Chris Hughes

Could be a disaster-movie sequel to that Dan Brown about anti-matter: a new Cerne experiment goes wrong and threatens to destroy the universe.

If nothing moved, time wouldn't stand still, it would end - and so would space.

Time is generally considered to be the fourth dimension, isn't it? (And in space - in addition to no one hearing you scream - there's no such event as...

This is the probably best forum in the world.

Yes, but things look different in daylight.

So... let's deny the possibility of dimensions beyond time and space; and let's continue this discussion without consciousness. Forum, where are your ...

That's a bit strong as well, Count. What would be left?

Have you not heard of phase space, that curious eight-dimensional world that merges space and time with a four-dimensional momentum space? Me neither,...

That's a bit strong. There's much talk, in the Land of Metaphysics, of what is or may be beyond time and space. Like Donald Trump, for instance.

Lol. (Not enough jokes on here!)

This is a good discussion! I find being stoned breaks me out of my (mild) autistic bubble. Not that I'm diagnosed - I'm self-diagnosed and self-medica...

Oh yeh. Duh. Thanks, Purple Pond.

Ooooh!

How rude! Give the man a chance! He's got his own website and everything!

. The agnostic's facade of humility and caution conceals a smug superiority: you fools believe that God exists, or doesn't exist; I'm above all that. ...

In your link... ... you say: ... and you quote physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies as saying: (From The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Inf...

How could it have? There's no agreed possible process via which DNA could have appeared. It certainly didn't evolve, as evolution depends on self-repl...

Thing is, despite the superficial linguistic felicity, agnostics aren't opposed to gnostics - they're opposed to theists, and, to a lesser extent, ath...

Perhaps DNA came into existence because the universe (or multiverse if you like) has meaning, perhaps deriving from universal consciousness.

You might say, well clear off then - but it's strangely addictive!

Anyway, as a relative newbie, it seems to me that most threads follow this format: OP asks interesting question; contributors more or less ignore the ...

The OP"s got a point, though. I've always felt rather smug and superior calling myself agnostic. But he's right - it is a bit of a cop-out. It allows ...

There is speculation about this, but no one yet knows how DNA came about. Those who brush aside this problem and its larger question are bending truth...

Very interesting! May I refer you to my thread, "The significance of meaning" which asks if DNA could be the result of random events?

Found this:

So...intelligent design?

Re populism and immigration, it's a popular remainer trope that leave voters were manipulated and stirred up by leave campaigners. There was some of t...

If I may quote from my OP:

Despite having had for some time a keen (amateur) interest in all this (what consciousness is, anti-reductionism, etc), I'd somehow never come across ...

Then how come there's no agreed explanation for the "evolution" of DNA?

Thats why it's a metaphor not an analogy. :wink: Perhaps experiments could be designed to test that fascinating theory. The problem is that no "respec...

For any forumites who (like me) didn't get the joke, the Guardian writer (usually better than that) was lazily referring to a "joke" which I'd never h...

Take that rightly disliked device, the rhetorical question. Dutch academic editing service Scribbr, advising that rhetorical questions be avoided, say...

Rhetoric isn't inherently irrational, but (in this age) it's seen as inherently tricky, universally disliked by those aware of it, seen as a way to fi...

Sheldrake hypothesises, if I understand it right, that consciousness is not in the brain. (Hence his antenna metaphor.) He suggests that it's in a fie...

Actually, I've been reading five non-philosophy books. The one possibly fit to mention here is Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire, "a sear...

Well, I've been reading 50 Shades of Grey. (Not really.)

A reading room, perhaps

Sure. But we "understand" evolution since the appearance of DNA.

It's understandable that we don't understand the origin of the universe, less so with DNA.

Rupert Sheldrake! My man! Didn't think I'd see him mentioned here, though...

Would the choice of example (systemic racism) have anything to do with your recent tussle with ubertroll Nosferatu on the colourblind thread?

Get a room...

The meaning of DNA is life, you could say. The question, I'd say, is: is there cosmic meaning behind the inexplicable appearance of DNA some four bill...

Apparently, it's what the multiverse is made of.

Something else.

Dominic. Cummings.

I'm with Baden: out of here. Nosferatu has a chilly logic, sure, but also a cog loose, apparently. A vist to chatbot HQ for repairs might be in order.

According to Barnier in The Guardian, no deal is no longer ruled out. Perhaps Labour’s second referendum could have a third no-deal option. In the cir...

Lol. Good one.