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Xog
Jumpgate Pilot




Registered: 10/01/08
Posts: 854
Loc: NY
Last seen: 10 years, 4 months
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Re: Before the Universe Began/Time [Re: Poid]
#12972018 - 07/29/10 01:34 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Children grow up with an intuitive sense of cause and effect. Events in the physical world aren't supposed to "just happen." Something makes them happen. Even when the rabbit appears convincingly from the hat, trickery is suspected. So could the entire universe simply pop into existence, magically, for no actual reason at all?
This simple, schoolchild query has exercised the intellects of generations of philosophers, scientists, and theologians. Many have avoided it as an impenetrable mystery. Others have tried to define it away. Most have got themselves into an awful tangle just thinking about it.
The problem, at rock bottom, is this: If nothing happens without a cause, then something must have caused the universe to appear. But then we are faced with the inevitable question of what caused that something. And so on in an infinite regress. Some people simply proclaim that God created the universe, but children always want to know who created God, and that line of questioning gets uncomfortably difficult.
One evasive tactic is to claim that the universe didn't have a beginning, that it has existed for all eternity. Unfortunately, there are many scientific reasons why this obvious idea is unsound. For starters, given an infinite amount of time, anything that can happen will already have happened, for if a physical process is likely to occur with a certain nonzero probability-however small-then given an infinite amount of time the process must occur, with probability one. By now, the universe should have reached some sort of final state in which all possible physical processes have run their course. Furthermore, you don't explain the existence of the universe by asserting that it has always existed. That is rather like saying that nobody wrote the Bible: it was. just copied from earlier versions. Quite apart from all this, there is very good evidence that the universe did come into existence in a big bang, about fifteen billion years ago. The effects of that primeval explosion are clearly detectable today-in the fact that the universe is still expanding, and is filled with an afterglow of radiant heat.
So we are faced with the problem of what happened beforehand to trigger the big bang. Journalists love to taunt scientists with this question when they complain about the money being spent on science. Actually, the answer (in my opinion) was spotted a long time ago, by one Augustine of Hippo, a Christian saint who lived in the fifth century. In those days before science, cosmology was a branch of theology, and the taunt came not from journalists, but from pagans: "What was God doing before he made the universe?" they asked. "Busy creating Hell for the likes of you!" was the standard reply.
But Augustine was more subtle. The world, he claimed, was made "not in time, but simultaneously with time." In other words, the origin of the universe-what we now call the big bang-was not simply the sudden appearance of matter in an eternally preexisting void, but the coming into being of time itself. Time began with the cosmic origin. There was no "before," no endless ocean of time for a god, or a physical process, to wear itself out in infinite preparation.
Remarkably, modern science has arrived at more or less the same conclusion as Augustine, based on what we now know about the nature of space, time, and gravitation. It was Albert Einstein who taught us that time and space are not merely an immutable arena in which the great cosmic drama is acted out, but are part of the cast-part of the physical universe. As physical entities, time and space can change- suffer distortions-as a result of gravitational processes. Gravitational theory predicts that under the extreme conditions that prevailed in the early universe, space and time may have been so distorted that there existed a boundary, or "singularity," at which the distortion of space-time was infinite, and therefore through which space and time cannot have continued. Thus, physics predicts that time was indeed bounded in the past as Augustine claimed. It did not stretch back for all eternity.
If the big bang was the beginning of time itself, then any discussion about what happened before the big bang, or what caused it-in the usual sense of physical causation-is simply meaningless. Unfortunately, many children, and adults, too, regard this answer as disingenuous. There must be more to it than that, they object.
Indeed there is. After all, why should time suddenly "switch on"? What explanation can be given for such a singular event? Until recently, it seemed that any explanation of the initial "singularity" that marked the origin of time would have to lie beyond the scope of science. However, it all depends on what is meant by "explanation." As I remarked, all children have a good idea of the notion of cause and effect, and usually an explanation of an event entails finding something that caused it. It turns out, however, that there are physical events which do not have well-defined causes in the manner of the everyday world. These events belong to a weird branch of scientific inquiry called quantum physics.
