Do you care what happens next?

To my mind you are both right.Different strokes for different folks.For some, knowing the fate of this universe would matter, to a greater or lesser degree, as an intellectual curiosity. Fulfilling, satisfying, that adds perceived value to the quality of their lives. To others, such would matter no more than wondering if there is a specific lizard living under a specific rock in the middle of the Sonoran Desert. An answer adds no value, perceived or otherwise, to their lives.Tangle wins out in the end, though. 150 million years from now knowing the answer to the universe question or to the lizard question probably won't matter at all to any of the three of us.

Hi Tangle,I was once dated a very beautiful and intelligent, audiology grad student vegan.
She had a very light complexion with tiny brown freckles on her nose and cheeks, raven black hair cropped in a page boy. Her eyes were green as emeralds and just as cold. And the body? What a body! She was the kind of girl you'd have on your arm and say to yourself: wow look at me with this beauty.She looked at me as if I was some hedonistic, ignoramus because I ate meat. She asked me why I ate meat and I said because I liked it, that I enjoyed a good steak, thus confirming her thoughts about me. But I digress; I asked her if my eating steak was in any way different than her wearing leather shoes. Me attempting to point out her hypocrisy. All the conversation got me was her not finding me worth talking to anymore and me spending that Christmas wishing I would of shut the fuck up. Did I mention she was beautiful? So whats the point in this? Our quality of life is, I would hope, a few rungs above a cows. And if one eats the cow or wears the cow it really doesn't matter to the cow. But damn does it matter.

Hi AZPaul3, Yes, absolutely. I do. It is when someone is spouting off nihilist clap trap that "nothing matters, and we are no more important than a amoeba. Usually for the sole purpose of being provocative. You probably run in greater intellectual circles than I. Absolutely, I do. Again I agree.
In my opinion after years of EVC discussion on the "supernatural" I have always held that if it happens in the universe then how can it not be natural? Some folks believe that the only worlds that contain God/gods are those that contain creatures that are there to invoke them.Edited by 1.61803, : added word:"to"

How it feels inside for me is that people are important and matter much more than amoebas, it even feels like there is someone out there who cares and who is in control of everything, but when I ask myself what is the objective evidence that my feelings are true I have no answer. It isn't a problem for me that I cannot reconcile the contradiction.We do know that people don't matter to things like the cosmic dust of interstellar space. People don't even matter to most life from amoebas to hamsters. People only begin to matter to more intelligent life (e.g., dogs tend to care when they lose their owners), and of course people matter to other people. But what evidence is there that anything else cares about us?Do I care what happens next? Immensely.But in the last year or so my eagerness and anticipation of the future has been affected by recent world events, adding fears that weren't there before. Though there were hints, the years leading up to World War II provided no indications of the depth and magnitude of the upcoming tragedy. Our present contains even stronger hints of upcoming troubles, and there seem few indications of the world shifting to a more positive course. One very troubling parallel is that as Jews tried to flee the growing Nazi threat doors slammed around the world, the same as today for Middle Eastern refugees.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo: dust => space.

AmenAnd that we build a fence on the southern border but not the northern.

How can you be provoked by this when they are, in fact, correct? And so are you.Perspective. Frame of reference.From the perspective of any other galaxy in the universe we are so unimportant and matter so little as to be non-existent. As far as star stuff and chemistry and evolution and life we really are neither more nor less "important" than an amoeba.To your wife, your two girlfriends and your dog, however, you are a very important and special creature that matters a great deal in their lives. Depending upon how you care to define special we humans are indeed quite special for our intellect, creativity and curiosity over any other life form on this planet.Yet, by some other definitions of special we don't even make the list.To me, the ultimate test is in the far future. 150 million years from now, other than a few curious trinkets lying in the ground, our individual lives along with the extinction of our species, will matter next to nothing.So, yeah, except as made by us individually where it can matter very dearly, none of this really matters at all. This is why philosophy sucks. I can have my cake and eat it too and while it may seem important at the time it really isn't for shit. Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Golden writes: I admit to being amused by 1.6180339's sig line in context with that: Cheerio, then!! On beyond Zebra!Dig it.

