>>Norman Samish writes:
>>
>>>If the multiverse concept, as I understand it, is true, then anything
>>>that can exist does exist, and anything that can happen has happened and
>>>will continue to happen, ad infinitum. The sequence of events that we
>>>observe has been played in the past, and will be played in the future,
>>>over and over again. How strange and pointless it all seems.
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>
>>I'll grant you it may be strange, but how is it any more pointless than
>>anything that can happen (or a subset thereof) happening only once, or a
>>finite number of times?
>>
>>--Stathis Papaioannou
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>That's a good question, forcing me to realize that I have an irrational
>"fuzzy feeling" that there "should" be a point to it all that I can
>understand, and that a sequence of events "should" occur only once.
>Implicit in these feelings is the assumption that there is some kind of
>"God" which designed the multiverse for some reason, and keeps track of all
>events. I suppose my early "first cause" training is at work. I think now
>that the premises of the First Cause argument are unproven.
The same objection to the quest for a first cause applies to the quest for
ultimate meaning: you can always ask, if the meaning (or cause, or purpose)
of x is y, what's the meaning (or cause, or purpose) of y? If you assert
that y is special because it is the "ultimate" meaning (or cause, or
purpose), then why not make the same assertion of x?
--Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Sun Oct 30 2005 - 20:22:33 PST