how can we best explain our existence ?

[Dywyddyr]

well your going to ask me for my souces and i wont beable to give you any as this is my opinion nothing more

Ah, my apologies. I took your user name to mean something along the lines of "Science Freak". Obviously I was wrong. You're not a "science fan", nor, apparently, particularly bothered about it.

correct me if im wrong but if that was true that would mean the big bang centered on us which i dont think is true.

You're wrong.
Any where you are in the universe can be regarded as the "centre", inasmuch as everything is expanding away from everything else. We aren't in any particularly privileged position with regard to that.

[sifreak21]

Ah, my apologies. I took your user name to mean something along the lines of "Science Freak". Obviously I was wrong. You're not a "science fan", nor, apparently, particularly bothered about it.


You're wrong.
Any where you are in the universe can be regarded as the "centre", inasmuch as everything is expanding away from everything else. We aren't in any particularly privileged position with regard to that.

if the explosion is here . u E a

u should be moving away from e slower than e is moving away from a

i do love science but when it comes to the universe its simply to big for me to comprehend

[sifreak21]

It is expanding uniformly, and accelerating. It's not like a bomb, where the initial force is the only force.

ok well if its accelerating how so? a object that is in motion will stay in motion "at the same speed" unless a force is applied if its accelerating what force is accelerating it?

[spidergoat]

Scientists suspect the repulsive effects come from dark matter.

[Dywyddyr]

if the explosion is here . u E a
u should be moving away from e slower than e is moving away from a

As Spidergoat has already said: it wasn't an "explosion" :the Big Bang was a uniform expansion of space, not an explosion in space.

i do love science but when it comes to the universe its simply to big for me to comprehend

You claim to love science yet decide it must be wrong (on certain aspects at least) because you can't understand it. You'd rather stick with your opinion. That's hardly, um, scientific.

[sifreak21]

Scientists suspect the repulsive effects come from dark matter.

have i think we have created anti matter but whenever it comes into contact with matter i just explodes.. why dont we ever detect these explosions

[sifreak21]

As Spidergoat has already said: it wasn't an "explosion" :the Big Bang was a uniform expansion of space, not an explosion in space.

ok if it was a uniform expansion where did all of that matter comefrom? and where did all of the anti matter come from? and where is it all now?

You claim to love science yet decide it must be wrong (on certain aspects at least) because you can't understand it. You'd rather stick with your opinion. That's hardly, um, scientific.

so i cant have my own opinion even if it doesnt go along with science? since i have my own ideas and opinions i cant love science? that makes sence.. no i cant understand it neither can anyone really we know everything is moving away from itself which means ther has to be an end to the universe or a leading edge of it

[Dywyddyr]

have i think we have created anti matter but whenever it comes into contact with matter i just explodes.. why dont we ever detect these explosions

Anti matter is not dark matter.

ok if it was a uniform expansion where did all of that matter comefrom?

Well that's the 64 million dollar question - how did it start?
And see above for anti-matter.

so i cant have my own opinion even if it doesnt go along with science? since i have my own ideas and opinions i cant love science? that makes sence.

You miss the point.
If you prefer your unsupported opinion - one that contradicts the science that does have evidence then THAT is the unscientific bit.
You're ignoring the science you claim to love in favour of a personal, unsupported viewpoint.

[sifreak21]

Anti matter is not dark matter.

i dont believe we have evidence of dark matter so whos to say it does exsist at all? we have pictures of what they think is dark matter but no evidence of it to my knowledge

You miss the point.
If you prefer your unsupported opinion - one that contradicts the science that does have evidence then THAT is the unscientific bit.
You're ignoring the science you claim to love in favour of a personal, unsupported viewpoint.

I never once said i was right. i stated my opinion and i said i dont necessarily believe the big bang theory i never said i flat out didnt. the reason i dont necessarily believe it is what you stated and i stated before where did all the matter come from in the first place and if this was that first ball of matter ( ) what is here -> o

so please dont twist what i say i never said i didnt i said i dont necessarily believe it.

and thats my opinion i never once said or tried to proclaim that i was right at this point im open to everything expecially the unknown thats why i love science we explore the unknown trying to figure it out and because i establish my own opinion on it does not mean i dont love science its looking at it with a "what if" point of view

[spidergoat]

Matter need not have come from anywhere because it's a balance of matter/energy and gravitational potential energy. They add up to zero (not exactly, but for all practical purposes so).

