Quiet here?

[Bigshankhank]

Been posting as often as possible. Fuck facebook.

[Jaeger]

Ghostly harmonica

Yeah, I know even I've been quiet on here recently -- largely due to being unemployed and not being chained to the goddamn desk all day. Just got my first contract (woo hoo!) so I'm back in the saddle again, at least for a while.

That, and I dunno about y'all but I've just little to say right now—at least online—vis à vis the current state of affairs. Instead I'm trying to do more reading, which isn't doing much for my sanity... I should get back to reading more fiction.

(Yeah, sure! Let's go read Asimov's Foundation series... oh fuck...)

--Jaeger

[Bigshankhank]

I'm typing as fast as I can. At this very moment I am listening to two of our project coordinators dispute evolution. Like honestly they cannot believe how a gene would mutate a single celled organism to become a human or a fish or bird. Why do we still have monkeys? I am trying so hard not to laugh. I fucking hate working for an xtian company sometimes, but sometimes it makes me chuckle.

Hey, xtian, is that where your name came from? The common shortening of Christ to X?

[jae]

Even as a (self-professed) Christian, I think it's fun to argue evolution with those who argue against it. They don't seem to have a good response for how humans, in just a very short time geologically speaking, have managed to "evolve" so many breeds of dog out of wild canines. I think it's funny that they're so into the idea that we have to take everything on faith that it's impossible to ever figure out the mechanism used to perform "miracles".

[Mk3]

[xtian]

Hey, xtian, is that where your name came from? The common shortening of Christ to X?

Long story short yes, coming from a mixed family my parents had to find a name that sounded local but still had greek roots, either that or Georges. A friend of mine began to use X-tian as in X-or, the silly japanese super hero from tv. It is not associated with christianity in french where we use the word "chretien"

as a former catholic school student who managed to reach adult age without never having an old man's dick in my mouth all this time, it still confuses me that anyone can believe in all those crap. I found myself just unable to even imagine it. one more simple solution to complex problems and a misunderstanding that blew out of proportion. It is simple enough to understand IF you spend some time studying the history of religion (or podcast or tv discussion), how the scriptures are a derivative of older tales like gilgamesh and a general political guideline filled with images and parables addressed to lesser educated generations. But I guess it is easier to pray the santa in the sky and ask him to send toys and kill you enemies. If we went to a remote planet and found a complex tree, we would think it is evolution. If we'd find a simple regular cube, we'd think it's the act of god.

[Bigshankhank]

Hey, xtian, is that where your name came from? The common shortening of Christ to X?

Long story short yes, coming from a mixed family my parents had to find a name that sounded local but still had greek roots, either that or Georges. A friend of mine began to use X-tian as in X-or, the silly japanese super hero from tv. It is not associated with christianity in french where we use the word "chretien"

as a former catholic school student who managed to reach adult age without never having an old man's dick in my mouth all this time, it still confuses me that anyone can believe in all those crap. I found myself just unable to even imagine it. one more simple solution to complex problems and a misunderstanding that blew out of proportion. It is simple enough to understand IF you spend some time studying the history of religion (or podcast or tv discussion), how the scriptures are a derivative of older tales like gilgamesh and a general political guideline filled with images and parables addressed to lesser educated generations. But I guess it is easier to pray the santa in the sky and ask him to send toys and kill you enemies.

Yeah don't know why but typing it in my previous comment it just dawned on me, never considered it before. As a fellow product of catholic school all the way through HS, I too finally had to throw my hands up in disbelief. Nowadays when people ask me I tell them, honestly, that it was catholic school that made me realize I am agnostic/deist. I will give credit to the Jesuits who taught me in high school, as they exposed us to most major world religions and then encouraged us boys (it was an all-male school) to think critically about our faith and find the path that we believe in.

If we went to a remote planet and found a complex tree, we would think it is evolution. If we'd find a simple regular cube, we'd think it's the act of god.

This is perfectly stated.

[jae]

Does giving this thread a topic take it off topic? Either way...

I like to think of myself as being fairly rationally-minded. I tend to lean toward science and logic over emotion. That said, as the "natural" state of things seems to be chaos, and we've evolved into a rather intricate and complex being, I do find it easy to believe that there was a "master-mind" behind the complexities of natural laws that cause everything that exists, to exist.

