Don't worry about someone's happiness at the expense of your own. I hate to say it but shuck it if it's shuckable and if shucking it makes you happier. Otherwise, BE happier ... and shuck it off. If it's not avoidable, deal with it, shuck it. It is what we all do or want to do anyway --- so --- shuck it and worry about how to get happy about it.
Worry about the worth of a worry. Worry if it's worth it. If it's not worth it or you decide to not bother then shuck it. If it's worth it then you deal with it and you ought to be happy to deal with it and get it out of and away from your worrying self.
If it is not a solvable problem or will just take too long to deal with ... shuck it! One way or the other, shuck it. If it's either shuck you or shuck it, shuck one or shuck the other ... that's called tough and that's called life. But ... in the end ... get happy and BE HAPPY ABOUT IT. Shuck it! One or the other, shuck it!
Maybe you need a real good cry and maybe you need time alone and maybe you need a good semi-psychotic fit. Fine. In the end a choice must be made and you either get happy or not. Being happy is something you make happen and it cannot be given to you. Maybe you're an incurable alcoholic or an incurable drug addict or suffer intractible pain or... conundrums abound ... these demand you make a happier choice ... there is no help for you from me ... that's called tough and that's called life. Make a shucking decision and shuck it.
What else is there, really, to worry about, in the end, except to worry about being happy?
So ... WORRY ABOUT GETTING HAPPY.
If it isn' t worth it, don't worry about it. If you can't ever be happy you really don't have anything to worry about! Shuck it! Plain and simple in the end.
If you can't stop worrying then go crazy instead and be happy.
If you stop the world and get off ... GO! ... just get happy about it! ... or ...
Put a gun to your head ... Bang, but ... be happy about it! ... or ...
Jump into the sun ... Well! ... be happy about it! ...
Do the best you can and, shucks, get happy about it!
♪♪
Be Happy. ♪♪
♪♪
References:
"Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (1964)
"Grin And Bear It" (sports cartoonist George Lichtenstein in 1932, et al)
"Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." [Abraham Lincoln]
"Don't Worry - Be Happy" (song and title)
"(If You Can't Be With The One You Love,) Love The One You're With" (song & title)
Desiderata (unknown)
25 April 2008
Be Happy
16 April 2008
Stupidity
If you are talking and hear someone say something and you think: “no one can be so stupid as to believe that” you might be right: they cannot be that stupid and are being that stupid on purpose to interfere with your thinking. They are saboteurs. They find it either politically useful or just plain entertaining to play with you and confuse you. They may be serious saboteurs and be quite seriously after your sanity: do not underestimate the cleverness and intelligence of insane people!! And there are the fake insane who use “mental illness” to play with you and your wallet and your mind and these may also be serious saboteurs and be quite seriously after your sanity: do not underestimate the cleverness and intelligence of anyone!!! I have met fake crazies and the seriously insane. Do not underestimate the cleverness and intelligence of the sane to be “crazy” as it is useful to them to get your money, your body, your mind, and especially as they defend themselves in court after they kill you.
I was told once that the basic question of science is “What If?”. After a variety of arguments on various things I realized that I had been told that many times. Some people feel that any question and any idea that comes into their head, if in any way “different”, “qualifies” as an intelligent act. I came to understand that sometimes “No one can be so stupid as to believe that”, “NO one could be as stupid as to have said that” as correct and accurate. If they cannot be that stupid then if they ARE being so stupid then: they are being that stupid on purpose. They are stupid in order to interfere with your thinking. STUPIDITY is not an accident. No one is born stupid. People may get stupid and be in a state of stupefaction and get stupid from a lack of sleep, lust and love, thoughtless greed, street drug use, alcohol overuse, rage instead of anger, extreme anger, Rx drug use even if done right, just plain drug use, and mixtures of these. Otherwise, “stupid” people are saboteurs and find it politically useful to play with you and confuse you. Menticide is their form of hunt. I am not against the death penalty against them. Neither are they against death for you if they cannot kill your mind!!!
