Luc Starsider Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Phil Deakins wrote: But the evidence literally suggests that the universe was created. The fact that the universe exists is all the evidence necessary. The only alternative is the 'always there' idea, which doesn't hold any water. I think that most scientists prefer an 'intelligent creator' not to be the case. The universe does exist. I agree - that is a fact. If it came into being - which I prefer to 'was created' for some reason - by the act of an 'intelligent creator', did that creator always exist? And, if an intelligent force is behind the universe, should we also ask 'why' the universe was created? While reading this: http://www.science20.com/news_articles/quantum_graphity_and_early_universe_formation_big_bang_or_big_chill-93154 I came across this article: http://www.science20.com/news/what_happened_before_the_big_bang Both of these may already be well known to you all, but I thought they were very relevant in light of the discussion, so I thought I'd post the links. - Luc - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 I think that the preference for "came into being" is because the word 'created' feels to imply an intelligence. It doesn't imply it but it feels like it does The 'bouncing' universe idea isn't new, although the work written about in that article sounds newer. There's no date on it. Even so, for the universe to 'bounce' requires existance so, although it is right in keeping with the topic of the thread, I still come back to the fact that a bouncing universe requires the existance of 'stuff', and that requires a creation (a bringing into being). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madelaine McMasters Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Phil Deakins wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: While it may be that we ultimately can't prove the presence or absence of creation, science doesn't really care, does it? It simply seeks to find the truth, as revealed by nature. Science is done by people who may care about such things, but the overall messy process seems to be able to make progress even so. No, science doesn't care about how existance came into being, because science knows that it'll never find out. Science can only deal with existance. I don't believe science knows it'll never find out. I do believe science does not know if it will ever find out. There's a difference. One might make a case for people having an interest in refuting creators that take an active role in daily human life, and can therefore be used as instruments of coercion (my God is the one true God, so I can rightfully take your stuff), but I can't see a reason for people to expend tremendous energy railing against the idea that our universe might have been "created" as a random result of physical laws we've not yet understood. And yet, when I said that the universe must have been created by someone or something, you argued against it No I didn't. I've highlighted the two negatives that might have obscured the fact that I don't know whether the big bang was the only bang or if it'll be followed by the big crunch in a "string of pearls" oscillating cosmology, or if there are an infiinite number of big bangs (or other methods of starting universes) occuring as we speak. I'll let the cosmologists, particle physicists and theoriticians work their way through these considerations. What you will see me argue is that I see no evidence that a creator is taking an active role in daily life, nor that all the intricacies of existence were mapped out by a grand planner. Maybe someday an experiment will show otherwise, but until then, I think it's more likely that people are praying to their imaginations because the "side effects" of that particular irrationality have proved evolutionarily advantageous. Whether something always existed or simply popped out of nowhere is the sort of philosophical question best left to philosophers. I don't see a way to use the term "creator" without implying more than the evidence suggests... so far. It's not that I prefer a "creator" not to be the case, I think it's that most people prefer that "creator" be the case. I've seen more evidence to explain the latter than the former. But the evidence literally suggests that the universe was created. The fact that the universe exists is all the evidence necessary. The only alternative is the 'always there' idea, which doesn't hold any water. I think that most scientists prefer an 'intelligent creator' not to be the case. Things like the cosmic microwave background do point towards the Big Bang, but have nothing to say about time before that point. If we are confined to witnessing only four of a potential ten or eleven dimensions, we may never know what the heck is going on. If the "always there" idea doesn't hold any water, then the universe simply appeared from nowhere/nothing. While I'm happy to call that a creation, it eliminates the creator. That's okay by me, as is the "always there" idea. That all falls into the vast pool of "things I don't know". You didn't provide any alternative ways that existance might have come into being. You said you could think of many of them. Sure, I could propose that I'm imagining all this, making you the creation of my mind. That sounded pretty stupid when my philosophy