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Contemplation for the day:


Ms. Spam
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Pavonis, I can't tell you that because at the end of the day you would just take the blue pill. Wake up tomorrow, go to your little tenured faculty job, believing in things like "matter" and "geology." My knowledge is only for those who are brave enough to take the red pill.

You say this like it's bad thing. Guess what, I would take the blue pill every day of the week and twice on sundays. Especially if it meant going to the working-day life of Keanu Reeves in the Matrix, you know, 1999.. the world of 4% unemployment, government surpluses and 90 cent gasoline. Oh god, how terribly awful.

 

Get the f-ck outta here with your pseudo-intellectual bullsh-t.

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His argument is a little more metaphysical and philosophical than yours Pavonis. Think you missed the point.

No, it's you that missed the point. You did not understand at all what Pavonis was saying. Pavonis was saying that this hackneyed new age hippie bullsh-t is not indicative of any sort of deeper understanding of the universe that Ev has, but rather, is just another type of delusion of his own creation. So in effect, Ev is also taking the "blue pill," even though he's pretending to offer the red, and he's certainly no braver than anyone else.

 

I don't know how you don't get this. Watching you and pavonis talk is really eye-opening, he's just on a completely different level than you. It's so patently obvious that he's a Yale Ph.D. and you are.. what are you even doing again? Shoveling sh-t in a slum in London pretending to be an artist, something like that, right?

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Yes. Pavonis can understand more science than most people who post here but I don't see why we should denigrate each other over that. This is about whether a universe will cease to exist once you leave the mortal coil. Really, does putting Odine in the place you define for him in your universe do anything more once you realize the universe is infinite? You'd have to do it again and again for the people who are not skilled in a specific topic and that's a terrible universe to live in. A groundhog day for doing that may make you feel better in the moment but someone else knows more about something than you. This should not make the ideas of science and philosophy classist and should only be discussed by the same "level" people. Snobbery in a subject does not make you an expert by an ass.

 

Ohay. I've had too much rum and will now take a nap. I just thought that last post a little over the top and had to say something. Understand that if you call me a psuedo-intellectual and make fun of me I will consider it a compliment as I teach 5th graders who can't afford boxes of tissues.

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Spam my posts were not directed at you. My posts were directed at Ev, who is being silly, and towards odine, who has difficulty with reading comprehension.

 

But if you want my take and to address you directly, then I shall. The question you ask is not particularly profound and to the extent humans are capable of answering the question, they have done so. In other words, once you "leave the mortal coil," as you say, yes, the universe will still exist. Pavonis already explained this. Unless, of course, you are in a simulated universe, in which case, I guess it would depend on the rules of that simulated universe and how it operated, but such an understanding is beyond modern science, although Pavonis has already explained some scientists are working on trying to determine if we're in a simulated universe.

 

So that answers your question. Now as far as the other minor points in this thread- the post of your friend you re-posted is basically just an overly convoluted way of saying "I don't know something exists until I observe it," which is nothing more than simply re-stating part of the scientific method and is not all that earth shattering. Then Ev came in here with some gibberish, none of which is particularly interesting, because even if the universe didn't exist as we can observe, this isn't something we can scientifically determine at this point. So that line of questioning is basically meaningless. There's really nothing left to ponder. Maybe we could talk about the philosophical implications about that latter point, but Descartes already solved all of this in Meditations on First Philosophy when he described how it was still possible to arrive at ethical principles even if you were living in a simulation and the universe didn't exist. And that was back in 1641, almost 400 years ago.

 

So what's left to really discuss? Not much honestly. Pong, close please, thanks.

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I'm just going to mostly ignore the assorted nonsense (solipsistic or simulationist or Popperian or hippie-dippie or classist) of what everyone else thinks and posts for the moment and try and engage with Ms. Spam's question.

 

Would the universe cease to exist if there were no one there to observe it? Another way of expressing this is as follows... Ignoring for a moment the philosophical concept of a soul; If a person dies, from the perspective of other people, they cease to exist. From their perspective, however, it is the universe that ceases to exist. Could one meaningfully argue that, if every single living thing shared this experience, thus eliminating all observers and all possible perspectives for observation, that the universe would still exist?

Can we distinguish between the capital U Universe which existed before us and will be around long after we're gone and which would still be here even if you and I never ever were and the concept of a "universe" which was got up by human minds and shared with the aid of human mouths? Because it seems to me to be that the Universe would still exist but that smaller u "universe" would definitely be gone if every human being was gone (well, if you wanna get all Latourian then I bet every single human affected object would also have to go too) and there was no one around to think of the capital U Universe in our particular fashion.

 

This might seem super trivial and obvious to some but I think it's a real distinction which allows one to answer a real "No." to your question.

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His argument is a little more metaphysical and philosophical than yours Pavonis. Think you missed the point.

No, it's you that missed the point. You did not understand at all what Pavonis was saying. Pavonis was saying that this hackneyed new age hippie bullsh-t is not indicative of any sort of deeper understanding of the universe that Ev has, but rather, is just another type of delusion of his own creation. So in effect, Ev is also taking the "blue pill," even though he's pretending to offer the red, and he's certainly no braver than anyone else.

 

I don't know how you don't get this. Watching you and pavonis talk is really eye-opening, he's just on a completely different level than you. It's so patently obvious that he's a Yale Ph.D. and you are.. what are you even doing again? Shoveling sh-t in a slum in London pretending to be an artist, something like that, right?

Yeah you're right. I should've gone to law school and become an arrogant, sociopathic barrister. My life would be much more enlightened, enriched, and happier that way.

 

I meant Pav no disrespect, or science any disrespect. So if I came off as snarky to him, I apologise. But I do find the whole thing fascinating, particularly around the universe and physics, and our certainty in science. In that field, yes I am definately a lay-person and nowhere near as versed in science as he is. OBVIOUSLY. If Pav wants me to clarify my position or have a yarn about the universe or my lack of my scientific understanding with me I would love to, if he would like to PM me... I love learning new stuff.

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