An Unlikely Universe?

T

Tao_Equus

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Science's Alternative to an Intelligent Creator: the Multiverse Theory | Cosmology | DISCOVER Magazine

The above link is to an article that attempts to use String theory and the concept of a multiverse to explain the apparently improbable nature of fundamental laws in allowing our universe to exist. As the article says a tiny tweak here, or a tiny variance in energy there and the whole universe we observe simply would not exist. The universe seems 'fine tuned' for life to exist. But is that true? Do you believe that? Or is the real truth that all our measurements, all our ideas, all our perceptions make us incapable of seeing what is right under our noses? Are all our studies to date fundamentally polluted with a mistaken lineage of physics that was hammered to shape theory ? Do some of the 'laws' of physics work because we 'need' them to rather than them being true laws? Like Shroedingers cat, if there were not us to observe them would they exist at all?

tao
 
We exist because the the conditions exist.

If they didn't, we wouldn't.

And there'd be nobody here to worry about it.
 
Tao_Equus said:
Science's Alternative to an Intelligent Creator: the Multiverse Theory | Cosmology | DISCOVER Magazine

The above link is to an article that attempts to use String theory and the concept of a multiverse to explain the apparently improbable nature of fundamental laws in allowing our universe to exist. As the article says a tiny tweak here, or a tiny variance in energy there and the whole universe we observe simply would not exist. The universe seems 'fine tuned' for life to exist. But is that true? Do you believe that? Or is the real truth that all our measurements, all our ideas, all our perceptions make us incapable of seeing what is right under our noses? Are all our studies to date fundamentally polluted with a mistaken lineage of physics that was hammered to shape theory ? Do some of the 'laws' of physics work because we 'need' them to rather than them being true laws? Like Shroedingers cat, if there were not us to observe them would they exist at all?

tao
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I've got to admit, much as though I like the concept of multiverse theory, I think the anthropomorphic models just basically try and evade the question of why the constants of physics just happen to be as they are, in a way that supports life.

The rounding conclusion that it's all just co-incidence is just plain dishonest to rationality.

If a question cannot be answered, then there's no shame in admitting there is no answer - but trying to funk it all into coincidence is not what the process of scientific method is about.

Imagine Newton sat beneath the apple tree, watching an apple fall - "Ah, but 'tis co-incidence that everything happens to fall down!".

(PS, I know the story is apocryphal, but it's a good reference point. :) ).
 
Reading my son's Environmental Science book last night was all quite interesting... 10th grade, "What are the three hypothesis for the creation of complex chemicals which had the potential to life and what was the energy that would allow it?" or some such question and then when looking up what the book had for answers it included that such a happening couldn't occur today as the existent bacteria/life would immediately kill that simple structure that was attempting to form.

What I am getting on about is that coincidence, is it really so coincidental contemplating the size of the universe and the time it has existed? Couldn't we have come close billions of times and odds were actually in our favor to exist?
 
I said:
The rounding conclusion that it's all just co-incidence is just plain dishonest to rationality.
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And the alternative is rational? However complex our observations get, however far beyond the realms of the comprehensible our mathematicians roam, nowhere but nowhere is there even a hint of design. Changing the gravitational force just a fraction would produce a universe unrecognisable to us and one in which we could not exist. So it has to be just as it is or we would not be here to ask these questions. Life arises here because the conditions are optimum and that can happen by chance and chance alone. If there really are an infinite number of universes then the existence of our universe is not probable but inevitable.
There is no consensus in science but in recent years many physicists have independently arrived at some kind conclusion that our universe is not a self contained everything. Whether there be other dimensions and universes may as yet be unprovable but the maths all points that way. What we can be certain of is our existence is very precarious and we will need to continue a streak of extreme luck if we are going to survive long enough to get truly meaningful answers.
 
I said:
I've got to admit, much as though I like the concept of multiverse theory, I think the anthropomorphic models just basically try and evade the question of why the constants of physics just happen to be as they are, in a way that supports life.

The rounding conclusion that it's all just co-incidence is just plain dishonest to rationality.

If a question cannot be answered, then there's no shame in admitting there is no answer - but trying to funk it all into coincidence is not what the process of scientific method is about.

Imagine Newton sat beneath the apple tree, watching an apple fall - "Ah, but 'tis co-incidence that everything happens to fall down!".

(PS, I know the story is apocryphal, but it's a good reference point. :) ).
Click to expand...

Consider organic life on earth as a whole including the entire relationship between animal and vegetable life as a living machine. Mechanics is obedience to laws. Everything continually eats everything else in this living machine called organic life and continually transforms substances. To say that one facet of this machine is an accident is impossible enough IMO. But to say that everything comes into being with the knowledge of what it feeds on and what it serves as food for is even more so.

I believe in what now is being referred to as multiverses as the ancient idea of them grouped together as all eternities but the idea of an empty eternity is both useless and meaningless if as I believe, we are in a conscious universe. A universe serves a purpose of transforming substances on a higher level of scale then the visible reactions of organic life on earth we are able to see. Their different possibilities of serving this lawful universal purpose through the interconnectedness of everything existing are limited by the universal laws they are founded upon so there cannot be infinite eternities.
 
