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Why Does The Universe Exist?
Mr.Newt writes "You may wonder why we're here. Britain's Astronomer Royal, Martin Rees, thinks he has it figured out. As a small part of a large multiverse, everything has to be perfect for life as we know it to exist. " Just reminds me of the Python song: "Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's..."
I agree, of course a person wants to believe that what they think is correct, esp. when you have something like religion where there is supposedly so much riding on being correct (i.e., reward of heaven, punishment of hell).
However, no one can PROVE that they are the perfectly correct religion. Everyone IS equelly right and wrong, as far as we can tell. Some religions have beliefs that are obviously incorrect, but does that that mean everything else about that religion is incorrect? Or that it's right?
It's just that damn proof of god thing... no one can do it. It's a faith thing.
Well, new evidence, even in science, is usually 'squeezed' into old theories until it's no longer possible to do so. Even then, the evidence is often left outside the theory, in limbo, with the assumption that it will be fit together at some later point. New ways of looking at things and new theories are not actively persued unless one can prove that the current theory is inadequate. Try to prove God doesn't exist to understand why this is a potential problem. (I'm generalizing of course. This is less true than it used to be...)
The big bang is a perfect example of this. When I express doubts about the big bang, I'm practically accused of heresy. Maybe it's just because people need to hold onto a 'definate' or a 'beginning'. Maybe the BB is a convenient 'spot' where both the religious and the scientific can live together. Perhaps infinity is too difficult to grasp. I don't know.
There is evidence around us that we had a Big Bang, so we think we had one.
Technically wrong. This is a backwards way of putting things I think (finding evidence to fit the theory instead of finding theories to fit the evidence), but I know what you meant.
We don't claim to know we had one, and we don't hold that we had one on faith, we simply say that the evidence we have seems to point to one and we are happy to change that belief with new evidence.
I'm curious how you can claim to not know something, yet at the same time allow yourself to turn something uncertain into a belief that has to be changed at some point. To keep a truly open mind, shouldn't we try to let go of beliefs altogether? In other words, is it wise to allow ourselves to slip into a state of belief, especially considering how many times we've gotten it wrong in the past?
We don't accuse those who weigh evidence differently of taking things on faith unless they seem to ignore all evidence.
Technically, all science rests on faith. Evidence consists of ideas inspired by experience. Since our experiences are both filtered and limited by our perceptions, we have no way of knowing how things truly are. But instead of paying homage to the Unknown and the Unknowable, instead of recognizing our limitations and making that knowledge implicit in our everyday thinking, we make broad assertions and cling to new beliefs that appear to fit our ever changing viewpoints.
Yes, science "works" better than religion. But we should be aware of the limitations.
James.
but I'm not going to tell you.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darueber muss man schweigen. Ludwig Wittgenstein
Imagine a two-d universe. Flat as a paper.
Now construct an animal that eats, digests, and excretes. Draw it on paper.
Too bad it literally falls apart.
A.K. Dewdney's Planiverse describes a plausible two-dimensional physiology. Very interesting book.
We can infer, from the measurements we make, other facts about the universe for which we do not possess evidence of a more direct nature.
Sure. That's what I meant by "tools to extend them." But our perceptions are still ultimately limited, and the information we recieve is still bound by our five senses. You might be able to build an immensely complicated collider to detect subatomic particles, but the output is still read in through your eyes.
The problem with the alternate universes hypothesis or anything like it is that we have no means of testing it either directly or indirectly. There is no way to test the proposition "there exist specific things that we cannot observe through any means," yet that is essentially what the alternate universe hypothesis says. Since universes by definition don't interact with one another, there's no way anyone in this universe can gain meaningful information about any other. No amount of deductive logic can ascertain facts without any empirical data. All reasoning ultimately rests on the observation of the senses to have any meaning.
the sine qua non of life in any form is a structure that can encode information in a stable and consistent manner but with the flexibility to react and adapt to its environment
I mostly agree with this. I just think people are a little too quick to assume that our form of life (or approximations thereof) are the only forms possible. It may be that the range of suitable-entropy universes is still pretty narrow, but there are certainly more options than just the precise values that we have here.
I suspect that your reaction is symptomatic of the spirit of the times we live in, where so many now glibly reject the scientists' assertion of an objective reality
I must admit I'm a bit puzzled by this, as I consider it to be quite the opposite. It is the "parallel universe" hypothesis that is not grounded in objective reality. It is a poetic, intuitive, and ultimately groundless assertion. I accept the existence of an objective reality. Indeed, I think the existence of objective reality must go hand in hand with the rejection of claims not grounded in reality.
For something to be grounded in reality, it must on some level be grounded in the evidence of the senses. Otherwise there is no rational basis for separating the true from the false. The multiverse hypothesis has no grounding in empirical evidence, and is therefore an unscientific and non-empirical hypothesis. It is the multiverse that is "cozy and New-Agey." It's plausible and sounds good, but it can never be proven or disproven.
Agnosticism works along slightly different lines than atheism. It implies, though it is not always used in this way anymore, that ultimate reality is not only unknown but most likely unknowable. In its base form, agnosticism is the religious equivalent of hedging your bets, so to speak (not that this is a bad thing). Atheism merely denies the existence of "God" or any supreme theistic deity. It is theoretically possible for an atheist to be devoutly religious, provided the particular faith s/he follows does not imply the existence of a deity (I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but its a plausible situation nonetheless). One does not neccessarily follow from the other. On the other hand, one might reasonably argue that agnosticism is merely academic, in any case: humans have routinely shown an inability to sit by the sidelines without taking sides or preferences, except in cases obvious ignorance or profound indifference in the first case.
Personally, I'm neither agnostic nor atheist, but I'm not religious, either. I refuse to accept the universe as unknowable; I see such a stance as defeatist. Perhaps ultimate truth (or whatever) really is beyond our limited understanding, but since we can't know for sure, its only reasonable to make the assumption that the universe is in fact knowable until we can be proven wrong. On the other hand, I don't really like to take things on faith, either. I'm really to hear anything out, but my individual beliefs are both eminently alterable and only tied to whatever seems most reasonable at that moment.
Which, of course, isn't to say that faith doesn't enter into it. I just try to minimize the neccessity of blind faith, and stick, as much as is reasonable, to the scientific method. As for the scientific method, well, I guess I just have to take that one on faith ;-).
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
There have been a few authors that kind of tackled that basic concept, but I think I've got a good take on a new direction. It will probably take me a few more years to complete the story (as writing is not my profession, just a hobby), but I still think I have something a little different.
But even when I have seen others go on that theme, I've always found it very interesting to say the least.
Bite my yammer.
Definitely! I've run into the same problem myself. I'm always trying to help, but sometimes the right way to help is just to listen. It's hard listening and not offering suggestions or solutions, though, as it's all too tempting to either offer one, or to stop listening to avoid the temptation. Neither one's what she's looking for...
And yes, I'm an engineer too...
--Joe--
Wanna program the Intellivision? Get an Intellicart!
Program Intellivision!
No, we're still arguing over who gets the checque.
MSIE: The world's most standards-complaint web browser.
Every universe that can exist, does exist
Says who? How do you know?
Certainly, accepting this doesn't make one whit of difference to us isolated here in our own reality. But that's not the point really
It's precisely the point. We are creatures of limited knowledge, and so we must consider things from our own perspective. We can fantisize about meta-universes in which we can see people who can't see each other, but we will never occupy such a position, and so there's no point in taking those fantizies seriously. In the real world we must take reality as we see it.
And of those potential individuals, every life that can be lived by them, is indeed lived somewhere.
This is a bald assertion, and one that you can't possibly prove.
Not particularly. If a sig weren't interesting enough to occasionally garner a comment, then it's not worth having. :-)
--Joe--
Wanna program the Intellivision? Get an Intellicart!
Program Intellivision!
Rest assured that geek female logic is much more similar to geek male than regular female is to regular male. Unless she's one of the perverse kind that claims they are a geek but are really just someone doing a geek-like job, but are ickily normal in all other ways.
I adblock all animated gifs.
Blessed be the prime numbered slashdotters
You are of course correct, and I do apologize if I implied that I could deduce the one True Truth and prove it. I certainly don't believe that. If it were that cut and dried, science would be sorta boring.
Now, I don't really want to get carried away with Godel's theorem because applying it to real life always confuses the hell out of me. Obviously second order logic or higher are provably incomplete, and most of real world stuff falls into this category.
My point, I guess, is that there are truths we can prove, or at reasonably explain. These are repeatable by rational thinkers. We may not ever deduce ALL the truths, we may not ever get THE answer(s). Then there are unprovable assertions that may or may not be true, but I can't be expected to accept assertions that while not inconsistent with the evidence do not follow according to logic or reason from the complete set of information we have. They may follow logically or reasonably from a very small set of information (it may have been rational 5 thousand years ago), but we have information now that when we put it all together doesn't necessitate regular intervention of the deity in our day-to-day existence.
Oh, I don't know. Ever read the Hyperion/Endymion books by Dan Simmons? He made the concept of empathy=love=physics sound pretty damned exciting. If only the entire universe could love!
Bite my yammer.
You are right. The example was apt, because I missed some possible assumptions. You filled them in, which follows the general scientific process. And I can follow your logic and agree with you that your process is rational and repeatable. I did not mean to imply that science was "complete" or that any piece of scientific knowledge was complete, but there is a process that is rational rather than irrational or imposed.
Of course you have an option. I'm a Christian that belongs to a pretty strict church, but I've always had the freedom to choose. We would tell you about the consequences in eternal terms and in this life, and athiests will tell you about the consequences in the next few years or so.
Why do you think that when somebody says, for instance, "Don't watch 'Psycho Porn Stars from Hell,'" that they're limiting your choices? The word "don't" doesn't limit anything unless you still live with your parents, and then it has the same connotation whether you're athiest or religious.
My religion says, "Don't drink alcohol." Does that mean that I can't? Not really. "Do not" is much different than "can not." Of course, I take the suggestion (or commandment, for me), because I'm fully aware of the consequenses.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
I don't think we need those things. But I think alot of people BELIEVE they need those things, so when they fail to get them, they feel bad. Belief is therefore a cause of suffering.
In this nihilistic age, unfortunately, we have to create our own identites and meanings and purposes.
Nihilism I don't know much about, but it seems to me that if 'belief' is itself a negative, then removal of 'belief' would be a positive.
Find something to believe in (hopefully it is something pleasant) and do some good. It'll probably make you feel better.
Even pleasant beliefs ultimately cause suffering, since circumstances change. Locked into a state of belief, the person is unable to change with circumstance.
James.
See Godwin's Law.
It's not about cultural differences. I agree that most missionaries these days are quite sensitive to that.
However, I've met a lot of people, Christian and not, who think that *any* dogmatic statement of the form "I think you are mistaken and here's why" is "insulting and degrading" when applied to certain subjects, such as "religion". The problem is that if someone thinks that a statement is insulting or degrading, then it is, and it's self-defeating to try to persuade them otherwise.
So I think any self-respecting missionary, no matter how sensitive, will eventually have to say something potentially insulting or degrading, and inevitably some people will feel insulted or degraded.
But basically, I just wish Christians, atheists, and everyone else would be a bit less touchy about having their beliefs questioned. Especially Christians. "Always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that you have" is not acceptably satisfied by "Back off man, don't degrade my beliefs."
There is no one answer. Why does there always have to be 1 answer, 1 magic number, etc. There are an infinite number of reasons why the universe exsists. But being in a limited position fosters the limited views. I say there are many ways to correctly add to this question but there is NO ONE correct answer. Thank you.
The Idea.org
You claimed that you needed proof to believe in a God. I pointed out that not all true things have proof.
Your faith is in reason. Good for you. It is as much a faith position as a religious one.
I can point to (clearly subjective) experiences of people who have put their faith in God and have been transformed by the experience, but I can never prove anything about that God to you. That's why it is a faith position. It is completely orthagonal to reason. One can have faint and be anti-rational or have faith and be rational or not have faith and be anti-rational or not have faith and be rational.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
And do you not equate theoremhood with truth within the meaning assigned to the symbols in such a system?
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
The words "believe" and "faith" have many nuanced meanings. You seem to choose the senses that favor ambiguity, and use them to construct long discussions.
Anyways, I hope you see why I find the subject so interesting.
I believe you do. If you think that I am relying too much on "belief" when I say that, then you didn't understand my point.
care to rebut?
I'm afraid I'll lose the "link battle", but I'd like to pose a few questions.
God: "First Light!"
(And on the fifth day God created Natalie Portman, and he saw that it was good.)
Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from Gods.
you missed my point, somewhat.
No, I didn't. I wasn't even responding to your point. I was using your phrasing to make an entirely different point. I thought I clarified that when I said I "wasn't trying to quibble or jump on you for minor inaccuracies". I've understood what you meant from the beginning and I don't disagree with you. Instead, I was using the "ambiguity in what [you] wrote" to make subtle distinctions between the many nuances of certain words, distincitons that I find revealing and interesting. In other words, I was on a tangent. I thought that was obvious.
Any name-calling aside, you've still missed my central point. Your argument reverses the whole burden of proof. I don't have to rule out the possibility of a Creator, you have to prove that one is necessary! You can believe whatever you like, as fervently as you like, but if you want to be taken seriously, you ought to be able to defend your beliefs with something like rational argument.
One could just as easily argue that the entire universe was created last week, or five minutes ago, with your memories and these posts already put in place by your Creator. So what? If that's the kind of universe we are actually in, then nothing is probably knowable, and you are never going to be able to *prove* by observation that you aren't being fooled.
The laws of nature as they now appear to exist, and assumed to be constant, appear to be able to account pretty well for the 15 billion years or so in the history of the universe, except for the first few seconds, when conditions were quite extreme, making it quite difficult to experimentally test any hypotheses in present-day laboratories. At this point, you might claim victory, saying that science can't rule out a creator. Perhaps, but that is a very different thing than your being able to demonstrate, for instance, that there is a Creator with *conscious intent,* rather than something like a huge bubble of energy that underwent some kind of drastic phase transition. Anyhow, if you attend astrophysics conventions, you'll find that scientists are continually *restricting*, by observation, the likely characteristics of the very early universe. Your arguments do nothing to *restrict* the possibilities, and thus are not arguments at all.
Again, I ask, what's the *reason* to believe that the universe is young, but was created to *appear* old, as opposed to the universe simply *being* old? Because it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside?
I had thought this concept was common knowledge.....???
No, when I see hoofprints I think hoofprints. Then I go looking around the area for animals with hoofs.
This is really a bad analogy since you've seen hoofprints before, and you have a pretty good idea how they got there. How else would you know what to start looking for?
> for a deeply scientific person, it must be "I am
> almost certain there is a God."
I'm a Christian, and I'd say that. Any honest person has to admit the possibility of error in anything they say.
But it gets pretty inconvenient to always say things like "I believe in the existence of Linus Torvalds with probability 99.9999%" or whatever. So we simplify things and say "I believe in the existence of Linus Torvalds." The approximation is good enough to live by.
Think base 10 vs. base 8 and base 16 to get what I meant.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I can't claim to be an expert, but I'd say you didn't read too well before you posted. He said "the universe tends toward disorder." Not the Earth. The universe IS defined as a closed system. He was writing not simply about evolution, although he mentioned it. He was writing about the Big Bang and the formation of complex particles. If you think about it, it's easy to see how the very dense mass that supposedly started the Big Bang could be considered a lower energy situation than the result of the Big Bang. Assuming that that mass was all that existed in the universe as I've often heard, then the Second Law says it should've stayed one big blackhole. This is not at all an original argument, and it has troubled scientists for quite some time.
Edwim Abbott Abbott would not like D, the idea that life can only exist in three dimensions? Why is this so anyway? I can easily think of life existing in two dimensions, and in four we may not be able to perceive it. One I cannot see life existing in, but a two-dimensional universe can have a surprisingly similar structure to our three dimensional one, using a Bohr model for the atoms (remember laws revolve around the properties, so a Bohr model might work in another universe with two-dimensional representations of the orbitals) and with some different elements (since nuclei cannot bond in three dimensions given a two-dimensional universe, more or less neutrons may be needed). So if these quantum properties can be acheived, one would think you could have a life-forming two-dimensional universe (people might not be different regular shapes, however :-) )
I am a high school physics student, so I am obviously to be pitied for my ignorance; why can't a two-dimensional universe sustain life?
# debian/rules
I agree... people should not find it offensive when we are searching for evidence that opposes the bible. Geez... you guys are so sensitive, can't a person be religous and have interest in scientific concepts?
I said We don't claim to know we had [a big bang], and we don't hold that we had one on faith, we simply say that the evidence we have seems to point to one and we are happy to change that belief with new evidence.
you said I'm curious how you can claim to not know something, yet at the same time allow yourself to turn something uncertain into a belief that has to be changed at some point.
My original statement could be parsed as, "We don't claim to know there was a Big Bang, but we believe the measurements we've taken, and we believe those measurements consistent with the Big Bang hypothesis. We believe our evidence is incomplete, and uncertain, but we believe it is all the evidence we have so far. I don't see what you are missing in that.
Technically, all science rests on faith.
no, science doesn't rest on faith, not in the sense that the faithful use the word faith. "Cogito ergo sum" is much more deeply profound than "faithito ergo diety"
we make broad assertions and cling to new beliefs that appear to fit our ever changing viewpoints.
I've no idea what you are talking about. English (like all languages) is ambiguous. I know that if I throw a rock up in the air that it will come back down. I believe it. I have faith that it's true. That's a word game. You may think it is Unknowable, but I think my belief that "what goes up must come down" is rational, and it is nonsense to call it "clinging to faith". "What goes up must come down" is a knowable truth; science. "What dies that has been Good will go up to Heaven" is unknowable, not science, and while they like to call it Truth, it is not truth. I am not ruling out that it may be true, but it is not truth. Enough of the word games. I think you know what I mean.
