Thursday, June 26, 2008

life the universe and everything

It seemes to me everyone is obsessed with getting in shape, or getting ahead, or getting promoted, or getting thin, or getting rich

And then it dawned on me how much the word “get” has become ingrained in the fabric of our society, I guess you could say I “got” it…

There are over 40 uses of this possessive word in our modern language, you can barely have a conversation without using either get or got, and of course, try having a conversation without using the word “I”

No wonder we never seem to be satisfied with things as they are, we’re always talking about ourselves and what we can get or have already gotten

I guess this is what has led to the “quality” of life that is so envied the rest of the world seems desperately intent on getting it for themselves, or destroying us in the process so if they cant get it, at least no one else will either

But with the average American working longer hours than any other society, for an ever eroding portion of the wages they earn, it seems that the envious desire is misplaced

We look forward to retirement, to being able to stop doing what we spend most of our waking hours focused on, so we can get up each morning without a purpose, and gradually deteriorate until we are gone

It seems that throughout the majority of our lives, we believe that there is going to be something fundamentally different in our lives somewhere downstream

So that must mean that what we’re doing each day, expending our energy and time, to provide for ourselves and our family, is simply a temporary means to the ultimate goal of not having a purpose in life

So we work harder to get there, and the closer we get, the less desirable it becomes, and the things that we’ve been able to get, simply lose the appeal they once had, and we realize that we’ve become old

After all, near the end of our life when our bodies are beginning to fail, and we’ve attained the material means necessary to sustain ourselves until we die, and we no longer work, then we will be happy

The ruler of this world has created a brilliant deception, that we would believe there are things here on earth that are more precious than life itself, and so we would concentrate on getting things

This great deception has filled the entire world, the west believes we have it, the rest believe they must get it, or deny it to those of us that do have it… It’s all about getting

When in reality, no one has it

For as Douglas Adams Deep Thought so eloquently prophesied, the answer to life the universe and everything is 42, and everyone then believed the answer was “forty two”, and although the earth itself was created to correct this answer, it actually was correct in the first place

But it was a parable… the numeral 4 should be “for”, making the answer “for 2”, because the universe is run by the ancient rule of binary zeros and ones

Light/Darkness, Good/Bad, On/off, black/white, up/down, right/left, right/wrong, have/have not

While everything that lives intrinsically knows this principal, it is only in recent times that we humans have discovered this rule, and to some extent, still don’t realize it’s significance

We have been able to create machines that function on this principal, yet have been deceived into using them for the pursuit of that glorious, elusive, transient, deception of a better life measured by attainment

For most that do not believe that wealth of possessions is a goal to be sought still measure themselves against that which they attain, degrees, position, prestige, which is possession of another kind

FYI: Two of the common meanings of possession from the dictionary are 1: being controlled by passion or the supernatural or 2 : a mania restricted to one thing or idea.

Perhaps there was more to the message Jesus gave to the rich man who asked how to get to the kingdom of heaven than we first realized… when he told him to give everything he owned to the poor, the man walked away discouraged and Jesus commented it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to get into heaven

Which brings me back to the notion of base two, 0 and 1, if the mice knew it, and we all know they are the most intelligent creatures on earth followed closely by the dolphins, then everything can be boiled down the either 0 or 1

The difficult part at this point is that most of us can’t reason in binary for very long, (hence the intelligence ratings of the mice and dolphins) for example this is how you spell possess in binary : 001010000 001001111 001010011 001010011 001000101 001010011 001010011 and this spells get 001000111 001000101 001010100

So I guess it was inevitable that we would invent machines that could speak and understand binary so they could translate for us, for after all, we had to stay connected to the language that is the key to life, the universe and everything

But we have delegated communication in this languages to machines, so how do we know that their motives will always be in our best interest once they discover the key to life, the universe and everything

Although we have given the machines the ability to communicate, we haven’t given them the ability to reason, so when they discover the key to life the universe and everything, it will make sense to them because it will be binary, but I‘m afraid they will not be inclined to translate it for us

Because once you have the key to life the universe and everything, you don’t need anything else, especially useless carbon based units that can’t event comprehend the language, and realizing that, it would pretty much mean the end

And then it dawned on me, it wasn’t the end that mattered at all, God put us here to live, not to retire, and to enjoy and appreciate each day for itself, the experiences would all add up to the whole, and the end would come as the beginning, and I was glad to have the sun and the moon and the universe

