From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Mon Jan 07 2002 - 08:25:25 MST
From: "Anders Sandberg" <asa@nada.kth.se>
> even if
> the universe turns out to have some nasty properties making the future
> of life finite, that is still not the end. There is meaning in the
> finite too.
There is one thing worse than feeling "it's over"
and that is wishing for it to be over.
The meaning in the finite may be the wish for an end to it all, because the
alternative, that life goes on forever, may be too horrible for old brains to
contemplate.
Everything that can happen has already happened, not just once,
but an infinite number of times, and will continue to do so forever.
(Everything that can happen = more than anyone can imagine.)
"The axion is predicted to exist as a result of a symmetry breaking associated
with the strong-CP problem in quantum chromodynamics. Although the axion mass
is arbitrary over the range 10-12 ev to 1 Mev, the symmetry breaking occurs at
high energy scale and hence early in the Universe. Although axions are created
in the very early Universe when it was quite hot, axions have very small
momenta and are born cold. Axion freeze-out is also mediated through
pion-to-axion conversion with nucleons acting as a catalyst. Since nucleons
only come into existence after the quark-hadron transitions (energy scale 200
Mev), they are necessarily non-relativistic and so are the axions which are
created in this thermal process. However, the cosmic abundance of any
thermally produced axions is orders of magnitude lower than the production
associated with symmetry breaking."
--Gregory Bothun
--- --- --- --- ---
Useless hypotheses, etc.:
consciousness, phlogiston, philosophy, vitalism, mind, free will, qualia,
analog computing, cultural relativism, GAC, Cyc, Eliza, cryonics, individual
uniqueness, ego, human values, scientific relinquishment, malevolent AI,
non-sensory experience, SETI
We move into a better future in proportion as science displaces superstition.
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