It takes work to save your mind from the menticidal maniacs who would kill you. It takes work to counter the tentative, develop the intuitive, work on the definite, and identify the stupid. Everyone gets stupid! You have to work to either get rid of it or, as “they” do, develop it to destroy others.
Are we a mutation of life forms or an evolvement into a new or a different life form? Are we a life form as an accident of nature? Is human life a freak of nature? Even if we are, we are anyway, so everything and anything else to the contrary is not relevant. Or, if any of this were so then ALL things are accidents of nature and EVERYTHING is a freak. If human life is a freak of nature then so is the sun and moon and every star. This kind of thinking makes every thing undifferentiated. It is as “the night in which all cows are black”. Nothing is all and each and every thing is the “same”. I consider such thinking evil. Or, if we are freaks or accidents of nature: what of it? What is the purpose of such a consideration? It is not a useful one and leads to no understanding of anything: it is used to derail real serious and worked on thinking by “lazy” and “stupid” people.
I was told once that the basic question of science is “What If?”. After a variety of arguments on various things I realized that I had been told that many times. Some people feel that any question and any idea that comes into their head, if in any way “different”, “qualifies” as an intelligent act. I came to understand that sometimes “No one can be so stupid as to believe that”, “NO one could be as stupid as to have said that” as correct and accurate. If they cannot be that stupid then if they ARE being so stupid then: they are being that stupid on purpose. They are stupid in order to interfere with your thinking. STUPIDITY is not an accident. No one is born stupid. People may get stupid and be in a state of stupefaction and get stupid from a lack of sleep, lust and love, thoughtless greed, street drug use, alcohol overuse, rage instead of anger, extreme anger, Rx drug use even if done right, just plain drug use, and mixtures of these. Otherwise, “stupid” people are saboteurs and find it politically useful to play with you and confuse you. Menticide is their form of hunt. I am not against the death penalty against them. Neither are they against death for you if they cannot kill your mind!!!
It takes work to save your mind from the menticidal maniacs who would kill you. It takes work to counter the tentative, develop the intuitive, work on the definite, and identify the stupid. Everyone gets stupid! You have to work to either get rid of it or, as “they” do, develop it to destroy others.
Are we a mutation of life forms or an evolvement into a new or a different life form? Are we a life form as an accident of nature? Is human life a freak of nature? Even if we are, we are anyway, so everything and anything else to the contrary is not relevant. Or, if any of this were so then ALL things are accidents of nature and EVERYTHING is a freak. If human life is a freak of nature then so is the sun and moon and every star. This kind of thinking makes every thing undifferentiated. It is as “the night in which all cows are black”. Nothing is all and each and every thing is the “same”. I consider such thinking evil. Or, if we are freaks or accidents of nature: what of it? What is the purpose of such a consideration? It is not a useful one and leads to no understanding of anything: it is used to derail real serious and worked on thinking by “lazy” and “stupid” people.
Permute, Mutate, Evolve
I assert that life is not a random process nor is it planned out according to a recipe. The world is neither a biscuit bakery nor an auto factory. Those kinds of things are human creations as they are also parts of the universe. We are each different. We none of us are universal-standard engineered machined parts from an assembly line. We are not little globs of dough from a bowl baked in temperature controlled ovens. Those kinds of things are human creations. That is obvious.
And no two biscuits based on the same recipe are the same nor are even two engineer-universal-standard auto parts quite the same. There is the simple fact of variation however small. Measurement is not exact it seems. No one was there to measure out the material used to make us. Even if there were then that measuring person could not make the precise same measure each time. That is an observation not inborn in us but figured out from our common human historical experience.
The biscuit or car that becomes after the baking or assembly line is at least slightly different from any and every other just as every person is different. If you ever worked in a quality control part of a factory you would be aware that even the most accurate of measurements ends up in endless variations. Some end results are inexplicably very different though often enough successful results none the less. Most cars run and most biscuits are edible. Many are tossed out as being too different, not up to some standard or other, or some other reason. We as human beings do that too to human beings.
