Mysterium Tremendum

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by superluminal, Dec 9, 2007.

  1. superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    Despite everything we really do know about the universe, there are still great mysteries remaining. Every once in a while I'm overcome with the sense of this.

    Why is there something instead of nothing? What is the real fate of the cosmos? Is it cyclic? Is it a one-shot deal? Are we in some way part of a much larger multidimensional multi-verse? What exactly is quantum entanglement? Are we the first to ponder this in all the cosmos? Or just another in an infinite series of incarnations of intelligence?

    What other things just blow your mind?
     
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  3. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    it's obvious that we have an endearing quality for the pursuit of knowledge
    it's also obvious that the relationship we have with this universe makes such a pursuit futile

    what blows my mind is thinking about why this is the case ....
    ("why do we have a quality that cannot find its proper expression?")
     
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  5. superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    That's true. The mysteries of the mind rival any cosmological mysteries.
     
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  7. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    There will never be a time that humans know it all if anything much.
     
  8. superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    Maybe. But sometime the thought of knowing too much scares me. What if we find something that we really, really don't like?
     
  9. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    You mean like ourselves?
     
  10. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    which begs the question, how do you know that?
    :scratchin:
     
  11. superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    He dosen't. That always seems to me to be a bit of false humility. Sure, we may never "know it all", but we just as well may. Will we be depressed? At peace? Overjoyed? Terrified?
     
  12. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    Would the final depot for the pursuit of knowledge be exclusively "knowledge of everything"?

    (.. sounds like another thing we don't know to me)
     
  13. superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    No, I don't think so. Knowing everything is a very mechanical process. I suspect that along with that must come an evolution or maturation of the human mind. Then we may be able to actually understand corectly what we know.
     
  14. kaneda Actual Cynic Registered Senior Member

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    All lifeforms have knowledge built into them that allows themn to survive, even with little or any intellect, the ant being a goode example. Our thought processes are just tapping into that basic data. It is also down to options. For things low on the evolutionary scale when they meet something other than their own kind, it is fight or run. Some way further up, there are more options and at our level, even more options. Our thought processes are using those options based on past stored experiences of similar situations.
     
  15. saudade Unfiltered perspective... Registered Senior Member

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    What blow's my mind is life... The chances that a bunch of left-handed amino acids could get together in the right order and gather materials, etc. to create a living cell are astronomical! It's either the most magnificent accident of all time, or god...
     
  16. Vega Banned Banned

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    To know everything is to be one with the cosmos....some drugs usually help!
     
  17. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    To know yourself is a much better goal for at least you can come up with

    the right answers sometimes.
     
  18. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Because the more we learn, the more we find that there's even more to

    learn than we first thought.
     
  19. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    thats still doesn't mean that the end of knowledge lies in knowing everything
    it may also lie in knowing the source of everything ....

    (IOW you presuppose that what humans know with is the greatest thing in the universe)
     
    Last edited: Dec 11, 2007

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