Expansive thinking, God the universe and humanity

[bluebird]

As I was laying in bed last night I began to think. I only really know certain things... like land, the sky, buildings, people, gravity, etc. through direct experience. Then there are things like, the stars are really suns in other solar systems, going to the moon or even satellites in orbit. Things I know to be true because I believe them but haven't directly experienced them. So lets assume the learning of science is true... So I would also believe that there was a big bang. A beginning of the universe.

It never really dawned on me the implications of that belief. Especially in terms of human purpose. To try and think about before the big bang is where it occurred to me that there must have been a cause. Some intelligence that might have been tinkering around with the egg of a universe and let it out. Dropped it in some catalyst and boom. That intelligence must be so great and so expansive and so utterly unthinkable. Scale alone makes it far beyond our understanding and abilities. Is that God? Does that God have a God? Parsing what I've been taught throughout my life, practically and logically I've come to the conclusion that I can't possibly understand God. That I don't have the capacity to say anything about it if I can't say anything about what was before the big bang.

In a spiritual sense, LIFE is magic but on the cellular level. Life's only purpose is to live. A plant just grows, an animal survives. Humans look for something more. But there is no more. There is no individual as we are all splitting cells at the core. I start to think that the human brain was a mistake in its complexity. It reached a point of self awareness that life never intended. But life doesn't care. There are no mistakes . Civilization, a society, a family, a pack of wolves, a hive of bees, bacteria, a single cell, its all the same.  Life expressing itself... is all there is. Its right in front of our faces. If there was some other set of rules or meanings wouldn't they reveal them selves? Life is all around us and the only rules are live or don't live. Alive or dead. Everything else is just made up. The human experience has no real meaning, its secondary to life which is, in itself, meaning.

So what now? Now that I know for sure I don't know, and will probably never know? Well back to soldering of course!

 

[scott2000]

So what now? Now that I know for sure I don't know, and will probably never know? Well back to soldering of course!

Ecclesiastes 8:15 here ;D

oh...2:24 too...

 

[iomegaman]

I suppose on some level it can be entertaining and slightly enlightening to consider the moment of the big bang or something like it...

Perhaps there was nothing beforehand...but we have a hard time imagining that, what is space itself if not something?

Pretend there is nothing, then a something...what is it? A dust molecule? Something subatomic? Something smaller than the smallest thing we can measure?

Surely if nothing measurable in human sensitivities it must have some form of mass/energy/being...?

And the very existence of something/anything might in fact induce the creation of its counterpart out of the same nothing as before...balance...

All of these things play out in our minds following the rules of science as we have learned them...E=MC², etc...yet we have no knowledge if these rules applied back then because time itself is an illusion of movement to our consciousness...and here in agreement with your idea that consciousness itself is more of a community effort than some singular "I" awareness, whatever god or life is, it must not be limited to some singular definition...

Currently I am treading the holy ground in Brian Greenes "The Fabric of the Cosmos" where many of these questions and the genesis of how we think of them are explained...more questions than answers of course...

 

[Squeaky]

Bluebird you reminded me of my studies in philosophy at uni. During my honours year we spent a lot of time trying to talk about the ineffable (hah!). We studied Parmenides (perhaps the father of Western metaphysics), Lao Tzu, Wittgenstein, Heidegger who all in their own way tried to consider nothingness.

Every (formal or informal) student of philosophy at some point considers what the point of it all is (life that is). Ensuring the continuity of your genes, the endless striving for power, the urge to leave your mark on the world or humanity, the need to be remembered? I distinctly remember going through it myself and thinking that nothing really matters (strange turn of phrase that, how can nothing matter?) However, as I am writing, Monty Python's Meaning of Life keeps intruding on my thoughts!

As an aside, I find it interesting when people talk about saving Gaia or looking after Gaia, when it is most apparent that Gaia doesn't care in the slightest. It is all the same to her whether we are here or not, whether we wipe ourselves out or most of the species on the planet. She will persevere and something else will come along. I mean, we'd really have to blowtorch the place to get her attention! We'd have to kill off all the extremophiles living kilometers under the earth or ice. I though writing a paper on intrinsic (vs instrumental) value in nature would help me to sort it out. Just made it more confusing really. To diverge further, and speaking of extremophiles,  studying extremophiles led me to believe in the possibility of aliens (microbes, not dudes is saucers). I mean, for example, could some sort of extremophile archaea survive on a comet?

Time to plant some basil seeds. I love home made pesto.

 

[Squeaky]

Another thing, I believe the theory of the big bang only holds from a singularity onward?

"The Big Bang model does not describe how energy, time, and space were caused

Theory attempts to describe the emergence of the present universe from a hot and dense initial state (singularity?).

The Big Bang scenario simply assumes that space, time, and energy already existed.