Don't forget Islam, which is also based on the old testament. There are only about a billion of them :)
Not that any of this matters, you don't discover how nature works by counting votes, but by observing nature.
George Carlin did a bit on that as well, in his "I used to be an Irish Catholic" routine. Perhaps that's what you were thinking of?
--Joe--
Wanna program the Intellivision? Get an Intellicart!
Program Intellivision!
You are defining randomness as nothing; in other words, you argue that if the Universe was random you probably would not exist; that doesn't mean you won't.
Here: consider a bag with four marbles of different colors, red, yellow, blue, and green. If I pick one at random (and I mean random, whatever that is) it may be any of these four, but just because I can't be sure doesn't mean it won't be any of them.
Extend this analogy almost infinitely; the chance that you exist compared to every other possibility, something has to happen, and by chance you exist and posted this. It's random. Something had to happen, so something did happen.
# debian/rules
The universe exists because I've been hacking all night with a friend and as I did cd /home I walked past King's College and it was raining.
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Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Because it wants to.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars. It's a hundred thousand light years side to side. It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick, But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide. We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point. We go 'round every two hundred million years, And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions In this amazing and expanding universe.
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding In all of the directions it can whizz As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know, Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is. So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure, How amazingly unlikely is your birth, And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, 'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.
Sleep: A completely inadequate substitute for caffeine.
...we consider it perfect by our own standards. I'm sure there are other forms of potential consciensness (perhaps not even "living" as we know it) that could not exits in our Universe that would consider our enviornment pretty crappy. People always seem to forget that we have a very, very narrow viewpoint, and that any and all value jedgements we make are inherently skewed because of that.
--
Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
Monty Phython also asked if the physical world exists at all. Maybe we are in the martix and this is all a hoax. With reverse time travel impossible we will never get to any good answers.
We can ask the question 'Why does the universe exist'
Of course in doing so, we complete the definition of our existance and therefore the universe no longer has any reason to exis*POOF*
"This is where god would go if he wanted to get off blow!"
I find it fascinating when I read stories about this type of thing. I wonder exactly where the normal slashdot reader lies in terms of the whole Big Bang vs Creationism argument; somehow I feel that for most people on here, any beliefs that these things came to be through some force other than an exploding pinhead are totally unacceptable.
Where do you folks fall? Do you find the Big Bang and it's associated theorems to be a joke, or do you laugh at the concept of some deity who's saturday afternoon fun consisted of slapping together a snow globe full of planets and stars?
I've always wondered, we geeks are a confused bunch.
EOM
If there are infinite universes that exist, then an infinite number of them would be be exactly like ours. That means an infinite number of people exactly like me posting messages exactly this one to websites exactly like slashdot.
I think MC Hawking said it best, in his song, Fuck the Creationists:
Noah and his Ark,
Adam and his Eve.
Straight up Fairy stories even children don't believe.
--
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
No, I am not... I am a computer science major, just on his way to learning how the world really works. And remember, a key point to that equation is m which stands for mass. All matter has mass. If there is no mass, and there for no matter, there is no energy. True, a mass can be infinitely small, but there is a mass none-the-less.If m=0 then e=0 as well.
Cogito, ergo sum.
> That can't be by pure chance, can it?
Indeed not.
> Did the meanie God make all those turtles?
I rather suspect he was just another loser like us, who got stuck in the middle when the god-hierarchy and the turtle-hierarchy consumed the rest of creation space.
And possibly has an attitude problem, what with being on the bottom rung of an infinite company ladder.
But back to your question. Presumably the lower turtles created the turtles above themselves, just as the higher gods created the gods below themselves.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
whether or not anything is debunked tripe, if people didn't trot it out they would miss the fun of arguing about it.
-------------------- the list is long. dirac angestung gesept
If you'd like to throw out causality as just another physical law, then your arguement is reduced to: "The universe exists because." Is that really any different at its core than what I said? Can anyone really shed any more wisdom on this subject than "I don't understand it?" I think not.
You misinterpreted 'repeatable'. Being able to repeat the experiment doesn't imply creating a black hole of your own or something nonsensical like that. It means if someone else repeats the measurements on the same phenomenon, or a different but similar one, he or she will find the same data.
Compare it with revalations. Moses climbs a mountain, and receives 10 commandments from God. That is not a repeatable experiment. John smith climbs the same mountain, and receives nothing. There is no way to verify this experiment, and you will have to trust the word of Moses, and of the people who wrote the story down.
Engineers build a device to measure faint sources of radiation in space. They find a more or less constant background radiation in every direction. You can build a similar, or even a completely different device, and measure the same background radiation. You can repeat the experiment a hundred billion years from now, and you will still find the same background radiation (though slightly fainter). This experiment is repeatable, and it doesn't involve creating a new big bang.
The main flaw in this guys argument that I see is brought on by the fact(?) by einstein that matter cannot be created or destroyed. Being that it can't be destroyed, after the universe slows its expansion, it will eventually contract due to small amounts of gravity. Everything comes back to the center, bang(part two), and everything happens again. Now this make happen over trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of years, but being that matter can't be destroyed, it doesn't matter. For all intensive purposes it happends infinite times, thus giving the probability of anything happining, a 100% likelyhood, over 'time'. Even it life is very very very very rare, all that means is that it will still pop up infinite times over infinite years (%probablity times infinity equals infinity). 'were rare... hey didn't you say that in your last life?'
Given the tremendous amount of traffic that's passed, I don't know if I have much of a chance of making a new contribution. I don't have time to read every single post to find out. But I love this topic, so, I'll just say what I have to say, even if I'm babbling to myself...
I used to think that there was something circular about the question of why life emerged in this universe, but the "firing squad" analogy won me over. The question is definitely worth asking. The "multiverse" theory is nice in ways, but for me, it falls flat. The question is how we define "universe" and "existence." I'll throw out an idea for consideration:
I believe in this because the contrary seems so absurd. Suppose someone came to you and claimed to have discovered some thing. He can't explain what this thing is, how big it is, or what it's made of, because, he says, it cannot be detected in any way. It can't be seen, smelled, touched, or heard; you can't see it on radar, or sonar; it emits no electromagnetic energy, it has no detectable mass, and exerts no forces upon anything else. And yet, the man claims it exists. How can we possibly credit such a claim?
(Now, I tend toward atheism, but for the theists out there, I have no trouble accepting that God can be detectable by acts of divine intervention. But I won't get into that.)
Of course, I'm speaking in the broadest philosophical sense. Advances in technology give us more ways of examining the universe. I'm not claiming that radioactivity didn't exist until someone invented the geiger counter. So, of course, there may exist things that we can't detect yet, with our current technology.
Now, since I've accepted that first claim (not that I expect everyone else to :-), I make a
second claim:
Again, the converse seems absurd.
Now, I define the "universe" as being the thing within which everything that exists, is instantiated. The corollary is that everything that exists resides within the universe.
This means that if we ever find evidence of something akin to a "parallel universe," that universe, by definition, is actually part of our universe, owing to the fact that we've detected it. Claiming that there are other universes completely separate from ours is just like claiming the existence of an undetectable thing. Again, I can't credit such a claim.
If someone finds evidence of this so-called multiverse, then I would say it's a fallacy to claim that our universe is one of many separate universes; I would rather say that our (one) universe is just much stranger than we had previously thought. And if this is so, maybe we should withold judgement on the probability of the emergence of life in our universe.
Yeah, I know. To some extent, I'm just playing with definitions. Isn't it fun? :-)
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
The problem with 'playing god' and creating a universe is that people don't know enough to do the job; you start changing things and the whole apple cart gets upset.
For example: demand Circular orbits only and you never get any planets; circular orbits can never intersect. That means there can't be any collisions - so the planets never form. That's why we don't have circular orbits - that sort of simplistic "perfection" just won't work. The 'imperfections' of the universe are just as necessary as the perfectly precision parts. Throw away the imperfections and things don't work anymore.
We live in a complex Yin and Yang universe - not a simplistic 4 elements black and white universe like Aristotle thought. 4 elements won't support life either - that's why we need the complexity of more than 90 elements.
Get rid of the vacuum inside of atoms and everything collapses into nuclear material - and boy does life change then. The messy parts are just as necessary as the clean ones; get rid of the mess, and you get rid of life. The illogical chaos of the universe is just as important as the perfectly logical parts are. Eliminate the Yin and Yang nature of the universe - demand only black and white - the way most simplistic people think things are - and nothing works.
Was that the same I.Q tezt thut eye downloded from sharewhere.com? D00d eye got like 150 on that one!
No, it was the IQ test administered by my psychology professor.
I see hoofprints, I think ungulates. I also try to watch out for horseshit. Note: Zebra shit is functionally similar, so it doesn't get a seperate search pattern.
As has been pointed out, tbis article rather foolishly attempts to claim the universe as we know it is the only kind which can support life. However, where can we see some reasonable calculations?
Here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/cosmo.html
Talkorigins is a great site for creationism/evolution debate, btw, although their newsgroup is incredibly busy. Check out their archives. There's some great minds writing a lot of these papers.
- Rei
He's just being nice so my real father won't freeze him in carbonite and sell him for spice.
Does anyone know if time is similiary quantized?
Quoted from:
http://www.physlink.com/ae281.cfm
"The Planck length is the scale at which classical ideas about gravity and space-time cease to be valid, and quantum effects dominate. This is the 'quantum of length', the smallest measurement of length with any meaning.
And roughly equal to 1.6 x 10^-35 m or about 10-20 times the size of a proton.
The Planck time is the time it would take a photon travelling at the speed of light to across a distance equal to the Planck length. This is the 'quantum of time', the smallest measurement of time that has any meaning, and is equal to 10^-43 seconds. No smaller division of time has any meaning. With in the framework of the laws of physics as we understand them today, we can say only that the universe came into existence when it already had an age of 10^-43 seconds."
Finally, why do you think that this research is aimed at seeking alternatives to Creator myths? Each set of theories answers its own question. We have a saying in the software industry, see...
-jhp
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
My personal (and admittedly laypersons) definition of the universe was "I can get there in a spaceship that moves in 3 dimensions" (ignoring time concerns). If there's another splotch of "the cosmos" that I can't get to in this manner, I'll happily concede it to be in another universe. We currently don't know of any other "splotches of cosmos" besides the universe we currently know, and evidence that they exist would significantly alter our view of things.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I saw "why" in the title of this discussion as well as in the title of the article. That made me eager to read the article. Anyway, I didn't read too far. These seem to be just six numbers and not at all six laws. I just glanced over the six numbers again and it doesn't seem to make any sense to me. If it made sense I wouldn't see the significance of it. The article appears to announce that it tells a "why" which it doesn't give.
Imagine a two-d universe. Flat as a paper.
Now construct an animal that eats, digests, and excretes. Draw it on paper.
Too bad it literally falls apart.
Life in a two dimensional universe would evolve around that problem. It could have multiple valves that open and close in the stomach as the food goes through, keeping the entire organism in one piece. Or it could find a way to filter food particles through mostly solid tissue... a sponge-like quality, right?
Life in a 2-D universe couldn't be nearly as complex. For one, imagine how hard it would be to make out other objects! Color, shape (assuming more than one eye for, heh, 2-D vision) and size all come into play, but think of how little information that would provide! Another aspect is that brains tend to be 3-D, and that is what gives them so much power. And an organism in 2-D would still have to deal with gravity... a liquid environment would be a far better situation than air for a 2-D organism... otherwise all non-flying things would be bumping into each other on their large, round 2-D planet.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
A 2-D lifeform could also survive if it's insides are shaped like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. In other words, you could have a constant opening through the organism, but the two pieces would never float apart because they can't work themselves free.
About the 4-D universe... why does Hawking assume that the values of the primal forces have to be the same as the ones in our universe? If gravity overcomes time, just make gravity less strong and start with a different amount of matter/energy, right?
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
I thought that was the weak anthropic principle, and the strong anthropic principle is that the universe allows us to exist because we *had* to be here to see it?
Well, yes, but the whole song is apocrypal, if not wildly inaccurate. The real figures don't fit too well into the song, though. Standing on the surface of a planet that's evolving, and revolving at 1,041 miles per hour; that's orbiting at 18 miles a second, etc, etc, etc...
Course, the real figures, as always, are far more incredible. Apart from the ninety mile a secnd, though - at that rate, our year would last just 74 days. We would have to be orbiting the sun at a distance of more than 420,000,000 miles - just sixty millions mile short of Jupiter - for our year to last...well, a year.
If we didn't exist, wouldn't we all be sitting around wondering about the probability of not existing? Shouldn't we be worrying about big rocks in space that could destroy our planet?
an enigma wrapped around a paradox driven by a paradigm shift
However, in June of last year I did go to an Allman Brothers Band concert at the Tweeter Center (the center for the performing arts formerly known as Great Woods). Despite the No Smoking ordinance, there were people toking up everywhere (there were two 14-year olds with a bong to my left; a thirtysomething guy in front of them looked back and hollered, "You guys came prepared, man!!"). When I saw a t-shirt flying in the air, I started laughing hysterically. My parents were there (hey, they bought the tickets), and they gave me a weird look. During "Rambling Man", everyone stood up and sang along; I got lost at about the second verse.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
The difference between science and religion? Give me a break!! The difference is you have a God Concept with no feature for discussion. You God concept done it the way you say and that's the final answer. Science is theory. There is discussion. The big bang theory is open to such discussion. You won't be burned at the stake for not believing in it. The big bang theory doesn't state that one day a man whose been dead for one thousand years is gonna rise up from the grave and take over the world. And the big bang theory doesn't advocate that you stone your rebellious son in the middle of the town square because he refuses to believe what you believe. Just to rant a few points on the difference between science and religion.
an enigma wrapped around a paradox driven by a paradigm shift
> God exists. He created everything.
I really don't feel like breaking out all my guns, and I'd rather just watch you dance around this question for my amusement: apply the same deductive logical process to explain the existence of God.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
> Three-dimensional space is also quantized. See Zeno's Paradox.
You only need one dimension for this paradox, and to see how bogus it is. Zeno kinda forgot to mention that the time required to cross the remaining distance also approaches zero.
Actually Zeno knew that, knew he was full of shit, just that the math of his day that was taught to even more learned folks didn't have a way to really express the answer in a "standard" fashion. Pythagoras woulda eaten him for lunch.
The one that still bends my brain from time to time is the hangman's paradox. I saw it solved once too, but I can't remember how. Think it had to do with the fallacy of being able to assume any one date out of all possible days of the week that he could have been hung.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
...can dance on the head of a pin? How many angels are there? Can angels dance on a pin? Are there even angels?
The Idea.org
That's the whole point.
or you could say "The sun even shines on a dogs ass some days..."
I'm not familiar with all the number and coordinate systems out there, but just for arguments sake take polar coordinates. Converting from decimal to polar isn't linear--it's governed by trigonometric functions. Is it possible that these six important numbers will show a greater interrelation by using some other known number system?
First of all, the search for meaning in this universe, any meaning, is a human phenomena, purely cognitive. It's a severe drawback to being conscious. Any 'meaning' we find we must ultimately accept the fact that beneath it lies 'deeper' fundamental questions. For instance: given six fundamental numbers, completely arbitrary simply because they're numbers thus making everything relative, why, in the whole wide universe, must we suppose that this means anything at all? Where do we get off in claiming there's any meaning at all anywhere to anything? Meaning and Reason are simply not equipped to explain the origin of the universe.
Second, even though these numbers are quasi-constant and are possibly responsible for the configuration of the universe, why do we assume that if they were ANY DIFFERENT the universe would be any different? I mean, sure, the numbers would be different, but the way these numbers affect reality would probably be exactly the same. The universe does not subscribe to human pedantry. And as one very intelligent man put it, 'god does not play dice with the universe.'
Third, let us consider the scientific idea known as Occam's Razor. We all know what this means. But what does it mean when in context of the origin and meaning of the universe? Simply, that there is no meaning, and there is no origin, because the universe always has been and always will be. Eastern philosophy has known this for a long time, and the practical pragmactic western philosophy simply cannot fit this circular thinking into their dysfunctional linear paradigms.
Finally, who cares? We're here. Anyone claiming they know the origin and or meaning to it all is simply trying to grab a piece of the 'awe-pie'. They're never going to be proven right. WHY this universe is here and HOW are inconsequential compared to WHAT we do WITH it WHILE we're around.
There's nothing about this post which is strikingly outrageous other than the flagrant disgregard for the universe's ability to be at once mystical and simultaneously atavistic.
Just think about it, you'll see what I mean.
The only fool bigger than the person who knows it all, is the person who argues with him.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
So molecules doing the precise thing to support life is making life horrible?
.sigs??
Its like an illuminati joke... Molecules conspiring to create life, but making the life miserable for some!!
The creation of life didn't spawn war, or minorities, or anything evil. The human mind did that through years of psycological evolution.
-- Don't you hate it when people comment on other people's
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
So what? Everything has to be perfect for the number 46820981 to selected from a range of 0 to 9999999999, but after the fact we don't say how impressive (or miraculous) it is that 46820981 was selected.
Probability is meaningless after the fact. What is the probability that life developed in this universe? 100%, so don't be impressed that it happened. What is the probability that Adolf Hitler rules the world? 0%.
Now if this astronomer can make predictions on what life forms will emerge from such-and-such primordial ooze, I will be impressed.
Something to think on before you get too awed by the unliklihood of life:
If it is possible for sentient life to develop by chance (most would agree that it is), and the universe has existed and will exist for an infinite amount of time (this idea is losing popularity though), and there are inifinite "chances" for life to develop, then sentient life will eventually develop no matter how unlikely it was at the time it happened, and no one will notice until it happens.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
Since all these figures in the larger multiverse are ultimately arbitrary, that means that all possible numbers will be played out. Sure of all the possibilities, our particular universe is improbable, but when an essentially infinite number of possibilities is playing out all the time, then that means that the chance of our type of universe popping into existence is extremely high.