Mostly, quantum events occur at the atomic level; we don't experience them in daily life. On the scale of atoms and molecules, the usual commonsense rules of cause and effect are suspended. The rule of law is replaced by a sort of anarchy or chaos, and things happen spontaneously-for no particular reason. Particles of matter may simply pop into existence without warning, and then equally abruptly disappear again. Or a particle in one place may suddenly materialize in another place, or reverse its direction of motion. Again, these are real effects occurring on an atomic scale, and they can be demonstrated experimentally.
A typical quantum process is the decay of a radioactive nucleus. If you ask why a given nucleus decayed at one particular moment rather than some other, there is no answer. The event "just happened" at that moment, that's all. You cannot predict these occurrences. All you can do is give the probability-there is a fifty-fifty chance that a given nucleus will decay in, say, one hour. This uncertainty is not simply a result of our ignorance of all the little forces and influences that try to make the nucleus decay; it is inherent in nature itself, a basic part of quantum reality.
The lesson of quantum physics is this: Something that "just happens" need not actually violate the laws of physics. The abrupt and uncaused appearance of something can occur within the scope of scientific law, once quantum laws have been taken into account. Nature apparently has the capacity for genuine spontaneity. It is, of course, a big step from the spontaneous and uncaused appearance of a subatomic particle-something that is routinely observed in particle accelerators-to the spontaneous and uncaused appearance of the universe. But the loophole is there. If, as astronomers believe, the primeval universe was compressed to a very small size, then quantum effects must have once been important on a cosmic scale. Even if we don't have a precise idea of exactly what took place at the beginning, we can at least see that the origin of the universe from nothing need not be unlawful or unnatural or unscientific. In short, it need not have been a supernatural event.
Inevitably, scientists will not be content to leave it at that. We would like to flesh out the details of this profound concept. There is even a subject devoted to it, called quantum cosmology. Two famous quantum cosmologists, James Hartle and Stephen Hawking, came up with a clever idea that goes back to Einstein. Einstein not only found that space and time are part of the physical universe; he also found that they are linked in a very intimate way. In fact, space on its own and time on its own are no longer properly valid concepts. Instead, we must deal with a unified "space-time" continuum. Space has three dimensions, and time has one, so space-time is a four-dimensional continuum.
In spite of the space-time linkage, however, space is space and time is time under almost all circumstances. Whatever space-time distortions gravitation may produce, they never turn space into time or time into space. An exception arises, though, when quantum effects are taken into account. That all-important intrinsic uncertainty that afflicts quantum systems can be applied to space-time, too. In this case, the uncertainty can, under special circumstances, affect the identities of space and time. For a very, very brief duration, it is possible for time and space to merge in identity, for time to become, so to speak, spacelike-just another dimension of space.
The spatialization of time is not something abrupt; it is a continuous process. Viewed in reverse as the temporalization of (one dimension of) space, it implies that time can emerge out of space in a continuous process. (By continuous, I mean that the timelike quality of a dimension, as opposed to its spacelike quality, is not an all-or-nothing affair; there are shades in between. This vague statement can be made quite precise mathematically.)
The essence of the Hartle-Hawking idea is that the big bang was not the abrupt switching on of time at some singular first moment, but the emergence of time from space in an ultrarapid but nevertheless continuous manner. On a human time scale, the big bang was very much a sudden, explosive origin of space, time, and matter. But look very, very closely at that first tiny fraction of a second and you find that there was no precise and sudden beginning at all. So here we have a theory of the origin of the universe that seems to say two contradictory things: First, time did not always exist; and second, there was no first moment of time. Such are the oddities of quantum physics.
Even with these further details thrown in, many people feel cheated. They want to ask why these weird things happened, why there is a universe, and why this universe. Perhaps science cannot answer such questions. Science is good at telling us how, but not so good on the why. Maybe there isn't a why. To wonder why is very human, but perhaps there is no answer in human terms to such deep questions of existence. Or perhaps there is, but we are looking at the problem in the wrong way.
Well, I didn't promise to provide the answers to life, the universe, and everything, but I have at least given a plausible answer to the question I started out with: What happened before the big bang? The answer is: Nothing.
-------------------- We are all one but not really
Edited by Xog (07/29/10 01:35 PM)
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Before the Universe Began/Time [Re: Xog]
#12972063 - 07/29/10 01:44 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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I hope you're not still working at the Minute Mart.
That was very interesting indeed
What I could understand of it I mean.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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killuminati420
Swimmin in Cyans soon



