Been thinking

[Sinister Intents]

Are we the universe experiencing itself?

[Sabot Cat]

Are we the universe experiencing itself?

Yes, and we are also the universe touching itself: humanity is cosmic masturbation.

[BIXX]

Remember friends- all we are is pieces of the earth, learning to touch each other.

@OP: I think carl sagan said something to the effect of us being the universe experiencing itself.

[The Feral Underclass]

"We are a way for the universe to know itself" is the Carl Sagan quote.

[Sinister Intents]

It sounds very sexual with it being we're all pieces of earth learning to touch each other, or maybe sex is on my mind a lot. Carl Sagan said that? That's pretty cool.

We're made of star dust, so we're literally bits of the universe experiencing its horrors and beauty.

I wonder if some aliens are figuring things out our brains can never perceive

[Rafiq]

Any notion of the universe possessing horror or beauty is a conscious projection of our minds. We are not the universe experiencing itself, we are tiny flakes of shit of the universe. Any notion of humans having any sort of cosmic relevance, and any attempt to decipher 'meaning' with regard to the cosmos always ends up paradoxical - it is an impossibility. If we understand Darwin correctly, our consciousness is not equipped to experience the cosmos as it is, but (some parts of) the Earth. Any attempt to give significance to our inability to properly conceptualize the cosmos is an act of gross arrogance, literally. Our field of reference has worked insofar as we project ourselves onto the Earth, but the true horror of the cosmos is that there is no room for it. It simply doesn't work as a field of reference. It is an infinite void of meaninglessness and while discovery should be encouraged and hailed, we ought not to fall into this trap of trying to find "meaning" in it. The fact that so many brilliant astro-physicists also harbored mystical views and the idea of a "god of order" is testament to this.

[The Feral Underclass]

Any notion of humans having any sort of cosmic relevance, and any attempt to decipher 'meaning' with regard to the cosmos always ends up paradoxical - it is an impossibility.

Aw look at Rafiq being all existentialist. Cute.

[PhoenixAsh]

I really like the idea that the multiverse is simply a manifestation of individual desires and consciousness and that these lead to the personification the entirety of reality.

In other words: y'all just exist in my head...and I need drugs.

[Sinister Intents]

Its not so much a want to know a meaning or a reason, but its fun to wonder about how we all came about and to think that we really are the universe, tiny pieces of the universe.

[Loony Le Fist]

Are we the universe experiencing itself?

Yes! What is the nature of god some might ask? It is the collective consciousness and sentience of all living experience. :grin:

That's so cool, because I've been thinking that shit for a long time. Totally eye to eye.

[Sinister Intents]

Rafiq, if I could, I'd totally transform into a kitty, curl up in your lap, and brighten up your day <3 my worldly meaning is to be strange and be myself

[GiantMonkeyMan]

"We are a way for the universe to know itself" is the Carl Sagan quote.
Bill Hicks as well, sort of:
"Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here’s Tom with the weather."

[The Feral Underclass]

Its not so much a want to know a meaning or a reason, but its fun to wonder about how we all came about and to think that we really are the universe, tiny pieces of the universe.

Rafiq doesn't believe in fun. He considers fun to be a counter-revolutionary distraction born from the festering idealist fantasy-false conscious philistinism of the nascent reactionary tendencies of a modern bourgeoisie dragging its balls through the dirt and so on and so on.

[BIXX]

I think rafiq missed the point of the thread.

[Sinister Intents]

DD, or do you prefer Echo? If we're the earth trying and learning to be with each other, or the universe rather, do you think we will exist post death?

[Rafiq]

Rafiq doesn't believe in fun. He considers fun to be a counter-revolutionary distraction born from the festering idealist fantasy-false conscious philistinism of the nascent reactionary tendencies of a modern bourgeoisie dragging its balls through the dirt and so on and so on.


I think rafiq missed the point of the thread.

Well, this thread was created in the philosophy subforum, so if you're looking for fun this is hardly the place to be.

The point isn't that we shouldn't be asking questions about "how we came to be" or pondering the implications of our existence in the universe. The point is that these questions are poised in a way which over-values the significance of not only life, but human life on a cosmic level. It is asked whether we are the universe experiencing itself: But why is our consciousness worthy of this? That's my point. To think that, manifested in our perception there is something with a semblance of cosmic significance is wrong. I have said it before: Human's by merit of existence are not necessarily concerned with objective truth but truth within proximity of our existence. The only thing we can know for sure is our ignorance.

