On Tuesday, 21 March 2017 04:44:29 UTC+1, Davoud wrote:
Davoud:
I think that the notion that the Universe is beautiful is purely
sentiocentric; it wouldn't be beautiful if if no one were in it to say
that it is beautiful.

Chris L Peterson:
That's true. But it's beautiful while there's something sentient to
make that observation, and it's all meaningless when there isn't.

Sometimes I take the nihilistic view逆hat on a sufficiently large scale
it is all meaningless in any case. Strangely, perhaps, that view is
sometimes comforting, at odd moments.

"...I don't feel frightened by not knowing things...by being lost in a
mysterious Universe without having any purpose, which is the way it
really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn't frighten me."
騎ichard Feynman


At least 6 billion people are obviously terrified of the universe. They invent assorted father figures [with all that entails!] to stop the sky from falling.

I am interested in the idea of humanity, the individual's choices and the very limited lifespan of generations and even the species, in the longer term.

Every single individual who is born has to totally reinvent human behaviour in some sense. They are born with a clean sheet until [usually] programmed by parental guidance. Brain washing in exchange for the gift of language and nurturing.

Is it a greater or lesser tragedy when somebody jumps off a high roof at the _exact_ moment an asteroid wipes out all of humanity? Is the act of jumping still a sin? How many nanoseconds after the asteroid hits before all of history's superstitions completely cease to exist?

Is a superstition like a language? It must be constantly exercised or it simply dies out? Does nobody ever question the validity of their own superstition in relation to the literally hundreds of thousands which have been completely forgotten? Or faded from having any useful purpose? If those beliefs were simply lost through time passing, then what possible value has their own in the longer term?

Could global, human amnesia, perhaps due to a magnetic pulse anomaly, suddenly end all superstitious behaviour? Does the superstitious brain offer a greater or lesser chance of genetic survival? Leaving aside the question of ritual murder for blasphemy or simple disbelief in the local superstition. Usually entirely an accident of location at birth. Is snake oil toxic or benign to the continuation of humanity? Or is it another appendix? Just waiting to fester and kill the host.