When I brought up the subject of human specialness I had something objective in mind, something completely independent of whether there is anyone including our dog and cat who cares about us personally, and it seems important to distinguish the two ways we are important. Yes, our objective capacities, intellect etc, OK but even those sometimes get reduced to physicalities by the science-minded. But what kind of "perspective" is that since there is no consciousness in any of that? This is the very mentality I was objecting to. We can't be meaningfully compared to the mindless cold vastness of the universe at all and the compulsion to make that comparison is nonsensical. Of course it's all justified by the theory of evolution in the end I guess. If you believe that as the explanation of it all you make a logical leap that deprives humanity of specialness that has nothing to do with our actual qualities. Even believing in evolution, though, it seems to me that all you have to do is look at those human qualities by comparison with all the rest of it to assess our specialness. You don't have to let evolution dictate anything about our value.But to keep the thread's topic in mind, I absolutely cannot care about the fate of the physical universe apart from Us, or apart from any living thing for that matter, but especially Us. You don't have to believe in God to see that we have a nature that puts us as far above the amoeba as the amoeba is above an atom, actually we're that far above the ape too, all that similarity of DNA notwithstanding, since the physical body is not the point. Believing in God makes it possible to explain it though, which the physical sciences can never do. That nonsensical list again. You are subordinating us to mere physical hugeness with your comparison to other galaxies. Yeah, this is the scientistic reductionist thinking I was talking about.For some reason Dylan Thomas' lines keep coming to mind: "Do not go gentle into that good night; rage rage against the dying of the light." Anyone who can think like that is far more important than any hundreds of millions of years, or a billion galaxies and the whole lineage of evolution that supposedly preceded us.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Obviously. Because leather is a by-product of killing cows for meat. No-one kills cows for the leather, and eats beef as a by-product. She was right, and you should have considered becoming a vegan if only for her emerald-green eyes, rather than breaking up with her 'cos of her imaginary hypocrisy. I'm sorry to say this, but you should have shut the fuck up.

The Docter posits: Maybe so - but the Buffalo? Remember that scene in Dances With Wolves?

Is there some type of problem understanding the physical dimensions of intellect? Does that understanding somehow reduce its usefulness and function?Knowing that your potato naturally contains 4-O-caffeoylquinic acid (crypto-chlorogenic acid), 5-O-caffeoylquinic (neo-chlorogenic acid), 3,4-dicaffeoylquinic and 3,5-dicaffeoylquinic acids, does this somehow detract from your enjoyment of its taste when baked with a little olive oil and salt? No other consciousness in the universe? Pshaw! The numbers are too big and the chemistry too active for there not to be. But that's off-topic.What is on-topic is that fact that we are as unimportant to them as they presently are to us. As far as "mattering" to our lives they are as non-existent to us as we are to them.Plus the fact that we and the amoeba and the rock on the side of the road are all products of this vast mindless cold universe and that makes the comparisons compelling not nonsensical. And that compelling comparison is that we are all come to be from the same materials from the same sources by the same physics.The only importance to be given among the three is the subjective value we ourselves assign. Your fairy tale is just an excuse to assign subjective values making you feel superior to all the rest of the stuff around you in this vast cold mindless universe that really doesn't give a damn what we think. That is just fine. That answers Omnivorous' question. And yours is as valid an answer as any.I, as I stated, don't so much care to any great extent other than having the intellectual satisfaction of knowing. That would be good.

Yes but it seemed rude to interupt. Having the winning arguments doesn't necessarily get you laid? What if the cow gets laid regularly? Does it? Did you care before you were born and do people care after they die? Whilst we're alive it's important how we live, but in the great scheme of things, it's utterly irrelevant. It's best in life to have no sense of perspective, therein lies happiness. Just like a cow.Consciousness has big downsides.

dupEdited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It trivializes it, and it can indeed work to undermine its functions by depriving it of a proper respect. That's what I've been objecting to -- and really I think it has this effect on everybody even if you don't recognize it -- physicalizing the things of the mind or consciousness etc. does devalue it. Omni's cute little phrase "scantily furred mammal" is the same sort of reductionism. Even its cuteness implies the reductionism in it. No, because a potato is a physical thing. Looks to me like we're not going to find any other life in the universe, but that aside, I'm talking about intrinsic value as I said, and who or what we "matter" to -- doesn't matter, has no place in the objective evaluation I'm talking about. I guess you don't think much of my argument that the value can be assessed by considering its qualities, and that the objective evaluation I'm talking about is completely independent of the physical nature of the physical parts of us which we share with others. We are more than our physicality, a LOT more. The human being is OBVIOUSLY as superior to the ape as the ape is to the amoeba if you just compare all the qualities that are pertinent. If our subjective evaluation is based on physical reductionism we don't get anywhere near a fair assessment. Objectively, however, leads to what I say above, as superior to the ape as the ape is to the amoeba.Physical reductionism trivializes life, and it trivializes it in the mind that indulges the idea. As I said, believing in God, by which I mean of course the Christian or Biblical God, makes it possible to explain it all -- objectively and with a proper valuation. The values we derive from it aren't subjective because they were written down 2000 to 3500 years ago -- and again, it matters not a bit that the universe cares not - we're a billion times more important than the physical universe. I should have said I don't think anybody else does either, not REALLY. You reduce the value of humanity with your physicalizing and that means you have to devalue humanity in your own mind too. However, if you value anything at all it has to be humanity or living things, we just aren't made to care about a vast cold universe. Impressed, dazzled, awed perhaps, but care about it, love it? Don't think so. Everybody is just pretending to care, it's not in your nature to care. And you go on to say that: I do think you will know some day.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

There are some things we can know with a very high degree of confidence; for example we can say that the descriptions of how this universe will end found in the bible are every bit as silly, absurd and incorrect as the descriptions found in the bible of how this universe began.Honestly, there really is no other tool than science if we want to get any idea of how this universe began or how this universe will end.