Even if we should not do that with human beings we as human beings do. The anti-evolutionists would kill and non-create the already created. The anti-abortionists would kill and abort the already born. And the believers in one sort of things kill the believers in other sorts of things. Human beings are killers. We are predatory, nasty, vicious, violent, raging, biting, scratching, back-stabbing, and rip-it-apart creatures. We are not just fighters. We are killers.
Simply put: “We are here and grow and this demonstrates our necessary being”. If we did not exist who then is reading this? “I” therefore I am. But the phrase “necessary being” is used by some to mean that “we” have to be here by some guarantee built into the universe. This is a useless argument, I think. We are and that is sufficient. We are and that is necessary or else, well, there would be no “we”. Isn’t that complete?
And no two biscuits based on the same recipe are the same nor are even two engineer-universal-standard auto parts quite the same. There is the simple fact of variation however small. Measurement is not exact it seems. No one was there to measure out the material used to make us. Even if there were then that measuring person could not make the precise same measure each time. That is an observation not inborn in us but figured out from our common human historical experience.
The biscuit or car that becomes after the baking or assembly line is at least slightly different from any and every other just as every person is different. If you ever worked in a quality control part of a factory you would be aware that even the most accurate of measurements ends up in endless variations. Some end results are inexplicably very different though often enough successful results none the less. Most cars run and most biscuits are edible. Many are tossed out as being too different, not up to some standard or other, or some other reason. We as human beings do that too to human beings.
Even if we should not do that with human beings we as human beings do. The anti-evolutionists would kill and non-create the already created. The anti-abortionists would kill and abort the already born. And the believers in one sort of things kill the believers in other sorts of things. Human beings are killers. We are predatory, nasty, vicious, violent, raging, biting, scratching, back-stabbing, and rip-it-apart creatures. We are not just fighters. We are killers.
Simply put: “We are here and grow and this demonstrates our necessary being”. If we did not exist who then is reading this? “I” therefore I am. But the phrase “necessary being” is used by some to mean that “we” have to be here by some guarantee built into the universe. This is a useless argument, I think. We are and that is sufficient. We are and that is necessary or else, well, there would be no “we”. Isn’t that complete?
11 April 2008
Big Bang
The only way I can answer religious doctrine is to ignore it. All I can do in reply to religious writings is to ignore them. Human beings wrote it down and human beings are the doctrinaires: there I rest my case: human beings are not god. Period.
I simply do not believe in any god / any religion. I do not hate them nor despise them. I do not believe there is no god. I simply do not believe in any god. I have no religion. I do not believe in a future life, a system of future rewards and/or punishments, nor in any master plan, nor in any singular nor in any origin of / for the universe. I believe in no prophets nor angels nor powers nor powers of the dead / “Other” nor any entity waiting to do me a favor if I only pray. None of it “took” and none of it “takes” now.
Belief is easy: just accept “it” as if “it” was true and no more thinking is required about “it”. Just as I shall say I believe so and so will make a good or the better or a less the worst for president: I cannot say “I Know”. Pick one belief and there are thousands of other beliefs. Pick one belief and there are thousands of variations. Knowledge takes work. Trying to know takes work. Honesty takes work. Being able to say “I don’t know” is part of being honest. I am not a good liar. Being a good liar takes work. It is a different kind of work. Making a decision based on belief alone is sometimes all that can be done: It is a belief about what the “real world” is. A belief in the “other” world, the other world of god / religion is another thing altogether. Making decisions based on beliefs in the “non-natural world” applying some way or other to the “natural world” is also done. Human beings are doing it. I rest my case.
I believe all kinds of things and I do not apologize. Or I am shown I only believe in something and do not know and have to apologize. If I do not know anything I am honest enough to say so. Or I lie.
I accept no apology, explanation, defense, nor argument for god / religion: You/he/she/they believe it or not: The fundamental basis for belief is belief. Belief is not knowledge. Period.
