Friday, May 12, 2006

A UNIVERSE OF SOLIPSISTS





When you think about it, the universe isn't a terribly exciting place. After a million years of civilization, all those gas giants and nebulae must start to look the same. When you've seen one desolate windswept rocky terrestrial covered with fungi, you've pretty much seen them all. Truly advanced civilizations might not have any particular interest in exploring the universe after a certain point. They won't even need to, because their technology will enable them to build and explore better universes.


I admit being a little troubled by the idea that we might already be inhabiting one of these "better" universes.

2 comments:

Paul Kimball said...

Wm. Bear:

We're not the godlike intelligence - yet. But what about 1,000, or 10,000, years from now? What if, by then, we have devloped into something almost unrecognizable to us today, and - perhaps - have even mastered time travel?

After all, one of the key characteristics of God is that He is able to transcend time - indeed, for Him, times does not even exist, and he inhabits what Canadian evangelist called "The Eternal Now" back in the late 18th century.

We might not be God yet, but maybe someday we will be, which makes us God now, if you think about it...

Paul

Paul Kimball said...

W.M.:

Oh, I don't know - I think we all like to try and "conceive of the inconceivable" from time to time. It's what separates us from the lesser mammals, like most of the guests on the Jerry Springer show.

Hmm... did I say "most of"? I meant "all of".

Seriously, I think we should be trying to conceive of the inconceivable, whatever conceptual framework (religious, scientific, etc) we try to put it in. It's the only way that we'll get any closer to the "inconceivable".

PK