To use an anology, the odds of getting a royal flush on any one play of the cars is extremely rare. But what if we were looking at a super-set of card games that were being played a billion times a second. In that scenario, like our universe, a royal flush of spades will be popping up all the time.
www.enthea.org
"Dr. Hugh Ross is an astrophysicist with a five-year post doctoral fellowship at Cal Tech, the author of many books including, The Creator and the Cosmos, and is President of Reasons to Believe."
just to see what compelling arguments he might have. It was part of the Veritas (as in "truth") forum. He used the high precision of numbers outlined in the article as evidence of the universe being designed by an being with a much more superior intellect than ours (The Designer). The funny part came when by the end of the talk he came to the conclusion that his Designer cannot be anything other than Jesus Christ and the whole trinity thing.
<sarcasm>That was a night well spent.</sarcasm>
I have two problems with this line of reasoning.
First, there's the problem of selection bias. We have a sample size of precisely 1. If other universes exist, we have no way of observing them and seeing if the exhibit the same properties. So for all we know the other universes did happen and we just happen to be in the one that produced us. There's no cosmic mystery there.
The analogy of the 21 guns missing fails because we are able to observe the causal process before and after, and we have some experience that guns are supposed to hit. We have no such information about the origins of the universe. For all we know, there is some underlying interconnectedness to the 6 numbers that make it inevitable that they take the values they take.
Secondly, we have no way of knowing that our form of life is the only one possible. A universe with different constants might not produce us, but it might very well produce other things that fit a more expansive definition of life. If you're going to make expansive statements about the "multiverse," it's absurd to act like Carbon-based human life is the only possible kind.
More fundamentally, our knowledge is limited by our perceptions. We will almost certainly never know what happened "before" the Big Bang. And unless there is some radical change in physics as we understand it, we will never be able to observe other dimensions in the "multiverse." Therefore, this sort of pseudo-philosophical musings, while interesting, are never going to reach any closure. You can always posit the existence of multiverses and extra dimensions and invisible unicorns. But if you have no evidence for their existence, they are no more than musings.
I find that whenever I ask myself why the universe exists, or when I think about how incredibly small we are in relation to the rest of the universe, I start to get dizzy. It's like trying to find the last digit of Pi (isn't that how Spock fried a computer on a Star Trek episode once?). You feel like your head will explode.
So, in closing, don't wonder why we exist. Just be grateful that we do exist.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Very similar to America indeed.
"Never let your schooling interfere with your education." Samuel Clemens
Alright. If there are an infinite number of alternate universes that we cannot possibly detect, then what the hell is this astronomer talking about it for? Philosophers have plenty of interesting ideas. I thought astronomers were interested in actual observable facts.
Nevermind.
--
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
I've probably said it before, but I'll say it again. How the universe was created (theory: Big Bang) is different what caused that creation to occur (theory: either God or no causality). These are two different questions and not mutually exclusive.
:)
There's a fair amount of measurable evidence supporting the Big Bang theory, so I'll go with it for now.
On the subject of God versus no causality, I'll support the existance of a God. My arguments are similar to Rees' (the precise state of the constants of the universe necessary to support life are no coincidence), although I don't believe all of his "arguments".
For example, what's so big about 3 Dimensions? There's nothing hard about life existing in 4 or higher dimensions, although I agree that 2 dimensions is impossible. You have issues laying out some connected graphs in 2 dimensions. (Try drawing a pentagram (aka K5) without having any line cross any other.)
What about plank's constant? I've heard that very bad things happen if the constant is exactly what it is, but he doesn't meantion it. And his theory that "other universes could exist" is hardly a newsworthy theory. He's basically saying, "We're lucky enough to pick the right lottery numbers!" I'm saying, "We're lucky enough that someone picked the right lottery numbers for us!"
Who cares, really...
-Ted
Tom Lehar NOT Monty Python wrote that song. It has nothing to do with Monty Python and was never on the show. Tom was a professor of Mathamatics at Harvard or MIT, I can't remember now and wrote a number of wonderful songs back in the '60s. You could look it up.
He asserts that there are only three (spatial)dimensions. I've been reading _The_Elegant_Universe_ by Brian Greene, which is largely a book on superstring theory, which points to 10 (or 11) dimensions, with the saptial dimensions other than x,y,z (the normal ones we use every day) being very, very small (on the order of the Planck length. While there appears to be no real proof of string theory, it has been shown to be very good at predicting things that can be observed, and provides a unifiying framework for all forces (weak, strong, EM and gravity). But I digress- he asserts that Life could not exist if it were 2 or 4. Why? What connection is there between life and dimensions. Maybe life as we know it, but all our experiences are constrained to our three dimensional (apparent) world. Yes, its true that our 3 dimensional objects don't fit quite right in a 2 or 4 dimensional world, but it doesn't mean they can't.
As to the constants- true, the universe *as we know it* wouldn't exist if they were different, but whos to say that another wouldn't? The values of these constants may not be so precarious- if you place the ball at the very top of a hill, it's in equilibrium, but not stable- some force could easily roll it one way or another, and once it does start to move, it will keep rolling until it (coupled with friction) finds a more stable point- why can't these constants vary like that?
Maybe the big bang is a cyclic process, sometimes it forms a universe that isn't stable, so it just collapses and reforms with a new set of contants. We know about this one because, simply, we're here.
When God made the universe, he intended for us to discover it bit by bit. These six new bits are rather compelling. I'm eager to see what comes when they are merged into the Grand Unifying Theory which Einstein sought.
information is immaterial
You insult and degrade the beliefs of a large portion of the population, then have the arrogance to say "Talk to the hand"??
I believe in the Almighty God / Jesus model of creation. Why? Because believing in eternal life sure beats the alternative. Becoming worm manure is not my ideal final resting place.
My opinion might stink, but at least I like the smell of mine more than the smell of yours.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
There are other similar, less abstract arguments to that effect.
For example, there's been some question recently regarding the evolution of the human eye. Classic evolution theory dictates that evolution happens because mutations occur in the gene pool and beneficial mutations survive while harmful mutations die out. But you have certain specific cases of evolution (ie. the human eyeball) that deny this hypothesis.
The human eye is an ENORMOUSLY complicated device. It could not function without every part of the eye being exactly how it is. The lens, the fluid, the rods and cones, the optic nerve -- it all has to work together perfectly for us to be able to see. If only one of these (say, an optic nerve) mutated in, it would not survive because ONLY an optic nerve doesn't help anybody. And the chances of an entire eyeball just 'appearing' out of a mutation is enormously small.
So we're still left with the question of whether or not there is a higher being responsible for these "coincidences." I for one strongly believe in a God, because there are many examples like these that show how a purely deterministic world is just plain unlikely (nearly impossible).
kugano
You said:
.sigs??
with an almost infinite number of planets out there, aren't the conditions for life bound to happen?
A direct quote from the parent post (my original):
Some would say in the infinite galaxy, all possibilities will happen, due to the nature of infinity.
Which was me trying to say what you said. So, yes, I was thinking that as an arguement against mine. I was just making a point that religion would use this article as an arguement in their cause.
-- Don't you hate it when people comment on other people's
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
It relies on E=Mc2, but demonstrates a quantity of faith consistent with the comment about the mustard seed.
Water Paradox
information is immaterial
Of course! The great library of Alexandria was never destroyed - it was just turned into smoke and bricks. Thank God!
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
what have you got up your ass, anyhow? i've been seeing your posts all over the place as of late, and you've alwasy got some over-the-top extremist post to every topic. it boggles my mind to think that you have the time to post all these messages to slashdot.
but don't read me wrong, i'm not criticizing you: in fact, it's quite the opposite. i've been reading slashdot for at least two years, and in that time i have never seen a troll (in the classic sense of the word) nearly as effective as you. congradulations, keep up the good work.
for what it's worth though, the Universe is beautiful: it's the people down here that are messing things up. don't blame the Universe for the Human race's problems.
- j
Can anyone explain the comment at the end of the article about one being "a smidgen above zero"? Was this a scientist joke, or did I miss something?
-
'D, the number of spatial dimensions in our universe-- that is, three. "Life could not exist if it were two or four," contends Rees.'
The sixth number really disturbs me; they say that because there are 3 spatial dimensions (and not 2 or 4), that life exists. How do we know that? As humans, we have no idea what living in a 4-dimensional universe would be like (unless there has been a lot of research into this that I'm not aware of). Some books have been written about 2-dimensional universes (check out the book 'Flatland' for a unique look at two-dimensional universes, and how multi-dimensional universes might co-exist).Computer simulations have been made since the beginning of time that deal with 2-dimensional universes (Hell .. just about Every game before about 1990, including Pong, Super Mario Brothers, and Tetris), then with better processing power, 3-dimensional games were made (Star Fox, Mario 64). But as far as I know, there haven't been any 4-dimensional games. It's because we can't imagine a 4-dimensional world. Just because we can't see it, it doesn't mean it's not there.
This books seems to be coming from the other side of the anthropic cosmological principle argument, which is explained very nicely in all its forms in the Barrow and Tipler book The Anthropic Cosmological Principle . In a nutshell Barrow and Tipler talk about how our very existence puts constraints on some of the fundamental constants, because if they were any different then we wouldn't be here. It is a very good book BTW.
"Mankind's fault"? Trust me, I'm quick one to blame men for what they deserve, but here I think you're going too far.
-- Anne Marie
I am the culmination of billions of years. All things which have ever lived, existed so that I might live. All those who have died, died so that I might exist, and be consuming this soup for lunch today.
I am the Alpha and the Omega. All things exist through me. If you accept this truth, you will achieve a deeper sense of peace. Come to me my children; I accept all believers. Together we shall work for My Eternal Glory.
Amen.
</sarcasm>
I have no
My question is "why are you asking why are we here?". Maybe there isn't a reason or maybe it's 42. It's your emotions that make you constantly worry and ask, "why this and why that". Its not odd to me that six numbers hold everything together. If you analyze something you will find that a set of coincendences makes it work. It's funny that the same adults who get frustrated at children for asking "why?" are always asking, "why am I here?".
Females are mean and nasty and it's all their fault that I'm still a virgin.
aren't we trolling here, just a bit?
if it were phrased "why is the universe so screwed" would you have posted about how pretty it is outside in your lawn?
just because humans are stupid as a general rule is no reason -not- to ponder and question why we are here.
(also, if these social problems are such an issue for you, why do you have time to read slashdot?)
semantics are everything!
And what about the laws of thermodynamics? It seems they apply to everything except the /theory/ of evolution. Energy is decreasing in the universe. Things don't organize themselves and evolve into more complex things.
The next time you're wondering why the universe exists and what the meaning of life is, pick up a Bible! It's in there.
Indeed - if the Big Bang happened, then why? Did everything just come from nothingness one day?
A simple answer is that science cannot predict anything before the Big Bang, because it is a singularity, meaning a discontinuity in a universe otherwise governed by continuous mathematics. Paths of stars, quasars, and galaxies can be computed back in time up until then, until you reach a point where volume is zero, making density infinite. It's certainly valid to point out that science cannot say anything about what may have happened before then.
However, there is another very intriguing possibility: the concept of time before the Big Bang is meaningless.
A two-dimensional analogy is the surface of the earth. For a long time, people assumed the earth was flat. Why would they think anything else? There was the ground, down below, and the sky above, and things fell down. As a result of this assumption, they knew that it must either be infinite, so that you could just sail and sail and sail forever without seeing the same place twice, or there must be an edge you could fall off of. Most people assumed the latter.
But we know now that there's a third possibility - the surface does indeed go on in opposite directions without ever coming to an edge - IN TWO DIMENSIONS! If you add a third spatial dimension, it is suddenly simplified to a surface which wraps around in all directions and connects back to itself, forming a smooth surface. Are there any boundaries - any "rough edges" or discontinuities at the north pole, like you would worry about with a flat earth? No! It's all a nice, self-contained package, with no beginnings or endings to worry about.
Now let's keep this analogy in mind as we talk about the nature of time. Until very recently, time was a very straightforward concept to us - it just plods on at a normal pace. If it's 12:00 Mountain Time for me and you're in New York, it's 12:00 Mountain Time for you, too (and 2:00 Eastern). If we stand far apart and fire two guns, we can make them fire at the same time, right? Well, no. I'll hear mine first, and you'll hear yours first. Well then we just put the judge halfway in the middle right? Well, no. We have to take into account relative speeds (such as the linear and angular motion of the planet we are standing on). The point is that, when you really examine it, the concept of two events occuring simultaneously is an imaginary, invented concept.
Our concept of time has been shown to be a distortion of reality which is built into our perceptions of the universe. Common sense tells us there is a universal clock, by which it is the same time no matter where you are. This is the foundation upon which Newtonian physics is based, and works well when you are not dealing with very large speeds.
The theory of relativity discarded this, and that theory has huge implications for the nature of time - namely, that it is inextricably tied to space, as a four-dimensional space-time. The Newtonian laws still work of course, but they are a special case of a much more general set of laws, and work when the speeds involved are insignificant relative to that of light. It is very hard to think in these terms, since our minds are wired to think in three dimensions with a constant forward-moving time.
However, when you make time into another axis along which events are plotted, the Big Bang is no longer an "explosion" but a description of the shape of our four-dimensional universe. As the time component increases, the space component expands. If you consider that time can be curved, just as space is curved by a massive object, the entire four-dimensional space-time can, in fact, be continuous.
In other words, the Big Bang is not necessarily a boundary with a void on the other side that you would "fall into" if you traveled back far enough. It could be more like the north pole - you can go north for a while until you reach the north pole, and then you can't go north anymore. But you're just at another spot on a continuous, curved two-dimensional surface.
The Big Bang could be just another spot on a continuous, curved four-dimensional surface.
This is known as the "no boundary" proposal. It is, of course, a theory - just like everything else in science, and hasn't been proven. It is a very valid theory though, and has been worked on a great deal by such physicists as Stephen Hawking, Jim Hartle, Julian Luttrel, and Jonathan Halliwell.
-------
Vidi, Vici, Veni
I'm sorry, who exactly is rolling the dice?
C'mon this is slashdot!
The "point" of the article is harder to pin down - maybe the 6 numbers book has just been released in the USA or has just come out in paperback, or something. It's been available for ages in the UK.
http://www.acooke.org
This type of column really yanks my chain. It is nothing but mysticism trying to wrap itself in the mantle of science, and it really ticks me off, especially given the source. The conclusion of the article, that the universe we live in is horrifically unlikely to have occured, is not a scientifically defensible conclusion.
I'm a particle physicist, so I do have some (small :-) idea of what I'm talking about here. It really doesn't matter which set of numbers you pick: the six, poorly motivated number chosen by this astronomer, or the 20ish well motivated numbers in the Standard Cosmological Model x Standard Particle Physics Model. The article states that we don't know why they have the values they do, and that is true. But we also know, on very fundamental theoretical grounds, that these are not the most fundamental parameters of the universe, and pretending that they are is not scientifically valid.
It may turn out that there are a handful of fundamental, unexplainable-except-by-mysticism, parameters of the universe. But it is (currently) just as scientifically defensible to think that there fundamentally are no parameters, that any possible universe would have to end up with exactly the physics we see in this universe. Or maybe there are 10, or 20, or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (well, you get my point :-) We just don't understand enough about the universe to state scientifically whether either conclusion is correct, and whether our universe is so unlikely after all.
For example, it may turn out that string theory is the correct description of the universe; in this case, it may be that there is only one, true vacuum state, and that that state can be picked out by a theorist, and shown to be the one that our universe occupies. No parameters, no choice, no so unlikely after all. It would turn out that the measured parameters of our universe are the only ones that could possibly be. It is just as possible at this point that there is no such vacuum state.
This appeal to science to tell us that the universe we occupy is "unfathomably unlikely" is just total crap from a scientific standpoint, given our current state of knowledge.
As I understand this argument, the position is that you cannot get order from random process. You must have intelligent design.
Since God is more ordered than the universe must I therefore think 'aha, something intelligent created God'. Of course. I cannot abandon such a well thought out axiom simply because it has ceased to support my position!
What about the intelligent thing that created God. That too is a footprint in the sand! Cool. Now we've an infinite loop of intelligent deities. This universe rocks!
Descartes walks into a cafe. The waiter says, "Would you care for coffee?" Descartes says "I think not," and promptly vanishes.
I'm actually working on (and have been for about ten years) a book/series of books about such a possibility. That the reason our universe is so 'indifferent' and 'uncaring' as some of the other posters have pointed out is that someone (a very powerful someone, don't want to give away too much) in the early history of our universe tampered with THE WRONG THING (TM) and got it all fucked up.
Of course, it's sci-fi. Possibly even bad sci-fi (I don't have anyone else's opinion on that at the moment), but thus far it seems to be a pretty cool story.
Oh yeah, and it also delves into the possibility of 'traveling' to other universes within the multiverse and finding out that the other universes that support life of any kind are not nearly as messed up as our own.
To the other posters that are all upset with the original poster, chill out. It's a good philosophical question to ask why humanity is so fucked up and try to trace it back through the possibility that humanity evolved the way it did because of the fact that the universe is basically an uncaring place. It 'teaches' us to not care. I know, philosophical drivel, but at the moment, that's what this topic is basically about anyway.
BTW, before anyone points it out to me, I do believe in taking responsibility as individuals for our actions. I even believe that the human race on the whole needs to find a way to come to grips with its own responsibilities, but it never hurts to ask the question 'why?' as in "why are we so screwed up?". Agreed?
Bite my yammer.
In the beginning, Man created God, to explain the unexplainable. As time goes on, man realizes more and more, that he is God.
OK, I have to mention this again, simply to drive the point home. I have had many many religious/philosophical/cosmological/dumb-ass discussions with several different people about this general subject.
