| The Last Question
Posted: 5/22/2009 7:27:52 AM | I did a thread search, and found nothing pertaning to this- in title, anyway. So here's hoping this can be a new and exciting conversation!
I recently re-read Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question"- which can be found at http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html - and given the particularly striking nature of the closing sentence, I felt it would be appropriate to introduce a discussion into the forum.
Basically, my question is this- is this scenario, in the context of whatever faith system you believe in, plausible? Why or why not?
It is only fair that I start.
The scenario Asimov presents resonates particularly well with how I understand the Universe to exist, though I dislike the idea of a sentient omnipotence. However, the concept that human intelligence is effectively a form of the Divine and thus creates itself (how positively gnostic!) seems to me a rational conclusion, as it were, to the human condition: a direction, if you will, our evolution may lead us toward.
Though honestly, I see humanity as heading in the Idiocracy direction as far more plausible.
Any thoughts? | |
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| The Last Question
Posted: 5/22/2009 3:07:47 PM | I read the story, but in the initial scroll down to see how long it was, caught the striking closing sentence, which slightly marred the effect.
The concept of humans representing a germ of self awareness in the universe that will eventually reach godlike status is an appealing one, and the idea of humans colonising the universe was good, but after an earlier reading of a thread on the Science/ Philosophy forum about the human body adapting to living on planets with reduced gravity and the problems of their then returning to Earth with weakened musculature and reduced bone mass, I wonder if long distance manned space travel will ever be viable.
A more likely scenario, which I'm sure must have been covered in the world of sci-fi literature (thinks The Terminator), is that humans will create sentient machines that lack our physical weaknesses and can boldly go where we cannot. This is already happening, minus the sentience, in a tentative way with the robot Mars landers.
Will it one day be possible for us to create such spacefaring machines, maybe in our own image, and download our human consciousness into them? This feat alone would be slightly Godlike, although not as impressive as reversing the heat death of the universe.. | |
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| The Last Question
Posted: 5/22/2009 7:01:14 PM | I think Asimov was being overly optimistic in his short story, but that is the nature of science fiction, it is not bound by anything but one's imagination. The story is no less plausible than the creation myth of a creater with a liking for the aroma of burning goat flesh (and latterly the burning human flesh of heretics, apostates and other enemies of the faith). None the less, without a doubt, he writes a splendid science fiction story (his non-fiction isn't too shabby either).
http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/asimov_catalogue.html
Undoubtedly we as a species will, resources permitting, explore beyond the outer reaches of our solar system, and may also, resources permitting, colonise some of the nearer planets with the potential for habitation. As to travel beyond the solar system, that would require technologies and fundamental discoveries in physics way beyond what we are possibly capable of in the foreseeable future. Even if such possibilities were practical, it is likely that our intelligent species' penchent for stupidity(and an irrational belief in dieties is but one and not the least of such stupidities) will probably see homo sapiens extinct much sooner in our epoch than the dinosaurs were in their epoch.
It is as if all the species on this planet is stranded upon a lifeboat, hundreds and thousands of light years away from the nearest landfall. And yet, there are those who would kill off all those passengers who would not agree with them on how to get to the ultimate destination, and there are others who are happily destroying the lifeboat, the sooner to reach the fabled treasures of Davy Jones's locker!
Asimov was not greatly in favour of religion / irrational thought.
I leave you with two quotes of his that are as instructive as any of the fiction or non-fiction that he wrote:
"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived."
the second, quote....is particularly apt to this thread, and to the Asimov short story featured within it. Vale Isaac Asimov (1920-1992).
"To rebel against a powerful political, economic, religious, or social establishment is very dangerous and very few people do it, except, perhaps, as part of a mob. To rebel against the "scientific" establishment, however, is the easiest thing in the world, and anyone can do it and feel enormously brave, without risking as much as a hangnail. Thus, the vast majority, who believe in astrology and think that the planets have nothing better to do than form a code that will tell them whether tomorrow is a good day to close a business deal or not, become all the more excited and enthusiastic about the bilge when a group of astronomers denounces it." | |
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| The Last Question
Posted: 5/24/2009 2:49:46 AM | The question a I understood it was, "How may entropy be reversed?"
Only if the entropy is revisered before complete entropy. Then only if it is like an infinite yo-yo of the known unvierse going in and out and in again, over and over without a first origin or ever a last origin.
As to, ". . . of whatever faith system you believe in, plausible? Why or why not?" Any faith system, unless it is rooted in reality, rooted in truth. Faith in a lie will always be wrong. | |
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| The Last Question
Posted: 5/24/2009 1:31:31 PM | I always thought this was quite ironic, because Isaac Asimov was a Jew, and from a Jewish perspective, his idea of the Universal AC, is not that different from the Jewish idea of G-d.
The scenario Asimov presents resonates particularly well with how I understand the Universe to exist, though I dislike the idea of a sentient omnipotence. Consider Asimov's story. In the context of the universe of the story, man created Multivac. Multivac created the Planetary AC. The Planetary AC created the Galactic AC. The Galactic AC created the Universal AC. Then the Universal AC created the "next" universe, and man arose within that. So the man of "that" universe, never knew that the Universal AC was created by man from the "previous" universe, or that the Universal AC definitely even exists, as it is all in hyperspace. All in all, if WE were in the "next" universe, then the Universal AC would not be much different from the monotheistic idea of G-d, except that we wouldn't even consider if it was created by something that was created by something that was created by something that was created by some intelligent species in a "previous" universe, as we aren't even sure if any "previous" universe even exists. | |
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| The Last Question
Posted: 5/24/2009 2:29:49 PM |
. . . All in all, if WE were in the "next" universe, then the Universal AC would not be much different from the monotheistic idea of G-d, except that we wouldn't even consider if it was created by something that was created by something that was created by something that was created by some intelligent species in a "previous" universe, as we aren't even sure if any "previous" universe even exists. There could be an unending change of "previous" universes. With no last universe to be ever in sight. But all in all, there would be an underlying "existence" for them all. An "Existence" which of itself would have always existed and always will exist apart from any preceived universe. That "Existence" is the only real G-d. | |
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| The Last Question
Posted: 5/24/2009 3:28:18 PM | The word, "Multivac" reminds me of a cylinder vacuum cleaner I bought in 1988. It has had a couple of replacement motors in its time, but the most recent one has lasted for yonks.
Mind you, I only use it to vacuum the garage these days.. | |
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