I saw this whole movie and its not bad.

The books are great.

You have to believe in something to have a goal in life but you need to pick well.

Justice and mercy (opposites in a way, no?) are IMHO good things to hope for, hoping to prove election fraud is like praying your neighbors goat should die. Morals and politics are a personal choice. Morals are what you hope to be and politics are what you hope the world around you will be.

Pratchett does a good job explaining to kids that its how you change yourself is more important than how you change the world.

The universe offers entropy.

Ah…to witness the entropy of a “great idea”, as enthusiasm decays the nearer they get to disembarking.

*dryheave*
You should hang your head in shame spreading that twaddle, even in jest. I cannot believe that person has a job in the sciences.

First claiming a 20 watt charge of energy is our consciousness is absolute nonsense, that's simply the power it takes to run a consciousness, your neural pathways in operation are that consciousness. It's like claiming the electricity from the socket is your computer's operating system, and when your computer crashes all your programs and data are safe somewhere in the socket. *facepalm

Second, he seems ignorant of entropy, the process through which most energy eventually degrades to heat. No distinctive or recognizable patterns are retained in that metamorphosis....heat is heat.

As to these "near death experiences", studies were done because people kept claiming to come out of their body to hover above it and watch it be saved before returning, but when a scrolling lighted message was put on top of the cabinets in multiple emergency and operating rooms, only visible from above, not a single person who claimed to have been out of body ever saw the messages blinking at them, because it's a delusion.

Made me throw up a little there, thanks.

Your video, Brian Cox explains Entropy, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

some *quality cox there. Love me some thermodynamics. Gives me an opportunity to bust out one of my favourite science quotes:

"The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation."
Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington

Entropy is, somewhat perversely, information.
*related=https://videosift.com/video/What-is-NOT-Random

Brian Cox explains Entropy has been added as a related post - related requested by ChaosEngine on that post.

I don't know that Carlin's voice would be the right one, but doing so wouldn't necessarily be an issue for the character of Blaine. Seems reasonable to have a computer simulation of a particular voice rather than a voice actor specifically acting out each line. I'd argue however that if we're going to resurrect someone to voice Blaine, let's go with Alan Rickman. Just the right blend of civilized / polite and deadly serious / menacing.

Edit:
I've been a fan of the books from sometime between 3 and 4, and love most of the story. The last three books lost me some, as they felt quite different in tone. Even Wizard and Glass felt a bit of a miss, though it was a solid story in its own right. I frequently avoid watching trailers for films I know I'll see, so as to avoid spoilers and being mislead if the trailer happened to be poorly made. I plan to see this movie, and originally came here for the comments exclusively; having read them, I chose to watch it. I get the impression that the actors treat the characters well, and they feel like good interpretations. McConaughey's Walter is hard to read with what little we see here, but I've generally liked him in other things.

My biggest worry is that visuals all seem too clean, and the more sci-fi direction bothers me some. To me Mid-World always seemed like a character itself. An ancient thing, being stretched thin, fighting to hold itself together and losing. High tech doesn't feel right there, like the extreme entropy would have rendered it all non-operative. There was some tech here and there in the books, but most of it was broken or breaking down.

I believe mole rat jesus died on the 31st year, raised on the 33rd year, so it's more of a tradition of mole rat self sacrifice. Like seppuku or Harry Carry -- someone correct me on the written versus spoken forms of this Japanese tradition (in need of revival).

But you may wonder, "Aren't there any mole rats that don't believe in the tradition of self sacrifice?" And I would tell you, Yes. Yes, there are plenty that don't follow these traditions.

And you'd think in reply, "Well, that's odd. If these," let's called them "'alternative' mole rats broke away from the traditions of self sacrifice, why aren't there more older mole rats today?"

Well, it's a sad but simple truth, Timmy, but usually the jesus worshipping mole rats kill the nontraditional, alternative mole rats (who have the ability to live forever) -- and, really, any type of worshipper of something can fulfill this role of antagonizer: mole rats who worship pagan mole gods, power, money, the God of molterial possessions, AIDS. And these mole rats murder the alternative mole rats. Or drive them into suicide, fulfilling their ritualistic traditions of self sacrifice for their sun mole god. Or some type of mole rat god. There are many others...

