There is a point where science can no longer explain why things are the way they are. Sure, you could go on and on about the make up of an atom, the existence of space-time, etc. But sooner or later, science will fail to answer the final question - why does any of this stuff exist at all? What put it there and why? What caused the big bang? All very deep thoughts that never may be answered. But I think there has to be something to make the laws of physics. Just wondering if anyone has anything to add to my most mind baffeling question.

What put it there and why?
God because He wanted to.
Just a thought :D

Welcome to sciforums!!!

Another alternative: Perhaps there is no reason for the existence of everything. Maybe everything just kinda happened unplanned.

May be there is a reason our puny brain does not understand....living only in a 4D world inside a 5D Universe...

My father has an interesting theory on why the world is continuing this way. He is a Pentecostal christian. He told me that his theory was that that when the fallen angels were sent down into hell, "God", lost a part of himself. When "saved" people die, and "go to heaven(or whatever you want to call it)", God is, in a way, getting back that part that was lost. When it is all "back together", then that is when the rapture will take place. Then again that is just a theory of his. It does interest me though.

To say that god created the universe is not to answer the question. It only renames it. What made god? A higher god perhaps? But then what made this higher god? Following this hierarchy, how could the nth god spring from nothingness?

Of course you could simply imagine that the first god always was and ever will be. That would dispense with the need for the ascending series of gods. But I might define the universe in exactly the same terms by saying that it always was and always will be. Still, it's not quite good enough to define one's way out of a question, is it?

"The practice of naming something that is not understood is one of our oldest psychological tricks to hoodwink ourselves into believing that we have made the unknown familiar." The Splendid Feast Of Reason, S.J. Singer

I don't pretend to be able to answer your question. But for the moment I'd rather have no answer than a wrong answer. Physics is not a religion. It's a struggle to understand the world in human terms, that is emotionally and rationally. Two favorite quotes;

"Religion is a magic device for turning unanswerable questions into unquestionable answers." Art Gecko

"Science is the refusal to believe on the basis of hope." Carrie Snow

In the end man might become extinct without ever having been able to answer the fundamental question concerning his being. On the other hand the answer might come to us this very year. But I'm confident of one thing: The probability of finding the true answer is nearly zero if we all merely resign ourselves to accepting myth as the ultimate answer.

I consume in quantity the many books for laymen appearing on the subject of cosmology. You might take a look at the books by John Gribbin such as, In Search of Schrodinger's Cat : Quantum Physics and Reality. If you are in a skeptical mood, try John Horgan's, The End Of Science. It's a critical overview of many of the ideas being discussed today. I'm only beginning to read Martin Ree's book titled, Our Cosmic Habitat. I'm also very curious what Stephen Wolfram's new book titled, A New Kind Of Science will have to say when it finally (after 10 years of effort) appears.

The ideas discussed in these books are simply brilliant. Perhaps some of them are also correct. Don't forget that well over 95% of our Homo sapien history is preliterate. Early man was only capable of primitive religious speculation. Science can do so much better today. It's been a long struggle for man to pull himself out of the muck and begin to piece together his observations into coherent theories. Please don't give up and fall back into the muck by accepting a religious explanation. We owe it to ourselves to expect better from our magnificent brains.

As Michael Shermer pointed out in the new issue of Scientific American (Jan 02, p33);

"It took 10,000 years to get from the dawn of civilization to the airplane, but just 66 years to get from powered flight to a lunar landing."

Science and technology are moving at an incredible speed. If only human morality could progress at a fraction of this rate we might have a real reason to celebrate! Still, don't you agree that it's an incredibly interesting time to be alive?

Michael

Originally posted by kinamic
My father has an interesting theory on why the world is continuing this way. He is a Pentecostal christian. He told me that his theory was that that when the fallen angels were sent down into hell, "God", lost a part of himself. When "saved" people die, and "go to heaven(or whatever you want to call it)", God is, in a way, getting back that part that was lost. When it is all "back together", then that is when the rapture will take place. Then again that is just a theory of his. It does interest me though.

