[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
But, What is your view of the Universe?
[/quote]
It’s a single factor in the case of existence. It’s our paradigm by which we have come to know existence.
I view the the Universe as a pretty cool place to be. I have trouble actually COMPREHENDING how massive it actually is. The scale of things is hard for me to wrap my head around, but I do know that it’s both pretty fucking big and pretty fucking small, all at the same time. Same thing with how long it’s been around. I don’t subscribe to any religious view about how things were created, at least not in the way it’s described in the various religions. I mean how more believable is “the earth was created in seven days” than “the world was created from the drops of Izanagi’s spear”? I’m not saying I don’t believe in “God” or an underlying intelligence/being/force or whatever, I just think that, historically, “religion” (ALL of them, not just Catholic/Christian) is a man made construct designed to control and manipulate large, un-educated, primitive groups of people through shame, anger, guilt and fear. I mean what better con is it to make what is completely natural to humans a “sin” and to then codify the way to “repent” and be “forgiven” (all the while asking for money/service/obedience/faith). The BEST part is, nothing can be proven - it’s a great sales pitch.
What do I personally believe but cannot prove, but my gut, instinct and little brain tell me is so? I think the latest scientific “big bang theory” sounds pretty good, but it’s incomplete. On a grand scale, I feel that things in the Universe expand and contract - kinda like God breathing. This particular “exhalation” has lasted for 13.7 billion years… And the rotating structure of both a galaxy and a molecule are held together by what force exactly? And time, as the universe expands, does it slow down? What happens when gravity overcomes inertia? When every bit of matter/energy collapses and becomes so dense that it could fit on the head of a pin - at that moment - does time stop?
As for “Life”, I’m not very impressed. A high school chemistry student can create the “building blocks of life” as an easily replicable experiment using components that are commonly found in many planets. But getting from lipids to DNA is quite a step, almost as big as the step from a single celled organism to a fully conscious human. Can evolution move that quickly? Of the 4.5 billion years that the Earth has been around, how did we get from prokaryotes to eukaryotes to reptiles to mammals to humans…
And THAT is precisely WHY I believe in a higher power or whatever (again, NOT in a ‘religious’ sense). Now I really don’t think we humans are “special”. I think it is statistically impossible for there NOT to be life forms on other planets. Probably as different and varied as the millions of species on OUR planet. I don’t view it as “sacred” or anything else. I think that our emotions and our predisposition as mammals to seek comfort, combined with our intellect, is what has given rise to the concept of “morality”. That is certainly a human construct, we certainly do not live in a “moral” universe, by any stretch of the imagination. If “God” was a moral being who was conscious and really gave a shit about or controlled anything specific, then he certainly wouldn’t allow beautiful things to be tortured and destroyed or any of the other horrible things we do as a species to occur. No, God is NOT what many religions tell us he is. There is a force, and a set of rules (gravity, Newton’s laws, etc…), and that’s about it.
The cycle of life says that we are born, we learn and grow, we prosper and replicate, we decline, and we die. That’s fairly true on just about any scale, from galaxies to single cells. There’s nothing innately “good” or “bad” about it. It just IS. Which is kinda how I ultimately feel about the Universe: it just IS. I find myself playing a very small, insignificant part in an orchestra beyond my imagination and in the blink of an eye, my part will be over. The matter/energy that makes me up will eventually transform (decompose, be absorbed, etc…) and eventually find a new place in the vast universe. And my consciousness, my memories, and all my hopes and dreams will blink out like a candle flame in the wind.
Yes.
Life is worth living.
I have had 21 surgeries, died twice on an operating table, only to be jumpstarted twice. Spent years in physical therapy, and I would still argue yes.
Live life on your terms, for your reasons, and do things the way you want to do them. If you make a mistake, at least you can blame yourself rather than listening to someone else.
I know this much. This is my favorite theoretical physicist…No offense Dr. Matt, she’s prettier than you!
Oh, her name is Dr. Amy Mainzer.
Women with breasts like a 12 year old girl and no sign of jewelry usually are of
a higher IQ.
