That’s the charmingly grandiose title of a talk I gave at The Amazing Meeting this past July, now available online. I hope that the basic message comes through, although the YouTube comments indicate that the nitpicking has already begun in earnest. There’s a rather lot of material to squeeze into half an hour, so some parts are going to be sketchy.
There are actually three points I try to hit here. The first is that the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood. There is an enormous amount that we don’t know about how the world works, but we actually do know the basic rules underlying atoms and their interactions — enough to rule out telekinesis, life after death, and so on. The second point is that those laws are dysteleological — they describe a universe without intrinsic meaning or purpose, just one that moves from moment to moment.
The third point — the important one, and the most subtle — is that the absence of meaning “out there in the universe” does not mean that people can’t live meaningful lives. Far from it. It simply means that whatever meaning our lives might have must be created by us, not given to us by the natural or supernatural world. There is one world that exists, but many ways to talk about; many stories we can imagine telling about that world and our place within it, without succumbing to the temptation to ignore the laws of nature. That’s the hard part of living life in a natural world, and we need to summon the courage to face up to the challenge.
Or at least, so you will hear me opine if you click on the link. Curious as to what people think.
Brett (#74) – I think Don in #75 elicits the key point – agency. Life acts, rocks are acted upon. We can choose how to perform work on the environment for own benefit. The universe as a whole may not be teleological, but life is. I agree that life must operate within the bounds of the laws of physics, but it can use those laws to its own benefit Thus instead of going to equilibrium each day – dying – life act to replace lost energy, repair damaged tissue, etc. – it maintains its entropy state rather going to equilibrium – that’s the Maxwell’s Demon in the works.
that’s a good point. rocks are not capable of computing/analyzing anything.
I will say this, that Love, and sometimes I wish there was a different word for it, because it sounds like weakness, but believe me, it isn’t, is entirely outside of particle Physics. It is a force of an entirely different dimension, yet can influence, act upon and control particle physics to its own designs. When I experienced it, it was as an absolute power, unlike anything else I have ever felt. It wasn’t like the love that many might feel when they become so called, in love, okay maybe a tiny, tiny bit, no this was far, far different yet there is no other word that could possibly used. Let’s call it the full, the absolute totallity of power that could annihilate this world in a single instant. This is also the power that created this entire universe. Now I have made a fool of myself, but I just had to say what I had been shown. Yet this Love is in us and can be used by us for all that is good, in other words God will let us use Him for the good of the world.
The reason why the culture wars exist is because you people keep talking past each other. The real issue is that such conversations properly belong to the realm of philosophy and religion. Taking QFT and using it in the wrong context will give you wrong results. And yet, if you look at the overall philosophy of Sean’s talk, it is nothing new. I’m sure atheist philosophers like Camus, Satre, Nietzsche, etc have made their points more convincingly, yet they have been answered by Christian philosophers. Let the philosophers hash it out. Why sully the name of science by misusing it? There’s nothing in science that says that a God who exists can’t perform miracles. And comparing such a God to a moon made of cheese isn’t going to get you too far in places where you aren’t preaching to brainwashed. The reason people believe in God is because He answers their deepest questions of existence.
For some reason, people like Sean Carroll and Richard Dawkins are so entrenched in their worldview or philosophy that they have a serious prejudice against admitting these existential longings as real and significant.
Finally, if there is no absolute moral law, then on what basis does Sean say that allowing gay marriage is something we OUGHT to do? I suppose we have to each fly by the seat of our pants? Then what about human cloning? Genetic engineering? Oh I get it. I have to wait the next thousand years to see if science can answer such questions. How ridiculous. Skepticism seems to be a placeholder for “so much inanity that we need to find a new word for it”.
Joebevo (#79) Even though I’m a science-guy and an atheist, I actually agree with much of what you are saying. I do not think science should put itself in a position of opposing religion. Science should do what science does best – figure out how the Natural World works. In my view, science has nothing to say about the supernatural because, by definition, it is not testable. By the same token, science has no use for the supernatural as it cannot explain anything.
For its part, religion should refrain from trying to do science’s job by inventing mythical explanations of the origin and workings of the Natural World. When it does so, religion puts itself on a collision course with science. History has shown that the results usually do not favor religion.