Who says he is not right? I certainly can not. His theory is as good as any. As long as you are happy and obeying your Ten Commandments (which is, BTW, is as good a law as any) - DONT WORRY, BE HAPPY....let the chips fall where they may....

When in doubt, always go to the source (in this case the Ten Commandments). Forget about people trying to modify and expand the rules by making up new books.

The fact that I exist is ample reason for the existence of all stuff.

Every other possible explanation is sheer speculation.

Greetings to all.
This is my first post on this forum. I have been lurking for a couple of weeks. You all have some interesting discussions.

I was raised to be extremely religious in a fundamental Christian kind of way. Seventh Day Adventist if any of you are familiar with it. By the time I was a teenager I was having some serious doubts. Since that time I have played around with religious ideas looking for something that reconciles our apparantly inherent need for a God with what I see around me.

One thing that ocurred to me is that an eternity of anything would be hell. Boredom would drive anyone and anything insane in that timeframe.

Since God is eternal and supposedly has existed for an eternity already it stands to reason that that entity would be extremely bored. Especially when you consider that omnipotence takes the challenge out of everything. So what is the solution:

Create a universe. Then populate it with yourself or bits of yourself that have been made to forget what they are. this way you get a bit of relief from the boredom. Limit your power and knowlege within the individual avatars and you also get some interesting insights into your own creation.

Just some heresy I thought I'd throw out here to get some responses.

Stef 730,

Hi and welcome to sciforums.

There is a point where science can no longer explain why things are the way they are. That’s a big assertion and unsupported.

Science is, "the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena."

Science always strives to answer ‘why’. All the time there are unanswered questions and there is intelligent life that wants the answers then the only limit to science is when all the answers have been satisfied.

If whatever intelligence is in existence lacks the ingenuity to find the answers then that intelligence will evolve until it can. Assuming the universe is infinite then at some point all answers will be found. The implication is that such intelligence will grow and expand until it too has infinite proportions so that it can be aware of everything. Perhaps this has already happened or has happened many times. This indicates the possible existence or potential eventual existence of intelligence with godlike abilities. If we also assume that an understanding of time and an ability to manipulate time must also be within the grasp of this intelligence then that implies that a god already exists, depending on how you wish to perceive time. But note that such an entity is not a creator of the universe.

But I think there has to be something to make the laws of physics. No that doesn’t follow.

The quantum theory of gravity has opened up a new possibility, in which there would be no boundary to space-time and so there would be no need to specify the behavior at the boundary. There would be no singularities at which the laws of science broke down and no edge of space-time at which one would have to appeal to God or some new law to set the boundary conditions for space-time. One could say: 'The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary.' The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE. Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam, 1988), p. 136.

There is no need to have a reason for the existence of everything if there are no boundaries.

Cris

Very interresting, Cris. I have been a big fan of Stephen Hawking and some of his theories. For example, his theories of 'baby universes' around our own is one i am particulary interested in. Though i am still a bit confused on it though. Was wondering if you had anything to add. Also i wanted to say that i really was just kinda thinking out loud to myself when i posted this thread. I wasn't stating or asserting anything.

Stef 730,

Sorry I didn’t mean to sound confrontational. You simply offered me a soapbox and I took off.

Try this link. This should point you at the current Alan Guth (MIT) theory on infinite big bangs. This is my favored infinite universe theory to date.

Stephan Hawkings Mysteries (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/hawking/mysteries/html/guth_1.html)

Take care
Cris

PS. Be careful with those load thoughts.:D

<b>chipsanddust</b>, welcome to sciforums! Glad you posted. Great post, BTW.

I've also often thought that an eternity of anything, be it sex or singing, would be downright ingratiating. An essay by Kirkegaard, titled <i>The Unhappiest One</i>, basically said that to go on living forever would be a form of punishment; eventually the dead would like to one day die.