I don't think I can say that the Christian religion is anywhere near being 100% right or "accurate", at least as most people understand/practice it. I read the Bible with the understanding that a lot of Hebrew (old testament) was written somewhat poetically. It's a written version of oral history and traditions that were passed down for generations before anyone was even able to write. I have a problem with people who want to take the creation story literally, because context.

Imagine that you explain to the average 5 year old how a CV carburetor functions, even give him (or her) a visual to look at one time, then ask them to go explain it all to a bunch of other 5 year olds in a way they can understand it. This is roughly what I picture happening. Even if illiterate shepherd who knows nothing of modern science were shown exactly how the universe came into being: from the "big bang" (from darkness and nothing came light); through the formation of planets, stars, the beginnings of life and differentiation of kingdom, phylum, etc. on to species; global disasters that wipe most of it out; and how life again "evolved" from what was left... how could he possibly understand what he saw, much less convey it in a way that would be scientifically accurate? I believe he quite literally would not have had the understanding to process it, nor the language to communicate it. Thus, we have a rough road map, overly simplified and divided into easy-to-understand segments (days), that communicate that there was a system that brought us into being.

I see science as man's way to discover the Creator's methods, not as a direct opposition to the philosophical text that's been passed down over thousands of years. I'm admittedly specifically Christian, likely because it's the convenient religion given my time and place in the world (OK, more to it than that, but it's as close as I can get to why I believe what I believe without a full dissertation), but I have a hard time believing that there's nothing out there greater than us.

[Jaeger]

...Nowadays when people ask me I tell them, honestly, that it was catholic school that made me realize I am agnostic/deist. ...

I was rasied Protestant (Methodist/Presbyterian) but yeah, basically the same here.

Mom was a choir director for 20-some years—hence my time as a choirboy (ha!)—but I got exposed to too much internal church political shit as a kid and highschooler. It became abundantly clear to me that if this God/Jesus fellow was actually "out there" he'd be disgusted with the church and much of the shit done in his/its name. It sounds like Jesus was a cool guy with some smart things to say, but his message got fucked up in the translation and retelling.

It still boggles my mind that so many people claim to be Christian but seem to disregard pretty much everything Jesus said; e.g., be kind, try not to hurt one another, and generally don't be an asshole.

Instead, the evangellicals just helped elect Lord Brawndo, a person (sic) who seems to embody the opposite of everything Jesus stood for. Go figure.

Heh, wanna stir the shit and create conversation? Let's throw in the religion grenade! Woo hoo!!

--Jaeger

[Bigshankhank]

how the universe came into being: from the "big bang" (from darkness and nothing came light)

Let me stop you there, if for no other reason than that is exactly where my coworkers began to disassemble the theory of the big bang. "How can everything in the universe come from nothing?" That is a common misconception about the big bang and it is now my mission to correct people who travel down that path. There existed in the time prior to the big bang all of the matter that currently exists in the universe compressed into a very small amount of space (astronomically speaking). This matter had been condensing over trillions of years until it reached a critical mass and "exploded" out into the void of everywhere else. One day in the future all of that matter will stop expanding from the center point of that "explosion" and will condense back into that superdense mass, only to explode again. Lather rinse repeat ad infinitum. So to say "from darkness & nothing" is a misnomer. From "darkness & everything" would be a more accurate statement. Sorry, but there is no emoticon to express how dismayed I was with the way the conversation was going yesterday, and I cannot remain silent. Matter can be neither created nor destroyed, only converted into a different state.

[xtian]

just because we're not sure doesn't mean there's a santa in the sky who fixes problems. for millenniums we weren't sure about thunder and magnets and science came out with solution. We're still not sure about the theory behind gravity or what happened 13 billions years ago (considering we're not sure what happened in that traffic accident last week just around the corner) still it doesn't give the tiniest of argument in favour of a superior being. If there is a god, explain bladder cancer.

[Jaeger]

There existed in the time prior to the big bang all of the matter that currently exists in the universe compressed into a very small amount of space (astronomically speaking)...

Yes, except this:

...and will condense back into that superdense mass, only to explode again. Lather rinse repeat ad infinitum.

My understanding is that while there are several theories about the end of the universe, the most popular is "The Big Freeze." In the Big Freeze, the universe just keeps expanding... forever. At a certain point the stars run out of fuel, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics says the energy will diminish and we'll all freeze.

