For the record, I have no religious beliefs that I am aware of. I have never regularly attended any church since I was a child with no choice in the matter. I believe in science and don't capitalize it
OT, but I do have a question for KJ - as an tech guy from Silicon Valley with an atheistic bent, what's your take on Isaac Asimov's short story "The Last Question"?
For those unfamiliar with it, it is a story that asks - and answers - what could happen when the universe's entropy reaches maximum. A brilliantly-written tale by one of SF's greats. Mandatory reading for anyone interested in PO, for what is PO if not a study on entropy reaching maximum? It begins thusly:
The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way:
Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face -- miles and miles of face -- of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.
Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough -- so Adell and Lupov attended the monstrous giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted questions to its needs and translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and all others like them, were fully entitled to share In the glory that was Multivac's.
Here's a link to the rest of story:
http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html