eh

What about strings as being absolutely necessary for all other existence?

echidna

Are you just going to assert that, or can you objectively demonstrate that strings are self-requisite, that “strings must by logical proof, exist”.

I fear not.

eh

I think I see what you mean now. I suppose this is where our thoughts hit a dead end, since even a God does not meet these requirements.

fando

I don't understand why the "Fine Tuning" theory is unacceptable. Anyone who has studied basic Cosmology should realize that this is a valid theory and a testable one at that. Allow me to explain.

When the Big Bang theory surfaced, there was an issue that became particularily vexing: the present day flatness of the universe. If the universe did indeed begin as a compact object, then we have to explain why the expansion was so very smooth. If the initial moments of expansion were even a tiny bit more rapid or slower (acceleration off by less than one part in 10^50 than that required for a flat universe), then the universe would either be too sparse for galaxies to form or too dense as to cause the Big Cruch after a very short time (say 1 billion years).

One explanation was that the universe just happened to expand at the right rate for us to exist. That is, we exist therefore the universe began just right. This is the "Fine Tuning" theory in all its glory.

So how is this testable? Simple: We prove it by exhausting all the other posibilities. It's the only logical way to accept it, plus we get a motivation to explore alternative theories. And while we're doing so, we might come upon new insights!

Apply the same proof requirements to all Fine Tuning theories and theories of a similar flavor (excepting, of course, non-falsifiable ones) and you'll have a good reason to discard them as boring/irrelevant.

Note that I leave whether we will every arrive at such a conclusion up in the air. I don't know. It could be very well true that the universe is flat just because. And it could very well be that we will never know.

[ May 08, 2002: Message edited by: fando ]</p>