I believe Stephen Hawking is correct in assuming that the universe does not need God. What he means by that is this: what kind of engineer builds a machine that requires constant maintenance of every single operation down to its quantum properties? A stupid one who didn’t think out the design. If there is a god who created the universe, I don’t think micromanaging the lives of 1 species on a single planet among trillions in a galaxy, in 1 galaxy among trillions in the universe…would be part of his design. I don’t think we are that special because I don’t think life in this universe is as rare as we believe it is based solely on the statistical odds relative to the # of planets and galaxies there are. I also don’t know why god would clearly understand the finest details of our society yet choose to work in the shadows. What kind of sociopath plays a game like that, testing people without giving them solid evidence and if they fail they spend eternity in hell?
The reason why *popular* science is entering the realm of philosophy is based on several things.
1. We are being dragged into it by religious extremists who hate it when we say simple facts like, “the world is much older than 9000 years”.
2. Science has advanced to the level where new experiments to verify extreme theories require the assistance of a very large number of people, nations, $$, and resources (CERN, the ISS, the NIF, etc.) So we need people to work together, and accepting “god did it” is a cop out. Maybe god did do it, but there’s no reason why we can’t try and understand it better; or else why live life at all? Why try at all?
3. In many instances in life, it’s better to admit that there is no answer than to believe in something that isn’t true. The reason for that is because it’s very easy to do horrible things when you’re brainwashed by anyone or anything (religion being just one of many; herbal medicine to treat cancer, faulty science, racism, sexism, -isms, etc.)
I think Sean’s reason for saying we should allow gay marriage is that there’s no reason why we shouldn’t other than people distorting their religious beliefs to fit their homophobia. If anyone can offer a reason why we shouldn’t allow gay marriage other than the one Sean clearly covered in his lecture and the religious argument, I’ll change my tune and give you credit.
@81. Meh:
“I believe Stephen Hawking is correct in assuming that the universe does not need God. What he means by that is this: what kind of engineer builds a machine that requires constant maintenance of every single operation down to its quantum properties? A stupid one who didn’t think out the design.”
What kind of engineer gets married and has children? Also a stupid one — both spouse and children require constant maintenance, micromanaging of their operation, constant inflow of resources/money without any return of investment, etc. And most often you get stuck with them for the rest of your natural life…
Of course, Stephen Hawking didn’t comment on the quality of engineering and design solutions for this “family-machine”. He commented only on the “Universe-machine”.
Meh:
“If there is a god who created the universe, I don’t think micromanaging the lives of 1 species on a single planet among trillions in a galaxy, in 1 galaxy among trillions in the universe…would be part of his design. I don’t think we are that special because I don’t think life in this universe is as rare as we believe it is based solely on the statistical odds relative to the # of planets and galaxies there are.”
Certainly, why would you as a father ever try to micromanage the math homework of your own 10-year-old son? Why would your own son be so special, given billions of other 10-year-old children out there who already grok fractions and precentages? A good engineer would find the design of such family completely stupid, right?
Besides, who told you that god is interested only in this particular planet?
Meh:
“I also don’t know why god would clearly understand the finest details of our society yet choose to work in the shadows. What kind of sociopath plays a game like that, testing people without giving them solid evidence and if they fail they spend eternity in hell?”
What kind of sociopath told you that religion should be interpreted as constant fear of punishment in hell?
Let me see… Christ… ummm, no. Buddha… also no. Krishna… I don’t think so. Allah… hardly. Well, I’m almost out of religions here. But wait, let’s try to think out of the box — you have read this in some ancient scripture-style book? Maybe, but most ancient books have some forgotten implicit contexts, since they are so ancient. Or, how about a priest? Oh, now we are getting somewhere! Right, a *priest* told you that! So sure, you’re completely right — some priest scared you with horror stories when you were young, therefore God must be a sociopath. Ten points for logic! 🙂
Meh:
“3. In many instances in life, it’s better to admit that there is no answer than to believe in something that isn’t true. The reason for that is because it’s very easy to do horrible things when you’re brainwashed by anyone or anything (religion being just one of many; herbal medicine to treat cancer, faulty science, racism, sexism, -isms, etc.)”
…atheism, naturalism, materialism, communism&capitalism… All those can get you brainwashed as well, if you are not careful. Especially brainwashed about the topics of what is true and what isn’t, what has value and what doesn’t, etc.
Meh:
“I think Sean’s reason for saying we should allow gay marriage is that there’s no reason why we shouldn’t other than people distorting their religious beliefs to fit their homophobia. If anyone can offer a reason why we shouldn’t allow gay marriage other than the one Sean clearly covered in his lecture and the religious argument, I’ll change my tune and give you credit.”
