How do we think ?

[mapuc]

If I wrote

The 50th President of USA will be the last President

Or if I wrote

The next Pope will be the last Pope.

Most of you would most likely in your response, write things like

"What have you been drinking or eating Markus/mapuc ?

There have been thousands if not millions who have tried to predict the end of the world. "

Why do we think like that, when we read these stories ?
Why is it we automatically think -"End of the world.

What if the Catholic and the Vatican decide to replace the Pope with something else

And this story about the 50th President(made up by me while writing this post)

What if it means that the people of USA wants something else than their President.

Markus

[vienna]

:hmmm: ...


















<O>

[Platapus]

My first reaction would be to ask what evidence do you have that supports this assertion.

[Sailor Steve]

In both cases you would be asserting something would happen that is extremely unlikely. The Vatican is unlikely to get rid of the office of Pope in favor of something else. This is not to say that it couldn't happen, but that it is so unlikely that there is no reason to expect that it would happen tomorrow.

Likewise the President. The procedures are set in such a way that barring the entire population agreeing to get rid of the office at the same time it just can't happen. If half the people decided it was the thing to do they would have to fight the other half. The resulting Civil War could have that outcome, but it wouldn't happen in one day, and it would take the entire population agreeing overnight for it to happen that way.

If I said that tomorrow Godzilla would attack Tokyo for real the result would be the same. It is so very unlikely that people would conclude not that it could happen, but that I was either joking or crazy. When something is beyond the realm of reasonable expectation, to claim that it will (not could, but will) happen will not only invite ridicule but said ridicule will be the only reasonable response.

[vienna]

Somewhere, Schrödinger has a big smile on his face...
















<O>

[mapuc]

I agree Steve.

But why does it have to mean end of the world.

It could very well mean the end of the Era of these thing(The Pope and the President)

I know very well, those people who write these stories, are trying to scare people with their end of the world-story.

It was me who some weeks ago, after having re-read the headlines in a rerun of this end of the Pope story.

I changed my mind from
How many believe this stuff too

To
But wait, if this author get it right, does it mean the end of the world ? What if it means something different like the Catholics and the Vatican decide to replace the Pope with something else.

Markus

[fireftr18]

vienna, I agree with both your comments. The rest are too confusing.
:Kaleun_Cheers:

[Jimbuna]

If I were a gambling man I know which outcome I'd be putting my wager on.

[STEED]

If I were a gambling man I know which outcome I'd be putting my wager on.

Pope Jim the 1st. :DL

[Rockstar]

Psychology Reveals the Comforts of the Apocalypse


By Daisy Yuhas (https://www.scientificamerican.com/author/daisy-yuhas/) on December 18, 2012

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/psychology-reveals-the-comforts-of-the-apocalypse/

..."I talk to kids in my practice and they see it as a good thing. They say, 'life would be so simple—I'd shoot some zombies and wouldn't have to go to school,'" Schlozman says. In both literature and in speaking with patients, Schlozman has noticed that people frequently romanticize the end times. They imagine surviving, thriving and going back to nature. Schlozman recently had an experience that eerily echoed Orson Welles's 1938 The War of the Worlds broadcast. He was discussing his book on a radio program and they had to cut the show short when listeners misconstrued his fiction for fact. He believes the propensity to panic is not constant in history but instead reflects the times.

In today's complicated world with terrorism, war, fiscal cliffs and climate change, people are primed for panic.




Pope Jim? Surely this is a sign of the apocalypse!


https://media.giphy.com/media/dWmI7anNULf8I/giphy.gif

[Skybird]

Man does not like uncertainty, it reminds him of his own mortality and vulnerability and weakness. So he forms the illusion of being in control, forging his own fate, enforcing his will on the universe. Ways to acchieve this certainty there are many, and most of them have more or less to do with obedience, believing, and totalitarianism of any form. This not only helps to form the illusion of one's own strength and the relevance of one'S own ego, it also filters the way man perceives the universe around him - he then nho longer witnesses things as they are, but as he wants them to be, may it be on behalf of things obeying him, or things delivering him the justification for being even more imperial himself in enforcing his own view of things and impose this will on things and non-believers.

Sense of realism you seek in vein in all this.

At the bottom of all collective stupidity and all collective barbary and furor, lies existential fear of one's own end. One tries to become immortal by oneself dissolving in a higher entity: the collective.

And may the gods have mercy with anyone who is stupid enough to put this collective and its dogmas in doubt!

The fact that remains at the end of the day: the universe is a chaotic place, life is uncertain and vulnerable, and whether there is any meaning in life and existence that goes beyond just living the moment, is in doubt and has never been shown evidence for.

And that are some big, bitter, heavy pills to swallow. Most try to spit them out, therefore, and instead call the simplifying shortcut - believing in something - a higher virtue and courage. It isn't. Its just evading uncomfortable truths about our existence, and replacing lacking knowledge with fantasies.

I "believe" in the wisdom of living every day as if it were my last. For in fact even my next stroke of breath already is uncertain.

[Rockstar]

btw this is a good start for those who don't know anything about Schrodingers Cat thought experiment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrxqTtiWxs4

[STEED]

Pope Jim? Surely this is a sign of the apocalypse!

No far from it, let the good times roll. :)