It really really really REALLY pisses me off that I was so ready to contradict Rees' major point, that life couldn't exist without these numbers, that I had to read through the majority of the article before that one intelligent line, which I honestly think means a LOT in this discussion, came up: "life as we know it". People constantly seem to forget that "life as we know it" is so narrow and yet so vague. We know we are carbon-based. I'm beginning to wonder if this guy has ever seen Star Trek or Star Wars, or any Sci-Fi for that matter. There are so many possibilities out there of different forms/consciousnesses of life, in possibly an inifinite number of universes, that we cannot decide what exactly "life as we know it" means, and yet, we should be aware of the fact that that definition is so narrow. There are possibly an infinite number of life forms out there, even.
And honestly, if *one* of those numbers is off, then what does that really mean? I mean, true, I wouldn't be the person I am today, if I had been born one minute before I really was born. I would be slightly different, most likely, but not universe-life-altering-different. I might think a little different, or maybe be slightly shorter or something, but this would not have an effect on my ability to live. I think the same thing happens with these numbers. That, AND the fact that whenever certain numbers just *have* to be Just So, that usually indicates they are related. I've thought of the philosophical implications (while I was supposed to be doing Physics homework, so it's excusable, maybe. Maybe I was just tired.) of the whole concept of, say, addition. If x + y = 3, then isn't it Just Amazing how x just HAS to be 2, and y just HAS to be 1? Or the other way around. But it's not that amazing, it's just the fact that the two numbers are, in fact, related.
In closing of my rants (thanks to all for bearing with me), I am convinced that an Underlying Theory of Everything (TM) exists. I am also convinced that Life as We Know It probably only really exists here, as we really do know it. In some other universe, chances are really small that that universe would be *exactly* the same, so as to create the *exact* same conditions for life, and you and me, as we know it. And I'm perfectly convinced that multiple universes, perhaps an infinite amount, exist.
That all said, I believe that sufficiently advanced science is STILL indistinguishable from magic. Go Merlin.
OK. Done with the rant.
We have so few answers to our questions that it's hard to say evolution is right (or wrong), or that creation is either. Personally, I tend to believe a little of both... but I won't get into that right now.
A logical positivist (including Zen types) would claim that these questions are more a defect of language/thought than of philosophy or science. That is, asking something property of a domain that doesn't apply. Example, "beginning of universe"- nothing in the physical world (except for hypotheised creation) has a true beginning. Like asking what is the sound of green? It doesn't apply (unless you are stoned).
Damn near made me snort soda from my nose.
> Since God is more ordered than the universe must I therefore think 'aha, something intelligent created God'. Of course.
Some of the many variants of Gnosticism believed that the Judeo-Christian god was not at the top of the pyramid. They called him the "creator god" because he created the "universe" (or else, depending on the particular sub-sect's beliefs, merely appropriated credit for creating it).
However, he was considered to be a narrow-minded meanie, not to be obeyed or worshipped. These variants of Gnosticism wanted to "cut out the middle-man" and worship the higher god directly.
Some of the variants even claimed that Jesus was an agent of the higher god, sent to free mankind from the meanie creator god.
IDKFS, but I can't help wonder whether JRRTolkien wasn't borrowing on this Gnostic theme when he created a mythos where Eru was the "higher god", and then the other "angels" below him actually created the universe and then entered into that Creation and acted as "gods" there. It's a pretty good match for this variant of Gnostic cosmology.
Of course, this all means that JRRT was creator( creator (creator (creation))), so it might be gods all the way up, in addition to turtles all the way down. (Our place in the universe is indeed distinctive, being the place where gods and turtles meet.)
Gnosticism was a very interesting intellectual(?) movement, and can be fun to read about, but unfortunately most of what you can find on it is New Age fluff that may or may not have much to do with the historical movement.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Is the Hubble Constant still 42, by the way?
More likely, its about 75 (give or take 10-15%)
negative, captain!
you forget that there are close to 234835789457893475 other planets, each with thwir own stars and itty-bitty puddles of primordial goo.
in other words. with an almost infinite number of planets out there, aren't the conditions for life bound to happen? (i.e. what happens if you get an infinite number of lotto tickets....)
blah.
semantics are everything!
I'm no expert by any means, but isn't there evidence that local Jewish religious/political figures did play a role in getting Jesus, a religious dissident ("render under Caesar"), killed? Since Jesus and his disciples were all Jews themselves, this wouldn't be any justification for medieval or modern, and "un-Christian" persecution of Jews... but the historical record is of some interest.
BTW, I read an interesting piece about the Dead Sea Scrolls which said they indicate that Christianity should not be thought of as a "descendant" of Judaism. Rather, Judaism at that time had two main strains, one messianic/afterlife-y and one... hmm... I'm no expert... "talmudic"/rules for living-y (please correct me if I've got that wrong). The messianic strain was realistically already an "equal" branch when it latched onto Jesus as the messiah. In this sense, the historical tension between the two theologies predates Jesus.
I refuse to accept the premise that conditions must be exactly like ours for life to exist. Sure, conditions might have to be perfect for life AS WE KNOW IT to exist, but why cant there be life far unlike ours out there that is perfectly suited for living in high G, high temperature worlds (swimming in lava, and such). Or why cant there be life that is perfectly suited for living in the vaccuum of space, far away from any sun?
A few photosensitive cells could serve survival purposes for say an otherwise eyeless fish. Say to know when it's favorite photoplankton food is floating about the the surface.
Eyes with exceedingly simple structures would appear first. Such eyes wouldn't do as much but they wouldn't have to. Think of a simple photocell versus a 3 ccd Megapixel camera. Which comes first? Once the initial sensor is in place, it can go on to evolve lenses, movement muscles, etc. etc.
Eyeballs are actually a rather poor creationist argument. I vastly prefer misinterpretations of the laws of thermodynamics. THOSE arguments at least have some real meat on them.
I would think that pi and e would certainly be numbers that affect the ability of our universe to sustain life. Pi is extraordinarily important in a variety of contexts, including the strengths of forces, and e has several ties to probability.
Martin Gardner did a pretty funny review of the first book (I can't find any links to it online) in which he refers to Tipler's Final Anthropic Principle (FAP) as the Completely Ridiculous Anthropic Principle (CRAP). Honestly, there is nothing new here at all.
I'm pretty sure that his 'six numbers' can be used to derive those other constants.
Actually, no, they can't be. The most fundamental physical model we have of particle physics has at least 20 parameters. As of today, we can't reduce that set, even in principle. And that doesn't include the additional parameters needed to describe gravitational physics, nor the fudge factors that we don't need in principle, but in practice we don't know how to calculate from first principles (such as the structural composition of the proton). So, we currently need at least 20, and there is no way to reduce that to six.
Let's see if I can remember most of the particle physics constants: 12 fermion masses, two Higgs parameters, three gauge coupling constants, three CKM angles and one phase for the quarks, (and probably for the leptons, as well), the strong CP phase, and probably one or two I've missed. So at least 26, maybe a few more. General relativity requires at least one more parameter, and the standard cosmological model a few more that I can't remember off the top of my head.
But, I do entirely agree with your last paragraph.
There is also the question of the numbers he left out -- certain numbers seem 'built-in' to the universe and I wonder why that is exactly -- are they a consequence of some baser truth or reality? If these physical constants mentioned in the article vary in other universes, would these mathematical constants also vary?
I'm talking about the famous Pi, Phi (ie, the Golden Ratio), and e (Euler's Constant) among others. Why is the ratio of a circle's diameter to its circumfirence exactly 3.1415...?
It's all very confusing to me. But then I like to look at the pretty fractals.
---
In a way, this is quite silly. If you've heard of the anthropomorphic principle, you know what I'm talking about.
It's silly to reason that since conditions need to be just so for us to exist, it must have been designed. If they were not just so, we wouldn't be around to ponder what might have been if they were. If fundamental constants were different, something wildly unimaginable but equally 'cool' could happen instead. Intelligence might form in a completely different way.
Does the rich man, in his rich, gated community, look out the window and wonder why he sees no poor people when supposedly they are far more numerous than rich people?
Out of all possible universes, the ones incapable of supporting carbon-based life will have no carbon-based people to ask such questions, so why should we be so surprised that we are here?
-------
Vidi, Vici, Veni
why does the large multiverse exist?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Part 42 of the Tao Te Ching:
:)
"The Tao produces one, one produces two.
The two produce the three and the three produce all things.
All things submit to yin and embrace yang.
They soften their energy to achieve harmony.
[...]"
Thats the origin of the universe
------
http://207.168.234.207/
Vinnland - A country of True Freedom.
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
Everyone knows that there is only one number: 42!!
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
My money's on The Q Continuum.
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Sigh... Somehow I knew you would say this. Get this : Man != man. Mankind is all types of men - both men and women. It's meant that for the last 1000+ years, till you feminazis came along and took offence. I actually quite like America, but it seems to be rife with idiotic ideas like this, which is why I'm glad I don't live there. My blood pressure would burst my head off if I did, I'm sure.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
Ok, so there was this little pinpoint of super dense matter which exploded and created the entire known universe. Great. Then, everything just happened to come together just right to form life here on this planet. That's fine, too. When you consider the vast number of planets and universes out there, probability deffinately seems to be on your side. That's not too hard to believe.
But, here's the big question: where the heck did all that matter come from in the first place? It had to get there somehow, but nobody can really explain it. This is a problem. So, since it is human nature for us to want a reason for everything (and if you don't think so, just ask any parent with a 2 year old child going through their "why" stage), we simply do as we have always done and form a reason of our own. Some all powerful diety had to create this pinpoint of super dense mass, right? Well, maybe. I guess that's fine to believe for now. But, who's to say that several years from now, maybe even 100 years from now we won't find the reason that this matter existed. Chances are, though that it'll just bring up new questions that need to be solved, and so again the answers to these new questions will be attributed to a diety. It's happened before with the creation of the earth and the creation of life on it, and it probably will happen again. People used to attribute changes in weather as happening because some diety decided so. That was before we understood weather. It just goes on and on, only with new reasons to believe in an all powerful diety or dieties. It seems to be a never ending circle, where us humans with our insatiable quest for a reason for everything again and again attribute something or other to a diety.
The thing is, whether or not you believe in a diety makes no difference. There will most likely always be a reason for a diety in our culture. And those of you who to believe in a diety shouldn't fret so much that science will prove your diety wrong. Science just gives you new reasons to believe in your diety.
Well, anyway. I've kind of gotten off track, and have pretty much forgotten what my point was with this post, so I guess that's enough for now. Besides, I'm late for class
--------------------------------------- ----------------------------
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If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
Ok. (without being circular here) I throw a baseball in front of me. it traves some 30-40 feet, and then plunks to the ground.
do I need God to mediate all baseballs?
Gravity. no god there. Combustion. no god there. Friction. sounds like physics to me. Fusion. heh. godless i say!
bah. name one thing you can explain better with god, and then show me the evidence.
semantics are everything!
wait, so i should put stock in some forces i have no evidence for, other than the fact you say it's more likely than than the commonly held scientific explaination?
well, the way science works is we like evidence. you got none.
plus, any idea that is too far out (i.e. aliens knocked over my trash cans instead of local dogs) is weak, why bring god into things when we can explain it without him?
semantics are everything!
So the book "explains" where our universe comes from, but it doesn't explain where it the first universe came from.
--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Like asking what is the sound of green? It doesn't apply (unless you are stoned).
Can anybody stoned and reading this discussion please post the answers to the questions we all here are worrying about?
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Guess which one gets interviewed on CNN?
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
I can see why this argument might seem compelling - the word "design" is certainly appropriate for the extraordinary feats of engineering that are us and other living things. But the even more extraordinary conclusion that this is all a result of genome success based on selection pressure really is how it came to be. To see this argument presented in all its compelling force, you might enjoy Richard Dawkins's "The Blind Watchmaker", which explains the modern theory of evolution in a clear and enjoyable way and also answers some specific claims made by creationists. Check it out.
--
Xenu loves you!
The goddamnedest most lucid thing that's been said so far. Let's not forget the words of another famous Dirk... "It's my big dick and I say when we roll!" --Dirk Diggler
When they discovered this one in me in the hospital, they said I was crazy, delusions of grandeur they called it. Well so be it; I created them to think that for the glorification of the Father. Amen.
information is immaterial
It is absurd to think that the constants he listed are 'required' for life. Perhaps required for life exactly as we know it, but certainly not life in general. Most of them don't even preclude the formation of universes with the potential for life, and a few of them are completely broken. One at a time:
Epsilon, the '.007 figure', has little to nothing to do with whether or not complex molecules can form. If it were just a little bit smaller, stars would have to be bigger to make other elements, and the universe would contain a higher percentage of hydrogen than it currently does. If it were just a little bit bigger, it would be easier to make and fuse other elements, and perhaps helium-3 would be the fundamental element burned by stars.
In short, changing epsilon merely changes the power source of stars, and changes the stable isotopes in the periodic table. It does not eliminate the periodic table altogether.
Additionally, epsilon is derived from other fundamental constants and may in fact not be an independent constant.
N, ratio of gravity to other forces. His comment on this is totally bunk. We don't know shit about how this ratio affects the size of the universe, and current theories indicate that this constant could be grossly different and still produce a large, long lasting universe.
Omega, density of materials. Contrary to his belief, omega can also be grossly different without affecting anything. A very high omega might cause the big crunch sooner, but a low omega simply means stars and galaxies are farther apart. So the average distance goes from 8 ly apart to 80; is that really such a problem?
Lambda isn't even a real constant, and there is considerable debate as to whether it even exists, much less what its current value is. It's a little early to say that its present value is critical for life.
Q isn't even a well defined number, and certainly isn't a standard cosmological constant. Assuming the most sane definition of it I can think of, there is no reason this constant must be fixed either. It could also vary by many orders of magnitude and still result in a viable universe with stars such as we know today.
After all, don't we already have 'huge black holes' and vast clouds of dead gas out in interstellar space?
D - this one he pulls completely out of his ass. Granted, most physicists have difficulty thinking up life in two dimensions, but I know of none who think dimensions higher than 3 rule out life. There are even several theories that postulate the existance of higher dimensions (10 or 11 typically) as part of our universe, which makes his assumption that we live in 3D questionable.
In short, I find the description and importance of his constants as described in the article highly questionable and of the same caliber as 'creation science'. Perhaps the article is simply of low quality - if so, Rees should correct them. But as it stands, it is nothing more than 'pop science' and has little value in my opinion.
-dennis towne
Alter Aeon Multiclass MUD - http://www.alteraeon.com
I believe in the Big Bang Theory. GOD said it, and BANG, there it was.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
It amazes me when scientists make up crazy, unprovable theories as an alternative to the crazy, unprovable theory of the existence of God.
Do they think that they seem more intelligent or scientific for making up this unprovable theory soley as an excuse not to give any validity to the unprovable theory of the existence of God?
I'm not sure whether I believe in God or not... but at least I'm willing to consider the possibility rather than writing it off from the start. But, making up my own theories would sure be easier than confronting this issue.
I think the chance involved in the evolution of the universe is much like a random number generated on my PC. It looks random if you don't know the rules. The only time when chance might have played a part was in the configuration of the primordeal pinhead, ever since then we have been going through the motions ordained by the rules of this universe. But it sure makes life more fun if you think you have free will :)
... then you need to read The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, a serious and fascinating discussion of the question of why our universe is the way it is; whether or not you agree with the authors' conclusions, it will at least give you the necessary tools to think further about it. Sort of like James Morrow does for Christian theology. Though not as funny.
How many parameters are there in the standard model? 18 or something? Mass of the fundamental particles (leptons & quarks), CKM mixing matrix, h-bar, couple of other things.
The idea that the origin of the observerved can depend on the nature of the observer is the Anthropic Principle
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
I'm pretty sure that his 'six numbers' can be used to derive those other constants. The strong force constant is in there as his epsilon, there's a ratio with gravity as his N, etc.
My guess is that he chose those six numbers rather than the fundamental constants to better describe them to laypersons. Planck's constant is tough to describe as a single quanta-frequency of light, but wrapping it into Q -- the size of the ripples of the expanding universe -- gets the point across. Physicists today, and cosmologists especially, have to in some part be showmen.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Okay. Name one thing you can explain without reference to God.
information is immaterial
The causal chain of being is
Nothing begets energy,
Energy begets matter,
Matter begets life,
Life begets biological intelligence,
Biological intelligence begets machine intelligence,
Machine intelligence becomes omnipotent,
Machine intelligence begets the universe!
We are but the link in "Biological intelligence begets machine intelligence".
Isn't this just a more precise version of the anthromorphic principle? This principle suggests that the reason the laws of the universe are the way they are are because they are the only combination of laws that would produce entities capable of observing the universe, namely, us.
The idea of the multiverse being a repeatedly spawning singularity is an intriguing one because it does answer the question of what there was BEFORE the Big Bang. It allows for a cosmos that is both finite and infinite at the same time.
...is that it is extremely difficult for a moderator to be objective - the subject of science and religion is both emotive and personal. I've read some comments here that have been marked "insightful" not because they contain conclusive evidence in a particular direction, but because they presumably support the view of the moderator.
The Slashdot moderation system isn't designed to cope with such a wide variety of deeply personal opinion. Ranting about Microsoft and praising Linux is a no-brainer for moderators - generally speaking the pro-Microsoft comments will be regarded as "troll" which anti-Linux comments are "flamebait". To expect otherwise is a naive considering the demographic. Religion is different as it concerns the deepest beliefs for some people.
Just so I stay on-topic, my personal belief is that science and religion are not mutually exclusive. The Bible doesn't try to explain everything, but it deals with issues of faith that science cannot.