God is not taken out of scientific argument nor out of the realm of scientific inquiry. NO! NO! I in fact argue that gods and religions must be studied. They are included in the history of ideas, defended or derided as a part of philosophy, studied as a part of human history such as justification and/or excuse for war and pursuing peace, for examples. That is: studied anthropologically or as a class of idea. There are those who study religions very carefully and have there own or none. History is necessarily concerned with religion. There is in fact an extensive enumeration of “religious” practices called The Golden Bough in thirty five volumes and he was being selective.
The study of nature excludes a study of god and religion as there is nothing there to study. “They” do not personally exclude so and do not have to personally exclude anything and thereby need not justify anything: there is no thing there to take samples of to measure: there is nothing there to exclude and nothing there to include if they wanted to. Period. You and I can guarantee they would if they could. People would have “samples” of god on their table tops at every meal! I would too! Or, they would refuse or fail to so do such. As it is, they might put symbols of god / religion on the table. That can only be studied anthropologically. If the study of nature is the study of god then there is no shortage of study. If the study of nature must include the belief in god, that is political, not science.
“Religion” has never screwed up anybody. People do the screwing. Religion is a cultural expression and a popular expression amongst a group of people: a social thing: and as varied as are groups of people. Pick one belief and there are thousands of other beliefs. Pick one belief and there are thousands of variations.
I do not believe there is no god. I am not a believer in a god to not believe in. “They” insist I am an atheist anyway. “They” are angry at me for not accepting their “beliefs”. I could lie down and mash my face into the floor before any image and shout “I believe!” and there would some “them” who insist I shall go to hell anyway for some reason or other.
As for the big bang: there is no evidence of any such a thing: it is a “working generalization”. It is a sort of “working” “assumption”. A way of talking.
As I hinted before: the universe cannot have a “beginning” based on our notions of time and space: “It”, the universe, the ALL, includes all times and all spaces by definition. There is no time, space, cause, effect, or “thing” left over. To assert a “cause” or “beginning” to the universe entails some extra-universal thing. Call that god. But god did not “cause” the universe to exist. God had not created causes before god created the universe. Therefore god created the universe and did not “cause” it to be. God cannot exist in our world of causes and effects. God created causes and effects. God created time. It is “said” “when god created the world” only because we use our limited language. God did not “start” as there was no where for god to start and no time for god to start as god had not created times nor starts nor where’s nor there’s. God did not cause the universe by creating it because creation is not a cause. No thing can be a “reaction” to the “cause” of god because god had not created anything until god created it and that includes causes and effects and reactions. Therefore there is no “starting time” for the universe nor a "starting time" for god. Even the middle ages monks in monasteries knew that!
I simply do not believe in any god / any religion. I do not hate them nor despise them. I do not believe there is no god. I simply do not believe in any god. I have no religion. I do not believe in a future life, a system of future rewards and/or punishments, nor in any master plan, nor in any singular nor in any origin of / for the universe. I believe in no prophets nor angels nor powers nor powers of the dead / “Other” nor any entity waiting to do me a favor if I only pray. None of it “took” and none of it “takes” now.
Belief is easy: just accept “it” as if “it” was true and no more thinking is required about “it”. Just as I shall say I believe so and so will make a good or the better or a less the worst for president: I cannot say “I Know”. Pick one belief and there are thousands of other beliefs. Pick one belief and there are thousands of variations. Knowledge takes work. Trying to know takes work. Honesty takes work. Being able to say “I don’t know” is part of being honest. I am not a good liar. Being a good liar takes work. It is a different kind of work. Making a decision based on belief alone is sometimes all that can be done: It is a belief about what the “real world” is. A belief in the “other” world, the other world of god / religion is another thing altogether. Making decisions based on beliefs in the “non-natural world” applying some way or other to the “natural world” is also done. Human beings are doing it. I rest my case.
I believe all kinds of things and I do not apologize. Or I am shown I only believe in something and do not know and have to apologize. If I do not know anything I am honest enough to say so. Or I lie.
I accept no apology, explanation, defense, nor argument for god / religion: You/he/she/they believe it or not: The fundamental basis for belief is belief. Belief is not knowledge. Period.
