Life is Precious

[DeathandGrim]

We should consider it precious amongst ourselves anytime self awareness is involved.  But on a cosmic scale individuals certainly don't appear important but I am wondering about the importance of our species.

Well when you show me someone who exists on a cosmic scale then that'd be relevant. Our lives our relative. We don't exist for the universe and neither it for us. We have only one difference in that one will continue and hasn't been shown to not be able to do so.

So thinking on a cosmic scale is pointless. Which invalidates alot of "meaning of life" observations

[Aupmanyav]

Cosmic scale is varied. Galaxy size, Earth size, Seed size, or Bacteria size. I am also cosmic scale. Am I and the universe different?

[DeathandGrim]

Wait.. What???      Oh dear.

Expanding our horizons is what we should strive for.  By observing only what occurs on the front porch means our scope of knowledge can only reach as far as...   uh...   the front porch.

What I mean is, what's the point of trying to reason your existence relative to the universe or a cosmic scale?

[trdsf]

And I couldn't agree more.  But that is only in the short term.  We are also becoming more aware as a species.  And while we are squabbling amongst ourselves which is a good thing in my view we ultimately will come to the correct decisions even though we will never agree on them.

I wish I could believe that, but large groups of humans do not behave intelligently, and are generally easily manipulated by those in power (not necessarily political power), whose interests are not those of the planet as a whole.

It seems to me that you're trying to have it both ways here.  The problem with that is that we may not have a long term if we cause too much damage in the short term.  Our societal advances lag well behind our technological ones; generally speaking, it's always been that way.

These are all things that we could have started doing something about years ago, and we still haven't started, and there are some lessons that our species dare not learn through experience because by then it will be too late.  If we cross a climatic tipping point in the next 50 years, we won't have another 500 to get our collective shit together to fix it.  If we don't bust a hump over the next ten years working out a viable planetary defense in case of asteroid strike, we don't get a do-over if we get clobbered in eleven.  Putting faith in long-term growth is not meaningful if we can't take care of our immediate, short term problems.

[Givemeareason]

Well when you show me someone who exists on a cosmic scale then that'd be relevant. Our lives our relative. We don't exist for the universe and neither it for us. We have only one difference in that one will continue and hasn't been shown to not be able to do so.

So thinking on a cosmic scale is pointless. Which invalidates alot of "meaning of life" observations

I try to do both.

[Givemeareason]

Cosmic scale is varied. Galaxy size, Earth size, Seed size, or Bacteria size. I am also cosmic scale. Am I and the universe different?

I don't think you are.  Please continue.  I would like to hear more.

[Givemeareason]

I wish I could believe that, but large groups of humans do not behave intelligently, and are generally easily manipulated by those in power (not necessarily political power), whose interests are not those of the planet as a whole.

It seems to me that you're trying to have it both ways here.  The problem with that is that we may not have a long term if we cause too much damage in the short term.  Our societal advances lag well behind our technological ones; generally speaking, it's always been that way.

These are all things that we could have started doing something about years ago, and we still haven't started, and there are some lessons that our species dare not learn through experience because by then it will be too late.  If we cross a climatic tipping point in the next 50 years, we won't have another 500 to get our collective shit together to fix it.  If we don't bust a hump over the next ten years working out a viable planetary defense in case of asteroid strike, we don't get a do-over if we get clobbered in eleven.  Putting faith in long-term growth is not meaningful if we can't take care of our immediate, short term problems.

I see it all sort of averaging together.  Sure it's bad there and good over there but it all works out in the end.  On a cosmic scale it is good that we have our own little pocket of order in a universe seemingly in a state of increasing disorder.

[Mike Cl]

I see it all sort of averaging together.  Sure it's bad there and good over there but it all works out in the end.  On a cosmic scale it is good that we have our own little pocket of order in a universe seemingly in a state of increasing disorder.

I don's see the universe in any kind of 'disorder' or chaos.  It never was and never will be.  There have been and always will be the physical laws of the universe; they don't change.  Just because it appears disorderly to us, doesn't make it so.  As we learn more and more, we see that there is not disorder--only our ignorance of how this actually work.  And we are working on that ignorance.

[Givemeareason]

I don's see the universe in any kind of 'disorder' or chaos.  It never was and never will be.  There have been and always will be the physical laws of the universe; they don't change.  Just because it appears disorderly to us, doesn't make it so.  As we learn more and more, we see that there is not disorder--only our ignorance of how this actually work.  And we are working on that ignorance.

Read up on entropy.

[trdsf]

I see it all sort of averaging together.  Sure it's bad there and good over there but it all works out in the end.  On a cosmic scale it is good that we have our own little pocket of order in a universe seemingly in a state of increasing disorder.

