Sunday, April 28, 2013

Metal Philosophical Cosmology

The universe is not beautiful or sensible or meaningful (of course it's not) and it's totally justified being annoyed at the idiots who gasp with horror when someone dares express this, and - seemingly worse - isn't particularly bothered by it. What arrogance and ignorance would make us think it should be in the first place? Outside of the slice where our oversensitive distorted provincial little brains evolved and are able to knit into a sensible story, it's a mess, exactly as philosopher Jim Holt states here:
...the universe is more ugly than it is beautiful...the form we can expect reality to take at its most general level is that of an infinite, incomplete mediocre mess. The laws of physics are not particularly elegant. The ingredients of the universe show no aesthetic parsimony. There are 60 odd elementary particles. That's way more than is necessary. If the universe is created by a God it's a God with no sense of economy or elegance. There's way too much suffering in the universe. Childhood cancer shouldn't be a part of any decent universe. And even though it's infinitely removed from nothingness the universe also falls infinitely short of containing all imaginable realities.
And where's the character-building in a nice universe anyway? If it's all made for us like some kind of eternal terrarium, or even happens to be a nice place to live, you can be a wimp and still survive there. We live in an indifferent mess whether or not we like it anyway. And we can say that without trying to be depressed or shocking about it; it's just a fact. To insist otherwise about the universe is not only deluded, it's clinging to illusion out of weakness. Because most of us are happy we're here, and we survive and prosper in it.

As if that's not metal enough, there are occasional other metal things like dark lightning. Gamma ray bursts on Earth! That's metal as hell dude.

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