[sifreak21]

Matter need not have come from anywhere because it's a balance of matter/energy and gravitational potential energy. They add up to zero (not exactly, but for all practical purposes so).

so matter can just appear? if so why havent we sceen any since the time of the big bang? that is all beyond me i would have to research it

[spidergoat]

We have.

According to present-day understanding of what is called the vacuum state or the quantum vacuum, it is "by no means a simple empty space", and again: "it is a mistake to think of any physical vacuum as some absolutely empty void." According to quantum mechanics, the vacuum state is not truly empty but instead contains fleeting electromagnetic waves and particles that pop into and out of existence..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_state

[Dywyddyr]

i dont believe we have evidence of dark matter so whos to say it does exsist at all? we have pictures of what they think is dark matter but no evidence of it to my knowledge

Another example of you putting your opinion over the science.

I never once said i was right.

It doesn't matter that you "didn't claim your opinion was right": you have summarily dismissed the science by having an opinion that runs counter to the science and ignores the evidence for that science.

[lightgigantic]

lg,

Because in this case smoke cannot be an eternal entity, it is the product of fire and is transient, but more importantly it experiences a necessary time lag requiring the fire to create it, i.e. it had/has beginning(s) and hence cannot by definition be eternal.

I'm not sure you understand the analogy. If (and yes, it is a big "if") we had an eternal fire (ie a fire that has always existed) at what point in time would you expect smoke, heat and light to c0ome on the scene?

I did not imply anything like that.

I think the issue is simple. If something is eternal it cannot be dependent or contingent on anything else. ANY dependency or contingent condition necessarily implies a beginning and hence rules out its status of eternal. Anything that can be classed as eternal must be independent and self-sustaining, otherwise it becomes simply a by-product of another entity.

this is just a fancy way of saying that nothing can be eternal because it would, by necessity, defy our common understandings of the role of cause and effect in the universe

Or put another way any dependent/contingent condition requires at least a moment of time to propagate, i.e. there is a start point which excludes the classification of eternal.

so if something doesn't have a starting point (ie, something that is eternal) at what point would you expect the qualities, characteristics and potencies of it to manifest?

If one were to argue that the two entities existed in parallel/simultaneously and are both eternal then that must necessarily rule out any dependencies between them. i.e. if the existence of "B" is dependent on the existence of "A" then by necessity "A" must precede "B", in which case "B" cannot be eternal (it came later - had a beginning).

This also doesn't explain the paradox of a said object being eternal and its qualities coming on the scene sometime down the track

So if the universe is eternal then it must be self-sustaining and cannot be contingent/dependent on anything else.

By your logic the universe cannot be eternal since whatever characteristics it has that enables it to retain a constant quality are not eternal


In short there is a oneness and difference between an object and potency (call acintya bedabeda tattva in sanskrit). IOW the very moment you have fire is the same moment that you have heat, light and smoke, even though heat, light and smoke are not technically fire.

[Pit]

on another note dwy. reason i dont necessarily believe in the big bang is if that is thru were did all that matter come from before the big bang? the size of that "ball" would be in comprehendably big.

Not exactly. The universe was smaller than a proton. Since there wan't anywhere else for energy-matter to be, it condensed to a very small space.

well your going to ask me for my souces and i wont beable to give you any as this is my opinion nothing more.. the universe is soo big and everything in the universe is moving one way or another the evidence we have for the big bang at the moment is everything seems to be moving away from us but on 2 1 axis and closer to us on the other 2.. correct me if im wrong but if that was true that would mean the big bang centered on us which i dont think is true.

No. To retell an old example, think of a raisin bread dough in the oven.
At first, all the raisin will be very near each other. Then as the dough rises and expands, the raisins move farther apart. Each raisin might see all other raisins moving away from each other; however, no raisin is the center because all raisins are moving.

we dont know if our galaxy is the universe zoom in to 1 group of red blue and green pixils on your computer 1 of thoes colors is what we know or have explored. hell we dont even have but 5% of our oceans uncovered so if we dont even know all of the animals on our extremely small planet in the grand scope of things i dont have that much faith that scientist can tell us how everything in exsistance on this world and off was created

You're treating science as if it is one entity. Rather, it is many distinct subjects about the natural world.

if everything is expanding and as the physics of an explosion
on one side of the earth should be expanding faster than another

The universe is expanding, not the amount of energy-matter in it.

