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What’s on your mind?
- Thread starter Gutwrench
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Lol. Sorry! I blame your avatar.Thank you.
And it's Daughter.
I love walnuts, and walnut wood.
Ah, I know exactly how you feel; hope she is fine and knows how much you care about her.
Lately?
My opinion, an amateur in science, is that in one context, yes, the Universe is conscious.
When we break it down to some of the lowest common denominators, we humans, are a part of the universe. We're not separate from it, we're not outside of it, no, we're in it and we're made from it. As they say, we're all stardust. The composition of our bodies comes from the earth, the water, the minerals, and chemical compounds - all from the earth. The earth is formed from material left over from supernovae after supernovae over billions of years. The scientifically accepted fact of the Big Bang asserts that all matter was compressed into an infinitesimally small area and consisted of pure energy. Matter, as we know it today, formed from electromagnetism at the moment of the explosion when the protons, electrons, and neutrons formed the atoms, including the subatomic particles such as quarks and gluons, bonded together to generate the matter.
It's that electromagnetism that binds them together.
Since humans and animals are also formed with atoms and are also considered "matter" as part of the universe, we are also held together by the same electromagnetic force as everything else. Through the time of evolution, chance and favorable living conditions, we (including animals) have evolved within this universe with the same building blocks that form stars, planets, comets, nebula, magnatar's, quasars, black holes and so on.
Since Decartes' famous observation, "Cognito, ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am), we have achieved, what we call consciousness. While we don't truly understand what it is or how works, as scientists and philosophers have for centuries debated it, we do know it (we) exist.
Our minds, an abstract concept to be sure, theoretically exists somewhere in the brain and operates on the biochemical makeup of our bodies and the electrical signals that permeate the brain is a testament to the idea that consciousness is of and by the Universe.
If we're made up of matter which was created by the awesome power of the universe, and we are conscious, then by extension so is the Universe.
Therefore, I postulate, that the Universe is in fact conscious.
As the former comedian Bill Hicks so succinctly put it:
Maynard Keenan, the vocalist of my favorite band Tool, was really good friends with Bill Hicks and they would talk on the phone for hours when their schedules allowed. Tool's album Ænema from 1996 was heavily influenced by Maynard's friendship with Hicks. That quote of Hick's above is actually in the song "Third Eye" on the album.
So, now when I see this thread "What's on your mind", myself as an introvert and one who spends a good deal of time thinking about deep subjects, sometimes, I'll post these somewhat cryptic thoughts as I happen to be pondering the meaning at the time. I enjoy stepping away from myself and our collective and sometimes insatiable desire for self-indulgence and I attempt to look at the larger picture in a more objective manner. One could even view it as an out-of-body-experience when you're outside of yourself looking back at yourself.
*I may have not gotten all the science facts completely correct, but you get the meaning I'm trying to convey.
I love this thread because it's like a microcosm of the universe in a way. For one thing it's hard to end up so off topic as to fall into the clutches of the overworked moderators. For another, I love mosaics, and that's what this thread continues to roll out as: random collision of soup and nuts, sacred and profane, cats, dogs, mortgages, death, taxes and of course those hilarious retrospectives of life in the moment, for instance a member's account of inadvertently showing up to work with a daughter's underwear in his pocket...
@Gutwrench thanks for brilliant idea in starting this thread. To the rest of us, long may we strive to match or perhaps avoid topping the experiences of post #20.
On my mind tonight: 13 days to Halloween and not so much as a packet of jellybeans or M&Ms in the house for the hordes of little trick-or-treaters. I remember with scorn the old geezers who only offered apples or pears, and swore I'd never be one of them "when I grow up". Not sure I've ever grown up but so far I've not disappointed anyone who thinks the way I did about Halloween and fruit "treats" when I was a kid. Time to re-up in the candy aisle.
@Gutwrench thanks for brilliant idea in starting this thread. To the rest of us, long may we strive to match or perhaps avoid topping the experiences of post #20.
On my mind tonight: 13 days to Halloween and not so much as a packet of jellybeans or M&Ms in the house for the hordes of little trick-or-treaters. I remember with scorn the old geezers who only offered apples or pears, and swore I'd never be one of them "when I grow up". Not sure I've ever grown up but so far I've not disappointed anyone who thinks the way I did about Halloween and fruit "treats" when I was a kid. Time to re-up in the candy aisle.
Understandable.
I prefer using male characters I enjoy for my avatars (Right now, a stylized version of Guan Yu). Anyway, thanks for the well wishes.
Mom is at least mobile now, so I can finally check in on her.
Glad to be home.