Nobody's trying to play the game of the cold hardass here. The point is that anything even close to being significant for us, is limited to us and how we perceive the word. It would be equally stupid to retire into nihilism when realizing we are cosmically irrelevant. The point isn't that we are irrelevant and that there is no point of living. The point is that the cosmos around us is irrelevant (Again, as far as how we should perceive ourselves go). We are made of "star stuff" but so is pretty much everything else. It's the most over-used high thought ever. Dog shit is made of star stuff. Mercury is made of star-stuff. Who cares? What isn't made of star stuff? What would surprise me is if human's weren't made of 'star stuff'. Rather than being an excuse to be down in the dumps, I think it's rather better living your life knowing that we're so worthless, that we create everything we hold dear out of nothingness. I also don't like the idea that humans fit within the harmony of it all.

While I'm not really accusing people in this thread of doing this - one thing that's irritating about drooling over the cosmos is that we can liken it to 21st century mysticism, obfuscating ideas that would otherwise be dismissed with "whoa man, we're so special" and "the staaaaars man, it's a miracle". Sorry but the cosmos doesn't give a shit about this - the only real implications for this kind of thinking is degeneration in our standards of reason. We should not be overwhelmed by the void that is space - or retreat into "existentialism" or that which it seeks to avoid - nihilism. We should be conscious of our ignorance and our limitations.

I'm not referring to space as a void simply because it sounds cool. Space is a void. It exists infinitely beyond proximity of our mechanisms of interpretation, consciousness - emotions, whatever. Quantum mechanics exists for a reason - it's not that that's actually how things work, but that we need all of this nonsense in order to form just a semblance of understanding of things we were never equipped biologically to understand. Space forms a wound in our reality and our world - and incorporating space into our conscious universe of meaning can only mean madness. It's important you understand what I mean by this - I'm not saying we shouldn't try to understand or explore space. I'm just saying that if you were to live your life, day by day trying to compare (in terms of importance or value) what is within proximity to you with the vastness of the cosmos you will go crazy.

[Slavic]

We are just self replicating machines. Any notion of consciousness is just a tool to aid in our self-replicating. There is no grand plan, or overt reason to it, we just developed from self-replicating chemical structures. And once something is capable of self-replicating, its fucking hard to stop.

We are not special, we are not the fingers of the universe touching the earth. We are a collection of chemicals that drives a machine that spits out other machines.

[Zanters]

I always argue with myself, the same way Camus does. Should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee?

[BIXX]

I always argue with myself, the same way Camus does. Should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee?
Argue about it duh

[Palmares]

We are just self replicating machines. Any notion of consciousness is just a tool to aid in our self-replicating. There is no grand plan, or overt reason to it, we just developed from self-replicating chemical structures. And once something is capable of self-replicating, its fucking hard to stop.

We are not special, we are not the fingers of the universe touching the earth. We are a collection of chemicals that drives a machine that spits out other machines.

Your sci-fi euphemisms for baby-making should be part of your internet dating profile. I could imagine Mr. Spock saying something similar, and he has two penises! :w00t::tt1::drool:

[Slavic]

Your sci-fi euphemisms for baby-making should be part of your internet dating profile. I could imagine Mr. Spock saying something similar, and he has two penises! :w00t::tt1::drool:

Me and Mr. Spock both channel highly sexual energies that we can only express by pivoting levers on fulcrums baby.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Rafiq, if I could, I'd totally transform into a kitty, curl up in your lap, and brighten up your day <3 my worldly meaning is to be strange and be myself

I think he'd skewer you on the end of his broadsword and then roast you over the bones of the reactionaries.;)

[Slavic]

I think he'd skewer you on the end of his broadsword and then roast you over the bones of the reactionaries.;)

Kitties get +3 on Agility rolls, so thats not a given.

[Tim Redd]

"We are a way for the universe to know itself" is the Carl Sagan quote.

We are the way the universe knows itself and in the course of things improves/develops itself.

[Palmares]

Me and Mr. Spock both channel highly sexual energies that we can only express by pivoting levers on fulcrums baby.

In other words... two penises? :ohmy:

[Kronsteen]

Are we the universe experiencing itself?

How would we know if we were not? Or if we were?

[BIXX]

How would we know if we were not? Or if we were?
Pure reason. Duh.

