Edwin-S

Odin's watchmaker? I'm sure the answer lies with the question, "what do you get when you multiply six by nine".I think your paradox also has some strange affinity with the number 42. I will have to consult with Deep Thought who, through some strange paradox, is residing in my basement recreation room.

If you ever figure out the answer please meet me at the Restaurant At The End of The Universe and explain it. I am making my reservation now and depositing my penny so I can pay for the meal. I hear the floor show is spectacular but strangely disturbing.

Kenneth

Actually I found it interesting also, however, since Brian was having some fun with my post I felt the measured response was to return the favor humorously perhaps I need to use bigger smilies so people don't misconstrue my symbolism

Brian's post was very interesting on changing the past and I understood that argument. However, I dislike the idea of unchanging future. The Calvinist approach to the philosophy of Predestination is a silly idea, in my opionion. I am no less enamored to the concept when it is offered by scientists and science. I subscribe to the theory that the future is a series of constantly changing threads (based on the choices we make).

I understand the trick that for us to travel into our past that means that the future we are traveling from is also fixed (or we couldn't have traveled into the past). However that means that for any given trip we are staying on a given thread and only viewing the events that proceeded us on our thread. In my theory that also means that a trip from the future to the past could end up in any number of pasts (since we in the future are constantly changing threads). Also, trips to the future from the past would be impossible because the threads are constantly changing and it would be impossible to lock onto one thread.

I know this is more complex, but the only other alternative I would willingly accept is that time travel is not possible. You will drag me kicking and screaming to the Arkham Insane Asylum before you get me to buy into every event, every choice, everything being predefined from birth of the universe to its end. I just do not support scientific predestination anymore than the philosophical version.

Cheers,

Kenneth

Brad Porter

Since you've reduced it to our choices, the freedom of those choices is now placed in question. Have you ever acted against your "nature"? Wouldn't it be necessarily true that the actions which you perceived to be against your nature were actually a part of your nature since they were actions that you chose to perform? Our nature is so complex that it is effectively unpredictable, but that is not the same as it being free or random. It sure feels free...


The last time I checked it was 54. Or am I missing part of the reference?

Brad

A Møøse once bit my sister ... No realli! She was Karving her initials on the møøse with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given her by Svenge - her brother-in-law - an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian møvies: "The Høt Hands of an Oslo Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge Mølars of Horst Nordfink".

We apologise for the fault in the signature. Those responsible have been sacked.

Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti...

Kenneth

I think of it more in the line of if I come to the fork in the road. If I go left a safe falls on my head and I die. If I go right I am the millionth person to go right and I win $1000. Those are two pretty dramatically different futures (for me, if not for the world). I don't buy into the theory that I will go left and die because that is the way it is supposed to happen. But maybe I am just resisting the nature of the universe.


It is an inside joke. Several of us have made references to the book series by Doug Adams, beginning with the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. An important plot point in the book revolves around the ultimate question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. A race of Aliens builds a computer called Deep Thought and asks it the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. The computer, after many years of analysis replies:

42

Upon receiving that answer it occurs to them that perhaps they need to know the question. The computer indicates it is not possible for it to compute the question but gives them the plans to a computer that can answer the question. Although it is already too late to make a long story short they ultimately discover the question is:



I left the key point in a spoiler in case some people are hung up on a major plot point being revealed. Hope that helps a little.

Kenneth

Brad Porter

I grasped that part of the reference fully. The problem is that I'm only familiar with the first book (and the subsequent BBC series), so I was unaware that the replacement Earth had ever been able to produce "the question". It's my own fault. I've got the books sitting right here waiting to be read... what book was the question produced in?

Brad

A Møøse once bit my sister ... No realli! She was Karving her initials on the møøse with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given her by Svenge - her brother-in-law - an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian møvies: "The Høt Hands of an Oslo Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge Mølars of Horst Nordfink".

We apologise for the fault in the signature. Those responsible have been sacked.

Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti...

Kenneth

The end of the second book, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe has the question. It is also at the end of the BBC television miniseries which included the first two books.

Kenneth

imported_BrianW

I'm sorry, I made a chart and I realize now that I got that backwards. (Yes, I'm pathetically quoting myself again.) Since the wormhole opening that zoomed around on the ship is a week younger, it has effectively moved a week into our future, not a week into our past.

I apologize for the error and any inconvenience it may have caused.

Brad Porter

I've just got ten ships to recall... no biggie.

Brad

A Møøse once bit my sister ... No realli! She was Karving her initials on the møøse with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given her by Svenge - her brother-in-law - an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian møvies: "The Høt Hands of an Oslo Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge Mølars of Horst Nordfink".

We apologise for the fault in the signature. Those responsible have been sacked.

Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti...

Kevin M

No, what is at issue is that many of you like to use vaunted scientists opinions & theories in boosting your argument yet when I ask you to show me even one quote from any top leader/expert in his/her field (my reasons for this were made clear in the last post) backing up your statement that they felt that we as a race are scientifically/technologically "mature" you couldn't do it, of course you couldn't do it because I seriously doubt any rational scientist would ever make such a claim. If an extremely intelligent & educated expert "who spends his entire life in the study of this field" wouldn't say that then why should I believe you?

Additionally when I asked you to clarify your assertion that we are "mature" by giving me an estimation of how far along in your opinion we in fact are you said:
: but you see that is my point Brad, you accuse any viewpoint regarding our progress as "just starting" as being an underestimation of that progress, as it is impossible to judge exactly where we are in our progress, then you yourself make the claim that we are "mature" yet can't offer any proof to this assertion any more than I can for mine.

End result, neither of us is absolutely right or wrong but then again I didn't actually say that we have not progressed at all or "tiny, infantile, miniscule, insignificant, etc." as you seem to be accusing me of, what I did say several pages ago after admitting that crib was a bit much was:
:now just as you would go back and use a different phrase other than "mature" I think I would change "laws of the universe" as it definitely suggests that I think we are going to find those 15 new elements, breed Babel Fish, attain "ludicrous speed", or perfect the oscillation overthruster John Ya Ya....probably not, however I can't totally throw out the possibility with a set-in-stone statement pro or con.
I do however think we have a lot more ground ahead of us than behind based on the steady advances we have made so far in a relatively short period of time.....is it the wording you don't like? Do you still think I am being disrespectful of our achievements so far?

How about this, "I think we have learned a lot but I think we can do even better".

-Kevin M.


Well....the table doesn't wobble anymore.

My Little Unashamed Collection

imported_BrianW

You want quotes? Here are some quotes:

“If one believes in science, one must accept the possibility – even the probability – that the great era of scientific discovery is over. Further research may yield no more great revelations or revolutions, but only incremental, diminishing returns.” -- John Hogan, The End of Science

“The 'Great Ideas' of science, for the most part, have probably been found. . . . Reductionism has been spectacularly successful in the twentieth century, unlocking the secrets of the atom, the DNA molecule, and the logic