One day the mole rat society will have a scientific term for the process by which a restrictive institution innately develops out of a fearful mass of moles, becoming normative mole rat behavior. One day we will understand how these fearful, normative moles inadvertently MURDER their fellow mole simply through their ignorance and their evil, sinful desires for power and dominance over their world, their fellow mole rat. (Is it a form of subconscious sociopathy? With hidden sociopaths leading the charge?)

They turn love into hate, declaring their moral mole rat codes as ethical, in order to profit and/or maintain their sense of safety, their illogical, SELFISH mole rat world order, to save their own asses and the asses of their mole rat children from mole rat hell. Sell. Fish. Mote. Eee. Vations.

It's a simple process of societal entropy within the mole rat community. An 'us versus them' mentality that just sits hidden between the conscious and subconscious mole rat mind. It's fucking not going to be "THEM" because those mole rats don't practice the ritual of self sacrifice to maintain the mole rat average life expectancy.

TL;DR: MOLE RATS DIE KNOWINGLY AND UNKNOWINGLY IN THE NAMES OF THE SUN GODS. Mole rat God bless mole rat America.

If I find that I'm wrong on the day that I die and I stand in front of God, exposed as the person that I am...then I want to stand in front of God as the person that I am.

I don't want my sins forgiven by the sacrifice of another. I don't need my slate wiped clean by ritualistic confession and contrite acts. I am human; flawed and broken and wonderful. I will stand in front of your God for all my actions, thoughts and intentions.

In my life I have callously hurt others, I have taken what wasn't mine, I have dispensed wrath and sought vengeance. Because I am weak and selfish and scared.
But I also endeavor to heal more than I injure, give more than I take and provide comfort to others when things seem darkest. Plus....I always smile and ask how you are. That's important.

As a thoughtful, empathetic human being, I know that the positive actions of other humans is the only balance against the entropy that surrounds us. We are our own hope and salvation against a random universe that has our destruction built into the very laws that compel it.
I don't do good things because I fear judgement. I don't do them because I'm commanded to. I do good things because I'm one small part of a community that extends as far as humanity can reach. The effect of my actions, positive and negative, ripples out, rebounds and reflects infinitely. I do good things because it's good to do them.

If I'm wrong, I'll be judged by your God and if I'm found lacking in my actions then I'll own my sins and the consequences. But if the balance of my life has been positive and I am found unacceptable only because I could not believe in the existence of a Creator...if the sum total of my affect on others matters less than my ability to accept illogical supernatural conclusions....then your God is Evil.

Besides, if your god is omniscient, then he knew how he would judge me when he created the universe. So I had no real power over my actions. If he did, in fact, give me free will such that he did not know how I would live my life, then he's not omniscient. In which case, upon our meeting, he will disappear in a puff of logic.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

It's amazing to me that it's been 2 years since VS 5. The more complex a site gets the more entropy sets in, and the harder it becomes to do a major revamp. It's a pretty common IT problem. VS is big, sprawling, messy - though wonderful.

Callahan's Law (also known as the Law of Conservation of Pain and Joy): "Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased—thus do we refute entropy."

Spider Robinson

Until all that dark shit you have been suppressing finally overwhelms your armour of contempt and you either:

A. Have such a cripplingly dark and nihilistic episode of backed up depression you finally kill yourself.

B. Break all the way through to a state of catatonic schizophrenia and need to to institutionalised.

or

C. Snap the other way and go on a self righteous violent rampage (think "Falling down" on a smaller scale)

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you." -Friedrich Nietzsche


"The abyss" (of the futility at the core of the human condition) will never be your friend. Embracing it will only blind you to the entropy you are now helping to facilitate.


I'm a student of Epistemology (philosophy) and I'm absolutely no stranger to nihilism. It's a crucible anyone that wants to understand "reality/truth" has to go through. But its only 50% of the equation and offers only futility and darkness.

The other side is simple: if there is no God or ultimate truth then we ourselves are as Gods because we can choose our own purpose and reality (to a point mind!). Life can be virtually anything you want it to be.