professor proposed it to me 25 years ago, and I countered that if I was imagining it all, and I had free will, I'd imagine him proposing a better explanation for his own existence. I'm sure he'd heard such retorts before. I could imagine that the laws of physics change over time in a way we can't detect. I bolded the important words in that theory, as they can be grafted on to the tail end of any silly theory, rendering it unassailable and potentially pointless. This is an accusation the string theorists face. While I can imagine literally endless explanations for all we see, just like people have done for thousands of years, I wouldn't believe a single one of them. Figuring this out will be a cooperatve venture. No one of us has the wherewithall to collect the needed evidence to reject the theories we're advancing. And so, like most of humanity, I must have faith in something outside of myself. But unlike most of humanity, I won't extend my faith outside humanity. Excuse the purple, Phil, it's my favorite color today ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ceka Cianci Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Nyll Bergbahn wrote: Ceka Cianci wrote: I think the thinking of something having to be intelligent to have made everything ..that comes from having to get so smart to understand it..once we see how long it took to get an understanding..well we start to think..this had to be from something intelligent..i mean look what had to happen just to understand it sorta.. so in a sense it could have just happened and be something that is some living breathing thing and we feel we have to justify it being something intelligent for it to exist..because it's so perfect..at least in our minds it is perfect..when really perfect could be the opposite of perfect and stuff is really just messed up and perfect is chaos..which really chaos is perfect and organized is not..i mean organized can only lead to becoming unorganized at some point..right? so really it's all just based on a hunch that things are in order..because order is something we invented.. Does science need a deity, an intelligence that created everything? Many would say no, we have the scientific explanations to dispel any notion of a deity. The universe runs perfectly for us using natural laws so why invoke some external being or source of power? However, some use science to support the existence of a deity too. The universe we inhabit is so finely tuned for human life, it could be argued it was created for us. For example, even a minute change in the size of the weak force would make it impossible for hydrogen to form and that of course is necessary to fuel suns and form water. Also, the relative strengths of gravity and electromagnetism had a 1 in 10 to power of 40 (equation won't display) chance of being fixed in the exact ratio needed for stable suns to form. There are many other finely tuned parameters too. So, is it pure coincicence that we live in a universe finely tuned for life where suns last long enough for planets to form that can sustain life with water in abundance or was it created especially for us? Could our universe be one of an infinite number of universes, a multiverse, so of course we end up in the universe that is finely tuned for us. The idea of a steady state universe "The universe is quasi-static, infinite, and everlasting" is as difficult to get your head around as to what came before the 'Big Bang'. The universe has either been around forever or it began at some point in time. Makes your head spin! what i was more or less going on about was that us being intelligent.. and seeing things that to us are so perfect that the thinking of it having to be created by something intelligent came from us having intelligence.. we don't know enough to really know what we are in the whole thing..yet we see it all as perfect..when it may not be..perfect is our definiton of something that we really cannot see.. if the universe is expanding it has to be expanding in something... and if we go the other direction we have no idea how far things go that way either.. what we do know is there is a similar pattern in each layer that we strip down or look out into.. just in our solar system alone we can see a pattern....moons circling planets..planets circling the sun..the solar system and everything in our galaxy circling the center of the galaxy..and more than likely everything circling whatever it is in the center of the universe.. now go inward and you see the same patter inside of everything keep going even smaller and it still keeps the pattern.. i started to think about this a lot when i started to mess with fractals in nature.. if you can find a pattern in nature in one direction..it's a good chance you can find it in the other direction as well.. so if we go outward finding the same pattern as our solar system in other things ..it's a good chance we will find a similar pattern the farther out we go..and we do..our galaxy.. we really have no idea what else is out there on the outside of our galaxy.. all we really know is the farther we go out the closer things look like they are together and the more dense all those things start to look.... if the pattern stays consistant ..chances are our universe is just another sphere hangin around an even bigger sphere..or inside a sphere where things are zipping