Big Think

sciencesaves on August 30, 2009, 8:17 AM

“Better universes to create”      Meaning more realistic assumptions based on facts, as opposed to closed-minded acceptance and perpetuation of primitive concepts?

Seems like a no-brainer to me…but that viewpoint doesn’t support or justify the agenda of the religious…

tim hall on August 30, 2009, 1:09 PM

Herbie, You said: “Why would this deity create a universe over 90 billion light years across and place the object of his primary interest in an undistinguished part of it and leave most of the rest inhospitable to life?”

I asked God and he said: “I want my people to be inquisitive and seek out my love. I created everything in the universe so they would have the will to learn about my majesty”

You said: " What does it tell us about such a deity that he conceives of a moral system that starts with ‘my creation must love and worship me and be eternally grateful that I’ve decided to do this’ and that for the infringement of this system he devises an eternal system of horrible punishment (the reward for loving and worshipping him is of course to spend eternity loving and worshipping him)?

I asked God and he said: " Have you ever noticed how a male dog claims his masculinity over another male dog? I made him in the likeness of me, for my people to understand their submission to me."

You said: "He gradually withdraws from constant direct meddling and communication and, after a confusing personal appearance where he joins in for a bit, he backs off and leaves us to wonder why, a bit like ants having had their hill poked with a stick.

I asked God and he said: “Look dumb-ass, have you ever noticed that all of my high priest carry a rod or a scepter, sometimes my little people need a little rodding to keep them in place”  I am not sure what he meant by that. I was afraid to ask again.

You said: "I think with a few moments thought (let alone a timeless eternity) we could all think of better universes to create. I certainly hope that I do a better job as a parent. 

Yeah, and just what kind of universe would you create, one without galaxies? Oh, how romantic that would be.  Love me or else little one!

Verisoph sapiens on August 30, 2009, 11:31 PM

When it comes to god and “his” design/creation, one word springs to mind: Megalomania.

Musycks on August 30, 2009, 11:54 PM

                                                     Intelligent design anyone? no evidence of design and even less of intelligence I’m afraid. But then faith requires no evidence….. or hard questions. Just unquestioning belief in a myth that betrays it’s sources at every turn. Of course history is written by the winners and most cultures are yet to shed the societal superiority of the snake oil representatives of their version of the kingdom of the invisible.

Matt Pidlysny on September 1, 2009, 11:08 AM

Maybe you’re looking too hard, Herbie.  If someone says the fish are all around you, do you look under every rock first to find one, or simply look around?

I like Verisoph’s idea about megalomania.  Some people in this universe DO try too hard to claim creation as their own, and even if they don’t they at least let stupid people breed a behavior around that subject that doesn’t contradict that theory.

Broken telephone is all I can say.

Intelligent design is as simple as understanding one thing:  That life can exist within a shell.  A hive of pet ants in a tank is, in essence, a work of intelligent design.  The tank (For lack of a better word here) simply had to exist, and ants had to be introduced.  From there, a hive is created, and a vast number of consciousnesses make up a grand consciousness of the tank.  Assume the tank is a self sustaining environment for the hive, complete with lush forestry and possibly other inhabitants. 

Here is your intelligent design.  Of course, we have not established our missing link (How did the ants get there, if not for creation?) but it is irrelevant when talking about design, for both are evidence of such a thing.  People who bash the theory are simply ignoring the fact that MOST CHRISTIANS FOLLOW A BIBLE THAT TOOK A SMALL AMOUNT OF BOOKS FROM A VAST AMOUNT OF LITERATURE THAT WAS DENIED ACCEPTANCE BASED ON ONE “PERFECT” CANON OF CHRIST.  THEREFORE, ALL CHRISTIANS ARE IGNORANT AND BLASPHEMOUS.

Now, how do you fare to consider that there is SO much history before the act of Creation?  Could you fathom the reason of your existence if it brought you sorrow?  Would you become machine, like the rest of them?

Bryan Cridlebaugh on September 2, 2009, 1:52 AM

Herbie, what started this… this everything we see here?  Did we choose to do this?  Did something choose for us?  Did it happen by chance?  I’ll tell you I don’t know.  Intelligent design?  I guess we’ll have to wait until we’re intelligent enough to answer that question… to answer it.  If we ever get there? 

In the mean time… nature happens.

sciencesaves on September 2, 2009, 8:00 AM

I think Herbie is pointing out that all observations of the universe indicate cause and effect events (after the big bang), the original cause of the BB is currently unknown, and that’s where the religious now claim their impossible entities reside.  When we determine the cause of the BB, I’m curious as to where they’ll move their deity.