Again, you're presupposing that there's going to be a long term in which things can average out.  There are some things that can't wait for us to grow up as a species to eventually get around to fixing.  We need to take action on the environmental damage we're causing now.  We need to arrange a space defense system now.  We need to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels now.  If we wait until the Arctic and Antarctic caps melt, or a large asteroid obliterates Atlanta, or we completely exhaust coal and oil, that's it.  We're out of time and can't wait for things to 'work out in the end' or 'average together'.

[Givemeareason]

Again, you're presupposing that there's going to be a long term in which things can average out.  There are some things that can't wait for us to grow up as a species to eventually get around to fixing.  We need to take action on the environmental damage we're causing now.  We need to arrange a space defense system now.  We need to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels now.  If we wait until the Arctic and Antarctic caps melt, or a large asteroid obliterates Atlanta, or we completely exhaust coal and oil, that's it.  We're out of time and can't wait for things to 'work out in the end' or 'average together'.

Wiping out Atlanta doesn't sound to ba....... never mind.  No seriously though shit is going to happen and all bases can't be covered.  All I am saying is that we will do whatever is necessary to survive.  And I don't think any of those require action now.  It would all be just fine but neither the leftists nor the rightist will ever be happy.

[aitm]

Read up on entropy.

His statement shows more knowledge than your response. Indeed please re-read his response and read up on it. You may be the one behind the times lad.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Hey!  My fucking wind chimes are spiritual..They make pretty metallic noises!

Giveme..The point is that you in fact are alive. You don't get a mulligan with it and it's the only chance you get..End stop..
My simple philosophy about life is to A. Get old or B. Die.. Hopefully you get to do both at some point in time.. 

[Mike Cl]

Read up on entropy.

I am not really knowledgeable about entropy.  So I looked it up.  Below is from one site.  This seems to be to be telling me that disorder does not equal chaos.  I think much of the universe looks chaotic, but that is deceiving in that this disorder is not chaotic.  And the more we learn the less chaotic is all seems. 

Entropy and Disorder

If you assert that nature tends to take things from order to disorder and give an example or two, then you will get almost universal recognition and assent. It is a part of our common experience. Spend hours cleaning your desk, your basement, your attic, and it seems to spontaneously revert back to disorder and chaos before your eyes. So if you say that entropy is a measure of disorder, and that nature tends toward maximum entropy for any isolated system, then you do have some insight into the ideas of the second law of thermodynamics.

Some care must be taken about how you define "disorder" if you are going to use it to understand entropy. A more precise way to characterize entropy is to say that it is a measure of the "multiplicity" associated with the state of the objects. If a given state can be accomplished in many more ways, then it is more probabable than one which can be accomplished in only a few ways. When "throwing dice", throwing a seven is more probable than a two because you can produce seven in six different ways and there is only one way to produce a two. So seven has a higher multiplicity than a two, and this gives some insight why systems in nature like the molecules of a gas would spontaneously tend toward states of higher multiplicity or higher "entropy".

   
For a glass of water the number of molecules is astronomical. The jumble of ice chips may look more disordered in comparison to the glass of water which looks uniform and homogeneous. But the ice chips place limits on the number of ways the molecules can be arranged. The water molecules in the glass of water can be arranged in many more ways; they have greater "multiplicity" and therefore greater entropy.

[trdsf]

Wiping out Atlanta doesn't sound to ba....... never mind.  No seriously though shit is going to happen and all bases can't be covered.  All I am saying is that we will do whatever is necessary to survive.  And I don't think any of those require action now.  It would all be just fine but neither the leftists nor the rightist will ever be happy.

You miss my point -- you seem to be saying essentially "don't worry, be happy" and that's just not going to fix anything, and there are some things that simply can't wait.

NASA reports today that they expect the Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica to collapse within five years.  This has existed for at least 10,000 years, and its disappearance is just in the last twenty.  It was nearly 4500 square miles in 1995.  Today there are barely more than 600 square miles, and there are expected to be none left in five years.  This is not a geological time scale.  This is a human one.

This required action years ago -- and we took none.  Even though we probably can't stop the Larsen collapse now, we're still doing nothing to stop the melt at both poles, and the more ice shelves that collapse in Antarctica and Greenland, the faster the glaciers will empty out into the seas.  The less ice there is at the North Pole, the less sunlight is reflected back into space and the faster warming occurs.

And the tragic irony is, when we took action -- banning CFCs, for example, in response to the weakening of the ozone layer -- it worked.  The takeaway lessons from that -- that a) human activity affects global climate and b) humans can take effective steps to remediate the damage -- is so painfully obvious that it should cause testicular torsion to not see it, and yet here we sit, doing fuck-all.

"[D]o whatever is necessary to survive"?  There's no evidence for your rosy outlook.  Can we do something about it?  Absolutely.  Will we?  Barring a sudden and collective social satori, probably not until it's so undeniable there's a problem, it will be too damn late.