around and crash into each other creating matter.. kind of like inside the sun with it's nuclear fusion.. i'm not really saying there is a creator.. i'm more or less saying that because we are intelligent it makes it really hard to picture that there really is no end or begining.. it's hard for us to picture infinity everything about us is start to finish. and time and math and having to understand everything.. there has to be a reason for this or that.. our intelligence makes us think that.. there has to be infinity in the mix somewhere..because there had to be a place for all things besides it to start.. then there is the chance that we are looking at infinity when we look out into the night sky.. the universe could be all that there really is and just the stuff in it is all the stuff..and there was no big bang.. just infinit space that has always been there with no start time or end time.. do i think there is a spirit that is looking down on us and gonna judge us if we are good and bad? no..that doesn't fit the universe patterns.. we're made up of elements found all over the universe.. our planet was just in the right spot for the mixing to happen for life.. is there one that someone put everything together standing outside oof the universe..who the heck knows.. thats possible..but i don't think it would be like a science project more than something like a fusion.. the creator could be as simple as two huge sphers that happened to collide.. and dumb as a box of rocks hehehehe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyll Bergbahn Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Madelaine McMasters wrote: I recently got a solar telescope. Here's my first attempt to photograph it. I've no idea what I'm doing, which means this is probably the best image I'll ever get. At least some prominences show up! My attempts have been so abysmal I've given up trying to take solar images until I get a proper CCD camera. I have a Solarmax 60II. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyll Bergbahn Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Dillon Levenque wrote: I've no tripod mount for the binocs and no equatorial for the telescope, so as you know even the Moon and the planets require constant adjustment. Going for distance would be a waste of time. I have with my eyes seen Andromeda, at 2.5 million light years. You're only a thousand times farther out :-). ________________________________________________________________________________________ It's wonderful being able to see another galaxy with the naked eye. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyll Bergbahn Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 lol do..although stellar in appearance, it is a thrill to locate and observe such a distant object. I can drop you finding instructions and charts inworld sometime this week if you like. The quasar is in Virgo so will on view in the Spring. At 12.9 mag., 8" + will see it in a dark sky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ceka Cianci Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Madelaine McMasters wrote: Nyll Bergbahn wrote: The Sun is also a sure winner at the moment. I recently got a solar telescope. Here's my first attempt to photograph it. I've no idea what I'm doing, which means this is probably the best image I'll ever get. ok that is freaking cool!!! i want toys like you haz hehehe actually i would really be in heaven if i lived to see a google galaxy..just our galaxy i could spend the rest of my life looking at.. although it will never happen..but it would be so awesome if it did.. it would be soo cool to look close up on stuff like they shown in those new pictures of mars..or even closer..like zooming in on one of those storms on a planet.. i think it's really cool that you can see sun spots from your telescope!! \o/ even rotation..just the tiny things and the big things just drive me crazy with thought.. a quasar..i would love to zoom up on one of those.. when i retire i will more than likely become a star gazer.. i get lost just sitting in a chair looking up at what we can see with our eyes.. it's like when the sun goes down the show starts every night hehehehe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madelaine McMasters Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Nyll Bergbahn wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Multiverse theory neatly disposes of the argument that conditions for life are just too finely tuned to have produced us by accident. If there are an infinite number of universes, there's plenty of opportunity to stumble across the conditions that support everything we observe in our own. The fact that we happen to live in this universe guarantees we'll witness the astronomically unlikely possibility of our own existence. Take two dramamine and enjoy the ride, Nyll! lol. Then I have to wonder where these infinite number of universes are in relation to ours and why aren't they merging or bumping against each other and what is our universe expanding into and..and..