Ok, this requires a more serious answer. The problem with gay marriage is not in the “gay” part (i.e. homophobia) but in the “marriage” part. If you ask different people about the purpose of marriage, you will get very different answers, depending on the part of the world where you are asking. For example, in some parts of the world the concept of “marriage” is understood as “give birth and raise children with a spouse”. In other parts of the world it is understood as a “legal contract between spouses about their property” (and related hereditary wealth issues). Gay marriage is obviously compatible with the latter, while incompatible with the former meaning of “marriage”. Unlike English, some languages have different words for those two meanings (and a plethora of other meanings one can come up with).
So, simply put — for some people, gay marriage is simply a very stupid and ugly perversion of the meaning of marriage, since one obviously cannot give birth to children with a same-sex spouse. At the same time, for those same people, creating a legal contract between same-sex spouses is completely ok. However, creating such a contract is typically called “spouse-registration in a municipality office” (or something like that), rather than “marriage”.
So when talking about gay marriage, care must be taken to have a common meaning of the term “marriage”, or otherwise more precise terminology should be used. This is always a source of great confusion.
HTH, 🙂
Marko
And you’re answer is the typical answer from a religious idiot, Marko; to intentionally distort the meaning of a logical argument and talk like an angry child who is hearing something they don’t want to hear. ALL of your lackluster and pathetic arguments are simplistic at best. Confusing someone by being irate and irrational does not mean you’ve proven your point; it just means that people are not likely to respond to someone they know is too stupid or too much of an asshole to have a civil or logical conversation.
meh: give a reason why we shouldn’t allow gay marriage.
Marko: because marriage means different things to different people.
What?! that’s not an answer of any sort. That’s the problem; you have no answer so you just bullshit your way through it like a complete moron.
My point about Hell is this: god doesn’t give you clear instructions on how to live your life, he leaves that information with humans, humans which he apparently knows are not to be trusted (really bright). Then you are expected to find your way onto the correct path with no guidance while he won’t instruct you, but is there watching you? And if you don’t choose the right path then you’re condemned to hell for it? If that’s who god actually is then he’s a sociopath and I wouldn’t be surprised if the heaven of Christianity is is more like hell and hell is more like heaven.
@83. Meh:
“And you’re answer is the typical answer from a religious idiot, Marko; to intentionally distort the meaning of a logical argument and talk like an angry child who is hearing something they don’t want to hear.”
I was just using irony to emphasize the quality of your “logical arguments” (which seem to be based solely on analogy with engineering, and authority-figure of Hawking). Sorry if I offended your logic.
“meh: give a reason why we shouldn’t allow gay marriage.
Marko: because marriage means different things to different people.”
Meh:
“What?! that’s not an answer of any sort. That’s the problem; you have no answer so you just bullshit your way through it like a complete moron.”
I wasn’t trying to give you a solution to the gay marriage problem, but to point out the core issue — marriage indeed does mean different things to different people, and considering gay marriage as a form of *marriage* is something some people will find incompatible with their understanding of the word “marriage”. And such people will consequently oppose the concept, or in more clever cases suggest more suitable terminology for it. And this has nothing to do with either religion or homophobia, but only with the semantics of the word “marriage”.
Finally, I am really sorry if you consider my point of view as “bullshitting my way through like a complete moron” and calling me “idiot”, “stupid” and “asshole”, while claiming that you want to have a civil and logical conversation, all at the same time. Namecalling doesn’t do any good, ever. It just makes you look bad yourself.
HTH,
Marko
@84. Meh:
Look, what you are describing has nothing to do with Christianity, let alone other religions. The fact that you have heard such interpreation from some people that claim to be members of some Christian church doesn’t have anything to do with the actual teaching of Christianity. In Christianity, god is an agent of forgiveness and absolution, not punishment.
You should also take into account the historical context and development of the various churches that call themselves “Christian”. The actual teaching of Christianity was canonized in the seven Ecumenical councils, during the first seven centuries AC. Then after that in 1054. there was a schism between the eastern churches (now called Orthodox) and the western church (now called Catolic). Due to the separation of churches (which had mainly political origins), some of the teaching also got twisted out. Many years after that, due to the criticisms of the Pope and new interpretation of Christianity initiated by Luther, Calvin and Zwingli, many new churches fractioned out of the Catolic church (and are now jointly called Protestant). There are also some churches that fractioned out of the Ortodox churches (for various reasons), but they are much smaller in number and in followers.
