To ask for weird realisations you’ve had about life?

[goergia]

Things about mundane life that you’ve never given much thought but suddenly think “Now I think about it, that’s weird.”

I had one of these today. I live in a mid-terrace, neighbours are nice and quiet and we don’t hear a peep. A few days ago I had a snoop at one of the next-door neighbour’s house on Rightmove after seeing it was for sale, and realised that they have their bed right up against our party wall as I do mine. So even though I sleep in bed alone every night, there’s actually 2 people who I don’t really know just a couple of inches away from me! I don’t know why but for some reason it creeps me out. I’ve realised that in terraced houses you’re actually sharing one building with lots of people, many of whom you will NEVER interact with.

Naively that my mum and dad have probably dealt with the same issues as I have.

I.e step parents, step kids, everything that goes with a long marriage.

I wonder what the next big invention will be that alters our lives? One hundred years imagine handing someone a smart phone? You can access the answer to every question, communicate with anyone in the world - their minds would have been blown. I think it might be health related, a "cure" which means that our current lifespans are altered drastically. Our way of life and general thinking would be so altered if we lived longer, attitudes to work/life and the impact on the planet would be huge.

@Zilla1

Presumably that the atoms that form our molecules are not really impinged or changed by being within a human except the the extent that the chemical bonds might differ in a few cases? if any of the molecules of life differ from that which would happen to those atoms in inorganic systems. Once we die, the atoms would be released to carry on un-impinged by being within a human.

Slightly different but as a PP said, every atom of an element larger than H or He? that forms the matter in humans was formed by a supernovae in a now dead star (big stars die more quickly) earlier in the universe.

Even if you're cremated? Don't your atoms burn up and go away? Apart from some little bits of carbon left and the water and oxygen that evaporates... (I really am quite intelligent, honestly!).

That there are billions upon billions of variations of human faces- two eyes, a nose and a mouth on a circle, yet they are somehow all different enough to be instantly recognisable to us as humans.

How can there be so many billions upon billions variations of essentially two eyes, a nose and a mouth to be instantly recognisable?! Do other animals, e.g. squirrels and pigeons also recognise each others subtle facial differences?

@Kissifer

Sometimes when I’m having a good look at all my teeth, I suddenly realise that there’s a skeleton underneath the skin, hair, clothes etc that is almost identical to every other human being on earth. We are very much the same as each other! Bit of a weird thought?😳 The differences are what we do to ourselves… weight, hairstyle, clothing, make up or surgery… take that away, we the same pile of bones!😁

I think about this - essentially, physically, we’re all pretty much exactly the same. Impossible to tell one human from another apart (apart from woman v man).

But then I also think about the opposite. What really, really makes us ‘us’ is utterly unique. So unique, it’s intangible. Our personality. Or spirit. Or soul. Or whatever you want to call it.

When we die, our body (flesh and skeleton) remains.

We’re dead when that intangible piece of us leaves us.

What happens to it? Where does it go? Does it just evaporate?

I sometimes wish I was religious, because then at least I could believe that answer.

I just find it boggling that the essence of us isn’t even something you can touch.

@Rebeccasmoonnecklace have you seen “how the universe works”?

MIND. BLOWN.

I watch odd youtube videos.. one guy visits celebrity graves and i find it morbidly fascinating.. the weird thing to me is how many celebrities have such unassuming graves and you wouldnt even know from looking who they were and what status in life they had, they are overgrown and forgotten in a simple plot next to who knows who.. sad that in death, we are all just the same

I read on Reddit that if you buy a sandwich from the supermarket, a complete stranger will be eating the other half, so it's like you're sharing your lunch with them.

Even if you're cremated? Don't your atoms burn up and go away? Apart from some little bits of carbon left and the water and oxygen that evaporates... well if they burn up they'll turn to ash or evaporate. They'll probably come back down in a raindrop, flow into a river, maybe be irrigated into a field to grow crops...

One that still gets me, that we just keep finding some people our age attractive. I never used to get that as a teen, that one day a 50 year old would be 'hot'

I can remember watching Season 1 of House and thinking that Hugh Laurie (in character) was weirdly kind of attractive - for a really, really old guy. But of course, him being so old was offputting enough that he wasn't a serious candidate for a celeb crush. I would have been about 19.