In the past, “living in the sky” was far enough out to be believable, but that no longer makes sense…revealing?

Nature happens…gotta go!  

tim hall on September 2, 2009, 9:10 AM

S.S.

Actually science already knows how the Big Bang most likely came about, from an implosion then going into a compaction of energy causing the explosion. Herbie can explain how this happens. What science has not found is where the very first particle came from within empty space. But the religioso can not tell you where God came from either. Check Mate!

Musycks on September 2, 2009, 6:13 PM

                                                    Who’s mate? Matt has yet to realise there is such a thing as the balance of probabilities (Clyde, are you paying attention?) Just because you can’t rule something out 100%, but only 99.99% recurring, doesn’t mean it’s a reasonable or meaningful assumption. The faithful and the deluded (Hi Matt) are content to spend their penny in that minute percentile, the rest of us are content that reality resides in the biggest bit.

Verisoph sapiens on September 2, 2009, 11:54 PM

when you think about,  ID really is just story telling without empirical evidence, it is unscientific, - now competing with ID explanations is not the role of science. The whole thing is a waste of time.

HerbieP on September 3, 2009, 4:20 AM

As I’ve tried to explain before on BT Bryan we tend to ask inappropriate questions about the origin of the universe the ‘why something rather than nothing?’ question. When you ask where did the ‘big bang’ come from you are asking when does space and time come from and what was there before? Well the ‘from’ and the ‘there’ parts are meaningless because they are ‘space’ questions and the thing we are asking about is a location. The ‘before’ part is also meaningless because we are asking about the origin of time. Instead of asking where and when questions we should be asking ‘what’ questions. What is the nature of space and time.

Theists say that ‘god’ is transcendent, it exists outside of space and time and hence can make space and time. This is just another way of saying that the origin of space time (the misnomered ‘first cause’) cannot be ‘in’ space and time.  However I believe that the answer lies in understanding the nature of spacetime and of nothingness.

The big bang is merely a location in spacetime and spacetime is a four dimensional shape. This is hard for an non-mathematician to conceive but ‘before’ has no more meaning on such a shape than the idea of north of the north pole has on a spherical earth.

Personally I don’t think that god as an answer to ‘why something rather than nothing is satisfactory.

Believers seem to imagine that postulating a transcendent, omnipotent god is sufficient answer to the question ‘why something rather than nothing?’ For me it just makes the question more difficult to answer.

Imagine a perfect being, complete in itself and by definition, without desires. Why would such a being feel the need to create anything? The god answer just poses more questions about the nature of god.

HerbieP on September 3, 2009, 4:23 AM

‘…you are asking when does space and time come…’ sorry that should have been ‘where does space and time come from’. Trust my thinking faster than my typing make a difficult concept even more difficult.

Bryan Cridlebaugh on September 3, 2009, 11:12 PM

HP, in your first paragraph.. I hear what you’re saying.  I’m not sure those other questions are “meaningless.”  Maybe, building blocks?  I don’t know… I don’t think that you think they’re meaningless?  But, that’s besides the point.

Second paragraph, I think I agree.  But, I also think the answer may be close to both of the definitions that you described.  God is just a tainted name anymore?  Misunderstood!?  I better say “I don’t know” to #2 too.

3, I’m a house painting, non-reading, non-mathematician with nothing to prove and a lot to think about.  But, I think #3 is good.

4, I think the idea that life is the result of everything knowing (God or something like that), isn’t that far fetched.  Definatly not so far fetched that it sould be discarded.  I don’t know. 

5, It is no doubt difficult.

6, What else to do?  Real life.

We are here.  Out of eternity, we are alive now.  I’m not a mathematician.  But, I think the chances of us being alive forever are as good as only being alive now for this… blip here and now?  I just think that maybe, somehow, everything’s the way.  I’m not sure we can escape it.  I’m not sure if deep down we’d want to.  No matter how bad it hurts sometimes.  I think and kind of believe that we live this nature ride forever, by choice.

I don’t know.  I’m really just baring my soul or sharing my thoughts or whatever you want to call it.  You guys have me thinking all day.  That’s a good thing?

Bryan Cridlebaugh on September 3, 2009, 11:19 PM

MR, I’m closer to 50/50 than I am .01%.  and yes I’m paying attention… I think.

Bryan Cridlebaugh on September 5, 2009, 1:39 AM

“What is the nature of space and time?”  Is that the question?… Sounds good. 

