Why Does The Universe Exist? 548
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..."
Re:Two problems (Score:2)
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.
Re:Expand your world view of human suffering (Score:2)
But even when I have seen others go on that theme, I've always found it very interesting to say the least.
Re:Two problems (Score:2)
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.
Re:But it is a philosophy, and incorrect, at that (Score:3)
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.
Re:Expand your world view of human suffering (Score:2)
Re:DA on: The universe exists because God created (Score:2)
Re:no offense to those of relgious thought.. (Score:2)
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."
Re:no offense to those of relgious thought.. (Score:2)
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.
Re:no offense to those of relgious thought.. (Score:2)
Genesis 1:3 (Score:2)
(And on the fifth day God created Natalie Portman, and he saw that it was good.)
Re:not necessarily a dichotomy, but still troublin (Score:2)
> 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.
Re:Definition of irony (Score:2)
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D cannot be 2 or 4 (Score:2)
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?
Re:Indeed (Score:2)
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.
Entire Monty Python Song (Score:2)
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.
Of course... (Score:5)
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Creation of the Universe (Score:3)
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.
Re:Creation of the Universe (Score:2)
PS, no more excuses about not having a Bible:
http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?
Re:The universe exists because God created it (Score:2)
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.
"Multiverse" is logically inconsistent (Score:2)
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? :-)
Re:He did not say our universe was perfect. (Score:3)
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.
Re:Two problems (Score:2)
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.
Re:The universe exists because God created it (Score:2)
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.
Re:The universe exists because God created it (Score:2)
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.
Got Universe? (Score:2)
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.
Re:Expand your world view of human suffering (Score:2)
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
Two problems (Score:5)
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.
These viewpoints are Orthogonal (Score:2)
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
Song (Score:2)
Dimensions? (Score:2)
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.
Re:no offense to those of relgious thought.. (Score:2)
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.
Re:Creation of the Universe (Score:5)
It's because 'creationism' tends to carry a lot more baggage than just the concept of a creator existing. Typically, creationism encompasses the 6,000-year-old-earth nonsense, and that's what educated, reasonably intelligent people find absurd.
If you want to posit the idea of a creator who started the whole process rolling, that's certainly a possibility. One without evidence, of course, which is where faith comes in, but certainly possible. After all, scientists can't explain, as you said, where the mass came from in the first place.
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.
Science, of course, when faced with a question that is unanswerable at the present time says, "We don't know." So it's not quite accurate to say that atheists take things on faith. Not in the religious sense of the word 'faith', in any case. They accept that which has evidence. It's a perfectly honest approach to take. Believe what you know, and say to the rest, "I have no evidence, and therefore I do not believe." With time and new evidence, that can change.
________________
Indeed (Score:2)
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>
Females. (Score:2)
Re:Philosophy (Score:2)
Re:The universe exists because God created it (Score:5)
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.
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Re:Creation of the Universe (Score:2)
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." I'm going to get flamed for this, of course, because the vast majority of atheists get unbelievably upset when they're told that they take things on faith. But that's too bad, because it's one hundred percent true.
I'm not going to flame you, but I will point out that this idea of yours is severely deficient enough to be called "stupid" or "ignorant".
The flaws in your reasoning can be seen as:
I think a much better way to state a related point would be that God might have created the Universe yesterday, complete with all our personal memories, the fossil record, and whispers of the big bang. So, surely, God could have created the universe 6000 years ago in the same way. Science doesn't ignore this possibility, it just says there's no evidence for it so there is no reason to latch onto it: that would be faith.
Re:Philosophy (Score:2)
I recall reading about time travel (can't cite my source, sorry), and it may be possible, however it would take more energy that we could possibly harness.
Also, as for, "maybe we're in the matrix", well that one we could figure out. You could either try to develop your powers of modifying reality (like Neo), or humanity could colonlize space. I have a feeling in a few thousand or million years once humanity is spread out all over the cosmos the "mainframe" running the program won't be able to to handle it and will crash.