I haven't watched it in years but caught a season 2 episode a few weeks ago. I found HL ridiculously attractive as House. It was a bit of a jolt to realise that I was watching the same mid 40's character but now I'm 35 he's gone from being 'kind of hot for an old old man but too old to be serious about' to 'hot and a suitable age for me' 😂

@RagzRebooted AFAIK, broadly, 'burning' makes no difference to the atoms, just to the molecules of which the atoms are constituents. The carbon atom will join a couple of oxygen atoms to form CO2. The other elements might be similarly oxidised or sometimes some other reactions might occur but the atoms will be mostly unaffected even though their molecules might change (simplistically carbohydrate molecules become CO2 and H2O and some other elements might change their molecules). The atoms were thought to be the irreducible minimum before the constituent sub-atomic particles were discovered, initially the neutrons and protons then later the quarks and suchlike but for the purposes of the PPs original observation that the atoms proceed unchanged, that's broadly true (simplistically). The atoms are like bricks in a building of molecules and macro-molecules that may get re-used when the building is demolished and rebuild but never changed.

@Teenagequeenwithaloadedgun

I read on Reddit that if you buy a sandwich from the supermarket, a complete stranger will be eating the other half, so it's like you're sharing your lunch with them.

But the other half is usually in the packet next to the first half. I feel like I am missing something?

@likemindedarseholes the % of male prisoner illiteracy and of paternal absence and deprivation seemed remarkably high. I take your point about the waste of high IQ prisoners but it seemed sad that many of the illiterate prisoners seemed to be on a conveyor from difficult upbringings, even if many managed to step off before it was too late.

I once read of a moment someone religious dared to say out loud that there is no God.

For me it was the opposite. I grew up in a communist country - there was a lot of pretending, that even me as the most naive of children picked up. So I assumed that faith and going to church belong to the same idea as the rest of society: that we all go and “pretend to believe” but everyone actually knows it’s just a story.
Imagine my utter and complete shock when there was a moment in my 20s when I realized that some people genuinely believe in the God from the Bible.
I’m more agnostic than atheist now I’m older - and I think faith can have a tremendous positive power and drive for many but it It still baffles me . .

That you’re dying and your lifespan is decreasing from the minute you’re born.

I find it mad to think that when I was born in 1981, there were quite a few people walking around who were born in the nineteenth century...I was probably in my pram with my mum in a shop queue with them. I think that's crazy!

Also, children in general. I sometimes look at my 8yr old and think ahead 70 or 80 years, I’ll be long gone and he will be an old man. I wonder (and hope) if he will have had a happy life and what memories he’ll have. Will he have children? Grandchildren? The grandchildren probably won’t even know my name.

Maybe by then life expectancy will have increased and he could have another 20 or 30 years easily ahead of him.

And then I think of my own grandfather and the generations before him who I know nothing about and feel like it’s time I did some family tree research. Those people had their own lives and struggles but in having their families, they led to my existence.

What would happen if a giant asteroid took out Earth's moon? What would happen to the oceans? Would life as we know it cease to exist?

I realise these are questions and not revelations but I'm pondering them all the same.

My contribution to this brilliant thread:
Plants that have evolved to look like insects (and there are a few) - how do they know what the insects look like? I get that they’ve evolved over time, but the detail is incredible, down to the colours. How do they ‘know’ what those insects look like?

Another one I have, is consciousness in the sperm or the egg?

So if in an alternate universe my mum had shagged a bloke other than my dad, but at the same time I was conceived in this universe (so the same egg), would the baby still be ‘me’ and have my consciousness?

Similarly, if my dad had slept with another women at the same time and the same sperm that resulted in me had fertilised another woman’s egg, would the baby be ‘me’?

In addition to my last comment, what if both happened? Which baby would my consciousness go to?

I can’t comprehend that they would be 2 completely different babies with their own consciousness.

I feel like consciousness exists in the universe as particles and matter, and it’s just waiting for a host.

I also think it about my own DC. If they were conceived with the same egg but I had a different dad for them, how different would they be from the DC that I know and love?

They could potentially be a different gender, but would there be elements of them that’d be the same?

They’d be half of my DC but then there’d be another half to them.

@Comedycook

I find it mad to think that when I was born in 1981, there were quite a few people walking around who were born in the nineteenth century...I was probably in my pram with my mum in a shop queue with them. I think that's crazy!

Madder still to think that the last person born in the 19th century only died five years ago! Her name was Emma Morano and she was an Italian born in November 1899.

@goergia

In addition to my last comment, what if both happened? Which baby would my consciousness go to?

I can’t comprehend that they would be 2 completely different babies with their own consciousness.

I feel like consciousness exists in the universe as particles and matter, and it’s just waiting for a host.

My mum had two miscarriages before having me. She has said something like 'you would be x years older' about the miscarried baby. Me? No, mate. I wouldn't exist. That would be a different person. Right? RIGHT? 🤔

DS just said to me 'money is never yours, it's just your turn with it'.