God is not taken out of scientific argument nor out of the realm of scientific inquiry. NO! NO! I in fact argue that gods and religions must be studied. They are included in the history of ideas, defended or derided as a part of philosophy, studied as a part of human history such as justification and/or excuse for war and pursuing peace, for examples. That is: studied anthropologically or as a class of idea. There are those who study religions very carefully and have there own or none. History is necessarily concerned with religion. There is in fact an extensive enumeration of “religious” practices called The Golden Bough in thirty five volumes and he was being selective.
The study of nature excludes a study of god and religion as there is nothing there to study. “They” do not personally exclude so and do not have to personally exclude anything and thereby need not justify anything: there is no thing there to take samples of to measure: there is nothing there to exclude and nothing there to include if they wanted to. Period. You and I can guarantee they would if they could. People would have “samples” of god on their table tops at every meal! I would too! Or, they would refuse or fail to so do such. As it is, they might put symbols of god / religion on the table. That can only be studied anthropologically. If the study of nature is the study of god then there is no shortage of study. If the study of nature must include the belief in god, that is political, not science.
“Religion” has never screwed up anybody. People do the screwing. Religion is a cultural expression and a popular expression amongst a group of people: a social thing: and as varied as are groups of people. Pick one belief and there are thousands of other beliefs. Pick one belief and there are thousands of variations.
I do not believe there is no god. I am not a believer in a god to not believe in. “They” insist I am an atheist anyway. “They” are angry at me for not accepting their “beliefs”. I could lie down and mash my face into the floor before any image and shout “I believe!” and there would some “them” who insist I shall go to hell anyway for some reason or other.
As for the big bang: there is no evidence of any such a thing: it is a “working generalization”. It is a sort of “working” “assumption”. A way of talking.
As I hinted before: the universe cannot have a “beginning” based on our notions of time and space: “It”, the universe, the ALL, includes all times and all spaces by definition. There is no time, space, cause, effect, or “thing” left over. To assert a “cause” or “beginning” to the universe entails some extra-universal thing. Call that god. But god did not “cause” the universe to exist. God had not created causes before god created the universe. Therefore god created the universe and did not “cause” it to be. God cannot exist in our world of causes and effects. God created causes and effects. God created time. It is “said” “when god created the world” only because we use our limited language. God did not “start” as there was no where for god to start and no time for god to start as god had not created times nor starts nor where’s nor there’s. God did not cause the universe by creating it because creation is not a cause. No thing can be a “reaction” to the “cause” of god because god had not created anything until god created it and that includes causes and effects and reactions. Therefore there is no “starting time” for the universe nor a "starting time" for god. Even the middle ages monks in monasteries knew that!
04 April 2008
The Cause Of Existence
I remember the phrase “existence is not a predicate” and that logically since something exists there is no question of causation for that requires an action to effect another action and mere existence is not an action. But cars do exist as the result of manufacture we students replied. We were speaking of the existence of the universe, however, the existence of all.
God’s creation is not your human scale creation.
Even the most medieval monastic monks had some ready answers. The sum total of all or The ALL exists but cannot be the result of something else except as a result of itself for the ALL must include all causes and results of causation by definition of it being the ALL. There are no causes left over, so to speak. God did not “cause” the universe to “be”: there was no action before god created it and therefore no causes either.
God’s creation is not your human scale creation.
Even the most medieval monastic monks had some ready answers. The sum total of all or The ALL exists but cannot be the result of something else except as a result of itself for the ALL must include all causes and results of causation by definition of it being the ALL. There are no causes left over, so to speak. God did not “cause” the universe to “be”: there was no action before god created it and therefore no causes either.
I Am Not What Made Me
At least some anti-evolutionists insist that the world began 3500 or some “written” number of years ago and maybe even tyrannosaurus and brontosaurus dinosaurs walked up the plank into Noah’s ark. Since their minds are made up they have stopped thinking. They are left with the repetition of old notions which end in quarrels, fist fights, and murder. The anti-evolutionists would kill others they do not like and end their creation. The anti-abortionists would kill anyone who disagreed with them and abort them. Typical humans.
