The World Beyond BetterMost > Anything Goes

A Conversation With Daniel

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Daniel:
I would have started this in the Personal Blog pages, but I already have a thread there, and I'm not certain that this will fit in with the other things on that thread. It is mostly about presentation. This one is about interaction. So let's begin, shall we? The main point here is to engage in dialogue. One point bouncing off another's, and so on and so forth. It can be great fun for those of us that relish the challenge of communication (such as myself), and certainly is likely to spawn some interesting ideas.

I am wondering if someone would like to ask me a question... something that I can take a little bit of time answering... so that we can get this show on the road?

Front-Ranger:
Certainly, I would be happy to ask a question...this one is not very deep. Sorry, but you know, it IS Friday afternoon after all. My question is, could Jack be happy living in the panhandle of Texas as a single gay man if he were there today?? How could he make a decent life for himself? Would he be goin to Mexico two or three times a year??

moremojo:
Hi, Daniel, my fellow Texan and the best Jack portrayer after Mr. Gyllenhaal! I wish you the best on your newest project, and commend your unusual approach at emphasizing dialogue over (though not at the expense of) presentation. I find for myself that presentation tends to be easier than a true give-and-take exchange of ideas.

So I'm racking my brains now to come up with some profound question to pose to you. Something, as you write, that you can mull over and refine over time. How about this: Do you believe there is a purpose or meaning to life? If so, do you have any sense of what that purpose or meaning would be?

Cheers,
Scott

Update: I couldn't read FRiend Lee's post before I submitted my own, but I'm not trying to preempt her own query in any way. Perhaps we can create an archive of questions for you here, Daniel, that you can respond to (or not, as the case may be) as time and your own interest permit.

Daniel:
Thank you, both Lee and Scott. In the interest of creating a dialogue, I think I will start with Scott's question first.. We may eventually come back around to your question, Lee, and I know that your question is an important one, but Scott's question is a good one to begin a dialogue with.

Scott: Do you believe there is a purpose or meaning to life? If so, do you have any sense of what that purpose or meaning would be?

Daniel: Yes, I do believe that there is both purpose and meaning in life; that can be found in both the smallest part of material existence and in the greatest complexity of a galaxy. Now I know that you will be interested in how or why I think that way, so I will attempt to demonstrate. Without getting into too complex physics, I believe I can demonstrate that light and subatomic particles behave in strange ways... ways which are difficult to both comprehend and foretell. Of course, we could hypothesize that a mirror curved at such and such a degree, and tilted at such and such an angle would reflect light in a specific direction. And we can see that this is indeed often the case. But that is not all. Although a majority of the light captured and harvested in this way might indeed be sent off in another direction, we can still see that light.... which means that not all of the light is being controlled. I am not sure if this is a good way to answer this question, or that you understand the relevance to the question you asked with this example... It might not be a good idea to continue if it's not.  The point I will eventually be making is that:

A. Not everything in the Universe can be controlled by scientific measures.

B. Consider that scientific measures represent one of the strongest forces of manipulation, namely in that the scientific method is mostly an ironclad process in identifying cause and effect, among other contingencies.

C. Even though science cannot control or reproduce certain harmonic effects of the Universe, which lead to life and the pursuit of diversification of life, their presence is an indication of forces which are not yet understood by scientific disciplines. (I will be coming back to this later, for I am sure it will haunt me.)

Now all this is to me a major indication that life (animal, vegetable, and mineral) and the organized structure of the subatomic particles and atoms which help to make up the grand network of life, is a miracle. There is no plausible scientific explanation that excludes some type of intelligent force at work. Perhaps we can better understand this by understanding the complexity of what it means to be "intelligent".

Daniel:
I suppose, as in all good dialogues, I will respond to your question with a question.

What are purpose and meaning?

We might be able to agree that purpose is an emotional sense of intention, that is of moving toward a specific goal. And likewise that meaning is an emotional or intellectual awareness of a reason or underlying basis for an activity or series of activities. Both of these indicate something which I have not yet really discussed, since we are discussing all life, and it is uncertain whether all life indicates this one factor... consciousness.

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