[Cris]

lg,

If (and yes, it is a big "if") we had an eternal fire (ie a fire that has always existed) at what point in time would you expect smoke, heat and light to c0ome on the scene?

In the usual order if they are the same entity, but in your analogy you are making them seperate, i.e. eternal fire with eternal smoke being contingent on the fire. What I am saying is that is impossible. Rather, the smoke is merely a product of the fire, contingent yes, but not a separate eternal entity.

this is just a fancy way of saying that nothing can be eternal because it would, by necessity, defy our common understandings of the role of cause and effect in the universe

Gee, I cannot understand how you repeatedly twist everything I say into something entirely different. I have not said anything like that at all. It is given that something eternal must exist otherwise we could not be here. If something is the effect of a cause then the cause must precede the effect. In our discussion the contingent entity is the effect. We agreed that something eternal cannot have a cause/beginning and in this example clearly cannot be an effect.

Following from that we can see that a contingent entity cannot be eternal.

so if something doesn't have a starting point (ie, something that is eternal) at what point would you expect the qualities, characteristics and potencies of it to manifest?

I really don't care and it is not relevant to the issue. The issue is the relationship between two eternal entities and my assertion that one of them cannot be contingent on the other.

This also doesn't explain the paradox of a said object being eternal and its qualities coming on the scene sometime down the track

Not surprising since that isn't the issue in hand.

“
So if the universe is eternal then it must be self-sustaining and cannot be contingent/dependent on anything else.
”
By your logic the universe cannot be eternal since whatever characteristics it has that enables it to retain a constant quality are not eternal

You are way off the point again. The properties and characteristics of the entity are what comprise the entity, and the entity we are discussing is eternal, a black box concept. I am not discussing the inside of the black box. Seperate to this black box we can consider other enternal black boxes.

In your analogy eternal fire is an eternal black box and smoke is another eternal black box. My entire point is to show that that is incorrect. The smoke is merely a characteristic/property of the fire black box and not a seperate entity, and in this case the smoke is contingent on the fire.

..the very moment you have fire is the same moment that you have heat, light and smoke, even though heat, light and smoke are not technically fire.

No most definitely NOT. There is very clearly a cause and effect relationship between the effects, i.e. there is dictinct moments between cause and effects ensuring that the effects cannot be considered eternal, they are merely resultant attributes of the phenomenon.

Returning to your original statement:

"The universe is eternal and is contingent on another eternal element (much like, supposing we had an eternal fire, it would also have eternal smoke ... which of course would be contingent on the fire) "

Here the smoke cannot be eternal since it is an effect of the fire or a characteristc of the fire, it is clearly contingent but not seperate.

If the universe is eternal, and we have nothing to indicate it is not since we are here, then it cannot be the effect of another eternal entity or contingent upon it since an effect cannot be eternal.

But what is the "other eternal element" that you have not described and why is it necessary if the universe is already eternal?

[jayleew]

Yes it does. If there was a point where nothing existed then there would have been nothing to provide a cause and we couldn't be here.

Therefore it necessarily follows that something has ALWAYS existed. And since we know the universe exists and we have no evidence that gods are possible then an infinite universe is the primary candidate.

Introducing a god concept as a cause of the universe because of the concept that everything must have a cause is a purely redundant step since now we have the problem of what is the cause of such a god. If the answer is that the god doesn't require a cause then that defeats the argument that everything must have a cause and we can return to the original issue - what caused the universe - well if not everything needs a cause then an infinite universe again becomes the primary candidate.

Cris, this all reasonable. I am just not comfortable with either option.

Are you?

It is hard not to think of cause and effect and to use Occam's Razor to draw out what is reasonable.

It's almost as if we need to just take this on faith for now because it is a reasonable argument that the universe always existed. Just doesn't give that warm fuzzy feeling.
So, are we left with having faith in a reasonable argument or faith in an unreasonable created universe? Does anyone have a reasonable argument of creation?

