i often go through this myself and question everything until my brain hurts because there is no answer for me but in terms of needing an ideology you likely already have one but you don't realize it. You live your life by some kind of code. you believe what you think is right (for example gay marriage or if you think guys should have long hair) whether or not you came to these realizations by yourself. catholic ideology is just a more accepted way to live your life and more people believe the ideology but you're thoughts on the world are you're own ideology even if you question a lot about the universe. i find that it's better to live your life by you're own head and make decisions by yourself on how to live your life. i think that many religions have something about them that is questionable and rather sinister and so if you live by that code you may find yourself unsure on a lot of things that you think you should agree with but don't.

Is it possible to be too "open minded"? Do you think people are happier and live more fulfilling lives when they have an ideology they are fully committed to? — JustSomeGuy

just live your life with your opinions and that is your ideology on the world. religion just hopes to come up with an answer for the questions we don't have answers too and a lot of the time they are rather absurd so in my opinion religion is more closure on the universes questions so that you can live without curiosity. i don't think that religion is healthy for humankind because it limits the amount of curiosily we have and so there isn't any strive to know the answers to the questions, it has at least until this point destroyed the curiosity in humans to discover and explore space for example and so keeping an open mind and living by your own ideas is more healthy for everyone.

Time can be infinite. and so the past is infinite and the present is infinite and the future is infinite. It is only our conscience that experiences time linearly. Studies into how time and space behave have shown that in the right conditions such as a black hole, time and space can be warped and changed and so if you are in a scenario where you have fallen into a black hole you may experience a few minutes where back home on earth, we have experienced 50 years in the exact same time. and so the question of how small the present is can be answers with a few more questions. How long does the human conscience experience the present? Does time run linearly or is that just how we experience time? is time truly infinite? and if so, that will answer your question. it's infinite.

I think saying that human productions are artificial does not mean that humans are not part of nature. — T Clark

Well it's a clear separation. it's a view that most people in the world have without even thinking about it, nothing is unnatural because everything we have made is of natural things. it's a weird concept that we seemed to have made 'true' that all we make is artificial. i think it's that we think of ourselves as far more superior so that we think what we make isn't natural, and in part that is true, there isn't anything close to humans and so the separation is real and so i think people separate everything we do from things that nature does because there really isn't much in common and also because we abuse nature that most likely adds to the feeling that we are separate from it and not part of everything we call natural.

i don't believe this as I've always said that everything we make is of natural things so that means the things we create are also natural but i can see this point of view and why others would automatically see us as a separate force to nature because we are almost as powerful and really we rival nature in the way we treat the world.

So it is physically impossible to wear a coat in the summer? — MountainDwarf

why would you want to wear a coat in the summer? Naturally you will choose not to because you will be too hot, that is a direct response to nature, because it is hot you won't wear a coat.

The farmer looks at his weather app or farmer's almanac and decides what to do based on his training — MountainDwarf

After thinking about this subject i think it is both, we use our knowledge to determine what to do according to the conditions of nature at the time of making a decision. If you choose to, you can decide to do whatever you please. in fact, if you are visiting a hot country and you come from a colder country, you may see the locals wearing more layers of clothing than you, but because you are from a colder environment you only need a tshirt, so in that case it is down to the individual how they would react in that situation.

Your scenario produces vastly superior science fiction. — Bitter Crank

This isn't that hard to believe that this scenario exists, i was only referring to our inevitable future, if you think about where our space evolution will end up, this is where it will be, given enough time and if we're able to get that far, i was only posing a fictional scenario to picture an image of our future selves to give insight to what kind of damage might be caused in the universe if we become that advanced giving the damage we have already caused the one planet we are on currently.

We can hope that we might turn things around — Bitter Crank

I do agree with you, i believe that we will run out of resources before we are able to get anywhere past mars and i don't think the colony on mars is likely to last more than a few decades if they are not able to grow and sustain themselves. With regards to my original post this may be a good thing.

But they are being controlled by the laws of nature. Using your own example if you're in the city of Chicago in the summer you may not need a coat as it's pretty warm, though if it's winter and you don't wear a coat you'll get sick as it's very very cold. Though you're not necessarily being forced to wear a coat in the winter, you will wear a coat. And on everyday a normal person in the winter in Chicago they will put their coat on without even thinking about it before leaving their house. This could be because they've simply known to do this from an early age when it's cold because they had seen older persons doing this, but in this case it's just a second nature, you know without thinking about it that it's cold outside because it has been for the last month or so, the intelligence of the human mind.

These days we don't need to think about the best solution before we do it because the generation before us already solved the problem, the farmer knows the best way to grow his produce because he had been taught that way by someone who knew before him. Not because he just does it because he is responding to the laws of nature. Human knowledge is a process and the more we progress the more we'll know. One could argue that this nature but in regards to your discussion I do not believe that everything we do is just a response to the laws of nature rather than it's just our knowledge and responding to what we have learnt as an intelligent race.

Being an atheist doesn't mean you cant be spiritual and believe in a spiritual world or realm. I'm not a believer in any religion in the world but i do believe that our existence is far more than a physical existence. i believe we are able to go beyond our physical body and that there may be some kind of life after death. it is possible to believe in these concepts without referring to God in any religion.