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Ricardo -> RE: Antonio Rey new album " historias de un flamenco" (May 18 2024 16:04:36)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: swampflower
quote:
ORIGINAL: Manitas de Lata
kids are great Stu
i never forget , maybe 3 years ago my daughter ask me at 7h45 am Why we live to die one day
ahahahah , and many other Filosofical things , kids are great
Good stuff. Nothing to make you feel inadequate and nihilistic quite like kids casually and unexpectedly rubbing the inherent fragility of entire existence in your face.
- "Hey dad, catch this!"
- "What is it?"
- "My 9PM 'trying to delay hitting the pillow' philosophical inquiry. Today, it's DEATH. Tell me about DEATH, dad."
My daughter asked me about a random question about space one evening, and for a lapse of judgment painted myself into a corner by somehow managing to arrive at telling about Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of Milky Way galaxy that is slowly sucking us all in. They pressed themselves against me and my daughter fell asleep against my shoulder. Now they ask every single night "How close is the black hole to us now?" -"About the same as yesterday, still 26,000 light years." -"But it can't be the same, how long is that in meters?" AAAAARGH.
As an adult, I still have these questions, so as a dad I make it a point to discover some answers so that any question the kids toss, I field them like a pro.
Why we live do die one day: biological evolution (natural selection plus random mutations). To put it into perspective, the hydra and the Planaria flatworms can regenerate and have interesting DNA structures such that, if they are not killed by external sources they live “forever”. As long as there are materials in the environment around them they can use to continue regeneration. These creatures will expire when the earth and sun die (5 billion years or so, but likely much earlier than that for earth biosphere), but there is a potential humanity can save many organizims out in space somewhere. The potential to alter humanity to have a similar potential is something to consider (as Conan’s girlfriend said, do you WANT to live forever??). Please note, starting with THIS question, that “why questions” all have “how” answers, and are endless regress questions that are not the proper formulations. I try to get the kids to understand that right away.
Tell me about death: remember what it was like before you were born and you had no homework, obligations, illness pain or stress? It is like that, so don’t worry about it.
Black Holes in General: If the sun Disappeared and was magically replaced by a black hole of the SAME MASS or size, (horizon will be much smaller), nothing would change about the solar system other than it would get cold right away. Planets would orbit at the same distance forever. Gravity doesn’t “suck” suddenly. Sagittarius A star is no different, it is not sucking anything. Any space rock that would fall into the gravity well of the sun will get incinerated near the surface…if it fell into a black hole event horizon it would get destroyed as well. Which would be worse kids?? Only if there is a collision course in the works will the black hole be feeding on anything …. Unless there is somebody real close by like a star that is emitting plasma. Even then the star does NOT get sucked in, it orbits forever, only the emitted plasma starts flowing into it. The distance of 26k light years is about 245 quadrillion Kilometers. (Hopefully the kids already know that a kilometer is 1000 meters and the order goes up from 100k to millions, billions, trillions, quadrillions, etc.).
The kids also know “why” they have to file the nails flat and store glue in a plastic bag.[:D]
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