This also somehow ties in with Dark Matter, which is helping to sustain/increase the acceleration of the stars moving away from us. Nobody knows what Dark Matter is even though it apparently represents the vast majority of the matter in the universe. (This is all now waaaay outside my understanding of physics.)

According to an NPR interview I heard recently, Dark Matter isn't just "out there," it's right there in the chair next to you. In theory, anyway. For me, that's where the real wonder comes in.

There is, in theory, "stuff" between my eyes and the screen on which I'm writing this. I can't see the "stuff" because it's dark matter. What is it? Another dimension? Ghosts? Aliens? God(s)?

There are two ways to approach these questions: magically or rationally.

Magical Thinking would mean we attribute the Big Bang, Dark Matter, and the origin of Trump's hair to some outside, unseen hand. "It's the hand of Magical Bob in the Sky!" you say. We must obey and worship!

Rational Thinking says "Um... I got no fucking idea. We should think about it and do some research and tests and see if we can figure it out."

The former is the easier path. That's why religions have followed if for millennia. I'll certainly grant that religion is much more pleasant, and it's a better way to face death than embracing the "light switch theory," as I call it (i.e., you die, lights out, bye bye).

The problem is that it's fiction written by humans, and so is bullshit. I'm a bullshit artist. It's my job. I recognize artistry when I see it.

The latter, on the other hand, requires two things that humans typically don't like:

1) Admitting we don't fucking know; and
2) Doing work to figure it out.

I've grown really comfortable with saying "I don't fucking know." It's really quite liberating! It somehow attracts the scorn of some groups of people, but I'm unconcerned with their opinions.

And if it turns out that it really is god(s)... cool! So be it! BUT HE/SHE/IT/THEY GOTTA FUCKING PROVE IT.



Side note: The comforting thing about the Light Switch Theory is that it won't hurt, and I won't be around to worry about my lack of existance. Self-solving problem.

--Jaeger

[jae]

Let me stop you there...

Ok, regarding my personal view specifically, perhaps I should have been more liberal with my use of quotes and said "from darkness and "nothing"...", and refer to my point about the writer's perception and understanding of the physical world at the time. Do you think someone writing (or more likely telling a story around a campfire) would have understood that particles exist, even when you can't see them, or that magnetic fields interacting with metal are not just magic?

I'm not trying to sell you my belief, I'm simply stating that I don't think science necessarily opposes the philosophical aspect, and I believe people need to stop taking a philosophical text quite literally when it addresses natural phenomena. I'm pretty sure I'm on the same side as you (relying on science and physical evidence) when it comes to evolution.

I guess another way to put it is that I like to believe natural order and physical law was designed by some higher intelligence, rather than an utterly random outcome of a system that tends toward chaos. Beyond that, yes, I want science to explain the how.

[jae]

If there is a god, explain bladder cancer.

ok, our bodies are controlled by a genetic code that allows cells to regenerate and our body to essentially keep rebuilding itself. occasionally this code will be damaged during replication, and the outcome is uncontrolled local replication that results in a tumor.

I derive from your statement that you think all human bodies should be impervious to injury, aging, or disease, in order to accept there is a god? Life sucks and will inevitably be more painful and shorter than we wish. Shit happens, and honestly, (very broad statement here, but) humans as a whole are not content without some sort of struggle to give them purpose and/or direction. Show me the logical path from "painful experiences exist" to "therefore there must not be a god".

[Bigshankhank]

Let me stop you there...

Ok, regarding my personal view specifically, perhaps I should have been more liberal with my use of quotes and said "from darkness and "nothing"...", and refer to my point about the writer's perception and understanding of the physical world at the time. Do you think someone writing (or more likely telling a story around a campfire) would have understood that particles exist, even when you can't see them, or that magnetic fields interacting with metal are not just magic?

I understood your point and apologize if it seemed like I was directing my correction at you, as I said that statement was literally where the conversation among my coworkers slipped into the shitpile and devolved into a purely faith-based anti-evolution discussion. I held my tongue in that conversation, or more to the point I stayed out of it entirely because unfortunately I carry the minority opinion in my office and have been looking for the door the past few months any and just no longer care enough to educate these folks (one of whom has literally wished American society had stopped developing in the late 50's, and not in an ironic way but in the genuine way a drunken elderly relative would do so over xmas dinner).

