A house divided

[OUTRSPACIA at aol.com]

I have to say you've been very convincing. (Except perhaps for the suggestion
that human lives may recycle as casually as do trees.)

However, I also have to say that this idea of "sloppy science" is indicative
of what we do everytime we enter into discourse, whether we're talking about
GR, or anything else for that matter. We generalize. We universalize. We take
some specific observation, whether scientific or not, and we extrapolate.  We
extend. Maybe it is sloppy, but it is the way we associate one narrow idea to
another.

Sure scientists are guilty of it when they, perhaps often wrongly, step
outside the scientific to the philosophical or the moral, but they do it
nonetheless. Scientist I am not. Nor am I much of a critic, nor perhaps even
a very good reader. But I'm certainly doing it (sloppy science) now. I think
we all do it. Every time we pick up a sentence, any sentence from GR, we
INTERPRET it. We finish reading, and interpret it some more, the parts and
the whole.

We perfrom this sloppy science on TRP's words. Maybe he doesn't like it.
Maybe you don't like it. We'll all agree that the words are afterall, quite
beautiful on their own. But I doubt if many of us take them simply for what
they are. We can't resist the temptation to look for meaning in them.  In
1856, Mr. Helmholz extended a meaning from the Second Law of Thermodynamics
-- that the universe is dying. In his very next breath, he may very well have
wondered about the human race and its demise at some point at or even in
advance of the universe's heat death.  That, however sloppy, provides an
adequate link between entropy and death. They are related, beyond a mere
heat/energy exchange.

Sure, maybe TRP could care less about that. Maybe we shouldn't care about any
of that either. Maybe GR isn't about the ultimate death. Maybe it's about
being dead or alive well before that moment. 

After all that moment of entropic death is a ONE with a bunch of ZEROs after
it away. But the minute you say that, you find yourself thinking of GR all
over again. 00000. What does it mean? Why did he write this? What is he
trying to say? We can't help ourselves. That's why we jack in on a far too
regular basis. To the book and this discussion. Yes, on this issue, we may
finally choose to remain divided. As much as it may seem however, this is not
a life or death issue with me.