Well, technically… pre-Big Bang is outside this universe thus the state of the physical laws before the formation of the universe doesn’t factor into saying this universe is or is not static in that manner.
Also, familiar enough with string theory, M theory, and many similar origin theories. I just can’t take many of these theories all that seriously. First, the complexity inherent within these systems defies the normal simplistic probability of many religious theories. Hell, these theories are far more mystical than scientific. But then quantum theory really has lent itself more as a philosophy and not pure empiracle science.
Aye. But the moments after the Big Bang, our universal Laws and Rules (or rather the space-time continuum) were in flux. However things are still in flux, just not on a rapid scale. For example a Universe without thermodynamics or energy is not our Universe anymore… or rather it becomes time-space of a nature we’ve never known it to be, our current means of explaining will no longer apply, and most everything is beyond anything our math can predict. Basically our Science could universally fail, and it’s back to square one if we even survive (i.e. 2+2 could equal 1 at that point).
I agree. There’s a lot of things I don’t like about the String Theory… although it does have a small measure over religious mojo, in that it at least tries to provide some mathematics and logic. Quantum Mechanics isn’t that bad though. Several foundations of quantum mechanics have been proven, and there are practical applications from it: USB and Flash Memory are part of quantum science. String Theory is problematic because it attempts to rationalize the Universe without observation. Science is all about obersvation and experimentation. When you try to work without it… well… I’m not going to accept it without evidence. I accept the String Theory up to the point when observation and logic gets thrown out the window. After that I consider it pure theory (and sometimes fantasy mojo) until they can prove it.
I feel String Theory becomes lala thinking, because it’s trying to assume what reality is like outside of the Universe. Since our powers of observation are constrained within the context of how we interpret time-space, it’s pure guessing as to what that would be like. However the more sane and provable aspects of the theory, have a lot merit. What bothers me about the more radical ideas of String Theory, is they claim it’s a Theory of Everything that literally controls Everything. There are groups who claim Strings are so fundamental to existence, you predict the future from “reading” a String. I’ve got no issue with someone trying to say time is linear (that the future is just as set-in-stone as the past)… just that if you’re going to make a claim that wild and insane, you’d better damn well have the proof to back it up. And they obviously don’t, and sometimes explain it that we never will (because it’s outside human observation). Sounds like religion to me…
EDIT
On a random side note, NASA loaded this really cool video of the LCROSS rocket launch on Youtube (the mission that just bombed the Moon twice this morning):
The rocket camera has audio on it, so you can hear and see as the vehicle leaves the atmosphere and goes into orbit (the eventual no air and sound in space thing).
If I recall correctly, besides slowing light to a speed where we can actually see it moving, experiments have also made light travel faster than the usual speed it goes in a vacuum.
You know… I still wonder about the no sound in space quandry. If sound is solely the presence of energy in the form of vibrations, where does the energy go? Shouldn’t this energy manifest in some form?
Sound needs something - anything - to travel through. The energy that generates sound is still there, but there’s nothing for the energy to “vibrate” through in a vacuum. For example inside a nebula sound would travel - it’s vibrating through the gases and particles - but in the dead space surrounding the the nebula that sound isn’t heard anymore because there’s no more gas and particle for it to vibrate through.
Well… technically…
Space isn’t actually a true vacuum - there’s hydrogen everywhere - but the atoms aren’t close enough for the sound to vibrate from one to another.
Well, considering the conservation of energy… what happens to the energy of sound? If it merely expanded, shouldn’t it eventually produce the vibrations once it meets the required material. If it doesn’t expand, then what kind of transformation does that energy undergo?
Which is why the aforementioned heat death of the Universe is a really dismal scenario, when you consider this means nothing happens in the cosmos… [u]EVER AGAIN[/u]… total dead space.
Well, there will still be something, considering nothing can be destroyed or created.
Origin theory and the inevitable "conclusion, as well as consciousness theories, are the theories that forced me out of my short physicalist phase. They answer nothing, explain very little, and the little they do explain ends up begging more questions and suddenly the entire absurd loop begins again.
But then the whole confusion with established religion and various established spiritual notions haven’t helped much. So I’m merely an ignostic stumbling through the questions by himself. But then maybe that is what life is all about, finding… or creating… your own personal meaning.
This is not necessarily the case from what I understand. With how bizarre the quantum world is, something could happen in the universe again given enough time. (I point again to “The Universe” series, this time the episode titled “Cosmic Apocalypse”.)
If that were true then the question already looming becomes even more significant… why the hell does anything exist at all?