As a bunch of biological warm blooded not so furry bodies we human beings are predatory, nasty, vicious, violent, raging, biting, scratching, and rip-it-apart creatures. We are killers.
Are we “mutants of” or “evolved from”? Honestly, I do not care. I do not care if we as a biological reality “came from” some goo out of the ice.
I do not care who my parents were. I am and that is the hard basic fact of life. And after a certain “point” in my life I took charge and moved on, creating and re-creating my self using what was available. I decided to stop the worry about people who were not “there” or “not there for me”. I do not bother about any of that anymore. BOO! Here I am. Get on with it!
I have little choice: to accusations of being a “freak” I shoo off them who so accuse and move on, fight them off if they bother me, go on making my life, and continue to live.
If WE, as bio-entities, “came from” mindless apes, muddy gravel, green sea weed, dinosaur poo, or whatever, what and why should I even care?
I fail to understand the concerns of creationists and pro-lifers. They were created and they are alive and no one is threatening them.
Simply put: I am here and grow and this demonstrates my necessary being. This happens by any means necessary. If I am a mutation of a life form or an evolution into this, a new or a different life form, what do I care? If I am an accident of nature or a freak of nature I am still as a matter of fact alive and here. I give no thanks to the “them” and none to the “that” which, however necessary they were to my being, are not me.
I am not that which made me.
As a bunch of biological warm blooded not so furry bodies we human beings are predatory, nasty, vicious, violent, raging, biting, scratching, and rip-it-apart creatures. We are killers.
Are we “mutants of” or “evolved from”? Honestly, I do not care. I do not care if we as a biological reality “came from” some goo out of the ice.
I do not care who my parents were. I am and that is the hard basic fact of life. And after a certain “point” in my life I took charge and moved on, creating and re-creating my self using what was available. I decided to stop the worry about people who were not “there” or “not there for me”. I do not bother about any of that anymore. BOO! Here I am. Get on with it!
I have little choice: to accusations of being a “freak” I shoo off them who so accuse and move on, fight them off if they bother me, go on making my life, and continue to live.
If WE, as bio-entities, “came from” mindless apes, muddy gravel, green sea weed, dinosaur poo, or whatever, what and why should I even care?
I fail to understand the concerns of creationists and pro-lifers. They were created and they are alive and no one is threatening them.
Simply put: I am here and grow and this demonstrates my necessary being. This happens by any means necessary. If I am a mutation of a life form or an evolution into this, a new or a different life form, what do I care? If I am an accident of nature or a freak of nature I am still as a matter of fact alive and here. I give no thanks to the “them” and none to the “that” which, however necessary they were to my being, are not me.
I am not that which made me.
01 April 2008
“God Created A Universe Of Mystery.”
“God did not create a universe of limitations.” The very problem asserted by Cantor of infinite numbers was the false infinity of mere extension. Cantor insisted that the real world requires particular principles of infinity creation not endless mindless infinity creation. Cantor insisted that the creation of principles of infinity is the infinity encompassing all infinities, not the endless “infinity if infinities”. God is not infinite nor an infinity. God is the creator of infinities. Infinities in motion or the principle of infinities in action: Action, Motion, Creation, Creativity, Infinity.
“God created a creative universe.” We are a part of the universe. We are a thinking part of the universe. We are a part of the universe that thinks. The universe has a mind of its own including yours at the very least. We are the mind of the universe and we are the universe looking at itself and changing itself. The universe is a creating universe not a collection of “things”. We are things that create things and not a mere collection of biologic parts.
“We will always create the new and re-create the old as we find ourselves able and willing. Forever. That is the reality for humanity.”
We will never know even collectively everything because the universe is forever not “finished”. We shall never be finished with creating and re-creating our world. We shall always and forever be confronted with the new and the unknown. There will always and forever be the permuted new and the unknown. This is our World without End. Amen. Amen.
“God created a universe of mystery.” The universe is neither finite nor infinite. It is a false issue.