Now on some level what you have quoted/suggested there would fall into this category, you would be making a positive choice to define your own reality. However the reality you are defining is a mirror to the abyss you are trying to escape, it is akin to trying to fight a monster. You will surely become/have become the monster you are fighting.

How do you think the monsters that make one feel so depressed in the 1st place come into being? They were staring into "the abyss" too!



Do you just want the depression to go away for a while? Or do you want to replace it with something beautiful instead? (or was this whole thing a Joke that I missed?)


Philosophy/pshychobabble aside what you are describing there basically = shunting all your negativity onto others around you. "If I take out all my shit on other people I don't feel so bad".

This seems like a less than ideal solution and is basically what one of my best friends does when he feels down. When he does so it makes me and others that know him seriously question why we put up with him.

I have nothing but sympathy for people that feel that "special darkness", but taking it out on others is not something I'm willing to tolerate from people I know. It's the main reason half of us are in this mess in the 1st place. People who don't give a fuck how the things they say and do will affect those around them, are pretty hard to keep giving a fuck about . "An eye for an eye will blind the world"

Great post. Don't know why you used "God" in your explanation, it's a totally irrelevant reference.
Let me describe Entropy wholly and completely to you:
"Probability"
As you mentioned evolution creates structure. Hell, atoms, molecules, galaxies, stars, gravity, magnetism, create structure.
In an atomic world, a noisy chaotic world, systems are far more likely (think brownian motion) to drift into noise than to maintain their structure. ie. There is a billion ways a system can be disrupted, and only one way where it is perfectly intact... Hence systems (or evolution or life or matter whatever) will always move towards disorder. This is Entropy.And yes, life, gravity, matter, are all working against this disorder.

You sir clearly do not fully understand the nature of entropy (and nor does about 95% of the human race so you can be forgiven there).

You have however stumbled into making a genuinely worthwhile point here (though I must state I think for completely the wrong reasons).

The idea that the universe inevitably moves towards a complete "heat death" is I think incorrect, it fails to account for the effect of ever increasing complexity within the closed systems the universe produces (i.e. evolution which applies as much cosmically as it does to organic life on earth).

If the universe remained with no more complexity than it currently has then yes everything would eventually "burn out" and spread the energy of the universe so thinly that everything would cease to work (if only on a space-time level).

But the nature of the universe does not remain static, it creates ever more complex and actuated systems dialectically. Energies>Particles>Compounds>Nebulae>Stars>Planets>Organisms>Unconsciousness>Consciousness>???>God! (not intended to be an exhaustive list it's purely for illustration)

Evolution does trump entropy IMHO but this is largely because the actual laws of entropy are crazy complicated to understand and most people (including to some extent myself) don;t fully understand the subtleties of how it really works.

If nothing else; to say that the whole universe eventually enters a state of complete entropy assumes that every complex closed system that does or ever will exist will eventually break down. This is far from a forgone conclusion, we alone as evolving conscious creatures are capable of developing means to circumvent or even prevent this. Let alone what other wonders we have yet to observe or the universe has yet to manifest!

In conclusion: The Universe evolves until it reaches God (or dies trying ). God does not then create the universe but rather commits suicide (what else is God to do? Eternity is a very long time for someone that already knows and has done everything...). Process repeats ad infinitum.


Makes a lot more sense that way around don't you think? (and no ancient books of dubious origin need ever be consulted to derive it either)

Saying God created the universe only leaves you with more questions which by their very nature cannot be answered. We would have to be God itself to ever answer them, so we are left with a judgement call. No logical certainty, only faith.

This way around we can by pure rationalism and empiricism arrive at an explanation of how the universe might evolve God via ever increasing complexity of consciousness and actualisation (true post-humans alone would be like demi-gods, it's not a huge leap to keep taking this idea further)

Further to that Ontological mathematics (that is to say "really real mathematics") can assess a framework to understand how the universe itself came to be (we can arguably go pre-big bang with this but that's always going to be a controversial idea here).

^ Now I might be wrong about some or even all of that but it is at least a reductive argument. Using God as an explanation for anything without first explaining God is always going to be a circular argument. If your going to use circular logic you can prove basically anything you feel like!

"God is dead!"