THE NIGHTMARE NETWORK - A Malignant Universe?

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Re: A Malignant Universe?

As one who is religious, I don't think that religion transcends the universe (nor can I see how it could do so). Crumbs!

Re: A Malignant Universe?

Is not a creation separate from what or who created it?

Then the creation left to deal - through free will - with its own malignancy or benevolence?

Or are you saying that the creation and creator, although separate, form the constituents of an over-arching 'universe''?
des

Re: A Malignant Universe?

Probably the only consistent idea I have ever had is that the universe is not created for us and that is has no inherent point to it that we can understand. We are just the product of certain physical laws grinding away throughout eternity. There is no divine plan for us or any other beings. I feel this in my bones, the universe does not fit us we evolved to fit it. Its entertaining to read books where horrific beings or dark elder gods are in control but its fundamentally not the reality I am experiencing on a day to day basis. The majority of people are quite happy living in an illusion and good luck to them but once you have truly seen the world as it is ideas like a malignant universe seem utterly false.

Re: A Malignant Universe?

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Originally Posted by Mr. Cheev (Post 11251)

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Originally Posted by Odalisque (Post 11240)

It seems to me meaningless to regard the universe as either benevolent or malignant. To do so, surely, is to judge the universe in terms of something that transcends it. And what transcends the universe? The universe just is.

But being "religious," don't you believe in a benevolent God? If so, when you look at the world, is what you see a confirmation of this notion?

No -- I believe in a multiplicity of goddesses and gods none of whom are precisely benevolent. Neither are the precisely malevolent. I think, in any case, that benevolence is not a predicate of any being, mundune or divine. Rather, it is a predicate of actions. More specifically, it is a predicate of actions toward a specific other or others. If Robin Hood steals from the rich to give to the poor, his actions are benevolent only to the latter group. I cannot think of a categorically benevolent action, only of conditionally benevolent ones.

When I look at the world, what I see confirms those notions.

Re: A Malignant Universe?

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Originally Posted by Nightlaw (Post 12003)

Who says that they control it? Only that they may control what we can perceive of it... And to a limited degree.

What makes the world as it is is only relevant to the fanatical because it gives them an excuse to enforce the illogical. Which is why I avoid what I can see as too much religion; It scares me.

Re: A Malignant Universe?

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Originally Posted by The Silent One (Post 23733)

Who says that they control it? Only that they may control what we can perceive of it... And to a limited degree.

Frederik Pohl wrote his "Heechee" saga (of which I read the frist three books and part of the fouth book), about a certain alien race who traveled through black holes. The last book, "Annals of the Heechee", which I didn't like, tells about how and why this "Heechee" race manipulated the laws of our Universe.

From Wikipedia (Heechee): "The Heechee have collected evidence that The Foe have been adding matter into the universe. The Foe intend to tilt the balance and allow the Big Bang to be reversed and the universe to collapse into a Big Crunch billions of years into the future. The Foe intend that once the universe rebounds into a second big bang, it will do so in the form of pure energy, removing the atomic matter that The Foe regard as so much clutter. A détente is created between Broadhead and The Foe allowing the aliens to continue their project and the human and Heechee growing to accept that they will eventually progress toward bodiless minds."

In short, this "Heechee" is the only race (as far as I remember) that found a way to control space and time to its own wishes. I don't know if there is another example in literature where an alien race "controls" the laws of Nature, and I said "to control" and not "to manipulate", which is what we Humans do. We don't actually control Nature, we manipulate it. To control it, would mean to alter any law to our own wishes, for example, to change the constant "G", or "c", or "Boltzmann constant". We just use them, but we don't control anything. We can hardly control anything for the simple reason that we don't even know why these laws (15 or so that rule the Universe) are these ones and not others. What is gravity? Nobody really knows.

Personally, I don't believe in either malignant, or benignant Universe. The Universe is only a word that we use to describe what we experience. It doesn't exist beyond human mind. The laws of physics are neither good nor evil, nor neutral. They are just laws. Moreover, when a strong animal eats another weak one, where is the evil in doing that? Neither we see anything wrong when we eat a "Big-Mac" (meat that comes from a weak animal that we masterfully killed to eat). I'm vegatarian, but it also applies to me, I know what a Big-Mac is!!!

If there is a Supreme Consciousness, or God, or Hyper-Ego, or Ultra-Mind, well, I always ask the same question: before this "God" created good and evil, what was it? Both? Or None? Concepts such as those two, good and evil, can be used in society, and up to certain extent in everyday life, but not in Nature. For me, good and evil in Nature are as real as imaginary numbers in mathematics (and they don't exist, or where is "square root of (-1) in Nature?). We use such archaic concepts because they are still very convenient to us.

Re: A Malignant Universe?

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Originally Posted by Odalisque (Post 12004)

Do your "gods" have intelligence, intention or emotion in the normal sense of those terms?