Little Things That Puzzle You 2: Twisted Membrane

[Zaki]

It'd look incredible in 4K!

Would it really?

[Dogg Thang]

Imagine it in surround sound though.

[teddymeow]

It'd look incredible in 4K!

Would it really?

Oh God! My sides!!

[Zen Monkey]

It doesn't take a huge leap of imagination to entertain the idea that our universe was born during the death of a super dooper-sized black hole.

[prinnysquad]

Life giveth with one hand, and taketh with the other.

After that interesting discussion in the human thread, I thought I’d try to take daft lad around the block in the pram. It’s a cold, yet lovely evening. Daft lad fell asleep half way round. He didn’t cry once. I saw several people and all said hello. Hey, the world’s not such a bad old place.

Since getting back I've had crippling stomach pains! Trapped gas or something. I’ve been on the bed with my arse in the air, trying to quack it out. It’s agony!

It’s also karma. When daft lad is whining in pain with blockages or whatever, I say in frustration, “Oh pack it in. It can’t be that bad. I’ve never had such bad wind that I act like that.”
And yet here I am. Arse in launchpad position.

[Dogg Thang]

I know I shouldn’t laugh. But I did. Wishing you the mightiest of farts.

[kryss]

It doesn't take a huge leap of imagination to entertain the idea that our universe was born during the death of a super dooper-sized black hole.

The universe dies and is reborn in the same instant in what I've termed "The Big Bounce". Solves the "what was there before?" problem quite nicely.

[Zen Monkey]

The universe dies and is reborn in the same instant in what I've termed "The Big Bounce". Solves the "what was there before?" problem quite nicely.

I'm familiar with the common big bounce theory, is your theory similar? It certainly makes more sense than a universe appearing from nothing. But, the older I get, the more I question whether reality has to make sense. As rational beings in search of certainty and security, we naturally want to make sense of everything and expect everything to be understandable but quantum mechanics suggests the laws of the universe are stranger than we could possibly imagine.

[Zen Monkey]

The way you feel when you wake up. Sometimes you wake up and you feel fab, you feel perceptive, alert, intelligent, free-flowing, alive, sensitive, thoughtful, other times you wake up and feel lethargic, insecure, half-witted, selfish, dull, like your head is swimming in concrete. What's that all about? I guess it would be boring to feel the same (even if the feeling is good) every day but where do those feelings come from? And where do they go?

[fishbowlhead]

The universe doesn’t make a lick of sense and is infinitely diverse and probably has no limit or boundaries as to how it shapes itself and what’s contained there in. As a species we won’t learn basically, anything, in the grand scheme before we’re space dust and gone.

[Golgo]

There's a section in Plato's Republic where Socrates says that we begin in ignorance and proceed to gain a little bit of knowledge wherein we think we know everything or at least have the potential to. Dangerous and egotistical people stay there, but the proper course is to push on and realize that we really know nothing substantive at all so that we end up in a state of ignorance once again. So the true course and goal of knowledge is to discover and admit one's ignorance. I like that.

[Dogg Thang]

There's a section in Plato's Republic where Socrates says that we begin in ignorance and proceed to gain a little bit of knowledge wherein we think we know everything or at least have the potential to. Dangerous and egotistical people stay there, but the proper course is to push on and realize that we really know nothing substantive at all so that we end up in a state of ignorance once again. So the true course and goal of knowledge is to discover and admit one's ignorance. I like that.

I knew that already.

[vanpeebles]

He should stick to driving touring cars!

[Golgo]

It's a great way of dodging having to study hard.

[Zen Monkey]

There's a section in Plato's Republic where Socrates says that we begin in ignorance and proceed to gain a little bit of knowledge wherein we think we know everything or at least have the potential to. Dangerous and egotistical people stay there, but the proper course is to push on and realize that we really know nothing substantive at all so that we end up in a state of ignorance once again. So the true course and goal of knowledge is to discover and admit one's ignorance. I like that.

Yeah, I like that too. I really admire how Socrates purposely instilled doubt in all those he conversed with - or to put it more accurate how he picked people's illusions apart in an effort, not to belittle them, but to set them free in some small way. You think you know what friendship or courage or beauty is and then you read Socrates and you ain't so sure and that, far from being reductive, is very liberating because it opens the mind to the possibility of what those things might be.

I'll always have a place in my heart for the ancient Greek philosophers. I remember reading Epicurus during a rather dark and fairly hopeless time in my life and, though I didn't realise it at the time, it was a transformative experience and served as a stepping stone to other great philosophers, sages, saints and masters who all had something valuable to say.

I knew that already.

I like that. Witty.