{reaches for the Draminine lol] The multiverse proponents postulate that these infinite other universes coexist in a higher dimensional space than the four we perceive (I've heard of theories involving from 10 to 26 total dimensions). Those additional dimensions are difficult to grasp. Imagine a ream of printer paper (which we once called typing paper, then copy paper ;-) filled with creatures that can perceive only the two dimensions of their home sheet. Each sheet would be totally unaware of the other sheets in the ream. Now imagine drilling a hole through the ream of paper with your drill press (every girl needs one!). In the few seconds it takes you to drill that hole, 500 little worlds will report news of some mysterious thing (the drill bit) magically appearing "out of nowhere". Now imagine somehow growing one of the sheets of paper (expansion of that universe). None of the other sheets would be aware. That's how you get endless universes occuping and expanding in the same "space" without interfering with each other. The sheets are occupying a space with more dimensions than they perceive. And so it may be for us, sharing an eleven dimension multiverse with countless other universes, which may themselves have access to more than four of the eleven dimensions, but never all of them, which would allow them access to us and us to access them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ceka Cianci Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Madelaine McMasters wrote: Nyll Bergbahn wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Multiverse theory neatly disposes of the argument that conditions for life are just too finely tuned to have produced us by accident. If there are an infinite number of universes, there's plenty of opportunity to stumble across the conditions that support everything we observe in our own. The fact that we happen to live in this universe guarantees we'll witness the astronomically unlikely possibility of our own existence. Take two dramamine and enjoy the ride, Nyll! lol. Then I have to wonder where these infinite number of universes are in relation to ours and why aren't they merging or bumping against each other and what is our universe expanding into and..and..{reaches for the Draminine lol] The multiverse proponents postulate that these infinite other universes coexist in a higher dimensional space than the four we perceive (I've heard of theories involving from 10 to 26 total dimensions). Those additional dimensions are difficult to grasp. Imagine a ream of printer paper (which we once called typing paper, then copy paper ;-) filled with creatures that can perceive only the two dimensions of their home sheet. Each sheet would be totally unaware of the other sheets in the ream. Now imagine drilling a hole through the ream of paper with your drill press (every girl needs one!). In the few seconds it takes you to drill that hole, 500 little worlds will report news of some mysterious thing (the drill bit) magically appearing "out of nowhere". Now imagine somehow growing one of the sheets of paper (expansion of that universe). None of the other sheets would be aware. That's how you get endless universes occuping and expanding in the same "space" without interfering with each other. The sheets are occupying a space with more dimensions than they perceive. And so it may be for us, sharing an eleven dimension multiverse with countless other universes, which may themselves have access to more than four of the eleven dimensions, but never all of them, which would allow them access to us and us to access them. also for them to be banging into each other if they were in say the same dimension..they could do that.. but we would never know it.. look at when two galaxies collide.. our solar system might not even know it ever happened..but the time span would be like forever to us.. and the time it would take from the moment of impact to the time it was over for a universe and another universe.. just the moment of impact could take gabzillions of years.. the farther we go out that way the longer it takes stuff to happen.. we may already be colliding with another universe hehehehe OR!!! what if there are a bunch of them and they are in something like a solar system? to where they will never collide..like planets are in their own rings.. omg i'm never gonna get mah chores done today now lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madelaine McMasters Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Ceka Cianci wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Nyll Bergbahn wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Multiverse theory neatly disposes of the argument that conditions for life are just too finely tuned to have produced us by accident. If there are an infinite number of universes, there's plenty of opportunity to stumble across the conditions that support everything we observe in our own. The fact that we happen to live in this universe guarantees we'll witness the astronomically unlikely possibility of our own existence. Take two dramamine and enjoy the ride, Nyll! lol. Then I have to wonder where these infinite number of universes are in relation to ours and why aren't they merging or bumping against each other and what is our universe expanding into and..and..