To build upon what you've said, I've wondered that if there was a God, then it must be incredibly bored. Perhaps this God would be at least eons ahead of anyone on this planet intellectually, probably having no equal. And if there were an equal for God, then Satan would fill that role. Perhaps every few billennia, God and Satan exchange roles and try out how the other half lives, as you say, out of sheer boredom. There was short story from <i>Skeleton Crew</i> (I think) by S. King about a teleportation device. Just like in <i>The Fly</i>, you stepped in one portal and a nanosecond later or so out you popped from the other one. The catch, according to the story, was that you had to remain unconscious else you would die, since various experiments with animals proved that point. One day, however, this kid didn't swallow his pills to go to sleep and went through wide awake. When he came out a second later, he was "crazier than a shit-house rat" because to him the time was an eternity. Long point, but it applies to your comment.

And your point about populating the universe with parts of yourself sounds interesting as well. The best way to stave off boredom is to entirely forget that you're bored. Probably the only way to do that is to get rid of the parts of yourself that are boring you. Thus, redistributing various parts of the consciousness around the universe would enable God/Satan to stave off boredom as well as find new ways to evolve.

Still, being a God would be a thankless task. Never a blessing. To go on and on without the means to die would be an eternal hell. Living for a good thousand or so years wouldn't be that bad, but eventually you'd figure at least most would want to just cease to exist.

Well, thanks for that topic! You got me going for a bit there.

prag

the reason for everything is to discover everything

prety big claim, aint it
and even if that is not the reason, then certainly a good goal to achieve. Only one problem. As I understand if we live in infinitive universe, then there would be infinite things to discover. which is not possible
and I think tht we would get very bored, if we discovered everything, which is impossible. But if you place borders in infinity, then it could be donne. Let's say everything in two dimmensional world, or even three dimensional in our galaxy.


I like the theory , where our universe has boundries in certain dimensions. There are many universes, yust like galaxies in our universe. But I dare not to propose, what is beyond that.
[i duno if there is a theory like tht, made it myself, but with all these scientists I'm sure tht smone has]

From the officioal theories I like best the one about OSCILLATING UNIVERSE and I think tht it has high possibilities to be true.

You ask - how does he know.(ask tony about it;) )
I like the phrase- discovering new things recquires an element of fate.

Sorry for my unlogical speech, it is close to 2Am here and I haven't slept two nights.
See ya tommorow!

I found smth like my theory of many universes.
If you want , you may check this link
AN ETERNITY OF BUBBLES? (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/hawking/mysteries/html/guth_1.html)

But now-must get sleep close to 3am.
good nig.........................................

Hey Cris,

I certainly do enjoy your posts. A bit of feedback follows-

"If whatever intelligence is in existence lacks the ingenuity to find the answers then that intelligence will evolve until it can."

Or such intelligence might become extinct without ever having grasped an ultimate understanding of the universe, as have already a number of species of our own genus Homo. The many possible paths to extinction run downhill all the way, while the path(s) to a complete understanding requires an arduous climb. We've no assurance that our species is even up to the task, though that certainly shouldn't stop us from trying.

"Assuming the universe is infinite then at some point all answers will be found."

Sorry, I don't follow. Wouldn't it make more sense to state that, "Assuming the universe is finite then at some point all the answers will be found"? Would you please expand on your idea?

"The implication is that such intelligence will grow and expand until it too has infinite proportions so that it can be aware of everything."

I'd rather hoped that intelligence would not have to be itself infinite in order to understand an infinite process. An analogy might be the closed-form approximation for an infinite mathematical series. A closed-form allows one to approximate the results of an infinite process without having to perform an infinite number of calculations. Hopefully we might one day find a compressed form which contains the infinite detail of our universe in a tidy algorithm, equation, or idea. I'd be considerably less thrilled if a proof were produced that required us to have an infinite intelligence in order that we understand the workings of an infinite universe.

Steven Wolfram is expected to soon (this month?) release his book, a decade in the making,titled, A New Kind Of Science. Wolfram was a pioneer in the field of Complexity (where simple algorithms produce complicated output) as well as the principal creator of Mathematica (my favorite mathematical software package). Perhaps his new findings will shed some light on this topic?

Michael

Originally posted by orthogonal
Steven Wolfram is expected to soon (this month?) release his book, a decade in the making,titled, A New Kind Of Science. Wolfram was a pioneer in the field of Complexity (where simple algorithms produce complicated output) as well as the principal creator of Mathematica (my favorite mathematical software package). Perhaps his new findings will shed some light on this topic?