[The Disillusionist]

Yes! What is the nature of god some might ask? It is the collective consciousness and sentience of all living experience. :grin:

That's so cool, because I've been thinking that shit for a long time. Totally eye to eye.

Anthropologist Gregory Bateson used systems and communications theory to make pretty much this exact argument, that all systems interact to create something he called "Mind," a collective intelligence, but not an individual consciousness. He stated that "Mind" was shaped by the environment that it was situated in, thus the title of his book "Steps to an Ecology of Mind."

Finally, I don't agree with all this talk about life being meaningless, and the universe being void, empty, and uncaring. We as humans assign meaning. The universe isn't calling itself void and meaningless, those are human meanings being assigned to the universe. The universe is big because we say it's big. "Big" is a human concept. To a worm, the universe is about 6 feet wide, and that worm is as correct as any astrophysicist. We conceptualize the universe as we want to conceptualize it. The universe is meaningless without humans to give it meaning. Those astro-physicists weren't being ignorant by believing in mysticism, they realized that they had the capability to believing that way, and so they did. Nihilism and existentialism are just ideologies like any other philosophical train of though, favored by "edgy" first-year philosophy majors who like to see their own thoughts as more "truthy" than everyone else's.

The human experience, and as an extension of that, the animal experience and the environment, are the only parts of the universe that really have a meaning as they apply to us, and as a result, it is our world that is our universe. The rest of it doesn't really matter in the grand scale of things, no matter how grand it might seem.

Finally, humans are evolved to self-replicate, it's true. But, through a fortunate turn of events, we've evolved consciousness, so we don't have to let that define us. The vast popularity of birth control, despite it being an evolutionarily poor strategy, demonstrates that although we are shaped by evolutionary drives, we are not completely controlled by them.

Humans are evolved to be social animals, so it's time we started acting like it. We are defined by our relationships to others. We are not the separated observers of some incomprehensible universe, we are an integral part of our own universe that only we, as humans, are truly capable of understanding in any meaningful way.

[BIXX]

Nihilism and existentialism are just ideologies like any other philosophical train of though, favored by "edgy" first-year philosophy majors who like to see their own thoughts as more "truthy" as everyone else.

While I won't deny that there are "nihilists" out there like this, to claim that all nihilism is this way is fundamentally lazy and stupid.

[The Disillusionist]

While I won't deny that there are "nihilists" out there like this, to claim that all nihilism is this way is fundamentally lazy and stupid.

Yeah, I was exaggerating for rhetorical (and comedic) effect. But I'm really not a fan of nihilism because it's inherently the faith based belief that nothing has any real existence or meaning, despite all sensory evidence to the contrary, and thus that nothing is worth believing in except nihilism itself. It's an inherently contradictory and limiting worldview.

[Sinister Intents]

I'm influenced by nihilism, but I don't think anyone can really bea nihilist

[RyeN]

There's a whole bigger Universe than the one of matter our consciousnesses have been trapped in, but there is a way out, and it fits with the communist model. Love your neighbor as yourself, and serve the one cause.

[Slavic]

There's a whole bigger Universe than the one of matter our consciousnesses have been trapped in, but there is a way out, and it fits with the communist model. Love your neighbor as yourself, and serve the one cause.


There is nothing else besides matter and the forms it takes. How could anything exist unless it is matter, it makes no sense.

[Tim Redd]

There is nothing else besides matter and the forms it takes. How could anything exist unless it is matter, it makes no sense.

Matter being that which exists in space-time. So for instance mass-less light particles - photons - are matter, because they are energy in space-time.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I never understood the appeal of that quote. If you stretch the meaning of commonly understood words a bit, then it checks out, but so does a lot of other nonsense. Toast is how the universe toasts itself. Beer is how the universe brews itself. And so on. The assumption that there is something special about human congition is an idealist one.


Matter being that which exists in space-time. So for instance mass-less light particles - photons - are matter, because they are energy in space-time.

Well, I would be careful here. There are physical models - IKKT and BFSS - that do not contain space at the fundamental level (and IKKT does not contain time either); in these models, spacetime is an emergent phenomenon of the more underlying physics. It might not be correct, but I don't think it is un-materialist. It still posits an objective material reality prior to human congition.

As for photons being energy, well, not really. Photons carry energy - energy is a scalar quantity associated with matter in motion - but they aren't made of energy, as if energy were some stuff that you can build particles with.

[consuming negativity]

the realization that I wipe my ass with the universe is a pleasant one