“God created a creative universe.” We are a part of the universe. We are a thinking part of the universe. We are a part of the universe that thinks. The universe has a mind of its own including yours at the very least. We are the mind of the universe and we are the universe looking at itself and changing itself. The universe is a creating universe not a collection of “things”. We are things that create things and not a mere collection of biologic parts.
“We will always create the new and re-create the old as we find ourselves able and willing. Forever. That is the reality for humanity.”
We will never know even collectively everything because the universe is forever not “finished”. We shall never be finished with creating and re-creating our world. We shall always and forever be confronted with the new and the unknown. There will always and forever be the permuted new and the unknown. This is our World without End. Amen. Amen.
“God created a universe of mystery.” The universe is neither finite nor infinite. It is a false issue.
“False Infinity”
Someone asked a judicious time later why I figured that the universe was finite. Where had I heard or read that? I replied that they told me it was. I simply did not know. They were ready to impale me with ridicule and humble me with humiliations if I stayed silent. So I thought about it a little for myself.
“I know nothing!” I repeated --- once too often. The HA-HA-HA had died out of that coming from me.
The explanation I was given that I remember best was that in an infinite universe there would presumably be an infinite number of shining stars in our sky such that we would be inundated with light. Since this was not so there could not be an infinite number of shining stars and there could not be an infinite universe. There would be an infinite number of stars the light of which would always be infinitely far away forever by their logic. Further, there is only so much light that could “fit” in a local or finite space. If the speed of light is finite then there may be other finites within the infinite.
This was an example of “linear infinity” and “false infinity”. If only a finite amount of light reaches us we have to find out why.
Can it be argued that the universe is infinite or not if it is not known that it cannot be infinite or not? Simply put, can it be known that the universe is infinite if we cannot ever complete a measure of it? Might there be a limit to knowability? Maybe we cannot come to know the answer. My “friends” were incredulous: how could I stop there and leave them ignorant. “Knowledge does not come on a silver platter” I answered. “Personality is a potential. Intelligence is a potential. Beauty is a potential. YOU must WORK at it to make it work.” So I replied. The fisticuffs of humiliation still awaited my answer. There was a beautiful face in the bunch that made me begin to cry.
There is the greater infinite amount of dust in the way of the infinite amount of light. Maybe there is an infinite number of “things” that can happen to “free” light freely gallivanting about the infinite universe such as an infinite amount of new things such an amount of light could do before it could get “too far”. Rather than travel about indefinitely all night the light might eventually “do” something. That would make “sense” in a universe of constant activity.
“I know nothing!” I repeated --- once too often. The HA-HA-HA had died out of that coming from me.
The explanation I was given that I remember best was that in an infinite universe there would presumably be an infinite number of shining stars in our sky such that we would be inundated with light. Since this was not so there could not be an infinite number of shining stars and there could not be an infinite universe. There would be an infinite number of stars the light of which would always be infinitely far away forever by their logic. Further, there is only so much light that could “fit” in a local or finite space. If the speed of light is finite then there may be other finites within the infinite.
This was an example of “linear infinity” and “false infinity”. If only a finite amount of light reaches us we have to find out why.
Can it be argued that the universe is infinite or not if it is not known that it cannot be infinite or not? Simply put, can it be known that the universe is infinite if we cannot ever complete a measure of it? Might there be a limit to knowability? Maybe we cannot come to know the answer. My “friends” were incredulous: how could I stop there and leave them ignorant. “Knowledge does not come on a silver platter” I answered. “Personality is a potential. Intelligence is a potential. Beauty is a potential. YOU must WORK at it to make it work.” So I replied. The fisticuffs of humiliation still awaited my answer. There was a beautiful face in the bunch that made me begin to cry.
There is the greater infinite amount of dust in the way of the infinite amount of light. Maybe there is an infinite number of “things” that can happen to “free” light freely gallivanting about the infinite universe such as an infinite amount of new things such an amount of light could do before it could get “too far”. Rather than travel about indefinitely all night the light might eventually “do” something. That would make “sense” in a universe of constant activity.
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