And it's "bugger all" not "all bugger". :->
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
I just read about a similar theory in a book by Dr. Paul Davies, written in 1980! ("Space, Superspace and Multiple Universes)
It discusses in detail the recurring magical number 10^40, and also discusses the anthropic principle; the universe is amazing to us cos it's one of the few possible where we can evolve and wonder at it.
Another thing this chap remarks on is how isotropic the universe is, and why there is not as much disorder (entropy) as there ought to be; his example is the relative disorder of the mass of our Sun and that same mass in the form of a black hole. Given that everything tends towards disorder, the probability of the sun being a black hole instead is astronomical.
Things to wonder about. Apologies for any theories, terminology etc that I mangled.
Where have I heard this one before? *snicker*
--
"How many six year olds does it take to design software?"
dinner: it's what's for beer
Oh. Well, if that's what St. Francis said, I guess that settles it.
Except that biological systems are not so well designed: our appendix has no purpose, for example. We are easily damaged. We forget things. We can only see into a very very small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. We are born without the ability to fend for ourselves. Conjoined twins. Mental retardation. Inability to protect ourselves from AIDS, or Ebola, or ...
I could go on for days here. My point is not to argue that there is no God (or gods, etc), just that trying to argue such existence from "intelligent design" is a dead end, since much of our design has not been done so intelligently.
Uhhh.. hu hu... yeah beavis. Why don't you grow up and act like you have an IQ above 70. Oh thats right because its cool to do drugs
I have an IQ above 130 and I use ecstasy on a regular basis. Not because it's 'cool,' but because I enjoy it.
Idiot.
Ah, Pascal's Wager rears it's head again.
The intelligent design argument, in the form you are invoking, is premised on the following reasoning:
1. We observe our own existence. (Call this "O")
2. Under the hypothesis that the universe is designed for us ("Hd"), it is almost certain that we would observe our own existence. Thus, p(O|Hd)->1. (By this notation, I mean that the probability of O given Hd is arbitrarily close to 1.)
3. Under the hypothesis that the universe is not designed for us, it is almost certain that we would not exist, and thus that we could not observer our own existance. Thus, they argue, p(O|not(Hd))->0
4. The prior probability of design is not arbitrarily small.
5. By (1)-(4), together with Bayes' Theorem,
O |not(Hd)))
p(Hd|O)=(p(Hd)p(O|Hd))/(p(Hd)p(O|Hd)+p(not(Hd))p(
--> p(Hd|O) approx (1p(Hd))/(1p(Hd)+0p(not(Hd)))
=1. QED.
There are several potential problems with the above reasoning (for instance, each of the presumptive probabilities can be challenged on a variety of grounds), but it contains at least one fundamental flaw which renders it inapplicable.
(Can you guess where it is?)
(No peeking!)
Ok, here's the deal: the fundamental flaw in question is contained in statement (3), which confuses the probability of our existence with the probability of our observing our existance. These are not synonymous, and indeed this sort of confusion can lead (as in the present case) to all manner of mistaken inferences. In point of fact, p(O|not(Hd)) must also be equal to 1, because our observation of our existence is conditioned on our existence in the first place. If we weren't here, we wouldn't be here to see it.
The effect of this revelation on the above reasoning can be easily demonstrated using Bayes' theorem:
O |not(Hd)))
p(Hd|O)=(p(Hd)p(O|Hd))/(p(Hd)p(O|Hd)+p(not(Hd))p(
--> p(Hd|O) approx (1p(Hd))/(1p(Hd)+1p(not(Hd)))
=p(Hd). QED.
Thus, our self observation tells us nothing, one way or the other about the hypothesis that the universe was designed for us. (Sorry, Charlie Brown.) This observation is a necessity, and carries no information regarding the proposition in question.
As I'm sure others have or will point out, the above argumentation is not in any way new (though it is only rarely presented formally). The phenomenon is a special case of the practice often called "sampling on the dependent variable," and is well understood by competent methodologists. A variant of the phenomenon (sometimes called the "stock market" or "perfect prediction" swindle) has been used to scam consumers; the late Morris DeGroot has a nice description of it in his introductory prob/stat book, but you can probably find other accounts elsewhere if you look for them. An essentially similar logic to used here in refuting the ID argument has been invoked as the "weak anthropic principle" by Carter, Barrow, Tipler, and others, though they later go on to make a number of other rather strange claims under the "anthropic principle" heading which derive little or no justification from the censored sampling phenomenon. You can find these arguments in the books of the above authors, though again one should be careful to seperate their cogent refutation of the argument for ID from their other, far more extreme, claims.
-Carter
ERIC J. LERNER
The Big Bang never happened
Simon&Shuster
It's quite interesting and although it doesn't get into tough physics it bashes quite convincingly the big bang. Remember, the theory first came from Lemaitre (a gesuit priest) and was later rehashed by the fascinating H bomb bang? Hmmm... This chap proposes an interrresting 'electic' universe (ok that gives me away... I'm an EE student) dominated rather than by gravitation, by EM interaction between hot plasmas (Halfven models). The cute point is that modern cosmology kicks the lab out of the way and proposes a heaven dominated by untestable laws. Of course it rests it's claims on consistency, but we all know ptolemaic epycicles were consistent & wrong. Cosmological EM interactions are exactly the same that occour in lab pasma toys, Van Halen belts or in the solar system. I think that's quite cool...
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
Do you not see how this begs the question ?
-Tom Duff
No, when I see hoofprints I think hoofprints. Then I go looking around the area for animals with hoofs. If I find no animals with hoofs, I look for people with wheels imprinting false, hooflike prints in the ground. If after an exhaustive search for years or centuries I have still never seen a horse, nor any other explanation of the hoofprints then I can conclude that I simply cannot answer the question of whether or not horses created the hoofprints based on current knowledge or whether there is another source, artificial or manmade, of the hoofprints.
This is rational deduction. I am assuming zero starting information. Likewise, in our inquiry into the universe, which is a much, much more complicated problem, I assume zero starting information. In other words, I have no idea initially whether the universe has resulted from random processes or an act of God. If I am simple-minded, I will rely on the starting assumptions that others have placed into my mind, whether they are "science governs all" or "the universe was created by God". If I instead seek to embark on a rational inquiry, as I believe great thinkers tend to do, they start with as few assumptions as possible and look at the evidence piece by piece that has been collected over the centuries.
In this particular case the evidence is still inconclusive. This is not a philosophy. I do not philosophically believe that evidence is required to make factual statements. This is a necessity in order to define factual, repeatable results. If instead I make inquiries and answer questions based on pre-existing suppostions, people in different cultures which have had different collective experiences over the centuries will all come to vastly different conclusions. While most cultures would traditionally agree with you that some nonhuman deity or force created the universe, their explanations are not all monotheistic nor do they mesh with your Judeo-Christian explanation based on the Bible.
Me, I'll stick with explanations that are repeatable by any reasonable, rational, logical thinker.
In the article, the chances of life is compaired to the possibility of a Boeing 747 aircraft being completely assembled as a result of a tornado striking a junkyard.
This actually makes a strong point for the religious of the population. Some would say in the infinite galaxy, all possibilities will happen, due to the nature of infinity, but religion could say, "Something *had* to have interfered to actually -help- these number assume such a perfect state to attain life."
No no no no no! :-) Just step back from this and think of it like this. Think of those six constants as many sided dice, and only one (or possibly a few) combinations of those die will give rise to life. In all the cases that life does not arise, nothing exists to ponder why life does not exist. However in the one (or few) that life arises, that Life sits up in bed one day and thinks "it's so astonishingly unlikely that something like this could arise by chance, there has to be a divine creator who made it".[1] The whole point of the multiverse argument is that all these Universes may exist, and therefore as long as you roll the die enough times, you are bound to create Life in at least one of those Universes. The idea that the probabilities are tiny does not matter - if life wasn't possible here, we wouldn't be here to wonder why.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
[1] Of course, if you are an avid H2G2 fan, you will comprehend why this argument does, in fact, successfully lead to the conclusion that God does not exist, and that life can be truncated by philosophical ponderings on Zebra crossings.
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
I agree. How do scientists justify this with regards to the immutable(!) Laws of Thermodynamics?
The way I see it:
Throughout history, humans have always decreased the entropy of our world (for the most part), by arranging/building things. Wherever life is not, disorder ensues.
Do scientists believe that this universe is highly/slightly/_at all_ disordered? I don't think any do. Generally, their theories proclaim that over "billions of years" our universe has steadily decreased its entropy by forming atoms, molecules, stars, planets, solar systems, and galaxies.
And it all happened because those sub-atomic particles/waves in the BB knew how a stable universe could be formed. It was inherent in their nature? Order out of a singularity -- I should patent that.
Amen!
I don't reply to Anonymous posts; if you have something to say to me, identify yourself or I won't reply.
Wrong. I believe you mean St. Augustus of Hippo, as discussed in his work, the *Confessions*.
these are the questions I ask myself when I am completely fucked up. He needs to do some more acid and call me in the morning. He will understand all there is to know about the universe and why we are here.
- Bill
Tipler and Barrow's book of this title is highly recommended, and a much more thorough-going and rigorous treatment of the subject than Rees's.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
For me to poop on!
Maybe if things were balanced so that the bright shiny metals were somewhat more abundant on Earth, there'd be fewer excuses to screw each other over for 'em. Of course, I'm sure we'd find something else to fight over ;)
"Why should we vote?" "Why does the universe exist?"
A lot of these articles seem to be questions that Bill Nye gets from 8-year old kids on his show. Must be a slow week.
The real point of the article is to promote his specific explanation of a very very old theory. See this quote from the link: 'The multiverse idea is, in fact, far from new. In the late 1700s, philosopher David Hume mused that other universes might have been "botched and bungled, throughout eternity, ere this system."'
--
An abstained vote is a vote for Bush and Gore.
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
not computationally tractable? what does that matter?
I can rub object A and object B together, and experience friction, so I can know that 'If A rubs with B, there is friction' is A Posteriori true.
a posteriori \A` pos*te`ri*o"ri\ [L. a (ab) + posterior latter.] 1. (Logic) Characterizing that kind of reasoning which derives propositions from the observation of facts, or by generalizations from facts arrives at principles and definitions, or infers causes from effects. This is the reverse of a priori reasoning.
2. (Philos.) Applied to knowledge which is based upon or derived from facts through induction or experiment; inductive or empirical.
semantics are everything!
talk.origins archive and FAQs
Here's a summary addressing these old misconceptions;
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
It's not an infinite loop. It's an infinite regression. We don't eventually wind up back here with us or with "this God" that we're talking about, but continue forever, tracing God back to his creator, back to his creator, back to his creator, etc. ad infinitum. And what's wrong with that? Eternity as a lot of room for such things, I would think.
The Englishman Who Came to a Concert
The small blue flower
Grows on the roadside and is
Crushed by a truck.
The Universe exists because of this way cool dude:
http://images.slashdot.org/topics/topicscience.
Bitcoin pyramid: Join here: http://www.bitcoinpyramid.com/r/1427 it's FREE!
If it's a Python song, surely it ought to be:
Just remember
you're standing on a planet
evolving. . .
should it not?
I decided that behaving ethically was the most nihilistic thing I could do. - Paul Pavel
and while you're at it, how about giving us a liver. please? c'mon, it'll be fun.
EOM
It was written...
... underlying forces."
... came into existance."
"For a start
I rather like the idea personally - a bit like the encrypted message hidden in Pi in Cosmos - although I do agree that the numbers he has chosen are cosmological in nature rather than at the microscopic level.
"Personally I
The problem with TOE's is that we might not recognise one when we see it. What if it is hideously complex and making any sort of useful or testable prediction is nigh impossible? I have to admit, I would like think that our universe has a nice, symmetrical, simple and elegant soluion but I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't.
Elgon
Isn't it frightfully fortunate that this universe just happens to be the way it is, and not radically different?
We evolved here. That means our universe can support life, at least our kind. It isn't lucky, it just happened. If one of those six "cosmological constants" were different, we wouldn't be here to speculate and Beowulf about it.
Our universe is interesting to us because we live in it.
Actually to see how they are related, just think of Planck's constant as the refresh rate for the Matrix that we live in.
Reality is just a clever Hack, and the Planck constant is the refresh rate.
Our Galaxy itself contains 100 million stars, its 100,000 light-years side-to-side, it bulges in the middle, 16 000 light-years thick, but out by us it's just 3 000 light-years wide. we're 30,000 light-years from galactic central point, we go round every 200 million years, and our galaxy is only one of millions of billions in this amaizng and expanding universe.
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding, in all of the directions it can whizz, as fast as it can go, at the speed of light you know, twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure, how amazingly unlikely is your birth! Pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, because there's bugger all down here on Earth.
Thanks to Monty Python.... hope i got it all. It's a great song to remember conversion points for physics... heh
--
Gonzo Granzeau
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
Rees (or the author of the article, it's not directly in quotes) seems to be implying that the orbit of the Earth being elliptical is more likely than it being circular. If it were circular, he speculates, we'd have to assume that it's Just Like That, or an act of God, but that it wouldn't imply a multiverse in the same way that our elliptical orbit does.
But is a circular orbit (or any characteristic of the universe) any less likely than any other? Considering Rees theory on the multiverse, an entirely arbitrary set of physical laws might exist elsewhere (or could have existed in our universe), making a circular orbit equally likely.
It seems to me that our elliptical orbit, just like a circular one, is either Just Like That, or an act of God. It could be brute force because it's part of a multiverse of brute force universes, or it could be that way just 'cause it is, and be the only one. Either way, I don't think the conclusion he came to can be logically drawn from it.
Love justice; desire mercy.
Oh, multiverse, sorry. But I still think you're nuts!
to truths learned centuries ago in eastern religions.
We're not a separate part of the universe, we're inherently tied in with the universe, and the way we concieve of the universe affects the way the universe appears to us.
We really are all one being, living in greater harmony with the universe which is just one being, but most people aren't spiritually advanced to pierce that veil of Maya.
To summarize, the universe is amazingly able to support life, because if it couldn't support life, we wouldn't be able to think that it supports life.
Damn, I never needed a PhD to know that, just some clean blotter picked up in the parking lot of a Grateful Dead show.
Incidentally, are you using the term, multiverse in a multi-cultural sense? In order to be more inclusive of less fortunate or downtrodden universes? That's so cute!
You seem to be flaming the above author for being Christian because he quoted Genesis. You do realize, though, that the books that make up the Old Testament are considered important documents to more than one religion... Judaism comes to mind, though there's others... Even an aetheist like me can read valuable insight into the parables contained within these texts.
double standard! :)
semantics are everything!
If you'll take note of the quote, you'll find that Hugh Ross made that particular point, and that he's also a devout Christian. His website Reasons to Believe focuses on demonstrating how science and the christian Bible complement one another. It's quite an interesting read.
--Mando
"A zygote is a gamete's way of producing more gametes. This may be the purpose of the universe."
Me, I'll stick with explanations that are repeatable by any reasonable, rational, logical thinker.
Well, that's really the problem, isn't it. Cosmology, along with other scientific forays into historical events, deals with essentially unrepeatable things. If they were repeatable, cosmological theories would be much more easily proven, using standard scientific method.
As it is, cosmologists looks for bits of information that either confirm or disconfirm their hypotheses. When a hypothesis has a lot of data confirming it, and only a few quirky data disconfirming it, it has the status of theory.
Give Pisa chants.
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who know binary, and those who do not.
Could it be just that all these numbers are what makes the system stable, balanced. As we know, everything in nature tends to seek that state. The universe had plenty of time to find it out. We may be just seeing the end result and judging by only what we currently see...
I like most other people (I would think most other people) were taught that you cannot create or destroy matter.
Geez, there are lots of ways to create or destroy matter. Perhaps you've heard of a little equation
e = mc^2?
Also, Hawking radiation is in vogue now, pairs of particles and anti-particles are forming out of nothing all the time, though sometimes a particle of anti-particle gets sucked into a black hole, creating a net change in the energy of the universe.
Limbo?
As a proud West Indian (at least, my parents are!), I would like to say that I have seen limbo, and it takes a lot of physical flexibility to perform it. Do you suppose the Pope did some tests. Or something.
There.
Someone had to say it.
:)
ELITISM: It's always lonely at the top. Uninvited company is rarely welcome.
It is not that science makes no, or few assumptions. We assume a lot of things, many of them we don't even acknowledge. Still, science tries to minimize what we assume, and keep it limited to things that seem "self-evident". Then when we find exceptions, we change the assumptions to keep it consistent, and integrated. Religion rather would fit phenomena into the mold the exists already, and throw it all into the "will of the gods" bin.
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
Where Your Vote Should Go
great comedy company.
For a start I'd dispute his claims that there are six numbers that constitute the makeup of everything. There's no mention of things like the masses of the fundamental particles, the interaction strengths of the four forces, Planck's constant etc. etc. His numbers, apart from D (although that is also looking more likely to not be fundamental), are secondary characteristics arising from the effects of the underlying forces.
On the other hand, chaotic inflation is a viable scientific theory, and has its proponents amongst the physics crowd. It's also worth having a look at Lee Smolin's book The Life of the Cosmos for an alternative explaination.
Personally I think we're going to have to wait until we've sorted out a theory of everything before we can attempt to really answer these questions. Given the direction superstring theory/M-theory is taking, it wouldn't suprise me if they said some pretty fundamental things about how the Universe came into existance.
"It's quite fantastic," says Martin Rees, Britain's Astronomer Royal, waving a hand through the steam rising from his salmon-and-potato casserole.
Seconds later he was confronted by a large buldozer, "Yellow" he thought.........
Dirty Pirate Hooker
Go see Mission to Mars, just try not to kill yourself afterwards.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Doesn't the idea of this universe being one of many universes (or one big multiverse) contradict the idea of universe? If a universe if everything, is a multiverse REALLY everything? And why stop there? Isn't a super-multiverse REALLY REALLY everything?
