Cloudscape

There are no sane people. There are just insane people and people who are insane in an abnormal way. Almost everyone holds beliefs that they are certain to be true, but for some people these beliefs are shared with a large percentage of the population, and for some people these beliefs are shared with a smaller percentage. In other words, for some people the insanity is collective, for some people it is individual. We are almost all insane, but some are more original in their insanity than others. Some people think of their own delusions, others just copy them from others. The only difference is in the source of their inspiration. Most people's insanity is to adapt to others' insanity and blindly believe them to be right; other people's insanity is to blindly believe themselves to be right.
Almost everyone thinks they know the truth and that whoever thinks otherwise is wrong, with exceptions only in the very, very few open minds there are in the world. Generally, the more intellectual someone is, the more they are attached to their own opinions. If we attach any value to our beliefs, I believe it should be because of the beauty of the patterns of our thoughts, not because we think they are true. The truth can never fully be achieved but only approached. It is something which lies outside of ourselves, and in that we are perhaps too small too understand it. I believe that nothing is ever fully true or false, and that the truth is always somewhere in between. Thus, we can approach the truth as closely as possible, but never actually reach it. It is the asymptote of the function of knowledge. The truth is something infinitely subtle and nuanced, and while we may come closer and closer to it, we cannot fully reach it unless we could see its infinitely many nuances.

The truth is a target that lies at an infinite distance. Novice sailors find that when they as they try to attach a target, they have to readjust their course the closer they get to it. But the truth lies infinitely far. We can move towards it in as straight a line as possible, but we can never aim straight towards it because it is too far. Our aim can never be perfect, and the least we deviate from it will eventually lead us away from the truth. The closer we get to it, the greater this deviation becomes, so that again and again, we have to readjust our view.

This is illustrated by the model of the atom: at first, it was thought the atom was a solid sphere (Dalton); then, it was thought that that there were negative electrons floating on the positive nucleus (Thomson); then, it was thought that there was actually a lot of space in between electrons and protons (Rutherford); yet later, there turned out to be neutrons in the nucleus as well; yet later, it turned out the electrons weren't orbiting the nucleus in a circle but rather in a wavelike motion; yet later, the protons and neutrons appeared not to be solid but be composed of quarks, elementary particles; and yet later, these elementary particles all appeared not to be solid either, because they were actually really localized by the interference of energy waves. Right now, many scientists still live in the delusion that yes, they know the truth and that this is the end of it.

Will it ever end? Will we ever see that we are not, as we have deluded ourselves since the beginnings of time, Omniscient?
Someone who is deluded is always convinced of the truth of their delusions, and this conviction is by far a more criterion in defining delusions than their falsehood. If I believe that I might be involved in a mind control conspiracy, this is perfectly reasonable, as history has shown that it is possible; however, if I am certain that I am involved in such conspiracy, then I am insane. The irony is that this would make most people insane, were it not for the fact that a third criterion of a delusion is that it is not held by a culture.
I do not think I am so different. Even I like to feel that I know something, even if whatever it is I think to know is at most an approximation of the truth -- still infinitely far from the complete truth, but so too infinitely far from complete falsehood. Everything has some kernel of truth, and yet is not perfectly true.