@LizKat so well said about this thread. Thank you to @Gutwrench and everyone who makes it so worthwhile.
I hope everyone is having a wonderful Friday.
I wait to read an off kilter post by Anger Danger that breaks the flow of seriousness of any thread.
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Why? New Yorker's make crap pizza.Neither. Hit a local small business that has transplanted New Yorkers.
I‘ve skipped the last couple Halloweens, but thinking to participate again this year.
Candy for the cute little kids (and airline bottles of wine and booze for their parents) and sneers at the older kids.
Candy for the cute little kids (and airline bottles of wine and booze for their parents) and sneers at the older kids.
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If you mix that up a bit, the "Reaction Scores" could become very interesting.
awwww.. you're gonna have to hire some help to win that fight...
I have liked Chicago style pizza on occasion. Some actuaries I had worked for in NYC had sent me out to their Chicago office for some two-week stays several times. But after one or two trips to pizza places there each time, I always ended up eager again for what I had left behind.
To me there was nothin' like NYC thin-crust pizza made by competitors at two family run places on the upper upper West Side. There was a time the elders went off to visit kin over in the old world. While they were gone, the young whippersnapper kids they left in charge of the two places got into a price war for the jokes of it, and nearly bankrupted both establishments. The customers made out like bandits. When the old folks took off for Italy, a slice at either place cost 15c. When they came back it was like 5c or 7c and at the 5c one you also got a soda. Kicker: a month's rent was 6 days overdue at both shops. wow!
Statistically speaking, of course.
The funny thing and something I wasn't particularly aware of was that as employee benefit program consultants, that actuarial firm --a partnership-- had an amazingly good set of benefits for its own employees. I only worked there a couple years way back at beginning of my full time jobs, and so never really thought much about any of that. I thought about making my share of half a $104 monthly rent on $100 gross a week, and I was just hanging out there for the stepping stone to the then budding infotech world.
Of course later on I had practically forgotten about them as I got involved with a IT consulting outfit, and so then spent 13 weeks here, 8 weeks there at this and that bank or other corporation trying to automate its work -- the "benefits" were you never had to stay bored with your job for long if it didn't appeal much-- until I hit a place that finally hired me away from the consulting outfit and kept me interested for long enough so I became aware of .. yeah... real employee benefits. By then of course I actually cared about them.
Right, so one day like 50 years later, already retired and living in the boondocks, I open my mail up here and it includes a notice from a successor company about my fully vested benefits from that stint at the actuaries. A teeny tiny pension... lump sum around 600 bucks. I had no idea that just a couple years' work at that place had got me a vested benefit. An iPhone!
Why is Minilla (Argh! Baby Godzilla in 1969's All Monsters Attack) braying like a donkey?
Sadly, this was not explained in the movie. Next Godzilla movie up is Godzilla v the Smog Monster and there's a hilarious rave party on a pier where the attendees don giant fishhead masks. Just what I need to decompress after the last few days.
Mom is slightly better > Yay!
And now I want pizza...
Hope you all have a nice Friday night.
Sadly, this was not explained in the movie. Next Godzilla movie up is Godzilla v the Smog Monster and there's a hilarious rave party on a pier where the attendees don giant fishhead masks. Just what I need to decompress after the last few days.
Mom is slightly better > Yay!
And now I want pizza...
Hope you all have a nice Friday night.
Looks like the little runts realized how crappy their pizzas were and priced them accordingly.
Moving right along... how about some from Honolulu? (maybe transplants from Jersey City or Queens lol). Reading this piece made me want to check it out in February lol
Five great places for pizza in Honolulu when you want a piece of the pie
Thinking beyond ham and pineapple? These eclectic Honolulu pizza joints will satisfy your craving.
www.latimes.com
Fruit? I just don’t even answer the door!
My neighbors already started decorating their house. Decorating a house for Halloween in the UK is unusual. There’s severed arms hanging from the windows.
Hope our buyer doesn’t do a drive by!
On my mind is my trip to our new house this afternoon to meet our builder.
Hope the rain holds off.
More importantly I hope the quotes are cheap!
I'm sure you'll meet someone at one of your weekly Zoomba classes.
We don't really have that many trick or treaters coming around out here any more. Lots of parents especially with quite young kids do prefer the party that the village throws down at the firehall. That shingdig definitely beats trudging around rural roads (sometimes in a couple inches of snow!) with toddlers getting cranky, or spooked by some of the decorations on lawns ans houses... and either the Mom or Dad having to drive the car along the way slowly, so as to be able to fetch everybody home when the kids get too tired. "But the candy!"
Hope those weekend plans re the new place do work out well.