Hah, that brings up another point. What happens when they need to reboot this mainframe, take it down for maintaince or it crashes? Does time just stop for us, and then resume later? Is evidence of a system crash those people who go "I have no idea how I got here!" (since usually all data is not consistent after a crash).
Total Mystic Crap (Score:2)
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.
Re:The universe exists because God created it (Score:2)
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!
Re:Expand your world view of human suffering (Score:2)
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?
Damn it all again! (Score:3)
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.
improper question (Score:3)
You're getting close to Gnosticism. (Score:2)
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.
Where have I heard this before (Score:2)
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.
Hold on (Score:2)
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?
-------
Now that that's settled... (Score:2)
Re:Okay, whatever (Score:2)
Everyone knows that there is only one number: 42!!
Creationism vs. Religion (Score:2)
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
--------------------------------------- ----------------------------
---------
Cosm, by Gregory Benford (Score:2)
So the book "explains" where our universe comes from, but it doesn't explain where it the first universe came from.
--
Re:There is a simple explanation. (Score:3)
Same goes with God substituted for the multiverse.
The idea that life on earth came from outer space is far inferior, because it induces exactly the same kind of question that it tries to explain.
I love analogies (Score:2)
Guess which one gets interviewed on CNN?
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
You might enjoy "The Blind Watchmaker" (Score:2)
--
This guy is totally off base (Score:2)
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
I stand in amazement (Score:3)
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.
If you are interested in this topic... (Score:2)
Re:Okay, whatever (Score:2)
The idea that the origin of the observerved can depend on the nature of the observer is the Anthropic Principle [anthropic-principle.com]
Re:Got Universe? (Score:2)
Re:Okay, whatever (Score:2)
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.
so the omnipotent computer can be created (Score:2)
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".
Old Theory, New Clothes (Score:2)
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.
The problem with these types of articles... (Score:2)
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.
Hmmm.... (Score:2)
Where have I heard this one before? *snicker*
--
"How many six year olds does it take to design software?"
Re:The universe exists because God created it (Score:2)
Do you not see how this begs the question [propaganda101.com] ?
Re:The universe exists because God created it (Score:5)
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.
Statistics (Score:2)
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.
Re:Creation of the Universe ... (Score:2)
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.
Re:Creation of the Universe (Score:2)
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?
There's also the option that the universe is 'intelligent'. A sort of 'infinite and unbounded field of creative possibilities'. We tend to think that matter is just inert, dead stuff, and wonder how just lumps of stuff could accidentally get together just right to make complex living structures, that in turn evolve consciousness... so some people say there must be a 'creator' figure 'outside', pulling the strings. But maybe the 'stuff' is not 'dead'. Maybe the stuff is intelligent.
After all, we experience the 'stuff' in our minds, and our minds are in our brains, which are in our bodies, which are made of stuff, which we experience in the mind... we can't really split 'consciousness' off from the stuff of the universe... one song, one mind, one.. whoa! I'm LEVITATING... no, no, just kidding.
Re:Creation of the Universe (Score:2)
Re:nature of time (Score:2)
Wrong. I believe you mean St. Augustus of Hippo, as discussed in his work, the *Confessions*.
"enough drugs for THAT man"... (Score:3)
- Bill
Re:There is a simple explanation. (Score:2)
Where did our universe come from?
Oh, it's just part of the larger multiverse.
Where did the multiverse come from?
Oh...uhm...
and so forth.
Similar to this dialog
How did life start on earth?
It came form outer space.
Where did extra-terrestrial life come from?
...
It answers the question by creating a new question one degree removed, but no less challenging.
-----
D. Fischer
What's with these goofy slashdot articles? (Score:2)
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.
That's not really the point of the article (Score:3)
--
An abstained vote is a vote for Bush and Gore.
