Badfish

How much further can I define the known Universe? I mean everything, from the brightest quasar to the blackness of Deep space that the hubble is now resolving images of. I mean everything we know as the Universe. The whole thing!!

Badfish

Thanks again Dave, I believe this does belong in science

Friar Bellows

GTX, if you're satisfied by the "testimony" of a created universe, then read up on Buddhism and Hinduism for "testimony" of an eternal universe.

DNAunion

DNAunion: I am not sure, but this may refer to a very strict version of the Copenhagen intepretation.

It has been suggested that the Universe evolved in a virtual state since no one was there to observe it (like Schrodinger's cat, which is both dead and alive at the same time - i.e., in a superposition - until it is observed by a human - which collapses the wave function, forcing only one of the possibilities to become real). So everytime the there was an "option", both occurred in superposition. Superposition piled up upon superposition piled up upon superposition, giving an "infinite" number of different virtual universes. In one of those Universes, all the conditions needed to engender and sustain life occurred, and eventually during its further evolution, humans arose. When they observed the Universe, they collapsed the Universes' wavefunction and "Created" just the one they lived in - the one we live in.

Badfish

Wow, good stuff!

Tim Thompson

GTX: Even the notion of Universe Ad infinitum, still has a cause from another cause, thus creating an infinite situation.

Rational Ag: As stated above, the universe doesn't necessarily have to have been "caused" or "created", it could just exist.

I agree. I fail to see any fundamental reason why the universe has to have a "beginning", or a "cause". An infinite, uncasued & unbegun universe does not create any logical problem that I can think of.

The appearance of a unique beginning, as in the Big Bang is an artifact of how we view the universe, and how we construct theories to rationalize or explain what we see. Limited to a pure & unadorned general relativity, it certainly seems that the universe must have a unique beginning (though even that is not guaranteed). But that appearance can be negated entirely by appeal to quantum mechanics or string theory.

Once you eliminate that apparent beginning, you open the road for an infinite universe.

Badfish

The beginning theory will not be eliminated in our lifetime.

If we had the knowledge to eliminate this, the road for knowledge would be opened for infinite knowledge.

DNAunion

DNAunion: If science acknowledges the validity of an eternal "universe", then it validates the concepts of (1) something existing without its having been created and (2) something existing forever - without beginning and without end. Sound familiar? Kind of reminds one of the claims made for a God - eternally existing without having been created "itself". That would kill the, "So what created the creator" counter as well as the argument that God could not have existed before our Universe in order to create it. Sounds like two arguments commonly used to "scientifically disprove" the existence of God are being rejected by science itself. Are scientific explanations for ultimate origins delving more deeply into the realm of metaphysics?

copernicus

The way the argument works is that theists argue that the universe had a beginning in the Big Bang. Something had to cause the Big Bang. God caused it. God didn't have a "cause", because that would lead to an infinite regress of causes.

Atheists don't "disprove" God's existence. They counter the theistic argument by pointing out that the universe itself could be the "uncaused cause". The theist argument fails because it has no way of proving that God existed without merely presupposing his existence. And then they attach all that baggage about the creator being omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, and so on. The nontheist refutation is not a proof of the nonexistence of God, but just a refutation of the argument of the existence of God. Science makes no claims whatsoever about God, because there is no way to verify God's existence experimentally.

As an atheist, I believe the assertion that God does not exist. I do not feel it necessary to prove that God did or did not exist, merely that his existence is highly implausible, given what we know about human history and the nature of the universe.

[ July 27, 2002: Message edited by: copernicus ]</p>

Starboy

Greetings Copernicus,

I take it one step further and take the scientific and a-theistic view: god is irrelevant.

Isn’t it funny how the original definition of a-theist is so much more effective in expressing the more basic sentiment? That probably explains why the Catholic Church had it changed to the current version.

Starboy