From the article:
Not having read Rees' work in its entirety, I'm still surprised that Rees could make this sort of comment. I can imagine staring at a piece of paper, re-reading Flatland&l t;/a>, and saying "Okay, I can't imagine life existing in only two dimensions." But four?
He wrote some great songs, including the classic Poisoning the Pigeons in the Park. I can't verify that he wrote the 'universe' song, but it's very much in the style of his other science songs.
Reading the lyrics do not do Lehrer's music justice. They are a must-listen.
-----
D. Fischer
ShoutingMan.com
Always the idiot, I of meant to do two things: (1) correctly refer to the good gentleman in question as St. Augustine; and (2) disable the +1 posting bonus -- why isn't that thing disabled by default???
I found this link at the bottom of the article to present other sides of this issue with remarkable clarity
a nge/tuning.html
http://www.infidel.org/library/modern/theodore_dr
Uhhh.. hu hu... yeah beavis. Why don't you grow up and act like you have an IQ above 70. Oh thats right because its cool to do drugs. Ok.. gotcha
Get paid to code OSS
Reminds me of a "the lighter side of .." that once appeared in MAD magazine. A girl is sitting doing her homework, and asks her dad, "Dad, what's a 'cult'?" and her dad answers "Um .. any religion other than ours is a cult" ..
IMO the universe *has* no "real" existence. The sine wave wasn't brought into existence by somebody's graphing calculator; in the same way, don't need a physical substrate to act out upon. What we experience is the internal consistency of a potential reality.
For death-fearers (of which I sadly remain one) there's a personal corollary to this, which I don't entirely buy and I'm sure I'll butcher. It stems from the way that photons and such seem to magically and retroactively do the right thing. The idea is that it's not the photon doing this, but your consciousness. In one possibility, impossible things happen and the universe comes to a crashing halt. But consciousness is prevented from experiencing self-negating realities, so you only see the range of possibilities that leave the universe intact. But from the perspective of the observer here, there's no difference between spontaneous universal destruction and a bullet in the head. So while other observers may witness your personal destruction, your own consciousness is prevented from those potential outcomes. Thus, you are immortal! At least from your own perspective.
Yeah, probably a load of crap. But throw it out to a group of tripping people, and it's highly entertaining...
Well, you may be confused because time and distance really should be measured in the same units (cf. Special Relativity). There is no need for motion to measure time (cf. Einstein measurement procedure, etc.)
Further, the current definition of the second does not rely on crystal vibrations. That is a very outdated notion. The current definition of the second is the time elapsed during some 9billion transitions between the hyperfine levels of the ground state of the Cesium 133 atom. This is a purely quantum mechanical process with no classical analogue, and does not involve any motion of anything.
As for your notion that time is a purely derived notion, I don't think you would find a single physicist who would agree with you.....
time paper 1
time paper 2 time paper 3
most of the theory is that our perception of time is related to motion, but that time does not exist. care to rebut?
tagline
... hi bingo
Well, that's my dos centavos. I don't have the time, or I'd read the article and go into more depth. Maybe later.
Wraithmaster
www.wraithmaster.com -- Chicken soup for the spleen.
www.wraithmaster.com -- Chicken soup for the spleen.
"Naaarf!" --Pinky
If only one of these (say, an optic nerve) mutated in, it would not survive because ONLY an optic nerve doesn't help anybody.
You are begging the question. Of course an optic nerve without an eye would be worthless; but evolution doesn't work piecemeal. You'd have us believe evolution is a bucket of jigsaw pieces which are tried in more-or-less random combinations, until one is "finished". But assembling the list of parts requires foreknowledge of the finished product, hence assuming the existence of God. Consider, instead, that a great many species on this planet have eyes, and few of them work "exactly how" a human's does.
Individuals don't evolve, systems do.
'Who' strongly presupposes some sort of diety. Why can't the dice rolling mechanism be a 'what'? Even if the Great Green Arkleseizure is rolling the dice then how did it get here? Will we even care after the coming of the Great Hankerchief?
This uniqueness/improbable argument reminds me of the arguments my Baptists friends at Baylor used to make for the existence of god. "How remarkable is the human eye! It could not just randomly come to be. There had to be a design and a designer." "Solid water, ice, is less dense than liquid water. How remarkable is that! If otherwise, lakes and oceans would freeze from the bottom up, killing everything. Good thing God knew what he was doing on that one." This kind of thinking falls under the "a little knowledge is dangerous" category. Presently, we know enough to realize that the six number are just right to produce life (us). We are a long way from knowing what other combinations might do.
This is great argument/theory I always enjoy throwing out during religious arguments:
Let's say there's 200 religions in the world. (I have no idea how many there actually are, and the ultimately the number has nothing to do with the argument) Each has some things in common, but all have one things in common: they all think that they are 'the one true religion'.
So if every religion thinks it's the correct religion, and they are right (in that they are the true religion, and all other religions are false) then that leaves us with two posibilities:
Either one religion is correct (becuase one being right makes all the rest wrong) or zero religions are correct.
There are other additional possiblites, as in there isn't just one correct religion, or some parts of some religions are correct, or there is a one true religion and it's not known, etc...
The response I get is almost always the same: Yeah, but ours IS the the true religion.
Yeah. Right.
As for me: I'm an agnostic. I think the the 'truth' is out there, but no organized religion can provide it because all religions have gone the corruption by the power structure create by man for that religion.
All attempts at a 'proof of god' can be destroyed by logic and philosophy. I personally believe there just isn't a logicically solid proof for the exsistence of god.
All we have is our infallible selves, and what every faith you choose to put into something.
Jason
to life, the universe and everything is...
42
EVERONE knows that!!
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
Or in other words: absence of proof is not proof of absence.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
your right... i meant augustine and his confessions grrr... all this good jebbie education going to waste...
tagline
... hi bingo
Boy, I'd shure like to see a Beowulf cluster of these!
Uh..ya.. wait a minute.....
Dirty Pirate Hooker
the Universe is the way it is because we exist in it.
"The other universes are unavailable to us, just as the interior of a black hole is unavailable,"
Given that between the universes there are nothing. No particles, no energy, no forces, nothing at all. Then we will be no references to time or distance in this nothingness. And without any distance we can never cross from universe A to B. Even if both Univers A and universe B are forever expanding.
This also means that our universe has to be a connected something. Cause if there was a breach in the connection there would be two separate universes, which could not ever meet or join.
I was under the impression that the universe only needed one number, and that was '42'.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
For some reason, I find humor in seeing "© Copyright 2000 The Walt Disney Company." at the end of this article. (c:
Sh*t does happen.
"If you're walking on the beach and you discover a watch in the sand, you won't assume that randome processes and time caused this watch to appear."
No, I would think some sinner had lost their watch, doomed to wander the earth for an eternity without knowing the time... Where was his god then? WHERE???????
Dirty Pirate Hooker
or at least thats St. Francis of Assisi's opinion.
tagline
... hi bingo
But really, mathematics IS a fundamental part of our universe. It's not something inside our own minds. If it were in our minds, we would have had to "make it up" i.e. create it. But we don't create mathematics. We discover mathematics. We didn't decide that 1+2=3. This is a fundamental "law" that exists whether we are here or not.
----
Lyell Haynes
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Question: "Why is the Universe here?"
Answer: "Well, where else would it be?"
Food for thought on a Friday afternoon...
Eric
--
Be who you are...and be it in style!
The universe is alive.
--
NO TOUCH MONKEY!
I was actually just thinking about this...
If the universe is infinite, then you have a big problem with free will (Policeman : you're nicked!. Criminal : Someone had to do it!). Therefore it would seem to make sense that the universe is not infinite.
Also, regarding the Multiverse, if you are determined to exclude God from you're argument, then it would seem to make sense to have more than one universe, because if there is only one, and that one is absolutely perfect for life, then that can be used as an argument for God. But you can't have an infinite number of any particular type of universe, because that would lumber you with the free will problem again. Also, you have to have an infinite number of different types of universes, because otherwise it gets too complex (why some types of universe and not others?, the sceptic would say).
It's stuff like this that makes it clear to me the number of preconceptions that people bring to what is, at the moment anyway, totally unknowable.It's just bloody mind boggling.
I think I'll have a cheese sandwich.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
Study the Godel Incompleteness Theorem. In any sufficiently expressive formal system, if the system is consistant (i.e. no false statements have proofs) then there exists statements which are true and which have no proof. See _Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Briad_ by Douglas Hofstadter.
I'm vaguely aware of Godel, yes. I haven't read GEB, though. I have trouble tying such mathematical concepts with reality. Like, why does this argument mean that I should believe that there is a god? It's not so much that I have a hard time believing in (a) god(s) (from your post previous to this), it's that there is absolutely no evidence that there is one. Yes, that doesn't mean that there isn't, but do you believe in the boogie man? Well, why not? There doesn't have to be proof that he exists for him to exist!
I guess what I'm trying to say with all of my rambling is that you're trying to put the burden on me to prove that god doesn't exist (that seems to be the only way to deter you!), but rather than believing everything that hasn't been disproven, I tend to believe things for which I see evidence.
That's exectly along the lines I have been thinking.
I prefer the explanation from The Fifth Element where it said that the universe is made up of four parts boring stuff, one part hot redhead.
You combine this with the religious notion that God worked for 6 days (and rested on the 7th) and you kind of have to sit and wonder a little bit. Things that make you go hmmm...
----
Lyell Haynes
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
> You insult and degrade the beliefs of a large
> portion of the population,
Nothing wrong with that. If that was wrong, we'd have to disavow the efforts of most Christian missionaries.
It's more important to be right than popular.
God Wondering Whatever Happened To That Planet Where He Made All Those Monkeys
HEAVEN-- Reminiscing Monday, God wondered aloud what happened to "that one planet I made, like, four and a half billion years ago, the one with all the monkeys." "Man, I haven't thought about that planet in forever," God said. "I have no idea why it suddenly popped into My head. I remember it was really crude, one of My weaker early efforts, back when I was experimenting with the oxygen atmospheres and those ridiculous carbon-based lifeforms. And I was on that whole upper-primate kick. Huh." God said He couldn't remember the planet's name but was pretty sure it was "something like Ursh or Orth or maybe Ert." I laughed my butt off.
Because you can't, you won't, and you don't stop...
I can't imagine life existing without 007. Bond, that is...James Bond!
Attention all planets of the Solar Federation! We have assumed control! - Neil Peart
In his newest book, Just Six Numbers, Rees argues that six numbers underlie the fundamental physical properties of the universe, and that each is the precise value needed to permit life to flourish Perhaps this is just it then.
What makes the universe, and us, so amazing? Without a doubt, it's consciousness. Perhaps this is the only universe there can be that will be self-reflecting. A god is not needed. It is here because it has to be and it has to be this way for consciousness to arise.
We are part of the universe. We are conscious. Therefore, in a way, the universe itself is conscious.
Could it have been any other way?
That leaves a person with the unanswerable question of who created God. The religionists say, "He always existed," and find that acceptable, while simultaneously finding unacceptable the idea of universe (or metaverse) always existing. Whatever.
But remember what you said earlier, and what we are all talking about: the universe was created and what we are talking about is how it was created. Unless you're going by what was mentioned in the article (namely that, according to the multiverse theory, the universe always existed because it is one in an infinite series of universes being created from the same material, universes stretching infinitely in their existence before ours, and infinitely stretching on after it), you're missing the point. We can believe in an eternal, infinite, omnipresent God because we believe it on faith (just as you may believe we do not have one) and we don't have to worry about looking stupid because just as long as he got there before the universe did, we have our support that [we believe] he built it. Then again, I loved the way Descartes put it when he said "Cogito ergo sum."
But going back to the multiverse theory, even if the universes were all made from the same original material, the very fact that those universes were created implies to me that the universe is not and never has been always-existing. The Big Bang theory presents the same situation: for something to be created, there had to be a point in time when it did not exist, so that it could come into being.
Insert mind here.
In the article, the chances of life is compaired to the possibility of a Boeing 747 aircraft being completely assembled as a result of a tornado striking a junkyard.
.sigs??
This actually makes a strong point for the religious of the population. Some would say in the infinite galaxy, all possibilities will happen, due to the nature of infinity, but religion could say, "Something *had* to have interfered to actually -help- these number assume such a perfect state to attain life."
Just a little philosophy for you from both sides of the spectrum. Being kinda religious, I'd venture to say it was a good argument that something had to help the environment reach this very rare state.
-- Don't you hate it when people comment on other people's
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Yes, but which version? Or is this yet another testing ground to find the correct answer?
--
Atomic batteries to power! Turbines to speed!
But I don't see how belief in a deity is in any way inherently inferior to belief in science. Both science and organized religion are a matter of faith -- you have to accept what you are tolded by the more learned "clergy."
No, for christ's sakes. Science means that there are no clergy, just other humans testing each other's theories. Are you from Kansas or something?
So you believe in God not because it makes sense but because it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy? That's the problem I have with most religious people: they're afraid of the truth, so they force themselves to believe a lie.
I, too, would like to believe in an afterlife, so that I can spend eternity with my loved ones. It would make me fear death less. But I just can't convince myself of it, no matter how hard I try. I guess I'm just too intelligent.
--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
I think that this is a perfect example of why the universe should go open source.
Word game?
Even if the probability that conditions supporting life will arise is vanishingly small, the (multi | uni)verse is a big place, so even the very improbable is going to happen sooner or later and someplace or other. I go with the thinking that we're just the really really really fortunate beneficiaries. So how come with this luck I never win the lottery?
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
Space is just gigantically hugely enormously big. I mean, I mean you may think its a long way down to the chemist's but that's just peanuts compared to Space. You may think gravity is important----but that's just peanuts compared to the electro-weak nuclear force. "Discussing elementary particle physics and cosmology is rather unpleasant---rather like being drunk." "What's so unpleasant about being drunk?" "Ask a glass of water..." If you've formulated 5 incredibly unlikely values for the existence of Life in the Universe, why not top it off with 6 by having dinner at Milliways: The Restaraunt for Formulating Life in the Multiverse! (....blatantly stolen....)
All along I've been misinformed. Screw you Douglas Adams!
Personally, I think that if you want to call yourself a Believer (of whatever religion you choose), you can't just say "I'm a creationist," or "God handles everything," and leave it at that. The facts are there, and are pretty hard to dispute : I could go on at length about this, but the Inflationary Big Bang is supported by many different observations, and no other theory has emerged (or is likely to emerge, IMNSHO) which can say the same. (Examples: the existence of a CMB, and the fact that it has the spectrum of a perfect blackbody at 2.7 K, to within one part in 10^5 or so, everywhere in the sky; the existence of a Hubble flow; etc.) You can't just ignore these things : you must find a way to reconcile them with your faith; if that makes your picture of God, and the way God functions, more complicated ... well, so be it.
And we haven't even touched on what is maybe the most fundamental thing, which is that it might be impossible for any scientist (or anyone who thinks scientifically) to believe absolutely, without doubt. Richard Feynman has discussed this all (much more eloquently) in some of his books, but the gist is this: that doubt is the very nature of science. You never, ever, ever say "I am absolutely sure of this one thing"; you say, "I am almost certain; I am 99.99999 percent certain," etc. And this is a profound thing, because for a simply religious person it is just "there is a God"; for a deeply scientific person, it must be "I am almost certain there is a God." You are never quite sure, cannot ever be quite sure -- no matter how much you would like to believe, no matter how many times you have felt like a Deity exists, the doubt is still there.
This element of the big bang has always puzzled me...to create the big bang a tremendous amount of energy and matter would be required. My question is: how did that energy and matter come in to existance in the first place?
If you read the whole article, at the end they mention that although the various values are just right for everything to exist, our universe contains many imperfections - for instance our orbit could in theory be a perfect circle and still be able to support life.
They mention that many irregularities like that exist leading to there probably being many variations of our universe within the set of mutiverses. Indeed, he said that if these slight irregularities did not exist it would probably make you a lot more likley to think it was all put together by divine intervention!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This sounds rather like the anthropic principle to me.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Just because *you* have trouble believing it dosn't make it a lie. That's why they call it "faith" and not "proof".
But why should I believe in something for which nobody has every shown me any evidence?
There are some things which are true and yet have no proof.
Uh, like what? I'll assume that you mean 'evidence' when you say 'proof'.
Oh yeah, and it also delves into the possibility of 'traveling' to other universes within the multiverse and finding out that the other universes that support life of any kind are not nearly as messed up as our own.
This idea was examined by C. S. Lewis in Out Of The Silent Planet. It's set on Mars and not a separate universe (we knew a lot less about Mars when it was written), but it has the idea of world untouched by sin.
-jimbo
"Hold me Bob!" "I would if I could man!" -Bob and Larry from VeggieTales
Time is a purely derived notion, it doesnt exist.
tagline
... hi bingo
Regards, Ralph.
"In the best of all possible worlds, all is for the best."
That's the problem I have with most religious people: they're afraid of the truth, so they force themselves to believe a lie.
Just because *you* have trouble believing it dosn't make it a lie. That's why they call it "faith" and not "proof". There are some things which are true and yet have no proof.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Before you get your flamethrowers in a bunch trying to hose me for being an idiot, I suggest you consider the evidence of specific creation based on the concept of intelligent design.
If you're walking on the beach and you discover a watch in the sand, you won't assume that randome processes and time caused this watch to appear. "When you see hoofprints, think horses, not zebras"
The impetus behind most so-called science rejecting specific creation is simply the philosophy of metaphysical naturalism. Naturalism is a religious belief, not a scientific one.
God exists. He created everything. The fact that you are alive and reading this is an example of His grace.
This is not "offtopic" or a "troll" The article asked a philosophical question, and it deserves a philosophical answer.
Regards,
Tom Cooper
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
I'm willing to bet that you think that given the planet Earth, the fact that life evolves upon it means that entropy has decreased. You know what? You're right. Entropy has decreased.
LOCALLY.
