Post by DeepThought on Jun 18, 2009 17:53:25 GMT -6
Deep Tought is a character from Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy
"In the first novel and radio series, a group of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings demand to learn the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything from the supercomputer, Deep Thought, specially built for this purpose. It takes Deep Thought 7½ million years to compute and check the answer, which turns out to be 42. Unfortunately, The Ultimate Question itself is unknown."
So, anyways... sitting here and reflecting about history and how the North Koreans (according to Chinese intelligence) are readying a nuclear missile to attack Hawaii around the 4th of July, it gives one pause about our species and its bleak prospects for continuity. What role does philosophy and religion ultimately have in the grand scheme of things, we migh ask ourselves? Is it even unique to our species, and how can we even know the answer to that question. Elephants have been observed to visit the bones of their ancestors from several generations in the past. Is that part of elephant religions? Who are we to judge? Oh, but we will judge, won't we? We are very impressed with ourselves and our accomplishments, aren't we? But are dolphins and octopi similarly impressed with the passing ships and the city skylines they can see along our coasts? There are those many prophesies from many different cultures about 2012 being the year of our demise. Who can say, maybe if our perception of time is just an illusion, then perhaps some people in the past actually saw the future. If the past, present and future all exist simultaneously, then why not? Are we destined to perish in one of any number of cataclysmic events from the flipping of the north and south magnetic poles to a large asteroid striking our planet to a huge super-volcano erupting all of a sudden to the whole Milky Way galaxy being sucked into the massive black hole at its center? Could very well be, but if not, then our days are still numbered. The moon will escape its orbit around the earth long before the sun goes supernova, and that will mean the end of us, no doubt, barring some newfangled technology we might invent between now and then that might save us. Oh, we are an inventive species, that much we can say for ourselves. The problem is that we are also self-destructive and destructive to our environment, which means we like to use our creations in suicidal ways. Oh well... Religion is not unlike Nero fiddling as Rome burns or that group of musicians in the movie Titanic serenading the doomed passengers as the ship slowly sinks into the murky and icy deep water of the North Atlantic. It may make us more interesting, but it is hardly something that can save us from any cataclysmic event that might happen in 2012. But we should not mourn for it. It has been an impetus for much of what we have done, which has not all been noble. CV, if we are to be extinguised in a about three years time, it was nice knowing ye.
"In the first novel and radio series, a group of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings demand to learn the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything from the supercomputer, Deep Thought, specially built for this purpose. It takes Deep Thought 7½ million years to compute and check the answer, which turns out to be 42. Unfortunately, The Ultimate Question itself is unknown."
So, anyways... sitting here and reflecting about history and how the North Koreans (according to Chinese intelligence) are readying a nuclear missile to attack Hawaii around the 4th of July, it gives one pause about our species and its bleak prospects for continuity. What role does philosophy and religion ultimately have in the grand scheme of things, we migh ask ourselves? Is it even unique to our species, and how can we even know the answer to that question. Elephants have been observed to visit the bones of their ancestors from several generations in the past. Is that part of elephant religions? Who are we to judge? Oh, but we will judge, won't we? We are very impressed with ourselves and our accomplishments, aren't we? But are dolphins and octopi similarly impressed with the passing ships and the city skylines they can see along our coasts? There are those many prophesies from many different cultures about 2012 being the year of our demise. Who can say, maybe if our perception of time is just an illusion, then perhaps some people in the past actually saw the future. If the past, present and future all exist simultaneously, then why not? Are we destined to perish in one of any number of cataclysmic events from the flipping of the north and south magnetic poles to a large asteroid striking our planet to a huge super-volcano erupting all of a sudden to the whole Milky Way galaxy being sucked into the massive black hole at its center? Could very well be, but if not, then our days are still numbered. The moon will escape its orbit around the earth long before the sun goes supernova, and that will mean the end of us, no doubt, barring some newfangled technology we might invent between now and then that might save us. Oh, we are an inventive species, that much we can say for ourselves. The problem is that we are also self-destructive and destructive to our environment, which means we like to use our creations in suicidal ways. Oh well... Religion is not unlike Nero fiddling as Rome burns or that group of musicians in the movie Titanic serenading the doomed passengers as the ship slowly sinks into the murky and icy deep water of the North Atlantic. It may make us more interesting, but it is hardly something that can save us from any cataclysmic event that might happen in 2012. But we should not mourn for it. It has been an impetus for much of what we have done, which has not all been noble. CV, if we are to be extinguised in a about three years time, it was nice knowing ye.