[Bigshankhank]

If there is a god, explain bladder cancer.

ok, our bodies are controlled by a genetic code that allows cells to regenerate and our body to essentially keep rebuilding itself. occasionally this code will be damaged during replication, and the outcome is uncontrolled local replication that results in a tumor.

I derive from your statement that you think all human bodies should be impervious to injury, aging, or disease, in order to accept there is a god? Life sucks and will inevitably be more painful and shorter than we wish. Shit happens, and honestly, (very broad statement here, but) humans as a whole are not content without some sort of struggle to give them purpose and/or direction. Show me the logical path from "painful experiences exist" to "therefore there must not be a god".

If I understand xtian's reference to bladder cancer specifically, it is a terrible type of cancer to die from, and while it may be a stretch to draw a literal line from "suffering = there is no god" it is kind of a dick move to create such a horrendous way for a person's body to decay into death. Suffering is one thing (from a canker sore for example), bladder cancer is on a whole other level and seems like a particularly cruel invention from a loving creator.
xtian if I misread you, I apologize.

[xtian]

it's a lot simpler than that and to me ask no answer. if your god wanted me to witness my mother to slowly turn into a skeleton and me spend my time cleaning the piss squirting out of her belly scars, your god can suck my dick. there is no god. that being said knowing that I am a fortunate one, not one of those kid dying from chemical bombing in the middle east where your god was supposed to live. or one of those 4 year old enduring chemio for no reason. explain the benefit of child leukaemia. your god is a fucking asshole.

[jae]

I understood your point and apologize if it seemed like I was directing my correction at you, as I said that statement was literally where the conversation among my coworkers...

Ah, I misunderstood your previous response.

it's a lot simpler than that and to me ask no answer. if your god wanted me to witness my mother to slowly turn into a skeleton and me spend my time cleaning the piss squirting out of her belly scars, your god can suck my dick. there is no god. that being said knowing that I am a fortunate one, not one of those kid dying from chemical bombing in the middle east where your god was supposed to live. or one of those 4 year old enduring chemio for no reason. explain the benefit of child leukaemia. your god is a fucking asshole.

I'm sorry your mother had to endure that, and you as well.

My 5 year old cousin died from leukemia about 4 years ago. They took him to the hospital because he developed a full body rash at a family gathering over Thanksgiving. They started him on chemo almost immediately, and family was asked to wait to visit him until he started feeling better... He never left the hospital, and died within a few weeks, none of us having had the chance to visit him again. Shit happens without prejudice. I don't try and find a "divine reason" or think there's really a plan for things like this to happen.




Man, this got depressing. I'm leaving work early to go home and hug my kids.

[xtian]

now we know why it is quiet here. Everybody turned old and depressed.

[Bigshankhank]

Strange the way the malaise of the era affects things like that. Blame Facebook and other outlets, but you it's hard to stay motivated. Plus, sadly this place hasn't brought in a lot of young blood in the last few years.

[AZRider]

I guess another way to put it is that I like to believe natural order and physical law was designed by some higher intelligence, rather than an utterly random outcome of a system that tends toward chaos. Beyond that, yes, I want science to explain the how.

That's the heresy that got the Church so bent at Galileo. He proposed exactly this, and they stomped the shit out of him for suggesting that mortal man could investigate the workings of Infinite God.

[DerGolgo]

I guess another way to put it is that I like to believe natural order and physical law was designed by some higher intelligence, rather than an utterly random outcome of a system that tends toward chaos. Beyond that, yes, I want science to explain the how.

That's the heresy that got the Church so bent at Galileo. He proposed exactly this, and they stomped the shit out of him for suggesting that mortal man could investigate the workings of Infinite God.

I object.
Not even to the underlying concept. I think my personal relationship with god is well established. That is to say, it's like my personal relationship with the three scientists who financed their respective ways through university by lingerie modelling and still must get a new phone number every month, since their old agents still won't give up getting them top-paying jobs, which they don't want with how they are now comfortably living off of the licensing fees for the obesity/brain-damage miracle cures they created, and who are all, all three, so desperate to put a ring on it with me, they are talking about a time-share.
That is to say, not only do they no exist, regardless of how much I want it, there is no evidence to suggest they ever would.

