Everything doesn't make any sense.

conquered mind sent to conquer other minds...

Asmodean truth.

 

What do you mean? Is my 'truth' more indoctrinating or out to conquer than yours or something? The thing I said there essentially is that skepticism is not exclusively a nontheistic thing, which you seem to imply.

 

Sorry. I wasn't trying to say that you, yourself, thought you had all the answers. I should have been more clear.

I don't think science itself has anything to do with faith, but I think there are many atheists who have the same kind of faith in science that religious people have in God, that it is some kind of ultimate answer of some sort.

 

Based on what? The many atheists you know?

Not sure what your point is anyway...You don't know anything for sure and neither should anyone else?

 

Based on the way I've seen atheists behave -- like they're knights in shining armour come to rescue us from irrationality.

No, that's not my point at all. I don't know how many times I've repeated now that I'm not saying nothing makes any sense but that everything makes no sense.

 

I can get by that. I just didn't like the term wonky. I also think/hope that one day we'll understand the universe in a fundamental way.

If I allowed to stare deeply into the eyes of a strange hot person, and experience this in its purest form,

maybe.

but usually I don't/can't/gotta be socially within bounds and that's mundane.

Not sure what you mean by "Nothing is mundane in nature" though.

 

lol no.


We don't need hippies all making their beautiful little free interpretations.

 

Not making sense, just means we don't understand. Eventually we can come to understand more but it's quite possible that there may be things that are simply beyond a humans capacity to understand. I think it is quite hard for a human to understand something that he can't relate to himself in some way. Or things that by nature cannot be defined in human terms.

 

I think the closer we get to understanding its fundamental nature, the more astonished we'll be.

I mean you can't force anything to be ordinary simply because you will it. Either the nature of our reality is extraordinary or it's ordinary. It's really a matter of personal preference, whichever you choose to believe.

 

such a petulant statement...are you sure you're not secretly christian? :toetap05:

 

Talk about petulant statements -- to accuse me of being a Christian! bleh!

 

Well, I agree we may not need that but I think you misunderstand me because I was not thinking about hippies in particular at all there.

It's quite typical really that such a statement makes you inclined to think he must be a christian to make it... It seems almost a dogmatic principle

 

The thing that really doesn't "make sense" to me is your question. What does "makes sense" mean? Reality is what it is. We don't understand a lot of it, and quantum physics makes us aware of phenomena that aren't predictable by deterministic assumptions. Yet we've learned to use it rather impressively. Chaos theorists have found patterns even in chaos. And the integrated complexity of the universe is sufficient to lead some pretty reputable scientists (Dyson, Davies, etc) to the conclusion that the universe is governed by natural laws that encourage matter to evolve toward life and consciousness. Nothing is certain, not even that. But to me , this makes reality and the universe interesting.

If by making sense, you mean that the universe has no intrinsic "meaning", in the sense of a single clear idea of what it's all about, I'd agree with you.
I've come to the existentialist conclusion that we have to make sense of it on our own, by betting on interpretations that are congruent with our personal knowledge and experiences. It doesn't come wrapped in a package with a bow on it. Meaning, to me, is the process of engaging in the challenging job of trying to make sense of it--which might be pursuing an impossible dream, but the process is the important thing. God is always interesting, although always elusive. Asking what does it all mean is useful if it motivates people to question and try to find out. If it causes them to throw up their hands and embrace befuddlement, it can be as much of a cop out as the True Believer's notion that it's all cut and dried.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgeMrzbfrxg"]The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy-THE ULTIMATE QUESTION - YouTube

 

Something does make sense however. Admittedly something is not necessarily every thing or everything.

Something makes sense or we would not be communicating in such a tactile way. Something makes sense or we would not be exploring space. When you say I am, you are sense making. The mind for us is all the sense and sensibility that we know as we give the world all the meaning it has for us. Meaning is imaginary or relative to our abstract symbolism, a province wholly of the mind. Imagination is the way we mark time/movement.

Movement is a function not a meaning. Function equals purpose, having and being the same.

 

just as long as you never say "YOLO" in the lab. stay safe, buddy!

 

Make sense means you can understand and communicate verbally the who, what, when, where, and whys of existence. We can do this with a great many things, but there is no way to do that where everything is concerned.

That's kind of what I'm saying -- accepting that nothing is certain and there is a fundamentally mysterious nature to the universe is what makes it interesting.

If someone did claim to find "the answer" that would kind of be a bummer. But probably people would just start arguing as I am now that he or she didn't really find the answer, or that his answer was essentially meaningless.

If someone did claim to have "the answer" the answer would be meaningless; it would change nothing. People would go about their days just as before, confounded by their own existences. People might even laugh or become angry at the person who claimed to know everything.

Just because something is useful doesn't mean it's correct, though. God is useful if he keeps people happy, but that doesn't prove God exists. But I don't think we have to operate under the notion that maybe we can figure everything out in order to progress. On the contrary, I think we'll progress faster when we accept the unconditional mystery of the cosmos. Scientists will become more open to "crazy ideas" that just might be true.

 

sometimes you won't know the difference twixt unknown
and unknowable . the sets will intersect . this is why we
will risk being nonsensical , trusting in divine revelation ,
talking to clouds all day .

it's also why authority fails and settles for selling you books .

 

for every thing we make sense of, there will be more questions to answer

 

Have you tried? I mean how do you come to a conclusion about everything concerned when you can't account for every concern? There is nothing you can know that you can't know. Reality is a big place and there are places and climes that no one cares to know. Reality and making sense, knowledge of reality, are different aspects. You make an import point about knowledge in that if it is not communicable it is not known, knowledge is, being shared.

Knowledge is material, occupying space. The quest for substance implies an open mind. We are not inclined to look if we think there is nothing to find.