Registered: 09/20/09
Posts: 1,218
Loc: PNW, Oregon Coast
Last seen: 12 years, 2 months
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Quote:
Poid said:
Quote:
killuminati420 said: Because there is no beginning or end,...it is just one infinite consciousness...
WTF does consciousness have to do with this? 
Quote:
killuminati420 said: need to accept it like a DMT trip...its what ppl call "god" ...Accept it "like a dmt trip"
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killuminati420
Swimmin in Cyans soon



Registered: 09/20/09
Posts: 1,218
Loc: PNW, Oregon Coast
Last seen: 12 years, 2 months
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Re: Before the Universe Began/Time [Re: Xog]
#12972116 - 07/29/10 01:56 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Xog said: Children grow up with an intuitive sense of cause and effect. Events in the physical world aren't supposed to "just happen." Something makes them happen. Even when the rabbit appears convincingly from the hat, trickery is suspected. So could the entire universe simply pop into existence, magically, for no actual reason at all?
This simple, schoolchild query has exercised the intellects of generations of philosophers, scientists, and theologians. Many have avoided it as an impenetrable mystery. Others have tried to define it away. Most have got themselves into an awful tangle just thinking about it.
The problem, at rock bottom, is this: If nothing happens without a cause, then something must have caused the universe to appear. But then we are faced with the inevitable question of what caused that something. And so on in an infinite regress. Some people simply proclaim that God created the universe, but children always want to know who created God, and that line of questioning gets uncomfortably difficult.
One evasive tactic is to claim that the universe didn't have a beginning, that it has existed for all eternity. Unfortunately, there are many scientific reasons why this obvious idea is unsound. For starters, given an infinite amount of time, anything that can happen will already have happened, for if a physical process is likely to occur with a certain nonzero probability-however small-then given an infinite amount of time the process must occur, with probability one. By now, the universe should have reached some sort of final state in which all possible physical processes have run their course. Furthermore, you don't explain the existence of the universe by asserting that it has always existed. That is rather like saying that nobody wrote the Bible: it was. just copied from earlier versions. Quite apart from all this, there is very good evidence that the universe did come into existence in a big bang, about fifteen billion years ago. The effects of that primeval explosion are clearly detectable today-in the fact that the universe is still expanding, and is filled with an afterglow of radiant heat.
So we are faced with the problem of what happened beforehand to trigger the big bang. Journalists love to taunt scientists with this question when they complain about the money being spent on science. Actually, the answer (in my opinion) was spotted a long time ago, by one Augustine of Hippo, a Christian saint who lived in the fifth century. In those days before science, cosmology was a branch of theology, and the taunt came not from journalists, but from pagans: "What was God doing before he made the universe?" they asked. "Busy creating Hell for the likes of you!" was the standard reply.
But Augustine was more subtle. The world, he claimed, was made "not in time, but simultaneously with time." In other words, the origin of the universe-what we now call the big bang-was not simply the sudden appearance of matter in an eternally preexisting void, but the coming into being of time itself. Time began with the cosmic origin. There was no "before," no endless ocean of time for a god, or a physical process, to wear itself out in infinite preparation.
Remarkably, modern science has arrived at more or less the same conclusion as Augustine, based on what we now know about the nature of space, time, and gravitation. It was Albert Einstein who taught us that time and space are not merely an immutable arena in which the great cosmic drama is acted out, but are part of the cast-part of the physical universe. As physical entities, time and space can change- suffer distortions-as a result of gravitational processes. Gravitational theory predicts that under the extreme conditions that prevailed in the early universe, space and time may have been so distorted that there existed a boundary, or "singularity," at which the distortion of space-time was infinite, and therefore through which space and time cannot have continued. Thus, physics predicts that time was indeed bounded in the past as Augustine claimed. It did not stretch back for all eternity.
If the big bang was the beginning of time itself, then any discussion about what happened before the big bang, or what caused it-in the usual sense of physical causation-is simply meaningless. Unfortunately, many children, and adults, too, regard this answer as disingenuous. There must be more to it than that, they object.
Indeed there is. After all, why should time suddenly "switch on"? What explanation can be given for such a singular event? Until recently, it seemed that any explanation of the initial "singularity" that marked the origin of time would have to lie beyond the scope of science. However, it all depends on what is meant by "explanation." As I remarked, all children have a good idea of the notion of cause and effect, and usually an explanation of an event entails finding something that caused it. It turns out, however, that there are physical events which do not have well-defined causes in the manner of the everyday world. These events belong to a weird branch of scientific inquiry called quantum physics.
