If An Essentially Meaningless Darwinian Universe Was Good Enough For My Granny....

[poliphilo]

Judy was talking about a Heinlein story where people who are on a space flight lasting several generations come to think that their ship is the whole universe- and how it got itself plagiarised by Star Trek and others- and I said, yes, but that idea- that the world as we experience it is a bit phoney and there must be something more- didn't begin with Heinlein; it's all over our culture- andt keeps cropping up in one form or another. Think The Matrix and the Truman Show for other recent versions. It persists, I think, because the instinct behind it is true.

We do like to keep intellectually cosy, us humans.  We wrap ourselves in our philosophies and world views and get shirty when people suggest that perhaps we might like to peek out from under the blankets. The current paradigm is Darwinian-materialist and people who have been embraced by it get angry- often splutteringly angry- if you go "ghosts" or "aliens" or "Atlantis". They've got the universe figured as an essentially meaningless interval between an explosion and an implosion- and that's how they like it. They've done enough thinking for one lifetime; don't ask them to do any more.

Comments

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

*likes*

Abandoning the Numinous has got us into a lot of trouble of late with the world and ourselves. We haven't been paying attention.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Indeed we haven't.

I'm so sick of the cult of Darwin.

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

We are deviled by the Pythagorean idea of empirical reason and logic. If quantum theory has told us anything is that the universe is more in flux and not as certain as we like. We need a more holistic phenomenological approach to the rather dry Darwinist materialism that seems to give us a nihilistic outlook overall, and we meed to get out of this rabbit hole.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Exactly. We've boxed ourselves in- and the real universe is so much bigger and stranger than our philosophy allows.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

The Star Trek Episode had the best title EVAR - For the World is Hollow and I have Touched the Sky.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I agree. It's a tremendous title.

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

Not me. The universe is meaning.