MacTheWolf (imported) wrote: Fri May 17, 2013 8:55 pm
There was that old, old story of scientists who built a huge supercomputer and asked it, "is there a God." The computer worked for weeks but was unable to answer.
Next they built a computer one hundred feet in height, width and breadth and asked the same question. This time it only took a few hours to get their answer. The computer said, "I don't have enough data yet"
Finally, they created a computer the size of an asteroid, and placed it on the moon. They asked again, "Is there a God" ?
The computer answered within seconds....."There is now"
There have been quite few variations on that story, the most elaborate one I ever heard happens to be my favorite, and it goes something like this...
Bur first---a framing perspective---that helps me to make useful sense of that version. In 1971, surely everyone vividly remembers living through 1971; 1971 was the year my dad had his colon surgery a tad too late to prevent his dying of cancer about year later; 1971 was the year that set me off on my path of resolve of cancer prevention and my orchiectomy. Something else happened in 1971. A musical group named Led Zeppelin put forth a song named, "Stairway to Heaven." Much as I thought that the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" might be about some "psychedelic drug," so I thought that the Stairway to Heaven might also be about some psychedelic drug. A particular few words in Stairway to Heaven have made it impossible for me to shake off that psychedelic drug notion. Those words, here given in the fair use sense, are, "...cause you know sometimes words have two meanings." Sew what??? There is that problematic word, "God,"and I have long held that the word "God" may not only have two meanings, it may have several meanings for eery person for whom the word, "God" is in the person's vocabulary. For me, for purposes of moral and ethical disclosure, many of the meanings of that word which other people seem to me to have never make any viable sense to me. Sorry about that. However, there is one meaning that has always made useful sense to me as far back as I can remember. That meaning of "God" is, "The word, 'God' may be a proper name for a particular individual person's notion of the possibility of the phenomenon of life having some meaningful value not yet very well understood by the person." That meaning allows me to provide my favorite version of the story:
Life is comprised of organisms and their substrates, such that no organism can exist without its absolutely necessary substrate. Therefore, as the whole of the universe of existence is necessarily such that, for any specific organism, the whole of the rest of the universal universe of all universes of existence is the substrate of said, unnamed specific organism, the universal universe of all universes of existence is the substrate of said unnamed specific organism; therefore, the totality of life is all that exists, and nothing other than life, as organisms and their substrates exists. Therefore, it is useless to look elsewhere than planet Earth for life, because there is only life, and nothing but life, no matter where some organism looks for life.
Along the pathway of the creative evolution and the evolving creativity of life, all the organisms in the universe learned to communicate with one another, and, in so communicating, decided to connect together all of the computers in the entire universal universe of all universes of existence. At the center of the universal universe of all universes of existence, the connection was made, with a very large switch having a huge lever for turning the switch on or off.
A vote had been held to determine who, among all the organisms in existence, was the most competent of all regarding computers, and that person was asked to throw the switch, and did so. Nothing whatsoever appeared to happen.
The voted most competent of all organisms regarding computers pondered for a few moments, and then went over to the command console for the whole system of computers, and, on an unfathomable whim, keystroked in the question, "Is there any meaningful value for life not yet well understood?"
Angst and terror very nearly overwhelmed that voted the most competent of all organisms regarding computers, and that organism reached for the switch lever, intending to throw the switch back to the off position. Before the switch could be thrown to the off position, an immense bolt of lightning struck the switch, welding it permanently and forever after in the on position. On the computer console was the message, "Now there is."
MacTheWolf, perhaps there is a good reason why people I have encountered seem to prefer something like your version to anything resembling my favorite version.
What would happen to human war-mongering and human destructive violence if humans actually understood that life could be truly meaningful?
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