Just got 5 mod points again. I couldn't even use up the 5 I got a week ago in a fair and informed manner. Hmm, how to perform my civic duty?

Perhaps I'll concentrate this time on the "Browse at -1 to keep an eye out for abuses", and see if anyone's been sabotaging.

I've long thought there are three locations in spacetime which represent fundamental mysteries - where the laws of physics break down and at some threshhold cannot explain all that is really happening at there.

1. At the moment of the/a Big Bang
2. Within a black hole
3. Within the mind of a sentient being.

The first two are setups for the third.

And the coolest part is that we are at the third location. So we can observe it. Any thoughts?

Please feel free to leave comments and ideas

Occasionally I consider how minute the probability of actually being here is. The only reason that we can make this observation at all is that being here is a necessary condition.

As the saying goes, âoethe universe is bigâ.

A couple of fairly recent stories PBS: cosmic expansion and Multiple Universes discuss the scale of time and space.

B----------------------------------E

On the time line, our universe started about 13B years ago (B). But things wonâ(TM)t reach steady state â" which is when the universe gets really boring - for trillion trillions of years (E). By steady state I mean the time of the last significant event, such as the last proton decay. All black holes would have evaporated. I know this ignores activity causing cosmic expansion pressure. The universe would largely be a spray of subatomic particles. Would there be anything else? Please let me know. Iâ(TM)m interested in knowing whether thereâ(TM)d be chunks or purely a spray.

Weâ(TM)re so close to the beginning of the universe that I consider us to still be in a stage of the big bang. For most of the universeâ(TM)s time, it will be a dark spray.

Now think of how wide a time slice of the above scale that any/all of us are available to observe this situation and divide by the total expected nonboring lifetime of the universe.

Categories of reasons for the preposterous unlikelihood of being here include:
- the six constants weâ(TM)ve heard so much about
- the tiny fraction of time that weâ(TM)re here to observe this
- the chance of any of us actually being born (that was a heck of a race each of us won to start our lives â" phew!)

The independent chance of me or you (in particular) observing the universe is to quote the cliché vanishingly small.

But it all comes down to Bayesâ(TM) Theorem. Thatâ(TM)s the sole reason I have for observing right now.

Seems I should brush up on my social skills a tad. If you have any advice I'd appreciate it. Here's my situation.

I've just recently started posting after a long time just reading here. But it didn't take long for me to upset someone. And how.

I was surprised to receive this pointed rebuttal, to what I'd meant as an innocuous comment. I want to blame it on there not being quite the range of parenting books available in my formative years. Anyway I apologised and considered the dynamics of what had just happened.

Perhaps I should stick to uncontroversial topics until I've integrated myself in a bit more here and learn how to behave.

The part of the rebuttal that gave me pause was that I was "just trying to feel superior to everyone". I thought about this a fair amount and hope it isn't true for a number of reasons.

That goal would run counter to my world view and how my mind seems to work. Although it is an insidious beast.

But it at least inspired my current and first sig: esteem isn't a zero sum game.

It's true that I have hurt a number of friends' feelings before - usually by saying some form of goodbye forever. But also by arguing logically and assuming that the discussion was egoless.

I use that term when I think about discussions with my housemates from university. We'd state and rebut a topic on end as if it was in the middle of us. Before us but separate. Comments we made were aimed at discerning what was in front of us. Well that and breaking the silence of lounging on the back patio with our beers.

Maybe that's all that's missing at Slashdot - the beer! If I'd be able to hand everyone a beer before my posts, folks'd have a better idea where I was coming from.

Well maybe there's some misdirection there too though, which'd lead to a whole other entry for another day:

You see I'm Canadian but drink Kilkenny.

If you're looking at this please let me know and I'll try to write something worthy.

If anything interesting happens to me you'll be the first to know ... well, after the local emergency room that is.

Sure hope this doesn't prove to be prescient.