Each of these churches has a different (and in some cases very twisted) interpretation of Christianity, compared to the original one from Ecumenic councils. Depending on what teachings you have been exposed to, you could have indeed ended up with a sociopath picture of god that you have described. But that has nothing to do with most of the original Christianity.
My point is that you shouldn’t be bashing Christianity, let alone the general concepts of religion and god, based solely on someone’s stupid misinterpretation of what Christianity teaches.
@ Meh
Hey, don’t try too hard to convince the religious fanatics that science dominates over religion. It just gets you more angry. let them think that there is a heaven they can go to, and all of those false hopes will provide confidence for them while they are still alive. That’s fine.
I agree with everything you said, Meh. We don’t need to keep bashing the fanatics as it won’t help them from waking up. have a beer and enjoy what you do. take care.
I need to do the same.
@#82 vmarko
“…in some parts of the world the concept of “marriage” is understood as “give birth and raise children with a spouse”. …”
Ok. I understand your arguement. But that would say that it should be illegal for a woman who had a hysterectomy, a man who was infertile, elderly people, and people who have no intent to have children to get marrried. Are you serious?
@88. Darth Dog:
@#82 vmarko
“…in some parts of the world the concept of “marriage” is understood as “give birth and raise children with a spouse”. …”
Darth Dog:
“Ok. I understand your arguement. But that would say that it should be illegal for a woman who had a hysterectomy, a man who was infertile, elderly people, and people who have no intent to have children to get marrried. Are you serious?”
I wasn’t talking about the legal system or laws, but rather about what makes sense. And yes, in some cultures infertile and old people typically have no motivation to engage in marriage. Of course, that doesn’t mean that they do not live with a partner and have a family-like lifestyle. Sometimes infertile people do get married, since that can be a legal prerequisite for adopting a child. Mind you, nobody explicitly forbids these people to get married, but it just doesn’t make sense to do so in their situation.
But those are all exceptions and rare cases. The vast majority of people choose to marry, and do so because they want to have children. Marriage is considered a legal, social and personal commitment to raising a family. If there is no family to be raised, there is very little worthy of commiting to.
But as I said, that is a situation in some cultures. In other cultures, marriage is considered a legal contract related to ownership of material wealth, social status, various stuff related to legal privileges of a spouse, etc. So people may choose to marry in order to gain money, name, access to certain social circles, etc., none of which have anything to do with raising children. In this context, gay marriage makes perfect sense, same as the heterosexual marriage.
So the point is that the same word, marriage, is being used with entirely different meanings in different communities. Therefore it is quite natural that some communities find gay marriage perferctly legitimate, while others consider it utter nonsense, and a form of perverse mocking to the concept of family. YMMV.
HTH, 🙂
Marko
@Meh and David Lau,
Not saying you should get religion, because you’ve obviously already got one even if you don’t recognize it, but perhaps you should turn your skeptical eyes a tad inward and examine the foundations of your own beliefs. Modern day physics and cosmology have been straying further and further from scientific and logical rigour for quite some time as people like Sean Carroll (and yourselves apparently) stack assumption upon assumption starting with the logical fallacy that Math=Reality or MUH (Mathematic Universe Hypothesis) which is just a variation of Platonism which itself is a philosophy dependent on an otherworldly or divine realm of mathematical perfection. Aristotle dedicated quite a bit of thought to the Prime Mover behind his math because even he realized mere numbers and their manipulation is not enough to explain existence, movement, and reality.
Since Sean and yourselves seem to have trouble determining the difference between what you use to measure or model something with (mathematical approximations or abstractions), and the thing itself (physical reality), you really aren’t in any kind of enlightened position to call anyone a ‘religious fanatic’ or help them ‘waking up’. Once you lose the smugness and jettison the condescending remarks, you might actually start to engage those you are trying to communicate with instead of just being offensive.
@Meh in particular,
You have issues, ok. That does not excuse you being rude while hiding behind your false indifference (clearly evident by your screen name).
@Those actually interested in actual physics and science,
You should really consider reading ‘The Trouble with Physics’ by Lee Smolin. The book puts to rest any of Sean’s arrogant bombast about “… the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood. There is an enormous amount that we don’t know about how the world works, but we actually do know the basic rules underlying atoms and their interactions ..”. Nothing could be further from the truth than claiming to understand the laws of physics or the rules of atoms when you are relying on a heuristic model with twenty free constants that can not be explained how they are chosen in nature, while blathering on about MWI when you can’t explain how even this universe works, and bragging about how accurate QFT is when it can’t account for gravity. These are not a few loose ends to be tidied up, they are huge gaping ‘black holes’ in scientific understanding and a foundational crisis in the underpinnings of physics which Mr. Carroll likes to ignore while he spouts nihilism and takes cheap shots at other peoples ‘irrational’ beliefs. Pot, meet kettle.