Same old same (Score:2)
talk.origins archive and FAQs [talkorigins.org]
Here's a summary addressing these old misconceptions;
Re:Creation of the Universe (Score:2)
However...this leaves one thing out which is a very important difference between science and religions. In a religious faith, it is seen as a bad thing to question the faith and try and find out whether it's the truth. In science, this exact same behaviour is seen as a good thing. This is why I feel all the mainstream religions I've learned about are vastly inferior to science.
Personally, I'm not satisfied with creationalism theories. Firstly, the unlikeliness of the Universe is nothing compared to the unlikelyness of a supreme being that could create it. That's just my opinion mind you: if you can provide me with compelling evidence to the contrary I will change my mind. Secondly, belief in a creator is just another form of resignation. All it does is push the question out one more level, as you touched on in your comment. If it was proven that there is a creator, instead of asking "where does the universe come from?", I'd be asking "where did the creator come from?". It just pushed the question on another level - and didn't really explain anything.
It is simple really (Score:2)
The Universe exists because of this way cool dude:
http://images.slashdot.org/topics/topicscience.
Galaxy Song (from memory) (Score:3)
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
The woman who confused the universe for for a Hat (Score:2)
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!
Re:The Anthropic Principle (Score:2)
Re:Creation of the Universe (Score:2)
Everyone knows the Big Bang was made by 2 oversexed humping turtles.
On that theme, here's a classic...
At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said:
"What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."
The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"
"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down."
Purpose of the universe per Robert Heinlein (Score:2)
Re:Pope dismisses the existance of limbo? (Score:2)
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.
:)
Okay, whatever (Score:3)
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 [amazon.co.uk] 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.
Don't Panic (Score:5)
Seconds later he was confronted by a large buldozer, "Yellow" he thought.........
Why? (Score:2)
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Re:Creation of the Universe (Score:2)
> faith comes in
Here, and everywhere else in this thread, and in most of the rest of the world, people use the word "faith" in a different way to the way Bible translators, educated Christians and theologians use it. For example, consider Hebrews 11. Most of those "people of faith" had actually experienced God directly and had direct evidence of his existence and his intentions. Their faith is commended because they continued to trust and obey God in spite of oppressive circumstances. Lewis' "Mere Christianity" has a more thorough discussion of this.
In a similar way, some people have enough faith to ride rollercoasters and others (including myself) don't.
Hmm, perhaps it's time for Christians to stop using the word "faith".
(OT) Tom Lehrer (Score:2)
Reading the lyrics do not do Lehrer's music justice. They are a must-listen.
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D. Fischer
Re:Creation of the Universe (Score:5)
A reference can be found here [simplenet.com] which is a conversation between The Pope and Steven Hawking (!). The snippet is taken from Mr. Hawking's wildly popular book A Brief History of Time.
alright... link battle... (Score:2)
time paper 1 [uni-jena.de]
time paper 2 [ox.ac.uk] 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
Re:Got Universe? (Score:2)
Re:The universe exists because God created it (Score:3)
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???????
The universe exists because God created it (Score:4)
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
Re:Creation of the Universe ... (Score:3)
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.
Re:Creation of the Universe (Score:5)
Let's think about this. Ultimately, the big bang theory that says, at one point in time, all of the matter that is contained in a whole universe was contained in a space thousands of times smaller than the cramped office I'm sitting in now. There are all kinds of wonderful scientific models to explain this. But ultimately, very few people understand everything about how it works. And even those who do understand it all admit that there are a few things one has to take for granted to make it work. And ultimately, this tiny point of mass exploded into a whole universe, and in this universe, the completely random interactions of basic particles formed more and more complex particles which somehow came to life and formed me and my computer, totally randomly (in seeming violation of the idea that the universe tends toward disorder, I might add).
One religious view, on the other hand, is something like, "God created the universe, and guided its formation in such a way as to create the Earth, and humanity." There are still questions, of course, like, "Where did God come from?" or "Why did he do this?" 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."
I'm going to get flamed for this, of course, because the vast majority of atheists get unbelievably upset when they're told that they take things on faith. But that's too bad, because it's one hundred percent true.
Feynman and the sum over histories (Score:3)
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 [cornell.edu]. 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 [ralentz.com].