[lightgigantic]

lg,

In the usual order if they are the same entity, but in your analogy you are making them seperate, i.e. eternal fire with eternal smoke being contingent on the fire. What I am saying is that is impossible. Rather, the smoke is merely a product of the fire, contingent yes, but not a separate eternal entity.

huh?
feel free to indicate anything that doesn't possess a relationship of oneness and difference with its potencies/characteristics ...
(of course you can't since the very act of identifying anything is the act of attributing significance to its potencies/characteristics)

Gee, I cannot understand how you repeatedly twist everything I say into something entirely different. I have not said anything like that at all. It is given that something eternal must exist otherwise we could not be here. If something is the effect of a cause then the cause must precede the effect. In our discussion the contingent entity is the effect. We agreed that something eternal cannot have a cause/beginning and in this example clearly cannot be an effect.

Its quite simple
If you are saying that the possession of (any) characteristics/potencies disqualifies a given thing from being eternal, you are effectively saying that nothing can be eternal since all things possess characteristics/potencies.

IOW if an eternal thing didn't have some sort of potency, it could not even be identified ... much less assume a role at the top of a chain of cause and effect (after all, in the absence of potencies, what could possibly cause an effect?)

Following from that we can see that a contingent entity cannot be eternal.

Following this, you are stating that an eternal thing cannot have any constant contingent potencies ... which makes it a non-object

I really don't care and it is not relevant to the issue. The issue is the relationship between two eternal entities and my assertion that one of them cannot be contingent on the other.

Its completely relevant to the topic. I am genuinely surprised that you can't comprehend that the identification of any object/entity requires that there be some contingent potency ..... what to speak of your claiming that such a relationship of contingency is impossible, it is integral to the act of any object/entity being identified. The fact that an object is given or claimed to be eternal doesn't change this absolute requirement of identification/existence.

Not surprising since that isn't the issue in hand.

its precisely what you are trying to clarify a few posts down

Or put another way any dependent/contingent condition requires at least a moment of time to propagate, i.e. there is a start point which excludes the classification of eternal.

You are way off the point again. The properties and characteristics of the entity are what comprise the entity, and the entity we are discussing is eternal, a black box concept. I am not discussing the inside of the black box. Seperate to this black box we can consider other enternal black boxes.

fine
let's talk of an eternal black box
would you expect blackness and being box shaped to be eternal contingent qualities of it?

In your analogy eternal fire is an eternal black box and smoke is another eternal black box. My entire point is to show that that is incorrect. The smoke is merely a characteristic/property of the fire black box and not a seperate entity, and in this case the smoke is contingent on the fire.

If you had a fire that didn't emanate smoke heat and light you wouldn't have a fire to begin with (Maybe it would be an eternal fire like visualization or something) ... much like if you had an eternal black box that was yellow and circular shaped, you would have something other than an eternal black box.

No most definitely NOT. There is very clearly a cause and effect relationship between the effects, i.e. there is dictinct moments between cause and effects ensuring that the effects cannot be considered eternal, they are merely resultant attributes of the phenomenon.

Returning to your original statement:

Here the smoke cannot be eternal since it is an effect of the fire or a characteristc of the fire, it is clearly contingent but not seperate.

the very act of labeling something "contingent" means it doesn't enjoy a relationship of separation

If the universe is eternal, and we have nothing to indicate it is not since we are here, then it cannot be the effect of another eternal entity or contingent upon it since an effect cannot be eternal.

this paragraph doesn't even begin to make sense.
Its not clear how calling upon the yard stick of our own existence (at least from the reductionist school that you no doubt champion the cause for) is sufficient to indicate that there is nothing to indicate that the universe is not eternal ..... and even less how this rules out the universe being contingent on any greater cause

But what is the "other eternal element" that you have not described and why is it necessary if the universe is already eternal?

In the same way that an analysis of smoke is not sufficient to draw all the parralells met by the existence of fire (IOW an analysis of smoke indicates that it is contingent on a greater cause .... even though both the smoke and the greater cause participate in an identical temporal sphere - ie where one exists, you find the other)

[Medicine*Woman]

*************
M*W: We best can explain our existence, because we are here.

[lightgigantic]

*************
M*W: We best can explain our existence, because we are here.

oh really?
So when you say hello to someone, what are you actually addressing?
Their eyebrows?
Their big toe?