{reaches for the Draminine lol] The multiverse proponents postulate that these infinite other universes coexist in a higher dimensional space than the four we perceive (I've heard of theories involving from 10 to 26 total dimensions). Those additional dimensions are difficult to grasp. Imagine a ream of printer paper (which we once called typing paper, then copy paper ;-) filled with creatures that can perceive only the two dimensions of their home sheet. Each sheet would be totally unaware of the other sheets in the ream. Now imagine drilling a hole through the ream of paper with your drill press (every girl needs one!). In the few seconds it takes you to drill that hole, 500 little worlds will report news of some mysterious thing (the drill bit) magically appearing "out of nowhere". Now imagine somehow growing one of the sheets of paper (expansion of that universe). None of the other sheets would be aware. That's how you get endless universes occuping and expanding in the same "space" without interfering with each other. The sheets are occupying a space with more dimensions than they perceive. And so it may be for us, sharing an eleven dimension multiverse with countless other universes, which may themselves have access to more than four of the eleven dimensions, but never all of them, which would allow them access to us and us to access them. also for them to be banging into each other if they were in say the same dimension..they could do that.. but we would never know it.. look at when two galaxies collide.. our solar system might not even know it ever happened..but the time span would be like forever to us.. and the time it would take from the moment of impact to the time it was over for a universe and another universe.. just the moment of impact could take gabzillions of years.. the farther we go out that way the longer it takes stuff to happen.. we may already be colliding with another universe hehehehe OR!!! what if there are a bunch of them and they are in something like a solar system? to where they will never collide..like planets are in their own rings.. omg i'm never gonna get mah chores done today now lol Go back to that ream of paper analogy. Let's say you and I live on one of the sheets and we want to go to lunch together. You call me up and say "Maddy, I'll meet you one inch from the bottom and one inch left of the right edge, at noon" and we're good. Meanwhile, our cosmic sisters on the sheet below do the same thing. Another Ceka calls another Maddy and arranges to meet "one inch from the bottom and one inch left of the right edge, at noon". Well, lookit that! We're all going to lunch in exactly the same place (in both universes, you specifed the location of our lunch accurately and completely), but we don't run into the other Ceka and Maddy. How is that possible? It's because there's a dimension "Z" that we don't know about, and so we aren't really all going to the same place. Now, imagine that the sheets of paper are vanishingly thin, if they weren't, they wouldn't be two dimensional. That means that, although our two lunch date pairs are completely unaware of each other, they're actually vanishingly close together. In fact so close that, by our standards of measurement, we ARE in the same place. This is how the string theorists imagine things. Those extra dimensions (and the worlds they contain) are coiled up into spaces so small we may never be able to detect them. The size of this little space is the "Planck length" which is theorized to be the smallest distance measurable. ETA: I forgot to thank you for lunch!!! ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ceka Cianci Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 ya i think string theory is pretty neat also.. i am always open to it..although i haven't really dove into it much yet but i want to..i'm still so excited just with what i can see and the things around us.. i'm pretty much open to it all really hehehe it's just fun to sit back and get lost on all these possibilities.. i really wish i would have sunk myself into all these things when i was younger.. nowadays this stuff is really constantly on my mind..always thinking and traveling inward and outward on different theories and getting the coolest images in my mind.. i even volunteer for really boring stuff to do around the house or at work just so i can have more time to think about these kinds of things..like cutting the grass.. lol i almost wrecked the mower one time cause i got so lost in thought lol almost drove it off into the ditch heheheh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madelaine McMasters Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Ceka Cianci wrote: i almost wrecked the mower one time cause i got so lost in thought lol almost drove it off into the ditch heheheh I'm the same way. I'm off to mow the lawn with my tractor. If you never hear from me again, you'll know why. ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Madelaine McMasters wrote: What you will see me argue is that I see no evidence that a creator is taking an active role in daily life, nor that all the intricacies of existence were mapped out by a grand planner. Maybe someday an experiment will show otherwise, but until then, I think it's more likely that people are praying to their imaginations because the "side effects" of that particular irrationality have proved evolutionarily advantageous. You haven't seen me argue that either. I've never mentioned or even hinted at an intelligent creator, and yet we seem opposed in this discussion Things like the cosmic microwave background do point towards the Big Bang, but have nothing to say about time before that point. If we are confined to witnessing only four of a potential ten or eleven dimensions, we may never know what the heck is going on. If the "always there" idea doesn't hold any water, then the universe simply appeared from nowhere/nothing. While I'm happy to call that a creation, it eliminates the creator. That's okay by me, as is the "always there" idea. That all falls into the vast pool of "things I don't know". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Madelaine McMasters wrote: If the "always there" idea doesn't hold any water, then the universe simply appeared from nowhere/nothing. While I'm happy to call that a creation, it eliminates the creator.. Good. I call it a creation too And in that it is a creation, it must have a creator - not necessarily an intelligent one but something (or some intelligence) caused the creation to happen - a creator. You didn't provide any alternative ways that existance might have come into being. You said you could think of many of them. Sure, I could propose that I'm imagining all this, making you the creation of my mind. That sounded pretty stupid when my philosophy professor proposed it to me 25 years ago, and I countered that if I was imagining it all, and I had free will, I'd imagine him proposing a better explanation for his own existence. I'm sure he'd heard such retorts before. I could imagine that the laws of physics change over time in a way we can't detect. I bolded the important words in that theory, as they can be grafted on to the tail end of any silly theory, rendering it unassailable and potentially pointless. This is an accusation the string theorists face. While I can imagine literally endless explanations for all we see, just like people have done for thousands of years, I wouldn't believe a single one of them. Figuring this out will be a cooperatve venture. No one of us has the wherewithall to collect the needed evidence to reject the theories we're advancing. And so, like most of humanity, I must have faith in something outside of myself. But unlike most of humanity, I won't extend my faith outside humanity. Perhaps I misunderstood you. I thought you wrote that you can imagine many ways by which existance came into being. I can only think of one - that it was created. No matter. Excuse the purple, Phil, it's my favorite color today ;-) I like magenta (it's not purple and I sometimes colour my posts too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madelaine McMasters Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Phil Deakins wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: What you will see me argue is that I see no evidence that a creator is taking an active role in daily life, nor that all the intricacies of existence were mapped out by a grand planner. Maybe someday an experiment will show otherwise, but until then, I think it's more likely that people are praying to their imaginations because the "side effects" of that particular irrationality have proved evolutionarily advantageous. You haven't seen me argue that either. I've never mentioned or even hinted at an intelligent creator, and yet we seem opposed in this discussion Things like the cosmic microwave background do point towards the Big Bang, but have nothing to say about time before that point. If we are confined to witnessing only four of a potential ten or eleven dimensions, we may never know what the heck is going on. If the "always there" idea doesn't hold any water, then the universe simply appeared from nowhere/nothing. While I'm happy to call that a creation, it eliminates the creator. That's okay by me, as is the "always there" idea. That all falls into the vast pool of "things I don't know". I didn't say you were arguing for an intelligent creator, just that I argue against it. As far as I can see, we're in general agreement. You favor a particular cosmology, I'm ignorant enough of all the details that I have to admit to preferring the explanations that seem weirdest, but with no expectation they're right. I can't tell if I'm open-minded, or gullible ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Ceka Cianci wrote: if the universe is expanding it has to be expanding in something... May I just pop in here and make a comment? Good The universe isn't expanding into something - as far as is known. Outside the universe is that nothingness that we can't visualise. We can conceive of it but, since it is absolutely nothing, we can't realistically visualise it. Beyond the limits of space (beyond the universe) is what I like to think of as 'singularity'. So, wherever on the universe's boundary you step out, if that were possible, you'd end up at the same point (except that, since it is nothingness, there is no point to end up at) and, if you reversed the step and stepped back in, you'd be anywhere on the boundary of the universe - maybe at the opposite side. Which brings up another point. Someone asked where all these other universes are, if they exist at all. My answer is that they are in nothingness, just like this universe is. So they are nowhere in relation to this universe, so they can't interfere with each other and, therefore, there is no restriction on their sizes. ETA: Brane theory, which is only a mathematical model, suggests that each universe is on a brane - a sort of plane - which could collide with each other. It's suggested mathematically