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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><div><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;margin-bottom:12.0pt'><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> extropy-chat [mailto:<a href="mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org</a>] <b>On Behalf Of </b>spike</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>>…</span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>But I just can’t quite grasp the notion we are those people</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>…</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>we of the astonishing good fortune, the ones who have access to these modern information streams, these life forms reading this paragraph, this sentence, this phrase, this this.</span><o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>### Pure science magic and poetry, this!<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Rafał<span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Thanks Rafal. Coming from you, the comment means a lot to me. Reason: you seem to be one of those people who can get his head around the mind-boggling concept that we really are alone, but I confess, it just eludes me. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>All throughout history, smart people have held the vague notion that now they pretty much understand what is going on: they read it in their holy books, or their level of science could explain most everything. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>But to the contrary, I am filled with cognitive dissonance, now more than ever. My cog-dis isn’t going away, it is getting worse over time. I know that my current understanding of the universe, of evolution, of reality utterly fails to explain why there aren’t signals out there from other advanced civilizations. My understanding fails to explain why the double slit experiment works the way it does. If fails to explain why space and time are quantized. Of all these, the failure to find cosmic signals bothers me the most: the others should be out there, and they should be detectable. Otherwise I and we are still missing something fundamental.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>