I’ll give it a go…

Are space and time a given no matter what?  Now is now.  Time is somewhat based on observing the speed of light?  Space is the observation.. it’s the feelings/thoughts that take time to get to us?  I don’t know, but I think these are some darn good barbeque chips.. 

Sometimes I don’t feel that my responses are very good, but I try.  Sometimes I’m just try to keep it going.. or something like that.

“the nature of space and time”  damn, man.  That’s tough..!

Love ya all. 

HerbieP on September 5, 2009, 3:58 AM

Personally Bryan I am fairly convinced that the ‘flow’ of time is a phenomenon of consciousness rather than of the physical world. Physics takes a rather mixed approach to time in Minkowski spacetime (the basis for general relativity) spacetime is concieved of as a fabric of ‘events’. Time is a dimension no diffrent to the spatial ones. However in much of other physics time is treated much as we consciously experience it, as a linear flow from past to future conserving total energy and momentum.

 Minkowski space can be described by a totally consistant mathematics of symultaneous ‘moments’ and this can be compatably with non-time dependent quantum states. In short no flow of time. Consciousness is what strings together these moments much as a movie gives the notion of continuity by stringing together frames.

tim hall on September 5, 2009, 10:41 AM

Herbie, Can you explain exactly what the difference is in earths orbiting time and space-time?

Bryan Cridlebaugh on September 5, 2009, 12:46 PM

That’s good stuff. 

tim hall on September 5, 2009, 6:11 PM

Earth’s orbiting time can be seen as frames. A space shuttle to the space station and back can be seen as frames. Our time as we know it is based on orbits and rotation of the earth and light travel. What is time based on in space-time? Or should it even be called time?

HerbieP on September 6, 2009, 5:25 AM

I’m not quite sure what you are saying Tim. Spacetime is not a measure of time. Einstein’s general theory of relativity conceives space and time as a unified fabric that is non-Euclidean in nature. Minkowski had postulated spacetime as a fabric defined by ‘events’. Time does not ‘flow’ in such a model, each event has co-ordinates relative to other events. One of the co-ordinates is along a time axis.

General relativity postulates that this spacetime fabic is shaped by the matter it contains. The actual shape is determined by a kind of mathematics that uses Ricci tensors. The net result is that neither space nor time is linear in the presence of matter and since ‘events’ only take place in the presence of matter, the dimensions of the universe are always curved. On a small scale, at low velocities, away from strong graviational fields, the effects are slight. On a large scale, even solar system sized, the effects of gravity upon space and time become measurable. The earth is often thought of as rolling in a ‘dent’ in spacetime created by the sun’s gravitational field, just as the moon rolls in a dent created by the Earth’s gravitational field. We stand on the earth because we are settled in the earth’s dent in the fabric. Singularities such as ‘black holes’ are rather akin to holes punched in the stretched fabric of spacetime.

Because spacetime is a four dimensional manifold we can’t actually model it in our minds. Most thought models comprise of a two-dimesional streched rubber sheet with cosmic bodies like billard balls rolling around in grooves in the sheet and causing their own grooves by their weight pressing the sheet down. However this is misleading because what is being shaped is a four dimensional universe and what is being distorted are the measurements of space and time.

Our notion of the ‘flow’ of time is not consistent with this model. Time would be percieved as flowing at different rates in different locations. Observers in diffrent locations see different events as being symultaneous. The tick of a clock in one place may not accord with the tick of a clock in another.  

tim hall on September 6, 2009, 8:04 AM

So time is not relative from one event to another. = no time. But time is only relative to the progress of a particular event? Can Ricci tensors really determine the shape? If matter is moving on an axis relative to other matter, then we can’t give spacetime a shape? If we measure light years from one star to another along an axis, we have created a shape. But if they are moving the shape changes. The same goes for galaxies. I don’t understand. If matter is running into each other and imploding and exploding how can spacetime ever have a defined shape?

HerbieP on September 6, 2009, 3:06 PM

Events are point locations in spacetime they don’t ‘progress’. An event simply defines a point in spacetime, i.e. it has four co-ordinates. the way these points relate to each other is determined by Ricci tensors that take into account the strength of the gravitational field. You are correct that spacetime is dynamic and constantly changes shape. Spacetime is also constantly being created by the expanding universe. Not only are galaxy clusters moving away from each other but they are stretching the fabric of spacetime as they do so. Thus the universe can expand faster than the speed of light. That is how it can be 93 billion light years across even though it is only 13 billion years since the big bang. There is no limit on how fast the space that light is traversing can expand.

Matt Pidlysny on September 8, 2009, 7:02 PM

“Nature happens…gotta go!”

That’s where nature happened.