that gravity could leak between branes and, therefore, we in this universe could possibly probe into another universe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Madelaine McMasters wrote: I didn't say you were arguing for an intelligent creator, just that I argue against it. As far as I can see, we're in general agreement. You favor a particular cosmology, I'm ignorant enough of all the details that I have to admit to preferring the explanations that seem weirdest, but with no expectation they're right. I can't tell if I'm open-minded, or gullible ;-) That's good to know, Madelaine - that we are in general agreement. Like you, I am ingnorant enough of all the deatils but, unlike you, I am far more ignorant of all the details. Fortunately, we don't need to know all the details to realise that existance must either have always been there, which can't be true, or it came into being (was created). So, changing the sub-subject a little - just to make a comment... Although I do like Brian Greene, I seriously dislike string theory, which he adheres to. Not because I have other beliefs, but because it's just so convoluted (contrived). I don't like brane theory either, or the hologram idea, or the 'many worlds' nonsense. The more I read, the more it seems to me that these mathematical physicists just come up with mathematical models that might just fit the bill. Physics has largely become merely mathematical excercises to my way of thinking. I liked Einstein's ideas though - classical physics. I'd like a particle to be a discreet lump of something - a particle. I don't think it is but I'd like it if it was. And will you lot stop talking about astronomy please. All that discusssion is actually tempting me to take it up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dillon Levenque Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Phil Deakins wrote: And will you lot stop talking about astronomy please. All that discusssion is actually tempting me to take it up! pssst. Hey, buddy. Wanna buy a telescope? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madelaine McMasters Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Phil Deakins wrote: And will you lot stop talking about astronomy please. All that discusssion is actually tempting me to take it up! ... bats her eyelashes and enjoys the idea that she can still play the temptress. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted August 22, 2012 Share Posted August 22, 2012 Dillon Levenque wrote: Phil Deakins wrote: And will you lot stop talking about astronomy please. All that discusssion is actually tempting me to take it up! pssst. Hey, buddy. Wanna buy a telescope? That was no doubt just humour but I'm sitting here giving it some significant consideration, dammit! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted August 22, 2012 Share Posted August 22, 2012 Madelaine McMasters wrote: Phil Deakins wrote: And will you lot stop talking about astronomy please. All that discusssion is actually tempting me to take it up! ... bats her eyelashes and enjoys the idea that she can still play the temptress. You don't need to talk about astronomy to be a temptress, Madelaine. Your scientific discussions (and your batting eyelids) are tempting enough Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ceka Cianci Posted August 22, 2012 Share Posted August 22, 2012 Phil Deakins wrote: Ceka Cianci wrote: if the universe is expanding it has to be expanding in something... May I just pop in here and make a comment? Good The universe isn't expanding into something - as far as is known. Outside the universe is that nothingness that we can't visualise. We can conceive of it but, since it is absolutely nothing, we can't realistically visualise it. Beyond the limits of space (beyond the universe) is what I like to think of as 'singularity'. So, wherever on the universe's boundary you step out, if that were possible, you'd end up at the same point (except that, since it is nothingness, there is no point to end up at) and, if you reversed the step and stepped back in, you'd be anywhere on the boundary of the universe - maybe at the opposite side. Which brings up another point. Someone asked where all these other universes are, if they exist at all. My answer is that they are in nothingness, just like this universe is. So they are nowhere in relation to this universe, so they can't interfere with each other and, therefore, there is no restriction on their sizes. ETA: Brane theory, which is only a mathematical model, suggests that each universe is on a brane - a sort of plane - which could collide with each other. It's suggested mathematically that gravity could leak between branes and, therefore, we in this universe could possibly probe into another universe. we'll never know Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madelaine McMasters Posted August 22, 2012 Share Posted August 22, 2012 Ceka Cianci wrote: we'll never know Never say never! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ceka Cianci Posted August 22, 2012 Share Posted August 22, 2012 Madelaine McMasters wrote: Ceka Cianci wrote: we'll never know Never say never! sorry i didn't mean it as we as a spiecies..more like we as in our lifetime..hehehe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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