X-Message-Number: 23862 From: "David Pizer" <> Subject: Whoops! Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2004 15:38:41 -0700 Yesterday on my philosophical piece I left out a key word --- "NOT" in several places. Most of you who are interested in the philosophical side of cryonics and took the time to read the piece probably figured this out. Anyhow for the record I have re-posted the first part of it with the word "NOT" in place. Sorry. David Why (I think) we can live forever. And, what we might all at least agree on. By: David Pizer I believe that the universe has always existed and will always exist. Why? To get you to agree with me, you have to at least agree with my first premise. 1. You can NOT make something from nothing. This, I will argue, leads to the conclusion --- So the universe has always existed. This then leads to a conclusion that the universe (or it's decendants) must always continue to exist (in some form). Before we proceed, let me explain what I mean so far. I don't intend this first statement (1) to be an axiom. It is not intended to be a logical truth in that it can be proven logically. Instead it is a foundational truth. It doesn't need explaining. It is one of the bedrock statements that others are built from. It is like saying your left hand is your left hand. There is no need to explain. You know which is your left hand without arguing about it. I am not trying to make an argument for (1). If you can't see its truth, you don't need to read on. Further when I say the term "universe" I mean it in the original fashion to include everything that can exist everywhere. Today we talk about universes, as if they were separate. But when I talk about the universe I think this might be what some people call omniverse? By saying "universe" I mean all separate universes in any dimensions (if there are others). I mean everything everywhere collectively. When I talk about "nothing," I am not talking about empty space. Empty space is something - empty space. A vacuum is a vacuum. Nothing (since it doesn't exist) cannot be explained since we have no example of it. It is only a concept we can try to imagine. To try to explain my concept of nothing I would start by saying that I envision that there could be two (and only two) ways the universe could be (or not be). Either it exists and there is something or it does not exist and there is nothing. If it did not exist and there was nothing, there would be no vacuum, no empty space no thing, nothing. But that is not the case and something does exist - the universe. You can NOT have a something that contains within it, a nothing. Something and nothing are mutually exclusive. You can only have one or the other. Our universe, in my explantion of it, cannot contain nothing anywhere in it, or outside of it. Therefore, our universe must be infinite in size. (If it is infinte in size, it must be infinte in time for if it was not infinite then there would come a time when it no longer existed and that would bring about the condition of nothing and since nothing can not evlove from something that can never happen so it must be the case that the universe is also infinite in time. Another approach ---- Could there ever have been a time when there was no thing and then something came from that. No. Because if there was no thing then how could something come from that? The concept of nothing is such that it can't. This is not something that can be argued for. The concept of nothing includes in it that no thing now and no thing ever. No thing has to be infinite in time for similar reasons that something has to be. So, since some thing cannot come from nothing, then the only logically explanation is that some thing has always existed. It may have been some thing different from what we observe now and it could have been altered from a Big Bang-type of thing, but even the Big Bang (if there was one) came from something. If there was a Big Bang it was not a bang of ultimate creation but a bang of change of some existing stuff. Some of you will see this and agree and if you do agree with this reasoning so far and you think that at least something has to have always existed then from that starting point, I would try to convince you that whatever has always existed can not be destroyed, it can only be changed. So the universe will always exist in some form. If you agree in principle so far then you might still say something like "..... yes some stuff will always exist but with the changing conditions that appear to be in the universe we will have to die sometime in the future because the universe is winding down or getting cold or getting hot or expanding or going to condense and crush us or turn into a big crunch and then another big bang or whatever....." And you might be right about that being the natural way the universe is heading. But we humans change nature all the time. No matter what the problem, if we can create physical immortality for ourselves and be smart and/or lucky enough to avoid accidents for a couple of billion years, by then we should be able to exactly figure what condition the universe is heading into AND if it is heading into a condition that will not sustain life (Remember we might be able to change our physical bodies to adapt to changing conditions in the universe) in some reasonable form, then we will have to *try* to change the universe or at least the part of it where we intend to survive and continue on. So what I am trying to do is lay out a plan that most of us would agree on. It goes like this. 1. For now get cryonically suspended to get into the future. 2. In the near future, we get reanimated and become physically immortal. 3. We work to change our physical form to adapt to changing conditions of the universe. 4. We work to change conditions of the universe (if they are becoming bad for us). In other words, over the next few billion years or so, we try to turn physical immortality into full blown immortality. David Content-Type: text/html; [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=23862