Big Bang theory tells us nothing about where time, space and energy came from - or why the universe was born hot and dense to begin with."*

*https://web.archive.org/web/20160413195349/https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/seuforum/faq.htm#m12

Now I'm really going.

 

[shabtek]

mind is a myth

 

[alexc]

The more I tried in my life to discount the possibility of  'mind' in 'nature', the less convincing the notion became to me.

It could be the result of spending most of my adult life 'tending the machine'  ..  literally I mean, as a working engineer.

Nowadays, as a long time 'rural' person,  I can't help but let 'nature' in to my life [consciousness]  - 'most every animal or plant I now tend [serve],  has a hugely vital story to promulgate ..  over and over and over .

I'm just lucky enough to be moderately perceptive to that web [of life] and to have the time 'to do nothing' which is a pre-requisite to getting rid of the 'self' identity.

And I don't mean that the natural world 'speaks' to me in some nebulous, cloudy way ..  they literally whistle, buzz, bray, neigh, roar, sing etc for attention at every moment to teach lessons about life, the universe and my place in it.

It's my old saying from my old sonar days  ...  "I ping therefore I am"  and still as relevent to me now.

I don't think that the natural world is indifferent to the dramas of it's 'fleas'  [us]  and nor do I believe this Earth, or 'Gaia' want's use gone at all.  What 'it' wants is harmony and every niche 'filled'  with continuous expression of life's inter-relatedness.

Nor do I see humans as fancy monkeys ...  the notion that the universe is so marvelous ..  is related to the existance of creatures that can perceive it's incredibleness.

Otherwise why bother?  May as well stay a cosmic egg of infinite density and infinitely small dimensions! Certainly a lot less effort  ;D

Anyway ..  one hopes we humans will one day be a bit more responsible for the environment ...  I don't see it happening any time soon however.

 

[bluebird]

I think the two perspectives:

when it is most apparent that Gaia doesn't care in the slightest.

and

I don't think that the natural world is indifferent to the dramas of it's 'fleas'  [us]  and nor do I believe this Earth, or 'Gaia' want's use gone at all. 

is that... that we might never know. Either there is a purpose that human consciousness is supposed to identify that hasn't revealed itself yet OR human consciousness is just a meaningless byproduct of something way bigger. And meaningless in that everything else is just as meaningful.

Ecclesiastes 8:15 here ;D

oh...2:24 too...

That was one of my favorites. Nothing has meaning without God. I guess thats one way to describe this conundrum. Although I found the Bible to be limiting. I was waiting for it to "speak" to me in some magical way. It never did. And it didn't answer (my) burning questions. I am aware that for many it does.

Interesting thoughts!

 

[alexc]

Does that God have a God?

I like that 

 

[abbey road d enfer]

I don't think that the natural world is indifferent to the dramas of it's 'fleas'  [us]  and nor do I believe this Earth, or 'Gaia' want's use gone at all. 

The human race is like cancer, it slowly destroys its host, as if it didn't know it will kill him, and results in its own death.
I don't think the Universe actually needs life; it just happened, unfortunately with a blind will to expand.
With the human race came a quest for understanding ((who am I, where do I come from, where do I go, when is dinner?), and a cohort of profiteers taking advantage of the fear and credulity of the weaker (the majority, actually).
In fact, nobody knows the answer, and it's fine like this. The actual answer to these questions would be a terrible disappointment to those who think they had a purpose.
The analogy with bugs is adequate; at the end of our life, we will have managed to make the earth scratch itself.

Anyway ..  one hopes we humans will one day be a bit more responsible for the environment ...  I don't see it happening any time soon however.

That's as likely as cancer ceasing spreading in consideration for its host welfare.

 

[scott2000]

That was one of my favorites.

I remembered You saying that in the past. Actually I couldn't help but feel you were sounding a bit like Solomon in your topic and it reminded me... Figured you'd get a kick out of it if nothing else. It's one of my favorite things to read too.

On a side....I've always thought this was a funny speech....think I've posted it before here maybe..

Jim Carrey Speech At The Golden Globe Awards 2016. HDTV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9J8GaeDqVc

 

[JohnRoberts]

Great minds have spent thousands of years pondering such imponderables. The good news is that were are wealthy and comfortable enough to spend effort on this.

It is how we are wired to think we understand more than we do. I never quite convinced myself that I understand infinity. 

JR

 

[iomegaman]

I had a dream a few weeks ago, in the dream we finally encountered alien life...but they came to basically collect the best of us and kept us at a very safe distance...the alien life forms had evolved without ever using violence at all...no "survival of the fittest" even in their DNA...and in the dream it was finally revealed what humans were here for...