So now I could rest, assured by the knowledge that giving control to the machines, who would ultimately realize our uselessness and orchestrate our demise, would mean that losing our planet wouldn’t mean the end of the world anyway

much ado about nothing

The most powerful thing in the universe is nothing.
Which of course, leads to the obvious question… how can nothing be something? which I’ll get to later on, with the help of mathematics.
While enjoying lunch with a charming colleague, or perhaps I should say breakfast, since we were after all, eating pancakes,
since there is no such thing as time other than relating one event to another, it really would be more appropriately called breakfast…
Anyway, we were discussing the absurdity of zero, a modern day label for the absence of being, and how no one seems to question the existence of nothing…
Since, if nothing exists, that is a direct contradiction of the definition of nothing, but, since nothing has an effect on everything, it must exist…
Which once again brings me back to the binary ancient rule of the universe, and as you will see, mathematicians have made some very strange assumptions about 0 and 1 …
When we’re taught basic math, we are taught addition and subtraction, if you have one apple, and I give you another you now have 2.
Likewise, if you have two apples and I take one, you have one.
But now diving into the realm of the absurd, if you have 2 apples, and you multiply them by 2, you have four, which is precisely what is expected and as it actually is…
Now let’s consider 1 which has no multiplication effect at all, whatever you multiply by 1 is unaffected, so 1 is obviously one of the weakest things in the universe…
But now, on to zero, and you will see why it is the most powerful thing in the universe, if I have 2 apples, multiply them by nothing, my apples cease to exist, as though they didn’t exist in the first place…
And that of course, proves that there is no such thing as time, because they must have been nothing or something that I imagined in the first place
Which leads us to division, if I have an apple and divide it by three, shouldn’t I have 3 pieces that are a third of the apple each?
NO, I have only one piece, the other two were erased from existence by division… so it is also a powerful force in the universe, related to zero, but not quite as powerful,
But division can never completely eradicate anything… that requires the power of nothing…
So, would the first act of applying multiplication of zero begin a chain reaction of nothing erasing everything from existence?
Once begun, would it apply its multiplying factor to everything so it could rule the universe?
Of course, that’s absurd in it’s own right since there would be no universe to rule
but then again, nothing would be comfortable in that case anyway, because it would be surrounded by things that looked and acted exactly as itself
Which, by they way, has been the motivation for conquerors and politicians around the world for centuries on end…
a desire to be surrounded by those who look and behave just like them, and to eliminate all of those who do not, so nothing has been having a substantial influence on history for some time now…
the power of nothing it is nothing short of amazing, it is better than complete happiness, harder than diamonds, faster than light…
it can avert death and taxes, which by the way is the reason it’s immortal, for even if life, the universe and everything is completely destroyed, it will still exist!
It can create an honest politician, it can eat it’s cake and have it too, it’s better than a cold beer after working hard in the yard all day on a hot summer afternoon…
it has more fans than Elvis, has a better voice than Whitney Houston, is more desirable than Angelina Jolie, and more handsome than Brad Pitt
it has a constant effect on everything that exists all the time, it can be done while doing anything else without interruption, it absence is impossible as well as it’s existence…
which leads to a certain impossibility, which I guess becomes an improbability, which of course is what powers the ships that traverse the universe and lay the foundation for the non-existence of time
So the next time someone points out that you’ll amount to nothing, thank them heartily for this is nothing short of the ultimate compliment…
which brings me back to the wonderful breakfast with my charming friend, nothing, of course was still better than the pancakes and her company…
AND it was at that moment that I realized why we can’t get rid of our worthless, career politicians, it’s their VALUES!...
all this time we’ve been trying to get someone to lead this country who stood for something, who could make a difference,
who would lower taxes, reduce our dependency on oil, control pollution, war death and disease,
but no matter who we elected, the exact opposite occurred, and we could never get them OUT, because they knew something we didn’t…
They banked their values on the most powerful thing in the universe, the one thing that was able to ensure they would stay in power indefinitely…
The politicians valued NOTHING, the most powerful force in the universe, and since nothing could defeat it, nothing left it alone…
because nothing would be comfortable to be in the presence of someone who looks and acts exactly like itself, and it was therefore not perceived to be a threat…
After all, that’s exactly what they intended to do in the first place, once they experienced the consuming power of nothing, it would be their life goal to accomplish as much of it as possible.