It will be too complex for us mere mortals to understand....:D

As I was reading the topic, I got a flash of thought I wanted to share. Research is underway to develop human liver in genetically modified pigs. At what point we will tinker with Apes to create human brains in them so that they can do hard labor? Signs of the planet of the apes....

Does anyone remember the Gumbas?

Orthogonal,

I certainly do enjoy your posts. Likewise. That is I enjoy yours as well, not that I don't enjoy mine as well, but well not the older ones, only the newer, but well some of them aren't that great, in fact I don't think I do like my posts after all.:D

"If whatever intelligence is in existence lacks the ingenuity to find the answers then that intelligence will evolve until it can."

Or such intelligence might become extinct without ever having grasped an ultimate understanding of the universe, as have already a number of species of our own genus Homo. The many possible paths to extinction run downhill all the way, while the path(s) to a complete understanding requires an arduous climb. We've no assurance that our species is even up to the task, though that certainly shouldn't stop us from trying. Yes I agree and I had considered that but didn’t add the text.

My assumption is that in an infinite universe there will come a time when the dominant intelligence does not run downhill.

And by the phrase “whatever intelligence is in existence” I was referring to any intelligence in any timeframe. If our particular iteration where we exist dies out then another will arise later. I did not mean to imply that humans have any guarantee of ultimate evolution. The extinction of the human race seems all too possible at the moment.

"Assuming the universe is infinite then at some point all answers will be found."

Sorry, I don't follow. Wouldn't it make more sense to state that, "Assuming the universe is finite then at some point all the answers will be found"? Would you please expand on your idea? I’m assuming that given an infinite number of variations for an intelligence to discover answers then it seems likely that one variation will find all the answers. Hmmm, that does depend on an infinite intelligence as well. Yes I think I misstated there. It is more likely that given an infinite universe that an intelligence will never know all the answers since it is impossible to ever reach the non-existent boundaries of an infinite universe. Actually that seems like a better proposal to show the impossibility of the existence of a god. Oh well!

I'd rather hoped that intelligence would not have to be itself infinite in order to understand an infinite process. I don’t see the universe as a process. To understand everything doesn’t it follow that you must observe everything otherwise you can never be sure. A finite intelligence would be woefully inadequate to observe an infinite universe; to do that the intelligence must also have infinite proportions.

Hmm, I’d rather avoid the math, sorry.

Cris

Cris,

Thanks for the explanation. Wow,that reminds me of an article I read in this month's Scientific American by Michael Shermer. It's on page 33, that is if my memory isn't lying to me. Shermer writes about the acceleration of technology. I picked out this quote,

"It took 10,000 years to get from the dawn of civilization to the airplane but just 66 years to get from powered flight to a lunar landing."

He asks us to fast forward in our minds by 10,000 years using these wildly accelerated rates of technological progress. I start to get more dizzy than usual at this point. I've no trouble believing that we will one day utilize Star Trek-ish teleportation devices and that we will log on to the intergalactic Internet.

I'm reminded of a quote from Arther C. Clarke,

"...we may well be like jungle savages listening for distant drumming, while all around us swirl radio messages in more words per second than we could utter in a lifetime."

When I was 13 years old I taught myself the Morse code and built a ham radio receiver. I couldn't believe my ears when I first attached an antenna and turned it on. The ham frequencies were alive with messages. I stayed up all that first night trying to listen to the thousands of signals.

I had the exact same experience some years ago when I first logged on to the Internet. Again, I stayed up all that first night. I can only wonder what some future kid might feel as he first logs on to an intergalactic Internet. I'll bet he stays up all that first night :)

Okay, back to the present. I did want to comment on what you wrote;

"To understand everything doesn’t it follow that you must observe everything otherwise you can never be sure."

