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The Last Question

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Re: The Last Question

#141

Post by technothrasher »

BeetleB wrote: post #131
technothrasher wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, you're complaining that earthboundkid is sucking the fun out of an Isaac Asimov story by dissecting the ideas held within it? I think you may find you have accidentally arrived at the wrong party.

> I think you may find you have accidentally arrived at the wrong party. Definitely - I thought I was at the SF party, not the Skeptics party. I mean, of course the story defies physics. As do over 90% of Asimov's stories. As do most SF stories. Talking about these things is like going to a party to watch the soccer World Cup final and pontificating over how much better soccer would be if you could use your hands to…

> thought I was at the SF party, not the Skeptics party.

Lol. Asimov was a founding member of CSICOP, the organization that literally started the modern Skeptical movement.

Re: The Last Question

#142

Post by aerovistae »

numlocked wrote: post #127
windowshopping wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, this story is just exceptionally good. Asimov was a fine writer, but this story was his crowning achievement in short fiction and he knew it too. You can read his other things and none of them will give the same feeling. Nightfall is a decent story though. But yeah, The Last Question is in a league of its own. It's one of my favorite short stories ever along with The Library of Babel by Borges, The Great Automat…

Thank you for the recommendations! I've read the Borges, but the other two were new to me and were a great way to start my day. The sibling comment also wisely recommends Ted Chiang. "Exhalation" is probably the canonical equivalent to The Last Question.

Yep I enjoyed Exhalation a lot. Good collection and great story.

Re: The Last Question

#143

Post by BeetleB »

technothrasher wrote: post #141
BeetleB wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you may find you have accidentally arrived at the wrong party. Definitely - I thought I was at the SF party, not the Skeptics party. I mean, of course the story defies physics. As do over 90% of Asimov's stories. As do most SF stories. Talking about these things is like going to a party to watch the soccer World Cup final and pontificating over how much better soccer would be if you could use your hands to…

> thought I was at the SF party, not the Skeptics party. Lol. Asimov was a founding member of CSICOP, the organization that literally started the modern Skeptical movement.

And he clearly had the wisdom not to apply it to his fiction writing.

Re: The Last Question

#144

Post by Thorrez »

TuringTest wrote: post #57
Thorrez wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point isn't about the dirt's abilities. The point is how did the dirt come to be in the first place (or really, the atoms, subatomic particles, and mass itself)?

Yeah but the missing point in the reasoning leading to that joke (and theological arguments) is, who created God? If you make the argument that a deity is its own creator and cause, that idea could be applied to the existing physical universe directly.

God is outside of space and time, whereas the physical universe is inside of space and time. The physical universe obeys the laws of physics and God doesn't. So just because God can do something doesn't mean the physical universe can.

Also, we have evidence the physical universe hasn't been around forever: the Big Bang.

Re: The Last Question

#145

Post by Thorrez »

mcv wrote: post #78
TuringTest wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but the missing point in the reasoning leading to that joke (and theological arguments) is, who created God? If you make the argument that a deity is its own creator and cause, that idea could be applied to the existing physical universe directly.

Which is kinda the idea behind the big bang.

Can you elaborate?

Related: the idea of the Big Bang was first thought of by the Catholic priest Monsignor Georges Lemaître. Many scientists at the time dismissed the Big Bang, saying it was an attempt to bring religious concepts into physics. Another tangent: Msgr. Lemaître was quite interested in computer programming, as computers started to be invented toward the end of his life.

Re: The Last Question

#146

Post by TuringTest »

Thorrez wrote: post #144
TuringTest wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but the missing point in the reasoning leading to that joke (and theological arguments) is, who created God? If you make the argument that a deity is its own creator and cause, that idea could be applied to the existing physical universe directly.

God is outside of space and time, whereas the physical universe is inside of space and time. The physical universe obeys the laws of physics and God doesn't. So just because God can do something doesn't mean the physical universe can. Also, we have evidence the physical universe hasn't been around forever: the Big Bang.

> Also, we have evidence the physical universe hasn't been around forever: the Big Bang.

That's not exact. The Big Bang model brings us really close to the start of the known universe, but it doesn't describe what happened before that - nor dictates that it was really the beginning; the mathematics collapse into a non-descriptive degenerate singularity that doesn't need to match reality anymore. By this model, it is possible that there was some physical process before it that caused it and has been going on forever.

Also, the Big Bang model doesn't preclude the existence of other universes far away that were created by the same process, that we simply can't reach because they're out of our scope of causality.

> God is outside of space and time, whereas the physical universe is inside of space and time

That's a cop-out. What does it mean to "exist" if it isn't related to space and time?

> The physical universe obeys the laws of physics and God doesn't. So just because God can do something doesn't mean the physical universe can.

What if the physical universe dictates the laws of physics? Then you don't need God as an entity to explain existence. Unless you want to call the physical universe "god", which is on itself a valid deistic proposition.

Re: The Last Question

#148

Post by thrwyoilarticle »

zw123456 wrote: post #26

One of my favorite things about HN, is how, every once in a while, some obscure cool thing I have not hear about before gets pointed out, which, I find cool. But then, we "hug it to death" in the HN vernacular. Which is also really cool. Some neglected corner of the web that someone cared about, suddenly, a bunch of us nerds jump on it and recognize the nerd-coolness of it. I love that. Hope this was OK to say and no…

A bit like HN reading Money Stuff then paraphrasing its conclusions to each-other

Re: The Last Question

#149

Post by mcv »

Thorrez wrote: post #145
mcv wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is kinda the idea behind the big bang.

Can you elaborate? Related: the idea of the Big Bang was first thought of by the Catholic priest Monsignor Georges Lemaître. Many scientists at the time dismissed the Big Bang, saying it was an attempt to bring religious concepts into physics. Another tangent: Msgr. Lemaître was quite interested in computer programming, as computers started to be invented toward the end of his life.

Pretty much what GP said:

> If you make the argument that a deity is its own creator and cause, that idea could be applied to the existing physical universe directly.

The big bang could be seen as the physical universe creating itself.

Of course you could also see it as created by God (I certainly do), but these two are pretty much your only options, and I don't think one of them is more or less valid than the other. And with God not being subject to the physical universe or its laws, from scientific viewpoint, it's irrelevant. It might as well be the universe creating itself. The difference exists only outside the reach of science.

Re: The Last Question

#150

Post by pnt12 »

pfarrell wrote: post #2

If you haven’t read it before, don’t read the Wikipedia summary; read the actual story. It’s easy to google and pretty short. Isaac Asimov said it was his favorite story he’d written. He imagines the entire history of the future of humanity, to the end of time, in a few pages. Really a marvelous story.

Thanks for the heads up: it truly is worth reading.
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