No, my objections is to the term "random".
The mechanisms that order nature, like physical law, are the quite orderly outcome of underlying mechanisms. Emergent phenomena, pretty much all of it. Emerging from stuff that, itself, has emerged from somewhere. Complex and possibly unpredictable - but not random, either.
At one point, gravity, the behaviour of light and a few other things were so confusing, conflicting and irreconcilable, serious scientists, physicists, seriously went looking for the ether. When they didn't find it, and actually found that it just wasn't there, some just gave up and went into religion.
Meanwhile, others got cold-feet when the only explanations for some of the stuff they found pointed towards time itself not being constant. Specifically Lorentz and Poincaré stumbled on that and went running to those hills where waves of light needed an ether to exist.
Cue assistant examiner - level III of the Swiss Patent Office Albert Einstein.
And, suddenly, confusion gave way to insight, conflicts were reconciled. Time was no longer constant, gravity bent light and Mercury suddenly ended up where it was supposed to be, wave/particle duality freed up any number of physicists from looking for an ether and to use mass-energy equivalence to work out binding energy in atomic nuclei, instead.
Just because we don't get it doesn't mean there is not underlying phenomenon or mechanism explaining it all.

At some point, the universe began (probably). In the words of the chap who was DNA at Cambridge a whole year before Crick and Watson ripped of Doctor Franklin's work on the subject:

It may be that all the little things like the gravitational constant and matter's advantage over anti-matter, both of which have to be just so to let the universe work at all, apparently, came out as they did entirely randomly.
OR might be emergent phenomena, coming out of an underlying set of mechanisms we just haven't worked out yet. May never be able to determine.
Our universe is, so has been theorized, only one of many in a vast hyperverse, where quantum-physical chaos results in the recurring creation of new universes. Some of which end up cold and dead, others of which end up filled entirely with rum and hoola-dancers, caught in eternal drunken revelry and desperately crying for their universe to find its heat-death and release them from their hellish gyrations.
Quantum phenomena is where randomness DOES happen. If you want to pet Schroedinger's cat, just look at the double-slit experiment, as it is performed not with light, but with "solid matter". Works, from electrons all the way up to huge "Buckyball" carbon-molecules.
But again, even if there are random events arising from quantum phenomena. That is not to say there aren't mechanisms and phenomena underneath that, themselves, aren't quite so random.
The universe may be the result of a big Boltzman Brain just trying to get someone for it to play with. OR the universe may have started in some indeterminate, random manner. But could only end up as it did, had to distil itself to what is around us. Not from wilful agency, but because it had to support conscious life. To observe it and collapse the randomness. The requirement for conscious life makes any other setup impossible, it literally cannot possibly poof into existence and work any that does not inevitably result in conscious life coming about. Yes, that's what serious cosmologists debate. No, not that kind of cosmologists, who run around babbling nevulous twaffle about "spirits". The kind that eat shotgun when they get so stuck in their theoretical work, they find they have only the options of the gentleman's way out, or of going and having a work with the manufacturer. Same door.

[jae]

...
But again, even if there are random events arising from quantum phenomena. That is not to say there aren't mechanisms and phenomena underneath that, themselves, aren't quite so random.
The universe may be the result of a big Boltzman Brain just trying to get someone for it to play with. OR the universe may have started in some indeterminate, random manner. But could only end up as it did, had to distil itself to what is around us. Not from wilful agency, but because it had to support conscious life. To observe it and collapse the randomness. The requirement for conscious life makes any other setup impossible, it literally cannot possibly poof into existence and work any that does not inevitably result in conscious life coming about. Yes, that's what serious cosmologists debate. No, not that kind of cosmologists, who run around babbling nevulous twaffle about "spirits". The kind that eat shotgun when they get so stuck in their theoretical work, they find they have only the options of the gentleman's way out, or of going and having a work with the manufacturer. Same door.

To make sure I get the gist of your last statement, then, the argument would be that the universe does not exist without observation? Interesting thought, though it does lean a bit towards philosophy for my taste. However, while you can tell me there's a cat in the box that's both alive and dead until I observe it's state, I guess it makes sense for me to question whether the cat exists at all until I observe it (because really, who just goes around sticking cats in boxes?).

