Infinite Quack

Karl Popper made a big stink about falsifiability . If you’re making a statement about the real world, there had better be some way to disprove (falsify) your statement. Let’s say your statement is “It’s raining”. I should be able to open my window and stick my arm outside and see if it gets wet. Writing as a software developer, I might use the shorter word “testable”. If your assertion is testable, it may be right or it may be wrong. I and others are empowered to figure that out. If the assertion is that life continues after death, how does one render that assertion testable? We must say more. “Ghosts exist”, for example, is testable, as long as your definition of “ghost” includes that they have some observable impacts on the living world. It should be possible to take a picture of a ghost, record a ghost saying something or moving an object. People make ghost hunter TV shows, of course, but the wider scientific community remains unconvinced because this “evidence” doesn’t meet the hi...

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory mentioned, which states that this has already happened.”  -- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Trigger warning: Discussion of death, the meaning of existence, and a brief mention of suicide are ahead.) Douglas Adams was a remarkable man who wrote some wholly remarkable books. His Hitchhiker series made a huge impression on me in my childhood, introducing me all at once to quirky British comedy and witty science fiction parody, painting a Universe that was colorful, whimsical, yet mysterious and absurd, in which -- when you came right down to it -- nothing ultimately made sense. Then he died, which is less remarkable, really. Everyone who’s ever been born has eventually done that . He was living, you see, and then... he stopped doing th...

Imagine there's no heaven It's easy if you try No hell below us Above us, only sky  - Lennon Trigger warning: If you're a religious person, you may perceive what I'm about to write as an affront. It's for you to decide whether to keep reading, or skip to something else. There is plenty of other material out there to focus on. I’ve debated whether I should put this material out there, as some of it is inherently depressing and/or scary to contemplate. They’re not thoughts unique to me, though (I lay claim to no special insights), and thinking these matters through as a species may be therapeutic as well as necessary. And it’s not all bad. This post has been brewing in my head for some time. It could be emerging now as an extremely introspective person's version of a midlife crisis. I did turn 45 in February, after all. I've held a variety of beliefs over those years. Growing up, I believed there was an all-knowing, all-seeing God who could directly perceive m...