Mostly, quantum events occur at the atomic level; we don't experience them in daily life. On the scale of atoms and molecules, the usual commonsense rules of cause and effect are suspended. The rule of law is replaced by a sort of anarchy or chaos, and things happen spontaneously-for no particular reason. Particles of matter may simply pop into existence without warning, and then equally abruptly disappear again. Or a particle in one place may suddenly materialize in another place, or reverse its direction of motion. Again, these are real effects occurring on an atomic scale, and they can be demonstrated experimentally.
A typical quantum process is the decay of a radioactive nucleus. If you ask why a given nucleus decayed at one particular moment rather than some other, there is no answer. The event "just happened" at that moment, that's all. You cannot predict these occurrences. All you can do is give the probability-there is a fifty-fifty chance that a given nucleus will decay in, say, one hour. This uncertainty is not simply a result of our ignorance of all the little forces and influences that try to make the nucleus decay; it is inherent in nature itself, a basic part of quantum reality.
The lesson of quantum physics is this: Something that "just happens" need not actually violate the laws of physics. The abrupt and uncaused appearance of something can occur within the scope of scientific law, once quantum laws have been taken into account. Nature apparently has the capacity for genuine spontaneity. It is, of course, a big step from the spontaneous and uncaused appearance of a subatomic particle-something that is routinely observed in particle accelerators-to the spontaneous and uncaused appearance of the universe. But the loophole is there. If, as astronomers believe, the primeval universe was compressed to a very small size, then quantum effects must have once been important on a cosmic scale. Even if we don't have a precise idea of exactly what took place at the beginning, we can at least see that the origin of the universe from nothing need not be unlawful or unnatural or unscientific. In short, it need not have been a supernatural event.
Inevitably, scientists will not be content to leave it at that. We would like to flesh out the details of this profound concept. There is even a subject devoted to it, called quantum cosmology. Two famous quantum cosmologists, James Hartle and Stephen Hawking, came up with a clever idea that goes back to Einstein. Einstein not only found that space and time are part of the physical universe; he also found that they are linked in a very intimate way. In fact, space on its own and time on its own are no longer properly valid concepts. Instead, we must deal with a unified "space-time" continuum. Space has three dimensions, and time has one, so space-time is a four-dimensional continuum.
In spite of the space-time linkage, however, space is space and time is time under almost all circumstances. Whatever space-time distortions gravitation may produce, they never turn space into time or time into space. An exception arises, though, when quantum effects are taken into account. That all-important intrinsic uncertainty that afflicts quantum systems can be applied to space-time, too. In this case, the uncertainty can, under special circumstances, affect the identities of space and time. For a very, very brief duration, it is possible for time and space to merge in identity, for time to become, so to speak, spacelike-just another dimension of space.
The spatialization of time is not something abrupt; it is a continuous process. Viewed in reverse as the temporalization of (one dimension of) space, it implies that time can emerge out of space in a continuous process. (By continuous, I mean that the timelike quality of a dimension, as opposed to its spacelike quality, is not an all-or-nothing affair; there are shades in between. This vague statement can be made quite precise mathematically.)
The essence of the Hartle-Hawking idea is that the big bang was not the abrupt switching on of time at some singular first moment, but the emergence of time from space in an ultrarapid but nevertheless continuous manner. On a human time scale, the big bang was very much a sudden, explosive origin of space, time, and matter. But look very, very closely at that first tiny fraction of a second and you find that there was no precise and sudden beginning at all. So here we have a theory of the origin of the universe that seems to say two contradictory things: First, time did not always exist; and second, there was no first moment of time. Such are the oddities of quantum physics.
Even with these further details thrown in, many people feel cheated. They want to ask why these weird things happened, why there is a universe, and why this universe. Perhaps science cannot answer such questions. Science is good at telling us how, but not so good on the why. Maybe there isn't a why. To wonder why is very human, but perhaps there is no answer in human terms to such deep questions of existence. Or perhaps there is, but we are looking at the problem in the wrong way.
Well, I didn't promise to provide the answers to life, the universe, and everything, but I have at least given a plausible answer to the question I started out with: What happened before the big bang? The answer is: Nothing.
if you typed that up you must be on steroids dude....you must have copied and pasted it...if not... ...
God made nothing.. nothing made God...Which is everything, which is God...........is all i got to say...because i only could read like a few paragraphs brahski...
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Xog
Jumpgate Pilot