We were specifically evolved as super predators because we would eventually overcome ANY system that had competition to us...and we had been specifically "lab grown" on a planet with exponentially more life forms than anywhere else in the universe just so we could adapt to ANY life form competition...

It seems we were basically a species meant to cure space cancer...just send us out into the galaxy where there was uncontrolled competition for resources and sit back...(in the dream our creator species had encountered a violent species in another realm and refused to get their own culture dirty by using violence, hence "Send in the humans")

Strange dream...I remember how odd it felt to think of entire civilisations that had never experienced even the faintest levels of violence and how WE were the actual aliens in the universe, violence was as natural to us as peace was to them...we were looked upon with awe and dread and kept at a very safe distance...I'm sure it did not end well for them, but the dream was over before I knew the inevitable outcome.

We eventually killed our makers.

 

[bluebird]

Whoa! thats an amazing dream! That could be a movie... I'm sure everyone has read The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. The earth was basically a big computer to work out the ultimate QUESTION to the ANSWER to "life the universe and everything". In which the answer is 42.

The human race is like cancer, it slowly destroys its host, as if it didn't know it will kill him, and results in its own death.
I don't think the Universe actually needs life; it just happened, unfortunately with a blind will to expand.

This could very well be. So human life is just frazzles and pops on the outskirts of the milky-way when the real purpose for all of this is going down somewhere else in the universe.  We are some part of the experiment gone wrong, a bit of disease that escaped the lab.
I can see that being true. Why would violence, pain and suffering even be possible? If we were designed or created, how terrible the creator to inflict such suffering on an aware entity?

 

[bluebird]

It seems we were basically a species meant to cure space cancer...just send us out into the galaxy where there was uncontrolled competition for resources and sit back...(in the dream our creator species had encountered a violent species in another realm and refused to get their own culture dirty by using violence, hence "Send in the humans")

So the republicans are right! ;D

 

[CJ]

a) how old is the automobile? 
b)  how old is the universe? 

a/b * IQ =?

 

[living sounds]

I think Stephen Hawking said the notion of "what was before the Big Bang" makes as much sense as "what is north of the North Pole".

There is no "before", since time did come into existence only with the Big Bang. I know I cannot properly wrap my head around that, but to the best of our knowledge that's what it is. 

 

[JohnRoberts]

I think Stephen Hawking said the notion of "what was before the Big Bang" makes as much sense as "what is north of the North Pole".

Our life experience gives us a linear, only moving forward experience of time.

Speaking of Hawking, about a year ago I reread his Brief history of time, and no new light bulbs went off this time either.

I recall as a kid seeing a classic Disney cartoon describing time dilation, with time still always moving in forward direction.

Lots of science fiction exploring time travel. AFAIK we have not been visited by future time travelers so either they are extremely disciplined, or don't exist (the more likely explanation). Time travel forward into future is predicted by time dilation, but no return home. 

There is no "before", since time did come into existence only with the Big Bang.

That was not my personal imponderable... My brain breaker was if space is infinite, what is beyond that? 

The concept of time not existing is likewise difficult to accept (again based on our life experience), but we could make such hypothetical speculations even more difficult. Nobody was around before the big bang to refute any such claim. 

I know I cannot properly wrap my head around that, but to the best of our knowledge that's what it is.

I find that I can't explain things that I don't understand (and there are plenty of those) so I don't try... I have met my share of would be experts (teachers), who just recite stuff.  I once worked with a fellow engineering manager who was able to BS a lot of people like that, but a number of us figured him out. 

JR 

 

[bluebird]

The concept of time not existing is likewise difficult to accept (again based on our life experience), but we could make such hypothetical speculations even more difficult. Nobody was around before the big bang to refute any such claim. 

The only way I can grasp time not existing is to try and understand that it is all here now. Like a loaf of bread in where we are experiencing only a slice at a time... But the whole loaf exists.

I find that I can't explain things that I don't understand (and there are plenty of those) so I don't try...
JR 

As I get older I move in that direction. The exuberance of youth allows more thought energy and exploration. After a while you have to give in to faith or an agnosticism.

This can define political leaning in the end. Seems empathy, values, and morals are a result of FAITH. If there is a higher purpose then those things should be considered. If we are truly just an advanced hive of bees and survival of the species is the only purpose, Empathy, values, and morals are only pertinent to certain situations.  If it leads to overpopulation and ultimately an unhealthy species, those things can be "wrong" according to the laws of nature or "life". It seems conservatives with they're faith and liberals with they're science seem a little mixed up.

 

[Tubetec]

Abbey ,
I thought that was as honest and direct an appraisal of the situation were in as a species as Ive heard ,

have we the intelligence to know how to fix it ,
at the current projected rate of consumption  , recalculating ,bedee bedee bedee
we havent a fcks chance in hell Buck  ;D