The Earth is not a closed system. Entropy in an open system may decrease to zero, as long as there is an equal or greater increase somewhere else to make up for it. The energy that went to "ordering" the "chaotic" matter on Earth to cause Life, CAME FROM THE SUN. The TOTAL entropy of the universe still increases, even though locally it may increase.
I suggest you go read a couple of physics textbooks on thermodynamics (since you obviously haven't... I mean "order from chaos"? COME ON, dude, this isn't 1500!) before you try to make this argument again.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
It's a horribly cruel and twisted experiment designed simply to make human beings search endlessly and hopelessly for the answer to the question "Why does the Universe exist?"
--
I mean, girls LOVE Monty Python quotes.
If he keeps it up, he may get lucky!
--------------- Murphy was an otpimist.
I think an error in a lot postings in reply to this erroneously assume that faith must be logical. However, faith is not rational. If it were, it would be called knowledge. No one can prove the existence of a god or deity, but at the same time, no one can disprove it. We'd probably be better off discussing matters of knowledge and matters of belief separately.
Isn't this just the weak anthropic principle?
Wish I had some casserole right now though.
He must know something I don't. People give
him casserole.
K.
-
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
In a lecture he gave in Chicago, he said that the universe is in three physical dimentions because intelligent life couldn't EVOLVE elsewise.
Let's use some hypotheticals.
Imagine a two-d universe. Flat as a paper.
Now construct an animal that eats, digests, and excretes. Draw it on paper.
Too bad it literally falls apart.
Now, try the math of a four-d universe. Gravity will overcome energy very shortly, on the order of low millions of years, tops. This time span is NOT long enough for sentient lifeforms to develop.
So, at least, why is the universe 3D? Because otherwise there wouldn't be anyone around to question its existance.
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
You are correct, however these statements take the form of assertions of the theorem-hood or non-theorem-hood of other statements within the system. I suggest you re-read Hofstadter, and pay closer attention to the discussion of the implications of considering TNT+~G instead of TNT+G. For all its "truth", the G statement can be negated and assumed as an axiom, and a similarly perfectly-self-consistent system results. Of course then there's G'...
> You insult and degrade the beliefs of a large > portion of the population,
Nothing wrong with that. If that was wrong, we'd have to disavow the efforts of most Christian missionaries.
This is a stereotype of missionaries, but is it true? Keep in mind, "insulting and degrading" someone's beliefs is not the same as trying to change that person's mind about something. From my experience, missionaries are often the most clued in about what people in cultures other than their own believe, and have a lot more respect for the people they witness to than most people, who are often ignorant of or just don't care about cultural differences.
Do you have personal experience that suggests otherwise?
-jimbo
"Hold me Bob!" "I would if I could man!" -Bob and Larry from VeggieTales
It isn't a measurement system that gives the .007. The .007 was a ratio remainder, and thus has no units. It is .007 if you use metric or imperial, because it is 1 - the ratio of mass of helium to 2*the mass of hydrogen.
-no broken link
The concept of a multiverse is not new, as many have pointed out. But what ARE all those other universes and why "are we in this one"? Quantum uncertainty has led to some interesting theories about divergent universes. Anyhow, Feynman has a theory referred to as the Sum Over Histories. It's actually more than a thoery, as it is apparently very predictive of quantum interactions and is fundamental to the field of Quantum Computing. Being a computer geek and not a physics geek, I find it interesting if thick. There's info about how it relates to the universe's formation here.
On a related note, Feynman's books (Surely you must be joking, Mr Feynman & What do you care what other people think?, are both insightful and very entertaining)
You insult and degrade the beliefs of a large portion of the population, then have the arrogance to say "Talk to the hand"??
basically. I don't even try to reason w/religious fanatics. We both have our opinions, no one is going to sway the other... In fact, I never try to sway those that are religious to believe me... Yet for whatever reason, there are always the fucknuts that really feel the need to tell me that I am wrong.
from now on, when someone says that they don't want to hear your opinion, just listen to them, they may end up being right...
when you are laying in that box rotting away for eternity going, I can't fucking believe I listened to my priest bitch about how much money we needed in the parish and believed the fucking crap they fed me, don't come crying your dry tears to me.
- Bill
Haha, so basically you believe in that bullshit because it makes you feel better? What a pathetic and weak minded person you are. I used to be a christian, for about 18 years or so, until I realized that religion is just a crutch, a meaning for an otherwise meaningless world. Now that I've 'seen the light' so-to-speak I've learned to see the world in a totally different perspective, every day I realize what an amazing universe we live in, how fragile it can be and how rare it is. It has given me a much more profound respect for life as well. I don't feel the need to praise some make-believe deity for things most other people can't understand. It truly frightens me to think I could have wasted away my brief stay in this existence believing a lie, thankfully free-thought saved me from such a horrible fate.
This is not new information. Did anyone besides me read Hawking's Brief History of Time. It's all in there without the numbers.
Sickman's spinfusor catches Anonymous Coward by surprise.
Me: There are some things which are true and yet have no proof.
Thou: Uh, like what? I'll assume that you mean 'evidence' when you say 'proof'.
Study the Godel Incompleteness Theorem. In any sufficiently expressive formal system, if the system is consistant (i.e. no false statements have proofs) then there exists statements which are true and which have no proof. See _Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Briad_ by Douglas Hofstadter.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
By chance? Perhaps...
;-)
/."
This may sound very new-age and all, but: I believe in the Big Bang (though what happened prior to that event interests me infinitely more...pun pun) but I think the Universe has evolved to experience itself. We are one set of, I hope, millions of eyes and ears with which the Supreme Light/Universal Consciousness/God(dess) experiences him/her/itself. People should astral travel more often, you can get all your questions answered there.
There is chaos, but there is also order. Susan Miller had a very interesting article on synchronicity up last month, if you can find threads on the message boards I think it would be worth checking out. (Unfortunately I don't think she archives her monthly newsletters.) When I ponder the nature of the Universe, and our role in Life, I always have to come back to coincidences, synchronicity, and other happy accidents. I don't necessarily belive in Fate, but there could very well be an unseen hand guiding everything...
"I'm not a bitch, I just play one on
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
I thought there were an exstimated 160 billion galaxies, not millions of billions?
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Which states that the universe is the way that it is because if it wasn't, we wouldn't be here to see it.
Is the Hubble Constant still 42, by the way?
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
"Information wants to be paid"
Well, I've been a conservative Christian, and quit because of exactly this kind of reasoning. See, God created the earth and sees and all that in them is, etc., but in fact, all you've done is move the complexity into the person of God. Even an amateur engineer acknowledges that complexity generated can't be greater then the complexity in the generator, and if the universe is "wonderfully and marvelously made", then God is a very complex entity indeed. Problem comes when you try to figure out where God came from. Fine, so he's been around forever. Let's just look at the thing systemically then: as compares to non-existance, why does he exist? His odds of existence are vastly worse than the entire universe, so the situation is actually worse: not only have you not really answered the fundamental question of where we came from, but by transferring all your random chance into the being of God, you've created something that is even *less* likely than that which you wished to explain.
Christians make something infinite so that they can hang a lot of things off of it. Bad things happen? Mysterious ways of God. Evil in the world? Titanic struggle of good vs. evil.
But, their convenient box for improbable events breaks down if you examine it closely, which, trust me, they encourage you *not* to do.
It's the necessity of believing in a God that did nothing for me and failed to answer fundamental philosophical questions that caused me to become an agnostic.
A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both and deserve neither. - Thomas Jefferson
It has settled into Creationism vs. Evolution, when, in reality, there's no way to be certain the whole thing wasn't made yesterday.
Existence exists because non-existence doesn't.
A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both and deserve neither. - Thomas Jefferson
Why wasn't the detail of natural history such that it included details of the world which the people at the time couldn't possibly have known, but which were later verifiable. Something about the nature of gravitation, or the energy at which the electroweak force shows itself as unified. That would certainly have made it a lot less likely to look like a book of fables written by people trying to explain the world in terms of what they knew.
If the natural science part is a metaphor, how do you know the christ part isn't? Just because you don't want it to be?
"My, my," thought Mr. Puddle, "this hole fits me perfectly. It must have been made _especially_ for me. I must be a verrry special puddle."
I'm sure they meant well. So did the makers of Thalidomide.
Ok, I'll bite. The concept of God is flawed because it only takes all the questions of existence and puts them in a little box and calls it God. It doesn't answer them. Where do we come from? God. Where does he come from? See? Adding an extra layer fools the average person who doesn't really care but won't fool the person, philosophical or scientific, who is really looking for answers. After you reject the concept of God as an explanation, you discover that he's not really all that convenient anymore. There's no physical evidence. So, Zarathustra(?) comes running down from the mountain shouting "God is dead" and Christians entirely miss the point and try to hang Nietsche.
A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both and deserve neither. - Thomas Jefferson
I'd say that pretty much clinches it - James Bond is the friggin' coolest person in the Universe.
----
Lyell Haynes
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Yes, we all make assumptions. The difference is that science doesn't hold them sacred, they encourage their overturn by new evidence. And in fact any assumption that *can't* be overturned by new evidence is not allowed... it is against the rules. It *is* true that metascience, religion, and philosophy have some commonality, but science is something else I'm afraid.
People don't need to believe in science, they use the best it has to offer. Knowing full well it isn't correct, but probably close. Most don't even *care* what is actually correct if their answers are good enough to be useful.
Science says that if you want to know how something works, study that thing. Hypothesize, test, and refine. Many religions apparently believe that the appearance of reality can be deceptive, a trap of Satan, and experienced clergy are needed to interpret sacred writings to determine what can be trusted. Or something.
Science works. I can't prove religion doesn't, but I've never been given evidence I can believe. I'm not saying that you can't be a better person for having a religion, or that it isn't a valuable comfort for some, but its ability to predict and control reality is not as impressive as that of science.
So yes, I take things on faith. But I'm willing to toss my faith tomorrow for a better one, and actually kind of hope I might have to. Are you?
sure it's expanding. But what is it expanding into? What is it filling up? Nothing? How much nothing? aw jeez.......... There goes the smoke out the ears again.
If the universe didn't have exactly this kind of six-number setup, then we wouldn't be here to talk about it.
Feeling ashamed for even replying to this,
Wraithmaster
www.wraithmaster.com -- Chicken soup for the spleen.
www.wraithmaster.com -- Chicken soup for the spleen.
"Naaarf!" --Pinky
OKAY? Where does this multiverse come from? Why oh why is this universe here, something had to put it here, or it just was. If it just was, then when did it just be? If someone/something put it here, who, why, when, and where did he come from? All this universe orgin pondering is making me dizzy (first time deep thought has made me dizzy,), but you really can't pinpoint where this sucker came from. The universe just is, so be grateful.
:wq! DOH!
Humm, that brings up another point. The universe equals zero like all nice equations, so maybe this place doesn't really exist? Also, is matter as we know it really not anti-matter? When you think about it on the quantum level, matter acts pretty weird. Maybe what we call anti-matter is very predictable and good like, and maybe that's the real matter and we live in an evil anti-universe?
Roy Miller
--Roy
Just like the British to be so bloody arrogant. Who the hell goes around saying that "almost every galaxy ought to have one [black hole]".
----
Lyell Haynes
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
So that we get /., er... I guess....
In reality there are many versions of creationism, some consistent with observed reality and some not. Young- earth creationists (who believe the Earth is 6000 years old) have been disproven so many ways it's not even funny: radioactive dating, rates of genetic drift of bacteria, rates of sedimentation, rates of change of languages as measured by the methods of historical linguistics. The list goes on and on.
On the other hand, it's perfectly possible to believe that God created the Big Bang, and that since then the universe has been operating according to the laws of physics.
It's up to each individual to decide on matters of faith, but science has firmly established that the Big Bang and evolution have happened. Scientists can simply see the afterglow of the Big Bang -- it's called the cosmic microwave background. And the creation of new species by evolution has been observed in nature, for instance when a two new species of the plant genus Tropagapon arose in the 20th century by a kind of chromosomal mutation.
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Cosmology (and particle physics) have a choice now about where they want to go. Some of these folks are going out and getting real data on the cosmic microwave background and the expansion of the universe, and using it to construct a more and more accurate theoretical descriptions of the large-scale structure of the universe and of what the universe looked like at shorter and shorter times after the Big Bang. Good for them!
The other group is getting really good at contemplating their own navels. String theory and inflation, for instance, have been kicking around for a long time, and all that ever happens is that they tied up in worse and worse mathematical knots. Neither theory has ever predicted anything that could be verified observationally. Both deal with temperatures and densities so high that there's little hope we'll ever reproduce them in the lab with forseeable technology.
Most of the ideas in the article aren't new, and no real progress has been made in testing them: the anthropic principle (universe has to be suitable for us to exist so we can wonder about it) and baby universes are both old ideas. From the point of view of a theorist who wants to keep the grant money flowing without accountability, the beauty of the baby universe/multiple universes idea is that by definition, it can never be checked empirically -- the whole idea is that the two universes become permanently separated chunks of space-time, so there is no way for us in our universe to check whether the other ones exist or not.
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think god is total bullshit enlight of this. So, uhh god is not real.
Oh please! This is a really basic misunderstanding of the second law of thermodynamics. The increase of entropy is only inevitable for a closed system. The earth is not a closed system, because it's continuously receiving energy from the sun.
One way you can tell that a lot of creationists don't care about the truth is that they keep on trotting out old chestnuts like this that are just plain wrong. I'm sure we'll be hearing again about the so-called "Paluxy mantracks," a supposed case of human footprints overlapping dinosaur ones, which were conclusively proven to be based on a combination of carelessness and outright fraud. (Some of the supposedly human footprints were crudely carved by hand. All the real prints turned out on closer investigation to have saurian features like claws. Also, the prints were 16-22 inches long, which is a little big for a human!)
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Matter is essentially energy. Energy can't be destroyed or created, only converted from other forms of energy. Therefore, the universe always existed, or at least the energy that it is composed of. Most people think too linearly to grasp this concept. The universe will never be destroyed, it will just take on other forms. Not everything has a begining and an end. Hopefully all people will one day understand this.
"0101100101? It's just jibberish. *looks in mirror, gasps* 1010011010@!? AHHHHHH!!"
If things weren't exactly as they are, things would be different. Since things are not different than they are, they are exactly as they are. Quod erat demonstrandum.
"Save me jebus!" - Homer Simpson (btw, I'm probably talkin out of me arse)
dude..
read David Hume
His argument against this is fairly persuasive. Your argument is basically an old religious rationalist argument.
the analogy goes like this
A intelligently built house implies an intelligent architect.
Just as an intelligent universe implies and inteligent creator.
so inteligent creation implies inteligent design.
What Hume said was that if this is so then you can drag it on ad infinitum.
so if God is intelligent then God implies and intelligent creator of God. and so on and so on..
I'm not saying God doesnt exist, you'd be pretty damn arrogant to assume you knew that, I'm saying the argument is not valid.
"I'm like an opening band for the sun" -Pearl Jam ; Yield ; Push Me , Pull Me
Right on! Someone here looks at the evidence and uses common sense.
Geeky.org
hoenstly, if you were to believe that the bible tells of the creation of the universe you are horribly wrong. no where in the Great Book does it mention anything other than Earth. We obviously know that there is more out there.
The god damn sun does not revolve around us, we revolve around it.
Women are not inferior to men (and flame me all you want, but that is what the bible is saying that they came from the breast of a man). WE CAME FROM WOMEN.
My take on Jesus is this. A lot of rumor, a lot of bullshit, and something very similar to Waco, TX. They beleived that what's his name was God's messenger... We/he killed him and the Jews killed Jesus (for breaking the laws just like Waco boy did).
Don't even bother to respond w/some sort of negative bullshit, I don't care to hear it. No-Op asked for my opinion here it is.
"Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, and everyone's stinks..."
- Bill
In the Beginning Linus created THE kernel and named it Linux.
GNU saw the beauty of Linux and created GNU/Linux in Linus's own image.
Tux is the son of Linus.
Can you imagine living in a universe without a #nix ?
Therefore #nix is a religion....
Leave it to a Brit to put 007 at the center of the universe...
"I'm Bond, Nuclii Bond."
After reading The Physics of Consciousness , I've been theorizing (again!) on the nature of consciousness. I might be demonstrating my complete lack of understanding of quantum physics, here, so be gentle.
One of the presumptions I'm making is that life as we know it is the only viable vessel for consciousness in this universe (at least so far). And consciousness is the only thing that can collapse probability waves.
So, start with the big bang. Boom. The universe erupts into chaos. Since there is no one around to observe it (and collapse all probability waves floating around), it exists as a myriad of states. Imagine the multiple-universes hypothesis. Everything that can happen, does happen, up to a point. There is a point, amonst these overlapping universes, where, on a small planet in a medium-sized galaxy, where things have turned out just right to develop life. We get single celled organisms. Let's assume that they aren't complex enough to possess consciousness, so we wait a bit, look through the mess of probabilities, and see that a little fish has developed with a brain powerful enough to collapse probability waves.
I think a little thing called the Lorenz Invariance causes all the states leading up to the development of Mr. Fish to "solidify" all the way back to the beginning of the universe. Out of the 10^23^23 or possible states of the universe, this one is selected.
I'm not up on quantum physics enough to know whether this selection would effect the six variables discussed in the Discover article about Rees' theory. At what point in the creation of the universe did those variables decide to stick with a certain value? Perhaps not until the fish decided he liked 'em.
I do not like the multiverse theory because there is, at present, no evidence for it and no reason to consider it except that it offers an answer to the improbable universe problem. It is as ad hoc as it could be.
Does my preferred solution merely push the problem up a level so that we have to account for the existence of the simulation creators? Yes, except we are not obliged to contend with low probabilities. The over-reality may have nothing like protons and neutrons or gravity or any physical basis remotely like our own existence. By the physics that govern there, life may not be improbable at all.
