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Recycled Stardust (Free verse) by Quarton

Time flows unimpeded through the vastness of space, precursor of awareness and meaning in an ever expanding continuum; like flower petals unfolding, probing in search of the light that sustains all life: rose and thorn--saint or sinner. Tiny craters formed by raindrops dance across the water's surface, rippling outward from the center, a microcosm of the universe expanding in creation's renewal. Seeded by exploding stars creating recycled stardust, scattered like wind blown pollen on currents of random destination. Over time, stardust merges in increasing order and complexity, from darkness to light-- oblivion to self-realization, creation's emergence played out on earth's temporal stage; the universe embodied and aware. Superstrings a cosmic symphony vibrating in infinite repertoire, emerging pointless particles in a nine dimensional space, like tiny loops of string curled up in a ball. Bizarre concepts beyond reason, when reality becomes fantasy and perhaps returns back to reality once again, unsure of what is real and what is illusion. A child grows old and dies, stars are born and transform into supernovae or dwarfs, as from order to chaos the second law pervades. Time passes in accord with entropy, robbing the universe of self, cosmic anarchy the result-- a closed system inevitable. In the blackness of space, shining and vibrant, the earth in shades of green and blue. Verdant and teeming with life, a reversal of entrophy as order and complexity increase, open-ended and unimpeded in the long journey from oblivion to the recognition of shared essence-- stardust magically transformed into you and into me.

-=Dark_Angel=-, P.I. 6-Jul-04/3:00 PM
No. Now read the following very, very carefully before continuing to bang on like an escaped nitwit with a saucepan stuck over his head.

"Reality", as zodiac said earlier, is simply a word referring to all things that exist. To say that something is real is simply to say it exists, nothing more. To say something is unreal is to say it doesn't exist. Reality is the collection of things that are real -- that is what it means.

Do you accept this? I'm sure you're going to think you don't. But shut up for a minute, and read this.

You're claiming that if "humanity ceases to exist", i.e. if all humans die, then "so too would reality." Now there are TWO SEPARATE reasons why this is absurd, which if you're going to argue about you're going to have to address separately.

1. If all humans died of poison, the universe would not stop existing. This has been a subject of philosophical argument for centuries, so I'm not going to insist one way or the other. If you want to think the universe would stop existing, great.

2. Reality is a set. It is the set of all things that exist. Now if you know your elementary set theory, you know that no set can contain itself. Therefore reality does not contain itself. Therefore reality is not a "real thing" -- It is not something that you can say "exists". The idea that reality could exist or cease to exist is just wrong-headed. But according to you, "reality would cease to exist". This is trivially a paradox.



Actually, the stupidest thing of all is that none of this has anything to do with quantum physics or scientific revolutions. Thanks!




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