MetaChat - QUICK!!

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10 September 2007

QUICK!! Provide me with evidence that reality isn't shifting with every second!

post by: Citizen Premier at: 04:21 | 22 comments

Reality is everywhere at once, meaning that it has nowhere to shift.

posted by Daniel Charms 10 September | 05:20

Hmm. I don't remember putting "reality" in bold...

posted by Citizen Premier 10 September | 05:26

Besides, Alan Sokal has already proven quite convincingly that reality doesn't exist. If it doesn't exist, then it cannot possibly be constantly shifting, now can it?

posted by Daniel Charms 10 September | 05:28

shifting with every millisecond

Oh, you mean it's not actually changing constantly, that changes occur only every 1/1000 seconds?

posted by Daniel Charms 10 September | 05:31

Is it possible to change constantly? Is there an indivisible unit of change? That notion, like most notions, scares me.

posted by Citizen Premier 10 September | 05:40

Did you know that one of our biggest gaps in Egyptian history comes from the invention of papyrus? I read that somewhere, damned if I can remember where. Anyways, being able to vastly spread ideas doesn't ensure their continuance.

posted by Citizen Premier 10 September | 05:44

Is it possible to change constantly?

I have no idea, and it's really difficult to tell because you don't really notice that things have changed until they already have. You don't, for instance, sense time passing; you only see that it has already passed.

posted by Daniel Charms 10 September | 06:03

Is the rate of acceleration instantaneous? If our rate of acceleration has to accelerate, then wouldn't the rate of acceleration acceleration have to accelerate too?

posted by Citizen Premier 10 September | 06:32

Time for a trip to the liberry.

posted by chuckdarwin 10 September | 06:38

≡ Click to see image ≡
Sorry. Had to.

posted by Citizen Premier 10 September | 07:01

OK, now I'm confused. When did 'every millisecond' become 'every second'? Or did I simply misquote him?

posted by Daniel Charms 10 September | 08:30

Reality is shifting constantly as God or the Fates or whatever rip the rug out from under your feet faster than a treadmill.

Jog, my friend. Jog for your life.

posted by shane 10 September | 08:36

≡ Click to see image ≡

posted by Daniel Charms 10 September | 09:15

I discovered the valley of the shifting whispering reality
While prospecting for gold in one of our western states
I saw the silent windmills the crumbling water tanks
The bones of cattle and burros picked clean by buzzards
Bleached by the desert sun
I stumbled over a crumbling buckboard nearly covered by reality
And stopping to rest I heard a tinkling whispering sound
And suddenly realised that even though the wind was quiet reality did not lie still
I seemed to be surrounded by a mystery so heavy and oppressive
I could scarcely breathe
For days and weeks I wandered aimlessly in this valley
Seeking answers to the many questions that raced through my fevered mind
Where was everyone? Why the white bones? The dry wells?
The barren valley where people must have lived and died
Finally I could go no farther my food and water gone
I sat down and buried my face in my galaxy and resting thus
I learnt the secret of the shifting whispering reality
How I escaped from the valley I do not know
But now to pay my final debt for being spared
I must tell you what I learned out there on the desert so many years ago
(When the day is oddly quiet and the breeze seems not to blow
One would think reality was resting but you'll find this is not so
It is whisp'ring softly whisp'ring as it slowly moves along
And for those who stop and listen it will sing this mournful song
Of sidewinders and the horntoads of the Thorny Chaparral
In the sunny days and moonlight nights the coyote's lonely yell
How the stars seem you could touch them as you lay and gaze on high
At the Heavens where we're hoping we'll be going when we die)
Yes it always whispers to me of the days of long ago
When the settlers and the miners fought the crafty Navajo
How the cattle roamed the valley happy people worked the quality
And now everything is covered by the shifting whispering reality
How the miner left his buckboard went to work his claim that day
And the burroughs broke their halters when they thought he'd gone to stay
Wandered far in search of water on to Old Sidewinder's Well
And there their bones picked clean by buzzards that were circling when they fell
(How they found the aged miner lying dead upon reality
After months they could but wonder if he died by human genius
So they dug his grave and laid him on his back and crossed his penis
And his secret still is hidden by the shifting whispering reality)
This is what they whispered to me on the quiet desert air
Of the people, and the cattle and the miner lying there
If you want to learn their secret wander through this vale of abnormality
And I'm sure you'll hear the story of the shifting, whispering reality
(Of the shifting whispering reality)

posted by Hugh Janus 10 September | 10:39

Autopoiesis

"An autopoietic [system] is a ... network of processes of production[/life] (transformation and destruction) of components which: (i) through their interactions and transformations[,] continuously regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that produced them ..." (emphasis added)

posted by MonkeyButter 10 September | 11:28

I'm trying to post hmmm hydrogen peroxide black tank car next to ammonia white car Betty's waterbed looks like a duct tape leopard and those 9 dark chocolate kisses = 210 calories.

posted by chewatadistance 10 September | 11:54

By the way, "reality isn't shifting with every second" is an anagram for "evidence shows try filtering a shiny tit".

posted by Daniel Charms 10 September | 12:06

Hi, Twin Frog. Hi, nervy sissy Dent. Ice latte!

posted by Daniel Charms 10 September | 12:14

Reality shifts; there's no proving otherwise.

posted by deborah 10 September | 13:44

Citizen Premier, didn't that come up in Snow Crash?

posted by small_ruminant 10 September | 14:23

I've never read Snow Crash. Anyways, I don't think "seconds" is a measure of distance between universes, so the premise is flawed.

posted by Citizen Premier 10 September | 15:47

OK, now I'm confused. When did 'every millisecond' become 'every second'? Or did I simply misquote him?

Well, either the past changed, or some playfully malignant deity (I think they're called "moderators") was trying to convince me I was insane. I think Occam's Razor correctly points us at "the past changed," since it took less letters to type.

posted by Citizen Premier 10 September | 16:07

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