Hey Maximus did you have an NDE when you died?, please share, none heard interesting
various stories, but only very few that jive with the ancient texts view of
‘the other side’
like that that latest one with that doctor that died whose name I can’t recall at the moment.
I knew a 27 Y.O. man that had a long T-shaped scar from heart surgery and died as well…he told me he was
in a very beautiful park with with wooden bridge over a brook…his grandmother was on the other
side of the brook with a few other people, and they waved to him to cross over, the experience was
about 10 minutes…he gave details on the pristine green grass, the very clear water, etc.
I Grilled him in a friendly way, and I asked if he was religious…he said “no”, yet he
was in a nice place and felt great peace…BUT what I REALLY emphasized was, was he THERE, did it feel like
a ‘dream’ or was he THERE, hardcore without a doubt he felt PHYSICALLY there as sure he was HERE
talking to me, and repeatedly emphasized he was THERE, he was THERE in some kind of paradise, it did NOT feel like a dream whatsover…he was THERE.
As a street smart guy myself who can smell bullshit a mile away, in knew there was no ‘lying’ in him, and his story gave me more hope than any preacher ‘religious’ person I have ever heard, or will ever hear in my entire life…there’s a greater hope than we can imagine.
[quote]pat wrote:
I know this much. This is my favorite theoretical physicist…No offense Dr. Matt, she’s prettier than you![/quote]
No offence taken, I am very fond of Amy myself, although I must point out that she is neither a physicist or a theoretician. Her PhD is in astronomy, which is closely related to, but different from pure physics. In fact, most astronomers get their undergraduate degrees in physics. And her work is primarily in instrumentation, although I am not sure what she is up to these days. Last I spoke to her, she was working with the WISE project but I think that was shut down.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Faster horses, younger women, older whiskey, and more money.[/quote]
I would be willing to trade a fast horse against a young woman.
Deal?
[quote]Karado wrote:
Women with breasts like a 12 year old girl and no sign of jewelry usually are of
a higher IQ.
[/quote]
This was extremely funny!
[quote]smh23 wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
You never answered my question about probability.
[/quote]Really? Let me assure you that this was not intentional. I remember that there was one, but not what or where it was. If you can refresh my memory or lead me to the thread, I will do so.[/quote] http://tnation.T-Nation.com/free_online_forum/world_news_war/gay_marriage_2;jsessionid=77D14AAC189CDB18BE6589B02D744C95-mcd02.hydra?id=5418416&pageNo=21
Don’t worry DrMatt, you’ll always be my favorite. ;D
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
I know this much. This is my favorite theoretical physicist…No offense Dr. Matt, she’s prettier than you![/quote]
No offence taken, I am very fond of Amy myself, although I must point out that she is neither a physicist or a theoretician. Her PhD is in astronomy, which is closely related to, but different from pure physics. In fact, most astronomers get their undergraduate degrees in physics. And her work is primarily in instrumentation, although I am not sure what she is up to these days. Last I spoke to her, she was working with the WISE project but I think that was shut down.[/quote]
Fair enough, she’s still purty… and smart. That makes the universe more interesting in my book.
I do wonder if the universe is infinite, be that spacially or temporally. I can’t comprehend something being spacially infinite. I also wonder if there are multiple other universes also of possibly infinite size. Ones that exist parallel to ours in time and represent every possible happening at every possible time.
Maybe there are other universes existing in some non-parallel relationship to our own. Ones where the speed of light is different. Ones where time moves in another direction or where other “constants” and fundamental laws of physics in our universe are changed. Perhaps there is something greater encompassing all of these infinitely many infinitely sized universes.
I don’t think we’ll ever be able to travel at such speeds as to feasibly explore our own universe though. And if we can’t even do that then there’s little hope we’ll be able to “cross” into any other universe either. I also wonder about what a “dimension” really is and how many of them there are and if you can assign a specific label to any one dimension or if they’re all just jumbled up together and you can’t pick out the tenth dimension from the seventh. If so then how do I even define what they all are?