The Depth of the Universe n/a

mattaxelrod said:
I couldn't sleep last night, and my mind started wandering, and I came up with the strangest question....
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Man, I'm glad I'm not the only one! That's been one of my favorite insomniac thought streams since I was about 8 years old.

It took me an awful long time to find the answer: That the answer is beyond any possible comprehension that a human brain can muster. It's probably the only question where I am perfectly satisfied not knowing the answer.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
It's probably the only question where I am perfectly satisfied not knowing the answer.
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And you can fly
High as a kite if you want to
Faster than light if you want to
Speeding through the universe
Thinking is the best way to travel

It's all a dream
Light passing by on the screen
And there's you and I on the beam
Speeding through the universe
Thinking is the best way to travel

We ride the waves
Distance is gone, will we find out?
How life began, will be find out?
Speeding through the universe
Thinking is the best way to travel

And you can fly
High as a kite if you want to
Faster than light if you want to
Speeding through the universe
Thinking is the best way to travel
 
Matt Only think i can say is Your A sick Person GET HELP (LOL)
Dave
P.S. Or find better drugs
 
It's great to have dreams and unlimited imagination but I always thought the attitude of that song was pretty much a cop-out pertaining to the last line in each verse.

Richard said:
And you can fly
High as a kite if you want to
Faster than light if you want to
Speeding through the universe
Thinking is the best way to travel

It's all a dream
Light passing by on the screen
And there's you and I on the beam
Speeding through the universe
Thinking is the best way to travel

We ride the waves
Distance is gone, will we find out?
How life began, will be find out?
Speeding through the universe
Thinking is the best way to travel

And you can fly
High as a kite if you want to
Faster than light if you want to
Speeding through the universe
Thinking is the best way to travel
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Dave, what else do we have? Our minds are the greatest tool we have. When in contemplation of such questions which started this thread we can only come back to the realization that our minds are too small to understand that which we seek. Perhaps that is a cop out, because it implies that our minds are not yet to their fullest potential. However, it also begats a hope that our minds will one day expand to a point which would allow us to understand. Personally, I don't see that as ever happening.

My take on the song is that it recognizes the futility in trying to understand things which are never to be understood. Kind of a metaphysical 'make your peace' with the rightness of the universe as it exists now. Any further understanding of our universe would tend to alter our universe. Whether an alternate dimension exits or not, whether the universe is closed, open, steady state, only in our perceptions, etc matters not to me. I've already given it (these past 40 years or so) as much thought as I care.:yes:

I happen to think that once the concept of time is thrown out, we could perhaps at least come to a different starting place from which to begin a new attempt at understanding. We may change our conceptualizations but we will never understand the makings of the universe. 'Never' is a finite term I try to avoid using but here it is an apt term because we will have no way to prove the concepts. I think the understanding comes in the trying. By our attempts we will come to understand ourselves better (maybe 'differently' is the better term) but not the thing of our focus.
 
Richard said:
I think the understanding comes in the trying.
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Excellent point Richard. As Robert Persig wrote in Zen and the Art of Motocycle Maintenance..."It's better to travel than to arrive".
 
Frank Browne said:
Excellent point Richard. As Robert Persig wrote in Zen and the Art of Motocycle Maintenance..."It's better to travel than to arrive".
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I've found that to be true only when ones destination leaves something substantial to be desired.
 
Dave Krall CFII said:
I've found that to be true only when ones destination leaves something substantial to be desired.
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Dave, say it aint so. Are you saying a flight up a white water canyon to a wonderful isolated meadow for a week of fly fishing is more enjoyable than being at the meadow? I could think of hundreds of trips I've been on where I've enjoyed the being there as much as the getting there.
 
Richard said:
I could think of hundreds of trips I've been on where I've enjoyed the being there as much as the getting there.
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The destination is nothing more than a reason to make a journey in any given direction. - Journeyman Normal
 
Richard said:
Dave, say it aint so. Are you saying a flight up a white water canyon to a wonderful isolated meadow for a week of fly fishing is more enjoyable than being at the meadow? I could think of hundreds of trips I've been on where I've enjoyed the being there as much as the getting there.
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Agreed, I was alluding to the motorcycle Zen guy's attitude that the journey was everything. The journey could also be equal to the destination or less than it. I think he REALLY likes to ride bikes or, just has not gone to the right places yet so as to expand his Zen.

Personally I like the scenarios where I can't decide which is better, the journey or the destination because they are both just so damn good! (especially involving GA)
 
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