Hmm, So you claim that the known laws of nature unequivocally indicate that there is nothing more than the known laws of nature?
Shorter Christian Takacs…
I reject your reality and substitute my own because a goat herder 2000 years ago told me to. Oh… and my feelings are hurt.
Christian Takacs, you are a hypocritical troll obsessed with bashing Sean Carroll. Please leave. You’re not a scientist; you’re just some douche bag who thinks he understands physics and math more than those who are actually professionals in those fields.
“There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.” Lord Kelvin in 1900.
Sean qualifies his statements but seems to tread on the same self confident ground as Lord Kelvin. Our ape brains seek absolute truths but we are rarely completely correct. Time will tell.
Sean,
As stated by others, your Claim#1 (that we know everything as of 2012) will likely be proved false in 2013. I’m not sure if you’re trying to be controversial on purpose, but this is over the top.
Claim#2 is a philosophical statement (i.e. that there is no meaning.) Try proving this statement mathematically. I guarantee you that, in trying to prove your statement, you will inevitably create a self-referential, self-replicating loop.
Claim#3 is simply a restatement of Existentialism.
Are you prepared to defend the logical consequences of your existentialist philosophy?
If there is no objective meaning in life and if we create our own meaning, then you have no means of making moral, political argument. You’re basically stating that there is no absolute criterion to judge whether an action is ethical. If meaning is not objective, then why do you seem to get so upset with people who hold different philosophies? The reason you get so upset with other people’s beliefs is that there actually is an underlying, unchanging, absolute ethical foundation within the universe.
I think that you want to have and eat your cake as well. I think that you want the freedom to be an existentialist/atheist, but you want the luxuries generated by a society that values hard work, i.e. a society who believes that hard work and growth (via improved science and technology) are the goals of life.
You claim that people can invent meaning, but where is your “Theory of Personal Meaning”? Can you describe the physics, chemistry or biological of your statement, “whatever meaning our lives might have must be created by us”? How exactly do we ‘create meaning’? While I understand that you don’t like how certain religions took and deformed Plato’s theory of an intangible, real world of abstract notions like ethics and mathematics, there is still a lot to learn from Plato. For example, Plato argues that the ability to communicate via language is only possible if we have a means of referring to unchangeable abstracts like ethics and mathematics. Do you have a means of either proving or refuting Plato’s claim? I think that we have a means of proving his claim, but I’ll grant that most proofs aren’t air-tight.
It seems that you are trying to bring together the disparate philosophies of materialism, existentialism, and utilitarianism. You seem to think that these disparate philosophies can be brought together in some pluralistic, scientific, modern, atheistic and utilitarian society. But that is just the philosophical air you are breathing right now. This will change because we are learning so much about how the universe is not determinism, not time-symmetrical, and not reducible to particle physics. Materialism, nihilism, utilitarianism, and existentialism are dying philosophies because they just don’t describe our time-asymmetric universe, in which the future can not be predicted from current conditions (even if you knew the position and momentum of every particle.) These philosophies are remnants of a Newtonian/Laplacian belief that all of the laws of nature were deterministic and time reversal symmetric, which therefore led philosophers like Diderot, Bentham and Nietzsche to suggest that we had to invent meaning, such as individual or societal happiness.
I suggest that you refrain from philosophical statements that can’t defended any longer because the effects of these existentialist and utilitarian philosophies are causing real-world negative effects on the economic and population growth rates in most ‘Western’ countries. Your attempts to justify “personal meaning without objective meaning” will do damage to the scientific communities ability to communicate with the people who fund science through their taxes. This will damage our ability to conduct science, and in the end, damage our ability to use science to help society grow. Ultimately, the growth of life in the universe should be the goal of our time and effort because it appears to be the only goal that consistently has been compatible with the known laws of physics, chemistry and biology even as our understanding of the laws has changed.
Your support of string theory, multi-verses, and supersymmetry without any evidence for these theories is bad enough, and has already done a lot of harm to the ability for physicists to get public funding of their research. But your vocal support of existentialism will likely do even more harm to the physics community. It’s one thing if you were just discussing experimental physics and the possible theories that fit the experimental data (such as in your Great Courses lectures), but for a few years now, you have been going well outside the realm of your expertise. Be careful you don’t do more harm than good.
p.s. for those of you who are reading this post and understand what I’m saying (even if you don’t agree), think about what it means that you are able to understand these words. How is language and communication possible without a reference to some absolute, unchanging notion such as ethics, mathematics, self-reference and symmetry?