Tao_Equus said:
And the alternative is rational?
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The alternative is to admit that we have no idea, and that it is not a question that can currently be answered scientifically.

There are so many valuable constants in physics that just happen to give rise to a universe where everything is exactly what is required, but suggesting that therefore the universe exists as a cosmic co-incidence is intellectual dishonesty. It's a way to try and counter religious opinions.

However, I would contend that science and religion address different fundamental questions - religion asks "why" and science asks "how" and both try and answer these in their own language and vocabulary.

When science and religion start invading each other's remits, both end up looking foolish IMO.
 
I said:
The alternative is to admit that we have no idea, and that it is not a question that can currently be answered scientifically.
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Even if science accurately described the universe from the largest system down to the smallest, it wouldn't change the fact that each human struggles with personal theological and philosophical issues.

That said, denying the validity of science and scientific investigation, even when it threatens to overturn long-held religious tenants is an utterly foolish and destructive thing to do.
 
Brian

When science and religion start invading each other's remits, both end up looking foolish IMO.
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On the other hand, if science and religion do not unite, what science produces will lead to some benefits but finally to our destruction since it will serve our secular need for power and prestige even at the cost of the majority of humanity. So is it better to initially be alive and foolish or dead and sophisticated? Who knows at this point?
 
I said:
The alternative is to admit that we have no idea, and that it is not a question that can currently be answered scientifically.

There are so many valuable constants in physics that just happen to give rise to a universe where everything is exactly what is required, but suggesting that therefore the universe exists as a cosmic co-incidence is intellectual dishonesty. It's a way to try and counter religious opinions.

However, I would contend that science and religion address different fundamental questions - religion asks "why" and science asks "how" and both try and answer these in their own language and vocabulary.

When science and religion start invading each other's remits, both end up looking foolish IMO.
Click to expand...
I had the impression that neither the physicists, cosmologists nor the science writers thought they were dealing in facts....and that none of them have any more idea of what the facts are any more than you and I. Perhaps one day we will find what we call 'fine balance' is nothing of the kind. Finding instead that the laws are far more flexible or are the fixed values of a bigger law we do not understand yet. Who knows. But the article itself deals with a 'what if' and at no point sets itself up as anything more than a musing. However it is not a musing without any merit. The question remains...why the fine tuning?
Saying that the universe is fine tuned for us is a bit arrogant. It may be fine tuned for a myriad other life forms across the galaxies too. Yet it cannot be denied that it suits us, for we thrive....and that is a fact. We can pose the question but are as yet a long long way from any answer. But to fill that space with a superstitious dogma of a creator, backed up with the patently fraudulent claim of scientific credibility, when not one thing supports it except faith in old books, is tantamount to performing a lobotomy on oneself. It is the severing of that human spirit of adventure for the frontier and replacing it with the easy chair and fireplace of senility.
What this article can do is give the reader some description of a possibility in a vivid and comprehensible picture. And it is such creative leaps of the imagination that go on to inspire more thinking.
 
citizenzen said:
Why do you assume science will lead to our destruction?
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Because it will serve two basic secular needs: the need to heal to better our physical presence and the need to kill to satisfy our need for prestige through the exercise of power. Science will make the ability to kill far more efficient leading to a greater number of desired deaths that justify the self imprtance of the remaining.
 
We seem to be healing slightly more than killing.

I am a glass-half full kind of guy.

I'm betting that our positive nature wins over our negative.

Until the asteroid hits.
 
citizenzen said:
We seem to be healing slightly more than killing.

I am a glass-half full kind of guy.

I'm betting that our positive nature wins over our negative.

Until the asteroid hits.
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Nothing wins. Everything turns in cycles regardless of platitudes. There is a time for war and a time for peace. It is human nature which includes positive and negative together as one each manifesting in accordance with external cyclical circumstances. Welcome to the real world. Ecclesiastes 3:

A Time for Everything

1 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:

2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak, 8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
 
Nick_A said:
Nothing wins. Everything turns in cycles regardless of platitudes.
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Dude, you do realize your last post was nothing but platitudes, don't you?

Oh, I get it, irony. That was a good one.
 
citizenzen said:
Dude, you do realize your last post was nothing but platitudes, don't you?

Oh, I get it, irony. That was a good one.
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Definition of platitude from Encarta:

1. banal statement: a pointless, unoriginal, or empty comment or statement made as though it was significant or helpful
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You don't think the meaning of Ecclesiastes 3 is meaningful but I think it is. If humanity realized it was just turning in circles following mechanical cycles everything would be different. We don't so regardless of technological advances human "understanding remains the same so there is a time for war and a time for peace. The diference is now that killing is far more efficicient
 
Nick_A said:
The diference is now that killing is far more efficicient
Click to expand...

So is the healing.

Like my new avatar? I think I'm going to keep this one.

So long as I'm not taken to court for copyright infringement.
 
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