Registered: 10/01/08
Posts: 854
Loc: NY
Last seen: 10 years, 4 months
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dooble poost
-------------------- We are all one but not really
Edited by Xog (07/30/10 07:31 AM)
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Xog
Jumpgate Pilot




Registered: 10/01/08
Posts: 854
Loc: NY
Last seen: 10 years, 4 months
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Re: Before the Universe Began/Time [Re: Xog]
#12972236 - 07/29/10 02:16 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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you'd also be surprised how fast your questions are answered by typing them into the google search engine instead of a thread title field box.
-------------------- We are all one but not really
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AlphaFalfa
imagine


Registered: 06/16/08
Posts: 3,857
Loc: 3 Seconds Ago.
Last seen: 10 years, 2 months
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The irony is that you know nothing about science in general, either. You don't know how to decipher or sort through the bullshit that makes up 90% of science.
oh yeah, polio, right I forgot, this is what makes science amazing!
HAH!
And yet I said that 90% of science is bullshit, not ALL science is bullshit, do the math... In short, the big bang theory is still just a theory, this much you don't need to learn much about, just look at what they call it - the big bang THEORY!
To the OP as well.....
Also, it doesn't really make a difference in your life to know where the universe started, IF it did at all and if it really was just there all along. Your still going to want to eat, sleep, fuck, gain appreciation, give appreciation, right? Just focus on those thing's you won't feel as frustrated and you'll be overall more satisfied...i mean look at animals, look at their interests and look how happy they usually are compared to us?
-------------------- if you ever feel lost, just remember, life is not a journey, it is entertainment, all 4 fun...
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Poid
Shroomery's #1 Spellir




Registered: 02/04/08
Posts: 40,372
Loc: SF Bay Area
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Re: Before the Universe Began/Time [Re: AlphaFalfa]
#12972741 - 07/29/10 03:41 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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You don't know how to decipher or sort through the bullshit that makes up 90% of science.
I miss deCypher.
-------------------- Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. -- Bob Dylan  fireworks_god said:It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Before the Universe Began/Time [Re: Poid]
#12972771 - 07/29/10 03:47 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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That's because your aim is bad.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Poid
Shroomery's #1 Spellir




Registered: 02/04/08
Posts: 40,372
Loc: SF Bay Area
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Re: Before the Universe Began/Time [Re: Icelander]
#12972835 - 07/29/10 04:01 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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-------------------- Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. -- Bob Dylan  fireworks_god said:It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.
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Diploid
Cuban



Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: Before the Universe Began/Time [Re: AlphaFalfa]
#12973641 - 07/29/10 06:16 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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In short, the big bang theory is still just a theory
Your profound ignorance of science is depressing. Calling the Big Bang "just a theory" is like calling water "just a liquid". You haven't the first clue what a theory is.
EVERYTHING in science is theory. Science has nothing else. There are no facts in science. Still, the atomic theory incinerated Hiroshima and governs the power plant running my computer. But atoms are theoretical. No one has ever seen an atom.
The disk in your computer could not exist without the insight given us by GMR theory, but it's "just a theory" too.
The fiber-optic lasers carrying this message to you could not exist without optics theory.
Quantum mechanics theory is the only reason the CPU in your computer exists. Without that theory, transistors and CPUs could not have been invented. But hey, it's "just a theory".
If you're going to dismiss something, you really should know at least the very simplest, most basic ideas of what it is you're dismissing first, don't you think? 
The human race is doomed.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Before the Universe Began/Time [Re: Diploid]
#12973715 - 07/29/10 06:32 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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The human race is doomed.
Is this a theory.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Poid
Shroomery's #1 Spellir




Registered: 02/04/08
Posts: 40,372
Loc: SF Bay Area
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Re: Before the Universe Began/Time [Re: Diploid]
#12974391 - 07/29/10 08:44 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Diploid said: The human race is doomed.
Good fucking riddance.
-------------------- Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. -- Bob Dylan  fireworks_god said:It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.
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Diploid
Cuban



Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: Before the Universe Began/Time [Re: Poid]
#12974618 - 07/29/10 09:33 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Man, it really does depress me how people will flock to the new age section of the bookstore and devour everything there, and they'll go to bible studies classes three times a week for years.
But ask them to read a beginner's science book or take a introductory class to learn what a freekin THEORY is, and they'd rather stick a fork up their ass.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Noteworthy
Sophyphile


Registered: 10/05/08
Posts: 5,599
Last seen: 11 years, 3 months
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Re: Before the Universe Began/Time [Re: Diploid]
#12974893 - 07/29/10 10:32 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Yes science has brought us many great technologies... that doesnt make the theories real. it just makes them much more useful than preceding theories.
talk of spontaneity opens up a whole box of problems with modern paradigms. The only reason it has become popular to deny 'free will' exists is because certain models of reality during the Enlightenment era were mechanical and newtonian.
as soon as you have spontaneity you have endless possibilities of other unknowable laws of the universe, or, more significantly, the existance of active 'wills' in the universe.
Where did the universe come from? well OBVIOUSLY science can never answer that question. All science does is strive to model the universe. All we will thus ever have is a model that depicts the universe at different points in time. The model must have a limit, and we can always ask what defines the universe beyond that limit.
Its fascinating stuff, cosmology. But its really not that complex.. just maths... beautiful stuff... people take it too seriously though. It is 'just a theory' because it is a theory with no practical applications. It is a sign of modern man's ability to 'get a grip' on his world... but it will never answer the essentially UNANSWERABLE question regarding the 'first cause'.
anyone who suggests science indicates the existance of a definate spontaneity is a fool imo... science simply allows for aspects of the universe to not yet be understood. Randomness by definition is something unpredictable (a human restriction, not a physical one).
--------------------

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emeraldlife88
Emerald


Registered: 08/01/09
Posts: 985
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Re: Before the Universe Began/Time [Re: Noteworthy]
#12978836 - 07/30/10 09:23 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Exactly, that is how I feel. There is no beginning or end, there is just being. It is here and it is everywhere. It is everything. Like what about before these particles of matter and energy and chemicals came together to form our universe? They were just floating around in space? Or they just were? But where were they? Just there...but in space? Like in the darkness of nothing. I just think what is going on is so unimaginable there is no way we will ever explain it. It is a mystery far beyond the ability to understand. Everything has always been. Before our universe there was something else...it is just too complex. Nothing is really as it seems.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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I just think what is going on is so unimaginable there is no way we will ever explain it. It is a mystery far beyond the ability to understand. Everything has always been. Before our universe there was something else...it is just too complex. Nothing is really as it seems.
You put the exact words to the gut feeling I have. So many want desperately to get a handle on this. All this talk and all these words and all these feelings will never hold it. Ever. But it seems we are driven to try and we just go round the circle and start again at the beginning.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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