In an infinite, or even just a very large Universe, there must have been at least some race which had lived long enough to achieve a state of godlike power and enlightenment. It is very possible that most sentient species would not have come that far, but even so, part of them would have, and in an infinite and eternal Universe, it would not matter how few there would be. Even in a very large and very old universe, it would still not matter very much how few there would be. Considering that as many of sixty have been observed as of 20/12/2008 which appear to be in the habitable zone of their star, and considering that there must be many, many more which we have as yet failed to discover with our currently primitive means of observing exoplanets, it is nothing less than prejudice to claim that there is nothing "out there."
Given the pains we take to attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial intelligence, if there are indeed intelligences besides our own, at least some of them would have taken the initiative to send forth Von Neumann probes. These are hypothetical spacecraft which would travel from exoplanet to exoplanet to explore, sending back information about their explorations either waiting for instructions or, more likely, make decisions on their own accord which would, with sufficient AI, get most obstacles out of the way. Every time they would have reached another exoplanet, they would replicate, meaning that they would produce more of their own kind, much like robots in factories today are already produced by other robots. Upon their replication, their now greater numbers could explore yet other exoplanets. Supposing these probes were nanoscale or even microscale, their mass would be so low that near-light speed would not require much energy -- - this would merely require more advanced miniaturization than we have today.
This energy could be provided mostly from an external source when the probe is still on or near its last exoplanet, for instance by the other probes, which then renew their own energy before departing themselves. Once it would be in outer space, its speed would not be braked by an atmosphere and could theoretically go on for many light years if it survived - it could use smaller amounts of energy to slightly adjust its course, to avoid obstacles or to enter into orbit around its target exoplanet. Because of their low mass, they could also be much, much greater in number, so that the chance that some would survive would be greater. In addition, they would not require much matter to replicate, as a proper micrometeorite would be enough. The most important problem with smaller sizes would be that less information could be contained in it. If the probe contained enough computing power, it could learn to communicate with us; this AI could be contained within a single computer, but it could also be contained within countless nanorobots. In addition, if it contained enough information, the computer could improve our knowledge by itself, for instance, or even improve ourselves, our very DNA and our thoughts, so as to "uplift" us as it is called in transhumanist jargon. The question here, of course, is whether we would want this, but some people among us certainly would (transhumanists, extropianists, many Buddhists, many mystics).
We have ourselves nearly achieved such level of technological sophistication, being at least a few decades and at most a few centuries away from it, supposing that our further development is unhindered by extinction level events (the most likely of which would probably be world-threatening terrorism). Since there occurred no actual events whatsoever which threatened to wipe out the entire human race since it arose, we may assume that many sentient species would probably have achieved the technology needed to build nanoscale Von Neumann probes. These could have explored the Universe practically at near-light speed, with only relatively very slight delays to replicate every time they would have reached new exoplanets.
Assuming that there have been such civilizations in the galaxy (four hundred billion stars), then they would have found us by now if they had existed at least fifty thousand years ago, which is only about fifteen thousand years before the first traces of the Cro-Magnon man showed up. Sensing intelligent life, their probes could have given at the very least some information about their species and their position in the universe. Given another hundred thousand years, their species themselves could have interfered by controlling the probes directly, so that even if their AI was too limited to make them communicate with us, the species themselves would have done so - the question is then if by that time this species would still exist or have interest in communicating with us. This would perhaps not have been necessary, however, as it is likely that if such probes had been sent at all, their AI could perhaps have been strong enough to communicate with us by itself, albeit in some primitive way.
Even supposing that we have been alone in the galaxy, there must have been some civilization whose Von Neumann probes could have reached us from somewhere millions of light years away. There is no reason why the probes would ever stop in their mission to find life unless the species which had initiated it would also itself terminate it. Our local group contains 35 galaxies and is about 10 million light years across - it would therefore have taken at most five million years for any sufficiently advanced species in the local group to reach us, and there are many trillions of stars in the local group. On biological time scale, five million years is just a minute. Five million years ago, the first hominids started to arise, so it seems reasonable to assume that at this time there had been plenty of races elsewhere in the local group which had become more advanced than we are today; the same can still more or less be assumed for hundreds of millions of years ago - at this point whatever intelligence there was on earth was still unsophisticated, but there are plenty of planets, including, probably, habitable planets, which arose hundreds of millions or even billions of years earlier.
Thus again, the question arises: where is everyone?

Failure, while it may be frustrating, is actually a positive sign: it means you're trying. Only when you are pushing ourself to the limits of your abilities can you fail. Thus, one learns most when one is failing more, and so every failure is also a success.

The essence of humor is nothing more or less than the delight of absurdity, and in every possible case of humor, it is triggered by absurdity. Often this absurdity comes as a surprise in a sudden shift of perspective, but even this sudden shift is absurd. You will notice that in everything humorous there is some kind of absurdity, and that it is always this absurdity, be it sudden or not, which makes it humorous.
If the absurdity comes suddenly, however, the effect is more apparent as it comes as a sudden release rather than gradually. In addition, if the conclusion of a joke is predictable, this is because it makes sense that things should turn out as they do in the joke; absurdity cannot make sense.
Something absurd will not be humorous to a person, given that he or she has a sense of humor, if and only if it is linked to negative emotional stimuli to that person. This is often the case if the humor takes place in or is concerned with reality: a homosexual will be less likely to appreciate humor about homosexuality, for instance, or someone whose father was killed with a toothpick will not be less likely to appreciate the humor of his killer.
How humorous something is depends not on the amount of absurdity, but rather on the complexity of the absurdity. However, the perception and appreciation of that absurdity depends on a wide variety of other emotional factors.

Chaos creates order. It is the raw energy that precedes it before it becomes structured. Although chaos originally meant "void" in Greek, the current sense is almost antonymous to it: chaos is random existence, but existence nonetheless. Just like order, it is a form of complexity, and therefore a form of beauty.

Without input, there can be no output. If we receive no stimulation from the outside, we will grow dead inside. Respect your sensations, for they are what empower your mind, and without sensations, you cannot live, cannot work, cannot feel.