if there was no humanity the "concepts" we make up for everything wouldn't be a thing.
Just pretty space rocks with maybe some micro bacteria on them.
Just pretty space rocks with maybe some micro bacteria on them.
The why of it is unknown. Why the Big Bang happened is, to my uneducated knowledge, unknown and unknowable. Shit went bang, then it went swoll, then it invented gravity, and then stuff. It's still going and one day will be so massive that the space between electrons will be so large that stuff won't really happen anymore. But it's okay, you'll be long dead by then.
I haven't gotten stuck thinking about this in quite awhile, thanks so much... ;p
But seriously though, this really does my head in, because it's so true.
The universe is an eye looking at itself!
Illumination is on the other side of terror!
Bro, I think the same thing sometimes. I'll be walking downtown and wonder what everyone in a building is doing and have blurted out to my better half that we'll never see the inside of their homes because we just won't and isn't that weird.
I can see why someone would say that's weird to even think about... but I think it's normal to think about and weird to process, damn it!
Well, if you think about it, everything could either exist, or not exist. Those are the only two possibilities, so it was a 50/50 chance.
This is why us software developers cut out the middle man and ponder this at home while doing laundry.
It's the weekend and marijuana is legal in most places now.
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JOHN LENNON. GIMME SOME TRUTH. THE ULTIMATE MIXES. The Very Best of John Lennon.36 tracks completely remixed from the original multitracks in Stereo, 5.1 and...
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This exact image is indeed one of the answers I have to questions like the OP said. Funny to see such a specific response.
OP
OP
Douglas Adams puddle quote: the thread!
"...Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to watch out for."
"...Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to watch out for."
"Due to a slight miscalculation of scale, the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog. Those who study the interplay of cause and effect say this sort of thing happens all the time, but we are powerless to prevent it."
But who's to say antimatter isnt a physical object in another dimension or plane of existence. A parallel world that is a mirror of our own.
There is no upper (or lower) limit. It defies everything we know. You can always zoom in more.. atoms, electrons and neurons, quarks, etc etc. It defies all logic to think that we would get to a point where we find something so small that it isnt made up of even smaller things, that are then made of pf even smaller and smaller things, going to infinite.
Same with zooming out. To a fish the ocean is its universe. It can't comprehend that there is something much bigger out there.. an entire planet. And what is past the planet.. but a galaxy that is multitude times bigger than the planet, which to the fish is already massively bigger than then the ocean or lake or pond it lives in. Yet that isnt even close to the size of the universe as a whole. Are we to think that just because the universe is our ocean that it isnt just part of something much bigger? If we were to punch through the edge of our universe that there would be nothing else? That would be the height of hubris.
It's just our reality and perception cant comprehend that level of scale outside of in an abstract way, just as the fish cant comprehend what is past the ocean, we cant comprehend would could possibly be past the edge of the universe. Maybe(probably) even a vaster void of nothingness until you reach the edge of another universe.
Our universe is probably nothing but a floating atom in a sea of atoms that make up one grain of sand in a desert the size of the Sahara in some vast world too big for or brains to imagine, and all of the time that has passed in our universe from the big bang to now is not but seconds in this higher reality that makes up this desert. And would the world that desert is in be the "final biggest world"... of course not!
(Shamelessly partly stolen from Stephen Kings The Dark Tower).
I've always thought about this since I was little. How we exist and also a specific person living in this body controlling it and thinking at my own will. I then respect life a lot more for being able to partake in it. I could be living on the other side of the world in a completely different timeline, but I live in 2023 in the USA. Or I could've died at birth and experienced nothing.
In the end it doesn't matter, but it's fun to think about sometimes and makes me look up on life a bit more.
In the end it doesn't matter, but it's fun to think about sometimes and makes me look up on life a bit more.