If we couple an initial observation to our reason, we may inductively produce a theory which frees us from the requirement of having to examine each individual case. For example, by observation and reason I may (sorry again about the math example!) come to the conclusion that the sum of the three inside angles of a triangle equals 180 degrees. From that moment I may rest assured that each new triangle I happen upon contains an angular sum of 180 degrees. I am freed from the neccessity of measuring each new triangle. My finite mind is able to produce an idea that remains true for an infinite number of triangles.

Of course we might disagree on the concept of certainty. There is nearly nothing in this world of which we may be absolutely certain. We live our lives quite happily with a grasp of probabilities rather than certainties.

I am however, fairly certain that my perceptions lie to me. For example, each of my eyes contains a blind spot on the retinal wall where the optical nerve exits on its way towards the brain. The result is that we have holes in our vision. Yet our brain fudges a bit to fill in the dark spots. We only believe that we have a full field of vision. We must be very careful even when we directly employ our perceptions for the verification of a truth.

Voltaire wrote, "Common sense is not so common". Perhaps, yet even common sense may not be trusted implicitly.

"Common sense, in the absence of supporting experimental evidence, has too often turned out to be a highly misleading guide to scientific understanding." S. Jonathan Singer, The Splendid Feast Of Reason

Truth commonly appears along side an assortment of qualifiers. Certainty is a luxury that we are rarely permitted to possess.

Regards,
Michael

I would agree that somtimes our senses sometimes lie to us. Who knows what kind of things are really there as compared to what our brain is telling us. Ya see where i'm goin with this....

Why must there be a reason? Apart from basic physical properties of nature? That need for a reason is just an emotional crutch for people who lack some form of human connection in their lives. And no, I don't count gathering with thirty other people and singing as inherently being a form of human connection; people in such a situation may still not feel connected with the others. Or at least they may only feel the comforting sense of fitting in, which is also an emotional crutch. I think one can most fully feel their place in the universe (such a place I think can only be defined by their own thoughts, not by society or other peoples' opinions) from within, not by measuring their social activities. Searching for a reason, feeling good about singing with a bunch of other people (Yes, I have a rather cynical view of organised religions), whatever it is, it's all just external stuff. If there really IS a reason for it all, then I think that reason is probably different for each person, as it should be.

By the way, I'm not sure it is reasonable to say there is a limit to what science can reveal, or do for us. Science is the act of humans trying to learn, to understand the universe. Why would that have a limit? Our understanding of the universe improves every day.

Perhaps we will never no more than what is posible in our state of existence.

Death will come to us all and we shall see if something is after, if not we simply do not exist anymore. You won't have to worry about anything anymore so i feel this is not something to cause to much distress.

We may just be the extention of life on earth, a small piece of what has grown, we may be the first chance for life to get of earth and spread out to other planets, life....trying to survive, earth cannot support life forever.


You, me, we are all just units to a greater whole. Life tests its boundaries, the best options survive, and evolution happens.

I personally support evolution, the theory, we obviously cannot have concrete facts about everything. So you have to conclude some things from your own observations.

Life is a giant living unit, earth in itself is somewhat of a lifeform.

Each unit in a species arrives with strengths and weaknesses, the slight edge in a whole group will nudge out the slight weaknesses, and over time it evolves.

Look at people, we have different races, evolving to our specific regions, white people, out of the sun for a large amount of time being int eh north, less skin color, black people, evolved to need color, you can see these changes happening.

Proven designs, the cockroach, still here over great amounts of time.

Everything in a constant state of change. We are just a small drop in the bucket, enjoy it well it lasts!

I believe it was the philosopher Haempel that argued that this question is in principle unanswerable. Given any possible entity X that could provide an answer to the question, it would just reraise the question: where did X come from?

So, at the basis of this all there simply is something, term it matter, that can not be understood in any more primitive terms, which is not based on anything else, and which is uncreatable and indestructable.
(don't intermix the stuff called matter here with the physical term matter, because physical matter is not all there is, and physical matter is not indestructable nor uncreatable).

Another alternative: Perhaps there is no reason for the existence of everything. Maybe everything just kinda happened unplanned.

yeah like that wasnt a lazy attempt at explaining the universe.

"yeah guys forget your theory and philosophical ponderings, the universe just kinda happened this one time"

peace.