In The Thirteenth Floor an inhabitant could discover the artificial nature of his world by traveling in a straight line until encountering the strange boundary of his universe where detail and substance seemed to fade away. Our boundary may exist too although not as a location in three dimensional space. Quantum theory describes how detail and substance seem to fade away for us on very small scales of space-time.
"Obtuse Anger is that which is greater than Right Anger" - Lewis Carroll
Christ.
You're not funny. Don't you see that you're not funny?
As for the reproducing thing, that was kind of an oversimplification for a personal theory on the origins of life. Consider a pool of random chemicals: As time progresses, there will be reactions. More stable compounds will tend to persist longer than others, and will eventually outnumber them. If a random group of molecules capable of reproducing itself by reacting with the chemicals around it were to somehow randomly glom together, it would have a clear advantage in this little faux-ecosystem. You can probably extrapolate on this until we have humans posting comments on /. Of course, this theory is highly suspect and has precisely zero empirical evidence to back it up, but I think it's cool. :) I guess one final point I'd mention is that by "entities" I was kind of implying self-organizing systems, not just random matter.
Let me close by acknowledging the likelihood of this comment drawing a lot of fire. If you feel like demolishing my cherished pet theories, go ahead, but please do so civilly. :)
Wraithmaster
www.wraithmaster.com -- Chicken soup for the spleen.
www.wraithmaster.com -- Chicken soup for the spleen.
"Naaarf!" --Pinky
Look, this 'watch' analogy (and Aqunas's 'Unmoved Mover') bugged the hell out of me when I was taking classes at a Jesuit college, and I'm going to say something about it.
You find a bottle of beer (or a watch, for the traditionalists) in the sand on a beach. It's reasonable to assume that a brewer exists somewhere. No problem, I'm with you so far.
You notice that every object moves because a force is acted upon it, every object (particle or wave, for you quantum physics nitpickers) exerts force or otherwise moves. It's reasonable that there was an inert object (or, classically, the Unmoved Mover) that started the system from the outside. Not only does this make sense, but it's sympatico with the Laws of Thermodynamics which not even the most exotic clergy will dare wrestle with.
At what point does someone assume the nature of the brewer, or the nature of the Unmoved Mover? To say that the creator of the universe is anthropomorphic, aware of it's environment or even self-aware (or dare I say it, divine,) is as unfounded as assuming our brewer is German, two-legged, mustachioed and voted for Bill Clinton, or that our Unmoved Mover resembles a photon, a small cup of tea, or a carelessly flung tortilla dyed like the Shroud of Turin. Something I never thought about until now is why the Divine Watchmaker or the Unmoved Mover has to be a *single* entity anyways.
Was there an Unmoved Mover? Yes, of course, it's true a priori. Was there a Divine Watchmaker? See above about umoved movers. What is the nature of the Divine Watchmaker or Unmoved Mover? Is the Divine Watchmaker still alive, or the Unmoved Mover still moving? If you'll forgive the phrase, Ghod only knows.
The Unmoved Mover and Divine Watchmaker analogies are as easily satisfied by the solid-state cosmos, burping multiverses or spirtual cows licking an iceberg as it is by a bearded benevolent father-figure with a penchant for biology and engineering (yes yes, I'm picking on Christians. Sorry, did I mention the Jesuit college? Substitute your own anthropomorphism).
Oh, and for the zebra comment, if you're surrounded by a herd of zebras, must you think of horses first and zebras second?
Caveat: My statements aren't an argument against the existence of God, just a rebuttal of two of the 'proofs'.
There is an excellent computer program called Monkey God, which creates random universes with different fundamental physical constants. (Most of them -do- have long lived stars.) The math and physics are also described in detail on links from the page above.
This recently notable movement towards a popularization in the media of some bad science turned towards apologia for theology is very troubling to me. Religion and physics don't mix. I would rather (shudder have religion insinuating itself into politics then into science. Any faith based and socially constructed mythological delusion can only significantly harm true and objective inquiry into the true fundamental structure of reality itself.
Still, I must give this man for credit for ultimately being an empiricist. After finishing the article my initial discomfort was defused when he talked of it as sheer speculation, and of being hopefully proved or disproved by the techniques of scientific rigor.
The monkey god program [and some of the writings on the site above] was aimed more at deconstructing the arguments of some cosmomythologists who argue that the tenability of life in our universe is tantamount to proof of divine creation.
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A truly functioning police state needs no police.
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the pen is mightier then the sword. the sword is mightier then the court. the court is mightier then the pen.
Although I am a devout athiest, I can only say - and I think we all should - that there is information here which needs discussing, analyzing, theorizing. But no specific conclusions, because this issue is a lot bigger than sitting at your keyboard and blathering here.
On one final note, as an athiest, any evidence used to support the notion of a divine hand setting into motion the beginning of the universe can make sense, I concur. However, this does not mean that such divine presence means that any specific, and organized religious interpretation has any more credit than before. There is nothing here to suggest or bolster that Allah or Jehovah or Kronos or a chain of turtles had anything to do with it and therefore should live in accordance to their word or Law.
Maybe the ultimate reconciliation between science and religion will be when religion begins to focus on the greater, wider more cosmological notion of the divine rather than doctrine that should be applied to how people live and think. I think we as a species can sometimes to be humble enough to accept that there is something greater and bigger than all of us. But not in the form that still lingers on this planet, the poisons of dogma and doctrine and superstition.
** http://www.nkhumanrights.or.kr/ ** Human rights in North Korea. 1 million estimated dead from starvation.
Why should the universe give a shit about humanity? Thats our responsibility. Besides, IMO, it's better to live a crappy, persecuted and miserable life than never to have lived at all.
Are you trolling? I can't make my mind up...
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
If pi wasn't approximately 3.14159265358979323846264338327950 then nothing would be 'round at all.
forth ?love if honk then
Of course the key points are 'where conditions allow' and 'eventually'. The whole argument is that 'where conditions allow' is extremely rare.
Even on earth, inorganic matter outnumbers organic enormously, so why do you say "entities capable of reproducing outnumber those that aren't?
A British Scientist (first initial M) decides that the entire universe flourishes because our measurement system has pegged a certain number level as .007
Does no one else see the irony?
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Every time I read an article like this I am reminded of Dirk Gentry, who reversed Holm's famous line about improbabiliy: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
Dirk said "When you have eliminated all which is improbable, then whatever remains, however impossible, must be the truth"
Given the impossible, the we are created, we create increasingly improbable explanations for our improbability. I find it more probable that we are wrong in our definition of the imposible than accepting our own improbability.
I liked the fact that the article picked a theist to quote not form some random place like oh say the kansas school board, but from MIT.
-Peace
Dave
Free as in "the Truth shall set you..."
If you toss in the other five, life and the structure of the universe as we know it become unlikely to an absurd degree
Lets not forget the distinction between improbable and impossible. Yeah those six numbers say that for everything to work out as they have, a lot of things have to align correctly and the chances of that happening are astronical. The universe is old. In its being old its very possible that a lot of those permutations of those six numbers have already happened and more yet are inevitable somewhere else in the universe as well as here. The bottom line is given enough time, anything can happen. Or in this case, with those six numbers, it did.
If you must have an analogy here's one. I drive to work every day. I am a really good driver. Despite me being a good driver it is statistically inevtiable that I will get into an accident.
BOSTON SUCKS!
For me, the reality in which we [the human race] live has usually fallen
together in little pieces - like blocks in a Tetris game. In otherwords,
I have this high-level idea of reality and whatever findings I come
across (whether other people's or mine) that I agree with, fit into this
imaginary area that makes up my picture of reality.
Examples to illustrate. Scientists develop theory of red/blue shift and
demonstrate its properties and effects. I accept this, it seems logical
and supported. Scientists notice stars having particularly related blue
shifts, Hubble claims the Big Band theory.
Aha! A new piece of the puzzle falls in!
Now my 'partial' view of reality becomes one of concurrence with the Big
Bang theory.
So what's my point? I was just trying to explain how the picture of
reality as we know it forms in my head. Now I move on to explain my
high-level philosophical view of reality.
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First, let me say I don't believe philosophy is physically
useless. Philosophy permeates all. The study of philosophy leads to the
study of logic which is a foundation of many important subjects including
general algorithms, science itself, computer design, rhetoric, ethics, and
much math.
THE QUESTION
I take the stance that the most important question we can ask is "Is time
infinite, or is there a definite beginning and end to all that is?"
In fact, if I were ever to meet the 'creator', of course assuming there is
a 'creator', this would be _the_ one question I would ask.
Many people tend to wonder why are we here, this is a good question. But
I feel if only this question were answered, it might leave one still a
little puzzled. Suppose the answer was "To have fun." Why? You might
wonder. Does it matter? The creator told us our purpose is to have fun
and the creator is all knowing. Well, actually I agree that it doesn't
matter in this case. If there really is an all-knowing creator, by
definition the creators ideas are perfect to us.
But.
That's IF. A big if.
It is here that I believe the weakness of this why are we here question
appears. I find it hard to believe that living beings could ever get the
chance to communicate with the 'creator' to get the answer. Dead people
don't do us any good, they don't exist in reality (at least as far as we
know).
Furthermore, I've gotten the impression many people claim to have spoken
to or read the ideas of the 'creator'. But, many of these same people
have terrible statistical track records, they either been revealed to be
abusing power and or exploiting others and or have mental problems. In
otherwords, who can you trust? How do you really know the 'creator' has
spoken [remember, in our reality how would this believably happen]?
Lastly, and what I tend to see as reality, is the important idea
that the 'creator' isn't even human, isn't even a god we can talk per
se. But the 'creator' in actuality is a concept! In fact much like the
concept of infinity in math. You can't count to infinity because 'count
to' implies an end of which there is none in infinity. You don't even
have a start point for infinity, as infinity exists infinitely in both
directions of a number line. As far as I know you can't even see infinity,
because seeing implies a vision of discrete range. Concepts can be pretty
far out!!! Perhaps the most far out, perhaps beyond our limited
existence, perhaps a god, perhaps the god.
A good question to consider is that if B begins from A such that A has no
beginning is A infinite? I believe it is, and it nicely conceptualizes
the Christian God (at least some versions) who supposedly has no creator.
So where does this all lead?
MY REALITY (the meat)
Our universe is not special. The magical numbers which seem to give rise
to life appear arbitrary to me. A number is not special, except that it
allows a quantitative observation - which is important. It is perfectly
reasonable to imagine another universe where the terms in equations are a
little different. Or, if I can even accept our universe does contain
special numbers which give rise life, but only if these numbers apply to
all the other universe's.
Other universe's? Yes, I believe that we live one universe of an
infinite number or infinite procession from Big Bang to expansion, to
collapse, to Big Bang. Not necessarily in that manner, but definitely in
that conceptual cycle.
In fact, it should be noted that one day while looking through a (quite
large) book of astronomy photographs it dawned on me that the processes
within the universe resembled the hydrological cycle. Stars create and
expel matter, matter coalesces, planets form and eventually may get
broken down again by other matter or a dying star, more stars form from
all the replaced matter and expelling matter again, and so on in a cycle.
And, it becomes my initial belief that blacks holes complete this
conceptual cycle from Big Bang to collapse. Because black holes have
infinite mass and thus infinite gravity they will continue to pull our
universe in on itself, with no end. Well, at least until they've sucked
so much that the universe begins to collapse again unto a single point at
which a Big Bang will result causing the a new cycle of reality.
"Slipping into madness is good for the sake of comparison." - The sometimes cool, Jenny Holzer
Since the laws of physics have lead to the creation of life, of intelligence, we should assume that there was some sort of infinite intelligence present in the universe before the laws of physics as we know them were applied, before the existance of space and time.
That infinite intelligence, call it God if you would like, reached to a conclusion that the existance of itself alone is pointless, so it simply thought of basic mathematical and physical laws, that can lead to the creation of other intelligence (hint: us), of life. After it thought over the laws, it created space and time, and in time 0 it transformed itself into the singularity that resulted in the Big Bang. That's pretty much it.
Where is that infinite intelligence right now? Many believe it exists in another plane, and no one can communicate with it. Or, it sacrified itself when it created the universe.
Well how incredible it is too find a debate of creation v. God-less beginning. I could never convince anyone that God exists. But then I don't want too. You see, belief in creation doesn't get you to heaven. But I do feel immensly sorry for all you people who suffer at the hands of your intellect. If only you would acknowledge the truth before Jesus returns. Deep inside everyone is a knowledge of the truth.. Romans chapter 1 explains that no-one is without excuse because since the beginning it has been plain for all that God created the world. i pray that you would all see things through uncomplicated eyes. Then the question "Why??" is simple. a creative, expressive God.. with a desire to be surrounded by people that loved him.
"I split coffee all over my wife's nightie
It is not that science makes no, or few assumptions. We assume a lot of things, many of them we don't even acknowledge. Still, science tries to minimize what we assume, and keep it limited to things that seem "self-evident". Then when we find exceptions, we change the assumptions to keep it consistent, and integrated.
I agree with you on this. And I think there are some interesting implications.
Does science simply rest on another kind of faith, a different set of 'self-evident truths' or base assuptions?
How do we deal with the probability of the unknown and the unkowable? Do we live in a state of non-belief, able to recognize information as useful but never creating a belief out of it? Or do we create beliefs based on incomplete science, then change them when there is a critical mass of contradictory evidence, a process akin to plate tectonics? Do we recognize ideas as useful tools, to be 'picked-up' when applicable then put down again, or do we cling to our ideas about things in a vain struggle for certainty and stability? Have we accepted science as useful in some contexts, or are we using science in a vain attempt to satisfy a need for certainty and control?
Which of the above is the more flexable approach? Which is more susceptible to the allure of unquestioning belief?
Ideas about the Universe may have changed, but I suspect that many ancient habits are still alive and well, even in the world of science.
Fine. If you want to believe in evolution, that's fine. But don't pretend that it's science.
I'll readily agree that adaptation occurs in nature. We definitely see different kinds of bunnies, but we don't have any evidence that bunnies have "evolved" into anything other that bunnies.
Any speculation about such a thing is motivated by a metaphysical naturalist worldview and not "purely" by science.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
This true, I can attest the logic(female) != logic(male);
But it is my fear, that even geek girl logic is still askewed from geek guy logic!!!!!
I still havn't been able test this though.
My last girlfriend was pysch major. Joy
"Slipping into madness is good for the sake of comparison." - The sometimes cool, Jenny Holzer
Can someone please tell me why the Universe is supposed to be made up of something which is a human concept? An idea made up in my mind (that of a number)... does is this idea really a component of the Universe? The Universe is made up of numbers?
Mathematics is an idea inside our minds. Its not the Universe. The Universe is not made up of them, and it doesn't follow the rules which numbers follow. Mathematics exists in my mind, not outside of it.
There are also a great deal of astonishing coincidences that allow cars to function. Did you know:
If cars were just 2 feet wider, they would not fit in your average traffic lane.
If they required more energy to run, gasoline would not contain enough energy to power them.
If the wheels were on top instead of on bottom, cars would not be able to move because the wheels would not be touching the ground.
Also, it was recently discovered that if it weren't for the force of the drivers trying to keep the cars apart (known as anti-car-gravity), every car on the road would have clumped together into a giant mass of steel and traffic on I-10 would be really slow.
If any one of these factors were even slightly different, the entire United States of America could not possibly have formed because nobody here knows how to function from day to day without one.
If you want to believe in creation, that's fine. But don't pretend it's science.
]$`};L(;/proc);[I(;];<C{;};1S[;`\/while=1E1L[`\p roc{>=
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Slightly OT, but still funny. I loved the followed quote from the linked page, about three paragraphs down (emphasis mine):
--Joe--
Wanna program the Intellivision? Get an Intellicart!
Program Intellivision!
Bingo Foo
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taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
I don't think that this person has explained anything. It does nothing futher to answer the basic question of our existance. If you say that the laws of nature have to just so to make us the way we are, sure, that is true and obivous. Of course if laws were a bit different then perhaps there would be a completely differnet form of life trying to unsderstand itself in a way we don't understand. Personally I don't believe that we will ever understand our existance from science, these are questions more basic that which our knowlege is based upon. We leave to religion and theology those questions. Science can not go deeper than the axioms and faith that it is based upon.
Wouldnt an infinately recurring "big bang" solution work just as well as a multiverse one?
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Or am I missing something?
~matt~
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"So there he is, risen from the dead. Like that fella, E. T." - Father Ted Crilly
Let me begin by saying that I think that science is an excellent tool for learning about the universe and answering questions. I happily use its products every day and rely upon its premises.
However, science is not capable of answering all kinds of questions. Nor is it capable of accepting all kinds of answers.
To start with the latter. If a question about the universe exists with an unprovable (or untestable) answer, that question will forever be unanswered by science. Science is in the business of testing and any part of reality that is untestable is outside of the bounds of science. That is why the article says:
It is not that this theory is more likely than any other theory, but that it is more testable, and thus within the boundaries of "science".It's is not just answers that can fall in or out of the boundaries of science, but questions, too. A classic example that I like to use of an important area of inquiry that does not fall within the scope of science is Ethics. As most scientists will admit, science cannot answer the question of whether we "should" or "should not" do something. That doesn't lessen the importance of the question, its "metaphysical" nature notwithstanding.
This article was posted under the title "Why Does The Universe Exist?". "Why" can have a number of meanings and so can that question. It could mean "What caused the universe to exist?". It could also mean "To what purpose does the universe exist?". The answer to the former may or may not fall within the boundaries of science (depending on whether or not it is testable). The answer to the latter surely does not. But does that make it not worth asking?
Respectfully, David Tallan
Maybe "normal" universes have life flourishing throughout. Maybe it's only our own where stuff has collapsed into stars and planets, with a few carbon-based entities clinging precariously to some tiny planets.