Scary thought I just had about life

[KEV1N]

Today as I was feeding my pet fish Steve, I had a really scary thought. Every day I drop little pellets of food for him. I understand that he doesn't have the physiological capacity to reason, i.e. his brain is too small to realize who I am, that he's my pet, and that I give him food, change his water, and am basically responsible for everything that happens around him. He just accepts that food "happens" to drop from the sky and that it's good.

At that point I thought, what if we're "fish", and that someone or something else is governing the things that happen to us. Things we just accept as "coincidence", "chance", and "nature" are really being determined somewhere else by something else? And that we don't have the capacity to even being to understand what's REALLY going on, and that we won't be able to understand it no matter how hard we try? Just like Steve?

 

[Kadarin]

Look on the bright side; at least your fish has a face..

 

[Lunarcade]

I heard LSD eats holes in your brain.

 

[Ryan]

Originally posted by: Astaroth33
Look on the bright side; at least your fish has a face..

LMAO!! True

 

[ThePresence]

Because I got high............because I got high...........becuase I got hiiiiiiiiiigh. Dum dum dum dee dum.

 

[KEV1N]

You can all run from the truth!

 

[notfred]

Fish are actually smart enough to associate you with food, and yes, they can see outside the tank.

 

[KEV1N]

Is there a difference between him associating "Asian man with glasses + food" and him actually understanding that he's my pet?

 

[Kadarin]

This is probably one of the stranger "fate vs free will" examples I've heard of, but we're vastly different from fish in a number of ways:

For us, food does not drop out of the sky. We either grow it, or (indirectly) purchase it from those who have. We have to make choices and work in order to support ourselves (unless you're African-American, and feel that you are entitled to slavery reparations). We have a more highly developed sense of consciousness; we feel emotions, we not only react to what's around us, but we also act of our own volition to support causes we believe in. We make tools, and we invented something unique called "culture".

Whether there's a point to it all I cannot say. However, we're here, so we might as well make the best of it.

 

[Lithium381]

Originally posted by: Astaroth33
Look on the bright side; at least your fish has a face..

hah, i just busted a gut......think about it this way, would you rather have a fish like that, who is kind, or a steve like "Dude, you're getting a dell" steve....i figure they're both the same, mindless creatures...randomly striving for survival in the only way they can......

 

[KEV1N]

I don't think it's "fate vs. free will" that I'm thinking about.. it's just maybe our undefeatable inability to comprehend a concept such as a higher being or greater force, no matter how hard we try.

Like we can go.. thank God, or it was fate, etc. But what if we're just someone's pet, or something else that we can't comprehend? Just like my fish can't comprehend?

I swear I'm not high!

 

[Kerouactivist]

I was high the other night and thought basically the same thing and it scared the crap outta me, I had to go to bed......

 

[CanOfBeans]

God does not exist. All the world's religions are an attempt to soothe man's discomfort when faced with concepts such as chance, randomness and unpredictability.

The reason we have so much randomness in our world (and your fish doesn't) is because our environment is a complex one while your fish's environment is a simple one. Our environment, the Earth, and also to a greater degree the universe, contains a great number of independenly functioning entities that interact with each other following wildly different rulesets. The results of such interactions are far more complicated than our current mathematical and/or scientific ability to predict them to any degree of accuracy. Stephen Wolfram's recent book suggests that there may indeed be no way to completely predict the future, that the only way to do so would be to build an exact replica of our universe for simulation purposes, which is (naturally) impossible. In contrast to this circus, your fish lives in a microcosm consisting of water and occasional food pellets, a very limited set of entities that hardly interact with one another at all. There is no chance, randomness and unpredictability in your fish's world. Therefore, your fish does not need a concept of God to soothe his discomfort with things he cannot predict.

 

[Kadarin]

Originally posted by: KEV1N
I don't think it's "fate vs. free will" that I'm thinking about.. it's just maybe our undefeatable inability to comprehend a concept such as a higher being or greater force, no matter how hard we try.

Like we can go.. thank God, or it was fate, etc. But what if we're just someone's pet, or something else that we can't comprehend? Just like my fish can't comprehend?

I swear I'm not high!

BTW: CanOfBeans, good first post! And welcome to AT

KEV1N, you're assuming that there is a higher and/or greater force, you're assuming we have an inability to comprehend that, and you're also assuming that this supposed inability is undefeatable, "no matter how hard we try". Those are awfully big assumptions... On what do you base them?

 

[Siddhartha]

Originally posted by: KEV1N
Today as I was feeding my pet fish Steve, I had a really scary thought. Every day I drop little pellets of food for him. I understand that he doesn't have the physiological capacity to reason, i.e. his brain is too small to realize who I am, that he's my pet, and that I give him food, change his water, and am basically responsible for everything that happens around him. He just accepts that food "happens" to drop from the sky and that it's good.

At that point I thought, what if we're "fish", and that someone or something else is governing the things that happen to us. Things we just accept as "coincidence", "chance", and "nature" are really being determined somewhere else by something else? And that we don't have the capacity to even being to understand what's REALLY going on, and that we won't be able to understand it no matter how hard we try? Just like Steve?

Isn't this the real rationale behind religion? A superior being who has favorite pets and it drops food pellets on them from time to time.

 

[jjones]

Isn't this the real rationale behind religion? A superior being who has favorite pets and it drops food pellets on them from time to time.

Have you ever been hit unexpectedly by one of those 300 lb. food pellets? They just come out of nowhere and WHAP!, you're crawling out from under a huge piece of tofu.

 

[Red Dawn]

To the fish we are gods

 

[Martin]

I've heard similar stuff, most notably the "can mokeys learn calculus" example.

The difference between us and them (animals) is that we can improve ourselves. It won't be long before we can start genetically engineering humans to be smarter to understand higher concepts. Can monkeys engineer themselves to be smarter? nope. Can we? not yet, but soon.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
To the fish we are gods

to dogs we are gods as well. to cats we are their mindless minions doing their bidding because they are gods.

 

[Evadman]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
To the fish we are gods

to dogs we are gods as well. to cats we are their mindless minions doing their bidding because they are gods.

So true!

 

[djheater]

I'm fond of the Lovecraftian idea that if we were exposed to the truth of the universe our minds would not be able to handle it and we'd go mad.

I like my tank... I'd just like a bubbly diver.... or one of those treasure chests that open and close... that would be cool.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Astaroth33
Look on the bright side; at least your fish has a face..

LOL! Part of my wonders if he'd still be alive right now if I didnt freeze him....

If we cant figure it out, and we know beyond all doubt that it is impossible to figure out, then it is non-consequential, and basically doesnt matter. We live in a world that has rules, who or what made those rules wont change a thing.

Besides, youre just an animal like the fish, no matter how much your brain tries to convince you youre something different.

 

[Atrail]

Just like Steve

lol

 

[Deeko]

Oh man, CanOfBeans first post is already one that could incite a flamewar...good work

 

[kuk]

Originally posted by: Evadman

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
To the fish we are gods

to dogs we are gods as well. to cats we are their mindless minions doing their bidding because they are gods.

So true!

A random quote I saw here at ATOT:
I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

Kuk