JavaScript is required to use Bungie.net

Forums

1/8/2020 10:44:20 PM
9
There is no purpose to us other than the purpose we choose for ourselves. Beyond that there’s nothing - just matter and energy interacting according to the whims of quantum mechanics. If a freak asteroid hadn’t wiped out the dinosaurs 60 million years ago then we would never of existed. Likewise one day the human race too will be gone. Eventually the tiny speck of dust we call planet earth will be consumed by our own unremarkable sun when it expands and dies. Maybe life will evolve somewhere else - maybe it won’t. Maybe something else beyond our imagination will arise from the random fluctuations of energy and matter in the universe. In the end though everything we’ve ever said or done will be rendered completely meaningless by the relentless onslaught of entropy as the universe continues it’s slow march towards inevitable heat death. [spoiler]Have a nice day. [/spoiler]
English

Posting in language:

 

Play nice. Take a minute to review our Code of Conduct before submitting your post. Cancel Edit Create Fireteam Post

  • Makes me wonder how it plans on keeping itself alive, the universe. Because if it is the platform for organic life it surely has the same principles built into it somewhere or in some way. I don’t think it’s as deterministic as it is without some kind of goal. As foreign as the term goal might be to it. Something drives it.

    Posting in language:

     

    Play nice. Take a minute to review our Code of Conduct before submitting your post. Cancel Edit Create Fireteam Post

  • The universe isn’t conscious. It has no goals or plans. It just is. The only thing driving it is the blind interactions of matter and energy. We are a by-product of those blind interactions. There’s no reason to think we are the intended outcome or goal of the universe.

    Posting in language:

     

    Play nice. Take a minute to review our Code of Conduct before submitting your post. Cancel Edit Create Fireteam Post

  • I respect bleakness but if this entire universe has no driving force we can touch or be a part of in any way in either a conscious or at least subconscious way then that’s just too bleak for me. You did say it best that we make our own meanings, which is the blessing of it all, but I think there’s one bigger element to it all. Life can’t be ultimately a coincidence.

    Posting in language:

     

    Play nice. Take a minute to review our Code of Conduct before submitting your post. Cancel Edit Create Fireteam Post

  • [quote]I respect bleakness but if this entire universe has no driving force we can touch or be a part of in any way in either a conscious or at least subconscious way then that’s just too bleak for me. You did say it best that we make our own meanings, which is the blessing of it all, but I think there’s one bigger element to it all. Life can’t be ultimately a coincidence.[/quote] Whether it’s “bleak” or not is a matter of opinion. I personally don’t see it as bleak. I think the universe is an amazing and incredible thing - even if it doesn’t have consciousness or purpose driving it. When you look at the universe through the lens of physics, cosmology and biology it’s much more interesting and complicated than any story the human mind can come up with. Truth is stranger than fiction. The reality is though we aren’t the center of the story - we are just bit players. I would also add that just because reality isn’t what we want it be doesn’t mean we are justified in making up answers. The truth is the truth regardless of whether we find it bleak or not.

    Posting in language:

     

    Play nice. Take a minute to review our Code of Conduct before submitting your post. Cancel Edit Create Fireteam Post

  • Hard to argue. I think it’s Sagan that said something like “it’s not that the universe is so unbelievable, but what’s unbelievable is that we have measured it” I’d like to know the real quote but I always liked the idea that of all the chaos happening around us, we have somehow observed it.

    Posting in language:

     

    Play nice. Take a minute to review our Code of Conduct before submitting your post. Cancel Edit Create Fireteam Post

  • I agree with your sentiment that we create purpose for ourselves. I believe that is the truth. That is all we really can do. I ask you what are the “whims” of quantum mechanics?How do you know the asteroid was “freak”? I admire the pointlessness of your last paragraph. I hope you have a nice day as well.

    Posting in language:

     

    Play nice. Take a minute to review our Code of Conduct before submitting your post. Cancel Edit Create Fireteam Post

  • [quote]I ask you what are the “whims” of quantum mechanics?[/quote] Quantum mechanics at its heart is probabilistic and fuzzy. Particles at a fundamental level exist in a probabilistic superposition of all possible locations and states. It’s the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment - the cat inside the box is both dead and alive at once - until it interacts with an “observer” who opens the box. At which point it “chooses” whether it’s alive or dead. Seeing as we are all made of these fundamental quantum particles perhaps reality itself is just the result of random fluctuations of sub-atomic particles. Maybe if some particular electron had fizzed one way instead of the other at the beginning of the universe things would be completely different - maybe we would never of existed. Who knows. [quote]How do you know the asteroid was “freak”?[/quote] Asteroids are guided by gravity. The path of the asteroid would of be set in place by the forces of gravity acting upon it. Are you suggesting that someone directed the asteroid towards us in order to wipe out the dinosaurs? Got any evidence for that? Because the time to believe such claims is when you’ve got evidence that they are true.

    Posting in language:

     

    Play nice. Take a minute to review our Code of Conduct before submitting your post. Cancel Edit Create Fireteam Post

  • Probabilistic and fuzzy are ways of saying we do not yet fully understand the scope of the science. It’s funny you bring up Schrödinger’s cat, as I believe this is how life progresses. Choice A and Choice B both exist at once, until we choose one and it becomes our reality. As for the asteroid, is it outside the realm of possibility that inception or the “Big Bang” occurred in such a way that would ensure the path of the asteroid [i]was[/i] in fact set on Earth by the forces of gravity acting upon it so that reality would progress to where it is now? Is it outside the realm of possibility that things we do not understand may not occur solely do to natural chance?

    Posting in language:

     

    Play nice. Take a minute to review our Code of Conduct before submitting your post. Cancel Edit Create Fireteam Post

  • [quote]Probabilistic and fuzzy are ways of saying we do not yet fully understand the scope of the science. It’s funny you bring up Schrödinger’s cat, as I believe this is how life progresses. Choice A and Choice B both exist at once, until we choose one and it becomes our reality. [/quote] I think your maybe misunderstanding what quantum physics is saying. Which is very easy to do as it’s very complicated and I myself only have a very basic layman’s understating of it. It’s incorrect to say that we don’t know where the particle exists and that’s why it’s “fuzzy and probabilistic”. Experiments have shown that it really is fuzzy and probabilistic. They have shown that on a fundamental level that the particle actually physically does NOT exist in one location - it’s not like a little ball whizzing around. Instead the particle actually [i]physically[/i] exists in a fuzzy “superposition” of all possible locations until it interacts with another “collapsed” system at which point the “waveform” of possible locations collapses and the particle physically exists in one location. You should look up the double slit experiment if you want to learn more about this. Here’s a pretty good video about it: https://youtu.be/p-MNSLsjjdo Point is that on a fundamental level reality isn’t as we think it is. [quote]As for the asteroid, is it outside the realm of possibility that inception or the “Big Bang” occurred in such a way that would ensure the path of the asteroid [i]was[/i] in fact set on Earth by the forces of gravity acting upon it so that reality would progress to where it is now? Is it outside the realm of possibility that things we do not understand may not occur solely do to natural chance?[/quote] That’s an unfounded assumption on your part. Perhaps it’s possible that some creator set the universe in motion to specifically create us - but we see no evidence of that. In fact we see plenty of evidence to the contrary. So until we see some positive evidence that what you say is true we are not rationally justified in believing it. Just because something may be possible doesn’t mean it’s true. I’m not even convinced it is possible - let alone probable.

    Posting in language:

     

    Play nice. Take a minute to review our Code of Conduct before submitting your post. Cancel Edit Create Fireteam Post

You are not allowed to view this content.
;
preload icon
preload icon
preload icon