Re: virus: religion

Dan Plante (dplante@home.com)
Tue, 12 May 1998 20:22:23 -0700


At 06:03 PM 5/11/98 -0400, Nathan Russel wrote:
>
>1. What is at the edge of the universe?
What is at the edge of the Earth?

>2. Do the last 4 words of the perceeding question have meaning?
Do the last 4 words of the preceding reply have meaning?

>3. What is the digit (or 2 digits if there are an even number) in the exact
>middle of the base 10 number 2^10^100 (this number has more digits by far
than
>twice the number of atoms in the universe; by using the middle digit neither
>iterrated rounding nor the cycle of last digits 1-2-4-6-1 can be used)
Who cares?

>4. How many atoms are in the sun (exactly, at a given time and date)?
Where does the Sun end?

>5. Is your answer to question #5 false? (true or false)
Yes, and no.

>6. What was the last thought of any deceased person you care to name?
"Oh, /shit/."

>7. Any question relating to the afterlife, if any.
Who cares?.

>8. Objectively, was Shakespeare a better writer than Isaac Asimov?
Objectively? No. Asimov was much better by far. Empirical tests
have demonstrated this many times.

>9. Is Tangent 90 Degrees equal to 1/0?
Yes, and no. Tan90, 1/0 and oo (infinity) are abstract human constructs
that do not correlate with objective reality.

>I am sure there are many more such questions, there may even be an infinite
>number.
No. See #9, above.

It takes a mind to pose a question (regardless of how that mind is manifest).
Even if you include single quarks playing a direct role in cognition, then
all the possible permutations in all dimensions of all the quarks in all
the "brains" of all the sentient entities (in all the universes?) that
could even loosely be identified as a question are still "infinitely less
than infinity". The only way to have an infinite number of questions is if
the basic units of cognition were infinitely small (making the owners
omniscient?...). Like "Seventy-two concubines waiting for you in heaven",
infinity is an alluring idea, even useful to some, but there's really no
such _thing_.

Philosophical discourse can be fun, even /useful/, but only when constrained
by fact, logic and rational thinking.

Dan