This is why I thought I was an atheist when I was a freshman in college. I tried very hard to pretend that it was no more satisfying to say "God created the universe" than it was to say "the universe just is". But I wasn't being honest with myself. Admitting to myself, over the course of the next couple years, that I truly did believe that God existed and that no amount of logic would be able to conclusively convince me otherwise, made it possible for me to take important leaps of faith later on. I find the "big questions" terrifying in the context of a godless universe. If there's no purpose to any of this, no chance at discovering the answer to some of these mysteries after life ends, and no continuance of consciousness (meaning that death truly is the end of your existence), I find it very hard to understand why life would be worth living. It does boggle the mind, though. How was any of this created? Where did God come from? If there's not a God (I believe there is, but just for exploration's sake), how did the universe come into existence? I think the main problem we have is that most everything in our experience has finite properties. A beginning. An end. It's impossible for me to comprehend an answer such as "God has always been", or the companion scientific explanation of the creation of the cosmos. But chicks dig me more than Steven Hawking, so take that, Braniac.
On the issue of will the universe collapse back on itself, we are so far from having all the info and you read so many different things it's hard to know what to think. I mean some things say not only is it expanding, but the expansion is increasing (possibly allowing for Einstein's fudge factor constant to be true), others say the expansion is slowing and we will have a Big Crunch, and then others say it is slowing, but not fast enough and will go forever. My own thought is there must be enough matter somewhere to cause it to all come back together eventually. It would just seem weird for the Big Bang to have started without there being enough matter for all the physics to work out to it all coming back together. But the way it looks now that won't happen. As for the whole "what does the universe expand into question" I don't have a good memory of the stuff I've read but it seems the whole explanation is that our universe's expansion is really just the space-time continuum expanding. Essentially because our universe is governed by our space-time, it is space-time expanding that is the universe expanding. Since we know nothing outside of our space-time, there is nothing on the "other side" of it (even though it seems like something must be there to expand into). That's just how I remember it from the few pages of "A Brief History of Time" that I read. DoD and others can probably do a better job on that. Also in that Time article I think it says that even protons will eventually decay after 10^36 years. I thought that was cool. And even better was that black holes could essentially decay and just kind of vanish. I don't know if it was because of Hawking radiation or whatever, but that just seemed fascinating. Oh and in honor of my 333T prof who made us take a grammar test today, I hope there was a whole ****load of grammatical mistakes in what I just typed. Making us know who and whom when it wasn't even in the book, what a bunch of ****.
Not to rag on you specifically Kagy, but I really hate it when people defend religion by saying "otherwise life has no purpose." I tell you what, my life purpose is to see smiles on those I love and cherish. I believe that joy is better than pain and I try to act in a manner consistent with that. I don't need a diety to tell me that that's what I should do, I give my own life purpose.
In answer to this question, it does not make a sound. In order to have sound, you need something to produce it, a way for it to travel and a receptor. The tree will still produce sound waves, but no sound, since there is no receptor.
To those who are saying I'm wrong... you all suck! (I knew I was doomed when R0ckets03 agreed with me.) Seriously, though, although it was my favorite topic of reading as a kid, I haven't followed physics/astrophysics in about 10 years, so I'm probably off. I think I need to read more on the subject before I open my trap again. The concept of lack of mass restricting future contraction is interesting, though... time to hit some websites and books!
If nothing happand then we wouldn't be here you dumb ****s! Besides we here because Allah put us here
Well, notice that I said "I find the big questions terrifying in the context of a godless universe" (emphasis added). I didn't say life has no purpose, just that I personally couldn't find a satisfactory one without the existence of God. In other words, I can accept the idea that there's a purpose to life if we were created by God (even an absentee creator). But I can't accept the same if life is an accident. You're straying way off from what I was talking about. My issue with the concept of a godless universe is what happens after you die. Not how you live your life. I'm talking about the existence of God as an answer to how and why the universe came to be, as well as the after-life. I'm not talking at all about religion, to which your remark that you "don't need a diety to tell me that that's what I should do" seems better suited. You say you give life your own purpose. That's fine if it works for you. For me, the idea that I could be born in a universe that came to exist as a cosmic accident, develop consciousness, and then die and have that consciousness permanently eliminated just doesn't work. Part of that is the traditional human angst over death, obviously. But part of it is a belief that human spirit and intelligence and consciousness are such beautiful things that they cannot possibly exist simply as the result of a galactic stroke of luck.