It seems these theories do far more for Intelligent Design than they do for reductive physicalism. I do find it extremely interesting the “amount of entropy” article hit on one particular idea I have been messing with: mainly that of limitation. The universe, and all its order, seems to give limits and boundaries to that which has no limits or boundaries.
Also, I believe the hadron collider was stopped due to some technical difficulties and will resume operation in November… so maybe we’ll get lucky and France will still explode ?
That’s exactly the reason why they’re doing all this research: to find the answer. 8)
Not really. Intelligent Design implies an Intelligence made it all happen. There’s no evidence of that.
I think people have this underlying need to think something happens for a philosophical reason. Mathematical odds involve chance and chaos, but there’s no philosophy in it. The Universe could have came to be out of sheer happenance… this idea that a deity did it, is not trying to give an underlying reason why the occurrence came to be, it’s trying to give it a purpose for happening.
For example, “why did the dinosaurs die?” Science answers, “giant space rock.” Then a religious person would keep answering more questions like, “where did the space rock come from? Why was the Earth in the rock’s path? Why didn’t the moon pull it off course?” Etc, etc, etc. Eventually a point will come, that the scientists can’t answer something because it would be pure speculation and unprovable, when the religious guy would perk up and state, “cause God did it.” No. That’s not proof there’s an Intelligence. Science is understanding everything… not knowing everything. Huge difference. Religion on the other hand…
Order that’s losing to Chaos. The Universe has limitations and those limitations are growing more limited as the eons crawl by. That’s not to say there’s some poetic “every beginning has an end” nonsense. The Universe will still be here: just that nothing inside of it will particularly enjoy what’s gonna be left.
Of course this all assumes the Universe is a closed system. If it’s not, then everything will be fine… we think…
OLF won’t like that. He keeps all his stuff there.
Actually, the fact that anything exists at all (in order or in chaos) testifies to something more than mere chance.
Also, order isn’t losing to chaos… finite limits are losing to an infinite, eternal existence. Really, if everything were to dissipate into that quite existence that seems far more orderly than chaotic.
Sadly, due to its very nature, science will never be able to answer the most demanding questions we have asked. It is limited to the empirical observation of the physical world… considering that, one, it relies on observation the problem of induciton will always haunt it and, two, it can never prove or disprove the metaphysical… well, it just doesn’t bode well for science as a truly important institution to the true human condition. It offers convenience, which I love by the way (Air Conditioning proves the existence of a god I tell you) but it does nothing for the spiritual side of man that scientists are intent to ignore or dismiss as “hooey”.
… wait, check that last part… I do get a nice laugh watching and reading about the “science of love”. So it does lift my spirits from time to time.
Evolution and biology argue otherwise. Lines of species, bacteria, and disease - while they have a traceable origin - show a massive margin of “chance” involved. Oh sure species evolve according to environment, but there are creatures that exist in locations that in common parlance “shouldn’t” be there, and then there are creatures that should exist in locations but don’t. Going back the line, we find this oddball progenitor that causes people to scratch their heads, and says that was a lucky fellow… literally and figuratively. Furthermore chance is a proven science: practical applications include signal communication and weather forecasting.
Huh? Exact where do you get that conclusion? Do you know what Chaos is? I don’t mean the philosophical nonsense, I mean the mathematical principal. Don’t get the two mixed up.
Any scientist, who dismisses the existence of a god, is not doing anything that violates Science. Logic and reason dictates that anyone making an assertion that something exists, must prove it exists: no matter how obvious or unintelligible. That is what Science is: logic and reason. So to make it something that it’s not, is the perversion - not the other way around. If people want a meaning for something, they’re not getting it from Science, because Science only gives reasons.
Honestly I see religion as an escape: people refuse to accept their existence has an oblivion and no meaning (other than what they make of it), so they conveniently make one, making themselves feel better. There doesn’t have to a meaning to life. Also religion is an intangible philosophical thing, so Science honestly does not care for it. The existence of deities has as much basis as the existence of purple dragons with pink stripes. I also find religion is too inconsistent. The gods of today are not the gods of yesterday, who probably will not be the gods of tomorrow. Even the most chaotic mathematics has definable boundaries. Religion insinuates that anything is possible, until proven impossible ¬ñ the utter opposite of logic and reason. I tell people that Science is not here to make you feel better, although it’s nice that it frequently does. If Finality sucks… well… Finality doesn’t suck: we think it sucks. Science would just say what Finality is.
Yet all the paragraph above is [u]Philosophy[/u]. I cannot Scientifically prove any of it, nor would I want to, because it would be a total waste of time Scientifically. People need to understand that Science and Philosophy are different. They share a lot of similarities, but are distinct. We need elements of philosophy to observe, but that does not make it the truth, because interpretations can be wrong - even when the observation itself is correct. I hate when people pervert mathematical logic to prove their philosophical logic, while rejecting everything that’s mathematical about the logic and making it entirely philosophical, then try to sell it as mathematical logic. Does. Not. Work. That. Way.