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)
Re:The universe exists because God created it (Score:5)
Replace X with whatever other religion has a "creation" myth.
Remember, Christianity doesn't have a monopoly on being right.
PS- Praise Jesus and all that, too.
Strong Anthropic Principle (Score:3)
Is the Hubble Constant still 42, by the way?
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
Re:Two problems (Score:5)
Suppose that you've just won the lottery. You have correctly guessed 6 numbers out of 46 (or whatever). I imagine you'd be quite surprised. You might even be inclined to think that it wasn't really chance, that some external factor has intervened (your lucky star, guardian angel, etc).
The photographer that has just taken your picture with the check and a big smile is not really surprised. He knows that out of so-and-so millions of people that buy lottery tickets each week it's likely that someone will get it right and he'll be taken to visit him and take some pictures of the lucky bastard.
Some people look at the unlikelyhood of life, the universe and everything and assume that it's too unlikely to have happened by chance so there must be some external intervention (a deity, for example). In other words, they think they have just won the lottery. But mankind is not really the loterry winner. We are the photographer. We have been taken to visit the universe that won the lottery and we shouldn't be surprised at all.
Now if you knew that only 10 other people bought tickets and you still won you'd be justified in being surprised.
Let us assume that the winner has never left his home and is completely isolated from the world. He has no way of knowing how many others bought lottery tickets. Ask him to estimate how many other bought tickets. A good estimate would be a number greater than 1/P where P is the probability of guessing the right numbers. He can make this estimate without having any knowledge whatsoever about the others other than knowing the probability and knowing that he is the winner.
We have no knowledge about other universes in the multiverse of even if this number is greater than 1. But we do know that we live in a winning universe. In this case a good guess for the number of universes would be 1/P(life). We have no way of knowing what the probability of life really is but since it requires many different conditions, each one of them has a probability lower than unity it looks like their product should be "pretty low". So according to this logic the number of universes in the multiverse is quite likely to be greater than 1/"pretty low == "pretty high". If the number of universes is likely to be much greater than 1, do we have any reason to assume it is finite at all?
Now, for the second problem:
It would be pretty chauvinistic to assume that ours is the only type of life possible. But it's pretty hard to imagine anything remotely resembling anyone's definition of life in a universe consisting entirely of hydrogen.
Life is one of a group of phenomenona that happen on the middle of the entropy scale. On one extereme end the scale is close to zero entropy. Imagine a universe of iron at a temperature infinitesimally close to the absolute zero. There's nothing interesting happening there. The structure is a perfect regular crystal carrying no information. On the other end of the scale imagine a universe filled with a churning particle soup at extremely high temperatures. Here there are no structures. Nothing can be stable for any length of time.
Life, evolution, intelligence, society, all the things we have come to value, they all occur on a very narrow "visible light" band in the middle of this spectrum, on a precarious balance between chaos and order.
Please take a moment to appreciate how delicate this balance really is. Think about it whenever you are in an argument that revolves around the conflict between the forces of change and the forces of conservation. For example, think about Andy Mueller-Maguhn being elected for the ICANN board. Andy is ever so slightly closer to high entropy end of the scale, to the high temperature particle soup. The "suits" on the board are ever so slightly slightly closer to the universe of iron at absolute zero. But they are infinitely closer to each other than to either of those exteremes.
Everything we know happens in this narrow band in the middle of the scale. If the laws of physics were slightly different the universe could have easily been tipped one way or the other and this band wouldn't exist. Life, whether similar to ours or vastly different could not exist.
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Re:Creation of the Universe (Score:4)
Of course, some argue (ironically) that logic itself is untrustworthy. Well, then we're up even a bigger creek.
The problem is, humans need squishy things like identities, and meanings, and purposes. In this nihilistic age, unfortunately, we have to create our own identites and meanings and purposes. Find something to believe in (hopefully it is something pleasant) and do some good. It'll probably make you feel better. Whether you believe in a god or not.