If you think Sean’s 1st point “the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood” (emphasis on *everyday life*) means that we know everything, then you have no understanding of physics beyond high school…American high school. There are 3 basic branches of physics which can be broken into the Physics of celestial bodies in space (Relativity Theory), the Physics of our everyday lives (Newtonian Mechanics), and the physics of energy (Quantum Mechanics). That’s not what you would call them in official physics terms, but this wording helps someone who has a very basic knowledge of physics understand what Sean means.
Claim #2 means that the laws of physics can’t prove or disprove the meaning of life because they are not intended to do so. They are simply the most accurate description of what we can observe in nature, not why nature exists or what it means to exist; but that if a tree falls in the woods, it does indeed make a sound…it sounds like a tree falling in the woods whether or not someone is or is not around to hear it, and we can guarantee that 100% of the time.
His 3rd point is that you can believe whatever you want to believe, whatever religion or bias you prefer in life; but the laws of nature are true whether you are a judeo-christian (don’t think I spelled that correctly), Buddhist, or Atheist. No matter what your religious preference, the laws of nature are absolute. Whatever god you believe in, they use the laws of nature to do their work and obviously have a better understanding of those laws than we do.
This distortion of what a person says has got to stop in the world. Stop distorting a person’s words in order to find a reason to be outraged. Watch this and you’ll understand a little better: http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s14e02-the-tale-of-scrotie-mcboogerballs
@Doug Little,
I’m not sure what you are talking about in reference to a goat herder who told you something 2000 years ago…and I honestly don’t think you know either. Why would your feelings be hurt about something I wasn’t even talking about? I did talk about it being pretty foolish to criticize someone else’s beliefs for having supernatural aspects when your own beliefs contain supernatural aspects as well. Sean and people who believe as he does like him to poke fun at others for believing in heaven, while they themselves think it informed to believe in all manner of infinite alternate realities and think paradox is clever theory.
@Meh,
Hypocritical? In what way? Do you even know what the word means or did you just like the way it looked next to the word ‘troll’? Are you equally ‘obsessed’ with kissing up to Sean because… well who knows? As for actual professionals understanding math and physics better than me, depends on the professional. If you knew anything about the history of science, or math, or physics, you would know that almost everyone you venerate was not exactly liked or respected by ‘professionals’. Copernicus was also considered a ‘douche bag’ by the experts of the establishment and fellow sycophants such as yourself. I believe Einstein, Pasteur, Ohm, Tesla and many others also fall into your ‘douche bag’ category, as did anyone else who disagreed with the epicycle adherents of their own day. You don’t need to have a fancy lambskin on your wall to see that the emperor’s new suit is a tad transparent, or that actual points don’t have mass or extension, or that one dimensioal objects don’t exist in physical reality and get tangled up with other one dimensional objects and then vibrate, or that velocity can be measured at an instant, or that time can actually pass any faster or slower than one second per second no matter what speed you are traveling at.
I do think you are funny though Meh, you like to dish out your contempt on what others believe yet get so upset when somone challanges your beliefs with actual points of contention… and all you can do to defend them is invoke an appeal to authority and potty language. The people you have been insulting have been far more considerate and thoughtful than you have.
to sum up my previous point if you don’t have the time or patience…
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/267363/no-deeper-meaning
I think that inherently there is no “meaning” in our existance. However, you can have a “meaningful” day or life. You can spend your life playing XBox or doing drugs and have zero impact on your community, perhaps you would steal to get your drugs and have a negative impact on your community. Or, you can get an education, develope a skill or earn a PhD and then contribute to your community by revealing truth, repairing a leak or installing a device and make your existance “meaningful” by making a contribution to your community. That may be the extent of “meaning” to which we have access.
I have a problem with “settled science”. As successful as QFT may be, there appear to be problems unifying it with gravity. At the end of the 19th century, science was settled except for those two minor problems with the oribit of Mercury and the spectrum emitted by a black body radiator. Each led to a “revolution” in theory, General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics which changed our view of reality. Once we find a model that unifies GR and QM it that can be tested, we may enjoy another change in our view of reality.
Consciousness has still to be explained and perhaps even defined.
S U P E R B