Case in point: Science shows there’s no evidence of a God. Someone might argue that Science can’t prove there isn’t a God, so there can be one. face palm Massive fallacy if there ever was one. Let’s apply that logic to something else: I can’t prove that so-and-so didn’t kill his wife, but that doesn’t disprove he didn’t kill his wife, so he killed his wife. :roll:
It’s okay to have an interpretation of something: I have an interpretation of a lot of things. Just don’t sell an interpretation as fact, until you have hard evidence to prove it: not just more interpretation. The god that Tom Cruise believes in, and the god that some mentally insane person in an institution believes in, is just as valid (or lack therefore of) as the god that Pope Benedict XVI believes in, under the guidelines of Science. If that makes people upset: so be it. Science isn’t here to make people happy. I’ve got no beef with religion. Maybe it’s right. Maybe it’s not. Seriously not the point though. You don’t justify religion through science, or use religion to challenge science. It’s totally ignoring what the two really are.
Science rejects religion from the start. It’s amazing how quickly religious groups get angry at that, because they expect everything to accept what they teach from the start. That’s the core problem they have with it: the immediate refute and demand for proof. They need to get over themselves: that’s what Science does and religion won’t get a free pass. If they have evidence and empirical data: fantastic. Science will readily accept it. If not? Tossed in the bin with unicorns and yuki-onna.
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Just for the record: does all that automatically make religion wrong? No it doesn’t. Just not scientific. But there’s a lot of things that aren’t scientific, that obviously exist. Science can tell us what the body does when it’s in love, but it can’t tell us a mathematical equation of how to be in love… though many a geeky loveless scientist has tried. Notice there’s no taxonomy of human emotion. There’s a reason for that.
Heh… I just noticed how off topic, this topic has gone, and how much it’s my fault for that. The Law of Twincest dictates that the probability of a twincest flood increases, with the entropic factor of a topic. Allow me to demonstrate the empirical evidence.
I wasn’t even talking about gods, except for the tongue in cheek comment about AC. Science can’t deal with anything metaphysical.
Also, the mathematical definition of chaos is ludicrous considering the origins of the word chaos. If I mention chaos, it is never in reference to that mathematical nonsense. The philosophical definition of chaos changes with the philosopher as well… too many contemporary materialists/physicalists use the mathematical definition now.
I am not arguing that chance does not exist, just that it isn’t the supreme entity your seemingly making it out to be. Your stance is as much a leap of faith as someone who prays to a god every night. Chance still cannot answer the very basic question: why does ANYTHING exist at all. Are we supposed to accept that everything simply exploded from nothingness?
And on religion… if you read my posts you would notice that I hold it in equal esteem with science. But, science should not make any metaphysical claim, which includes the rejection of religion. Science cannot prove nor disprove the existence of something beyond this physical world, so it making any such claims makes science just as dogmatic and “religious” as christianity or buddhism.
I can agree with you on that… science shouldn’t bother with the metaphysical, unless the metaphysical becomes empirical (which I seriously doubt).
Also that scientists who don’t believe in a God, shouldn’t propagate belief in Alien Intelligence, and think their position is better than a religious one (Frank Drake and the late Carl Sagan for example).
I always thought the reverse was far more humourous: an all powerful, all knowing, yet jealous and needy god is sitting on his throne watching you but there are no similar beings to humans that can abduct you.
Not saying I necessarily believe in abduction, but one would think that if you had faith enough to believe in a being beyond the physical world (or all comprehension for that matter) that you would also be able to believe in a human-like creature from some other planet coming here to practice their dark ways… wait, so THAT’S what you are?!?
Insidious, an invasion with tentacles AND twincest. Well, maybe ingenius actually… now I undestand:
“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, in fact, there is no man behind the curtain. Nothing to see here, move along.”
Why would one follow from the other? The possible existence of things beyond the scope of this universe is an entirely different matter than the nature of things found within this universe, which must follow the laws of this universe. And according to the laws of this universe, it is rather unlikely alien UFOs could even get here.
But if they did, and they wanted to attack us, they would crush us like ants.
Who knows what they would do. However, much of what we are complaining about in this topic is making any claims on the laws of the universe that we cannot hope to test anytime soon. As soon as there is a viable means to test FTL, I will gladly stray from my agnositicism on the point and make a statement on FTL probability. Until that time… I’ll simply shrug and gladly admit that I have no frakking clue.