[Bigshankhank]

...
But again, even if there are random events arising from quantum phenomena. That is not to say there aren't mechanisms and phenomena underneath that, themselves, aren't quite so random.
The universe may be the result of a big Boltzman Brain just trying to get someone for it to play with. OR the universe may have started in some indeterminate, random manner. But could only end up as it did, had to distil itself to what is around us. Not from wilful agency, but because it had to support conscious life. To observe it and collapse the randomness. The requirement for conscious life makes any other setup impossible, it literally cannot possibly poof into existence and work any that does not inevitably result in conscious life coming about. Yes, that's what serious cosmologists debate. No, not that kind of cosmologists, who run around babbling nevulous twaffle about "spirits". The kind that eat shotgun when they get so stuck in their theoretical work, they find they have only the options of the gentleman's way out, or of going and having a work with the manufacturer. Same door.

To make sure I get the gist of your last statement, then, the argument would be that the universe does not exist without observation? Interesting thought, though it does lean a bit towards philosophy for my taste. However, while you can tell me there's a cat in the box that's both alive and dead until I observe it's state, I guess it makes sense for me to question whether the cat exists at all until I observe it

How can anything exist if you cannot observe it?

(because really, who just goes around sticking cats in boxes?).

Don't judge me...

[guitargeek]

https://youtu.be/-aLxsursVGo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[DerGolgo]

To make sure I get the gist of your last statement, then, the argument would be that the universe does not exist without observation? Interesting thought, though it does lean a bit towards philosophy for my taste. However, while you can tell me there's a cat in the box that's both alive and dead until I observe it's state, I guess it makes sense for me to question whether the cat exists at all until I observe it (because really, who just goes around sticking cats in boxes?).

No, the universe must necessarily exist also when it's not being observed, or it couldn't cook and simmer until the observer comes around. At least that's how I understand the argument.
But the universe MUST have the conditions that make the order necessary for intelligent life possible, so that intelligent, conscious life will develop and observer it. With something the size of the universe, that must happen eventually. As some smart person described the magnificence of the universe, from supernovae down to DNA: "It's what happens when you leave hydrogen atoms alone for fourteen billion years."
Or sixteen billion or whatever.
Of course, the nature of time is something many other smart people are less than entirely certain about.
From the idea that, in n-dimensional space, time is just another spatial dimension and the rest of the universe isn't stuck with the linear mode of observation as we are, or that we may actually be experiencing it the wrong way around. So the long period during which the universe may have to go unobserved might actually just be of no consequence.

[Jaeger]

... So the long period during which the universe may have to go unobserved might actually just be of no consequence.

Cosmic exposition?

--Jaeger

[DerGolgo]

... So the long period during which the universe may have to go unobserved might actually just be of no consequence.

Cosmic exposition?

--Jaeger

The optimist in me would say "prologue". The other guy figures, if anything, we're in the epilogue, tying up loose ends that most people don't even recall by the time they get there.

[DerGolgo]

Actually, scary thought.
We are "observing" the universe, but we are far from having observed the lot of it.
However.
What if all we need to observe are the mechanisms that run the universe? That the universe we must observe is, indeed, the nuts and bolts of it.
So, think about it. One day, we finally get a lead on Dark Matter, Dark Energy ... in some office in some college somewhere, one of those brilliant odd people, who are also brilliant, a cosmologist, or theoretical physicist, or particle physicist, whathaveyou. They do some thinking, get a bright idea, scrawls it on the blackboard.
And that's it. The last bit of physics mankind can ever discover, because it is the last bit of physics that there is to discover. The final, underlying mechanism that creates all the phenomena and epiphenomena that make everything happen.
But it's also the last bit of physics mankind can ever discover because then, WHOOSH. The universe has been observed, job done, it implodes into a cloud of probabilities.
Or maybe it keeps ticking on, but without us. Mankind, all we ever did and every were, everything since and including the first hominid who played around with abstract thought, gone. Whoosh. Elsewhere, alien civilizations will forever remain ignorant of us, even our radiowaves have suddenly unhappened. Even if they did receive them and had been talking about it, suddenly, it's not something they ever even conceived of. And they go on, oblivious, until they either nuke themselves, or figure out that last bit of physics, too.

Well, with a bit of luck, we won't just stop existing but, rather, will get flung into some n-dimendional hyper-reality where we all get to ride around, our bikes' displacement is measured in four dimensions and, for some reason, there's always a Johnny Cash tune playing.

[jae]

I can't remember if this was something I first found on this forum, or if this was one that my brother sent me...

Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question" (illustrated) - kind of long, but was an interesting read
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (English adaptation at imgur link, original found here: goo.gl/wL7pqA)