Scott wrote:Whatever the reason, I love being alive, I love myself, I love my friends, I love humanity, and I love loving these things. That's what matters to me. And I think most people feel the same.
(Color courtesy of ape.] ape:Wow! How come I didn't see this yet?;) Thanx for bringing it up to the surface! It was under seE level!smile Love being unconditional has no reason other than itself: you love because you need to and want to. You love just because. Love is thus absolute and self-referential and makes relativity work. And Scott, that Love is all that matters for it makes everything else--even meaninglessness-- full of matter and meaningful!
It's all mind over matter and over time: if you don't mind and don't have the time, it doesn't matter.
Scott wrote: Do you think being able to appreciate our lives here on this tiny planet in a gigantic universe and overcome a feeling of meaninglessness can help us overcome the same feelings towards death?
In Love of what we appreciate and what we don't appreciate, in Love of meaning and no meaning, in Love of life and death, etc and non-etc, yes. Love is what gives us the insight to see that life and death are a package deal, and is what makes life worth living and death worth dying, and let's us see that death is a gate to life just as life was/is a gate to death.
Scott wrote: Does being small in terms of space has the same effect as being small in terms of time?
ape: Yes--time is simply space in seconds just as space is time in inches. So when we love both space and time, space and no space/outer space, time and no time/out of time, once again big space, small space, eternity, no time has no effect on our Love. "O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell [or in no time] and [still] count myself a king of infinite space [and time], were it not that I have bad dreams [due to my Hate for what I think of all during the day and so dream all of at night].WS "The evidence, so far at least and laws of Nature aside, does not require a Designer. Maybe there is one hiding, maddeningly unwilling to be revealed." Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot. Proverbs 25: 2It is the glory of God to conceal a thing [such as himself]:but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.