To Be or Not to Be; That is the Question.

[Vraith]

For if I am an entity, and everything connects with me, then isn't my essence thereby propagated as a common thread throughout existence, touching all things and by all things touched, making all things and by all things made?

I agree with that.
I've said similar.
What you said is, in a literal/material way, true even if there is nothing BUT strict, wholly mechanical and determined universe.
It only becomes MORE true...
I shouldn't say it that way, folk don't like the form, as when I said elsewhere Snowden was more guilty...
I'll say it as: if the universe is not strict, determined then there is more there there for what you say to be true about.

[Avatar]

For if I am an entity, and everything connects with me, then isn't my essence thereby propagated as a common thread throughout existence, touching all things and by all things touched, making all things and by all things made?

How do you know everything connects with you? And what effect does it have if it does?

--A

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

For if I am an entity, and everything connects with me, then isn't my essence thereby propagated as a common thread throughout existence, touching all things and by all things touched, making all things and by all things made?

How do you know everything connects with you? And what effect does it have if it does?

--A

UNI-verse. Who can say.

[Vraith]

For if I am an entity, and everything connects with me, then isn't my essence thereby propagated as a common thread throughout existence, touching all things and by all things touched, making all things and by all things made?

How do you know everything connects with you? And what effect does it have if it does?

--A

Anything/one that isn't connected is irrelevant in every possible way.
Everything that is/was/will be is connected...I mean that literally, metaphorically, AND analogically...though we can be, and very often are, blind to, ignorant of, and/or wrong about how they're connected.
What effect it has...I don't know, but it affects everything.

[Avatar]

UNI-verse.

It's just a word. We gave it that name. And aren't we notorious for our desire to belong?

Everything that is/was/will be is connected...I mean that literally, metaphorically, AND analogically...

Prove it?

--A

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

Quantum theory proves it.

[Fist and Faith]

I remember hearing that gravity doesn't end a certain distance from the object. That every bit of matter in the universe has a gravitational effect on every other bit of matter in the universe. I guess there might be other ways in which all things are connected.

But it's easy to take that idea too far. We send unmanned space crafts away from earth, and the gravitational effect it has even on us is not noticeable to us. Maybe not detectable more than a stone's throw away by any technology we have. Certainly it's not significant in any way I can think of. I don't imagine it is any of those things to any other part of the universe. And I don't imagine any other aspect of us is detectable anywhere else.

Vraith and Mongo, in what detectable way do you think you are connected with a distant galaxy? Especially you, Mongo. What is your essence? How is it propagated? How does that effect anything else in the universe? In Neverness, the memory of all things is in all things. Danlo could call up any information he wanted. Excellent sci-fi series. Among my top few favorites. But that's what it is - a sci-fi series, with a huge philosophical slant. It's a metaphor that, if we followed, would make us all more at peace, and make the world a better place. But it's not factual.

[Vraith]

But it's not factual.

Of course it's factual...even if the metaphorical is more useful/important in some ways.

Those distant galaxies get spotted...we see, gather data, learn from them.
The stuff we are made of is part and parcel of the beginning.
If stuff cannot be created nor destroyed, then for every event/cause the effects go on forever.
Be they tiny or enormous...and it may change.
The size of an event doesn't determine the importance or scale of the effects in the long term [though it does change the probabilities].

For many many things, the connection is a game of 6 Trillion Degrees of Kevin Bacon. But the path exists, regardless.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

What Vraith said, and I would add that there are many effects at the quantum level that imply the requirement of an observer, or some might even say, conscience. The double slit experiment for instance. Then there is the phenomenon of quantum entanglement -- "spooky action at a distance" as Einstein once said, that demeans the notion that time and space are inherently meaningful, and from which a fundamental unity can be inferred. Though I personally have no great faith in mankind's ultimate, eschatological insight into the universe, the mathematical conjecture of theories such as String Theory take hold of the idea quite forcefully that the dimensions we perceive are not the only ones; and moreover, that those which are unseen are tightly bound and extraordinarily curved -- in other words, on some level, each and every phenomenalistic quantum packet in the universe is quite proximate to every other. Then there are adaptations of the cosmological argument, much as Vraith has alluded to -- everything is moved by everything else in a fundamental way. Indeed it is not so much that everything moves everything else, it is more that everything is part of a continuum whose boundaries exist by contrast in the mind of a finite observer -- us, for instance. Otherwise, once freed from our jaundiced "pneuma," what is 'out there' -- "noumena" -- could be regarded as an undifferentiated field of pure experience.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

wtf

[Fist and Faith]

No, what I'm talking about in Neverness is not factual. We cannot quote conversations from the past because the memory of the conversation is in all things. The memory of it is not even in the objects that the sound waves hit, much less a distant star.

[Avatar]

Quantum theory proves it.

What, you mean quantum entanglement?

That's only pairs of particles, and only after interaction.

--A

[peter]

Partake my confidence! No creatures made so mean
But that, some way, it boasts, could we investigate
It's supreme worth; fulfils, by ordinance of fate
It's momentary task, gets glory all it's own
Tastes triumph in the world, pre-eminant alone.
Where is the single grain of sand, 'mid millions heaped
Confusedly on the beach, but did we know, has leaped
Or would leap, would we wait, i'the century, some once
To the very throne of things.

[Fifine at the Fair; Robert Browning]

[Edit; I think I may have just answered my own question ]

[Avatar]

The meaning of life is to live.

--A

[peter]

While a man is alive he still has a chance [Lebanese saying {perhaps pertinant to a few posts over on the 'what do you think today' thread }].