So if you make it better for someone else
your life is not insignificant anymore. And on top of that, you don't know what repercusions your acts have on the future.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 3 Aug 2010, 11:35, 3 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

There are different levels of significance.
There's what's significant to you, to people you know, to strangers, to the world, to the universe etc.
( Labia Majora You keep on talking but it makes no sense at all, Tue 3 Aug 2010, 11:36, Reply)

No, it's still insignificant
everyone you ever meet or know will die, every bit of information we ever record will burn and the universe won't even notice.
(PsychoChomp, Tue 3 Aug 2010, 11:36, Reply)

yes

( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Tue 3 Aug 2010, 11:37, Reply)

You might be forgotten
That's not the same as being insignificant. Your action might have triggered something that will make the future better. Maybe that person you helped recovered faith in humanity and started to work towards something that will be great. Your name will never be there, but if you hadn't helped that person, she/he wouldn't have done that great thing that improved our race.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 3 Aug 2010, 11:40, Reply)

Until a black hole swallows you up
or our galaxy crashes into another or any of our local stars go supernova. Then everyone dies, everything gets fried and there is literally no trace of what once was.
(PsychoChomp, Tue 3 Aug 2010, 11:42, Reply)

We might have moved into another galaxy by then
We might have found out how to control supernovas.

We might be all dead, but we might not. Whatever we do today will decide our future.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 3 Aug 2010, 11:44, Reply)

Intergalactic travel is never going to happen I'm afraid.

(PsychoChomp, Tue 3 Aug 2010, 11:46, Reply)

unfortuantely true
they are just too fucking far away
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Tue 3 Aug 2010, 11:48, Reply)

That's why people laughed at Columbus
We only need the knowledge and time.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 3 Aug 2010, 11:50, Reply)

we'd need to be able to fundamentally bugger about with the laws of physics and space-time

( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Tue 3 Aug 2010, 11:53, Reply)

Well, sort of
Space-time travel is not explicitly forbidden by current physics. It's just that the energies required and the length scales involved are phenomenally large and incredibly small respectively.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Tue 3 Aug 2010, 12:00, Reply)

was trying not to get too sciency :-P

( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Tue 3 Aug 2010, 12:01, Reply)

I'm very sciency by nature!

( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Tue 3 Aug 2010, 12:02, Reply)

me too, but I try not to let on

( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Tue 3 Aug 2010, 12:06, Reply)

Just think of all the people who tried to get humans to fly
and how many more laughed at them or "proved" it impossible.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 3 Aug 2010, 12:13, Reply)

~2,500,000 light years away
If we can go faster than the speed of light, which isn't even mathmatically or theoretically possible at the moment, that's still a long time before we get there.
(PsychoChomp, Tue 3 Aug 2010, 11:54, Reply)

Or we find a wormhole
I know, I know. But it could be.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 3 Aug 2010, 11:56, Reply)

nearest one is 25k light years
Andromeda is the nearest spiral at 2.5 million
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Tue 3 Aug 2010, 12:01, Reply)

what we are talking about is getting further apart now
within the context of the human race one person's actions can be significant, but on the universal scale they aren't.

To bring it back to life after death, my view is that as we are such a small and insignificant part of the universe why would we be singled out for such a thing? unless it is a side-effect of consciousness, but then where do you draw the line. Would all animals be there? Just us, dolhpins and chimps and the like? How about aliens?

I certainly don't think that there can be an afterlife in the religious sense as that would imply that we are somehow special amongst the vastness of everything, and that is just massively egomaniacal.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Tue 3 Aug 2010, 11:45, Reply)

Ok, well
You have to admit that we are somehow special. To start with, we're having this conversation. No other animal considers anything like this.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 3 Aug 2010, 11:51, Reply)

oh yeah, I find our existence amazing
I'm a stoner don't forget ;-)
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Tue 3 Aug 2010, 11:54, Reply)

:-D
I keep hoping. I think we can do a lot.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 3 Aug 2010, 11:56, Reply)

I find things like the way our skin works fascinating
hands as well. good stuff.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Tue 3 Aug 2010, 11:58, Reply)

The more I learnt at school about white cells
and how they protect us, the more amazed I was that we were alive :)
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 3 Aug 2010, 12:03, Reply)

How do we know that other great apes don't consider this?
Or dolphins?
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Tue 3 Aug 2010, 11:56, Reply)

There are other reasons why we differ
even if you want to believe they have conciousness and they think about themselves as individuals, they don't modify their habitat to make their life easier, not in a big scale (I don't think they do it even in a small scale) and they act without considering what'll happen in the future.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Tue 3 Aug 2010, 12:04, Reply)

Beavers modify their environment.
Heheh beavers.
(wellgroomedwookiee is a filthy-minded hobgoblin, Tue 3 Aug 2010, 12:18, Reply)

it's significant on a small scale
what we're getting at is that the human scale is totally insignificant when compared to the rest of the universe.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Tue 3 Aug 2010, 11:37, Reply)