Thx guys, except azarde I need to jog the mind every now and then. Mrs. Jb, Life within our solar system could be from one source. I've been following it somewhat. My problem with the explanation of life is that I've never believed in spontaneous generation of it. Our timespace doesn't make sense to me since there is always something that happens before something else. What happened before the big bang? what caused the big bang? I believe there is an abolute time zero just like there is an absolute zero temperature. Something, dimension, person, whatever exists outside of time and space. I am not smart enough to comprehend what soemthing like this would be so I believe in God.
F4P brought up an interesting notion: that the universe is not only expanding, but that the rate of expansion is growing (matter is actually accellerating outwards, when relativity says it should be slowing). To my knowledge, this has not been explained yet. I suspect that the speed of light is not actually constant, but actually changes over great distances. The phenomenon of growing expansion rate is measured by light reception, and this would explain that... But it would also throw generally accepted theories of relativity out the window. That's fine. Relativity works for everyday applications. But I suspect that quantum physics will someday tell us that its validity is illusory... Just as it has proven cause-effect dynamics illusory. Hell, if a photon can exist in two places at once, anything can happen. On life, I would be extremely shocked to find that our planet is the only one to house it. Or even the only one to house intelligent life. It is most likely all over the place - the universe is probably full of life. Not necessarily carbon-based or oxygen-consuming types either.
Treeman, I limited life earlier to carbon and other elements that can bond to atleast three elements because I lack the imagination to see how life could exist if it couldn't store information in a chemical chain in a similar fashion to our DNA. If life does exist on other planets, I doubt its all carbon based, but do believe it will be based off a chemical or multiple chemical in its family or adjacent family. Carbon based life probably is the simplists to make since it has two bonds free for possible data storage.
That is probably correct, but I wouldn't rule out non-carbon based forms. There's alot we don't know. Such forms would probably be unable to evolve to a multicellular level, and we probably wouldn't even recognize it as life (it might not even be cellular in structure). But it might be there nonetheless... I'd tend to agree that carbon-based forms would be the most common/likely to evolve/survive. DNA in some form or other is probably all over the place. IMHO, of course... I'll bet we find some even in our own solar system. Maybe all over the solar system. If there's any merit to the genetic transfer theories involving comets and other solar bodies, then life could well exist in a variety of forms throughout the solar system. Extremely unlikely that any of it could be classified as intelligent (although who knows how deep Europa's oceans are?), but it would certainly change a great many people's perspectives to find that it was a common occurrance, and not a rare or unique one.
Of course, it could just be ego stroking too. Personally, I believe in a higher power and intellegence but what that is or how it works, IMO, goes beyond pretty much anything we could possibly fathom. It doens't mean we should stop looking, though.
This is a totally random question, but I also find it intriguing to wonder about our specific evolution. I mean, assuming dinosaurs never went extint, do you nonetheless think some more intelligent species would have evolved and they'd be writing questions on computers wondering about this stuff right now instead of us?
Had the dinosaurs never gone extinct, your soul would be wearing a scaly (or feathery) coat right now. And your keyboard would probably look different. I suspect that we might be arguing about different things, though. I think those talons would puncture a basketball, and everyone would want their team to be called the "Raptors"... I don't think it would be an understatement to say that the extinction of the dinosaurs was the best thing that ever happened to humankind. Or Ratkind. Whatever you want to call it.
Are you mocking me?!? Or is the speed of light really not a constant? Evidence? (I believe that it isn't, I just haven't seen any evidence - aside from the rate acceleration findings - that speak to that end. If you've got some other evidence, cough it up)
My proof would be rainbows and magnifying glasses. The speed of light in a vacuum is constant. The speed of light through things such as air and water is slower than in a vacuum. Now if you're talking about the speed of light in a vacuum... then I "c" what you mean.
