'god' takes another hit: we could be living in a designer universe...

Hubris Goat
6 September, 2010 - 11:15

..and in fact, we're close to being able to create our own universes. More evidence that the laws of physics do not require a god-like figure to kick things off, and more evidence that the laws of physics are sufficient to explain existence.. although I like the idea that physicists are proposing create universes, since physics often mirrors esoteric philosophical thinking about existence, for example the fact that you really could be the centre of your own universe, and, unwittingly, you are creating everything that happens to you. I like to call this state the Youniverse (and if I had a copyright symbol I'd say copyright Hudley 2007, when I first thought of it.. )

Here you go: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7972538/Are-we-living-in-a-desi...

 

‹ South Coast Club Why did Shittu get the shove from Bolton ? ›

BBC1, 11:05pm The Case for God?

Donaldo
6 September, 2010 - 11:42
Donaldo's picture

http://tv.sky.com/tvlistings



The Chief Rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, puts his faith on the line by debating with some of its sharpest critics, including Howard Jacobson, Hud and Alain de Botton.

I'll watch..

Hubris Goat
6 September, 2010 - 12:14

..if I remember, but I find these debates are often unedifying.. you get people with fixed views, or people arguing from a point of 'faith', which is impossible to reason with. Direct experience is available to all.. if only they would use it.

As Sonic and I have pointed out, the onus is on those who 'believe' to back up their belief with evidence. Extrapolating from an anthropomorphic point of view is prone to disastrous subjectivity. As I've also said before, there is no need for a 'god' in existence, when you already have the wonder of being, which is not only profound, but cannot be hijacked by anyone. Being is being. Go from there.

 

Occasionally

Goofy
6 September, 2010 - 12:18
Goofy's picture

I've enjoyed toying with the idea that our (or, of course, my) universe is contained within the smallest particle of another universe, every particle of which contains a separate universe whilst at the same time every particle in the univesrse of my existence contains its own mini-universe and so on, turtles all the way down (and up).

It stops one feeling too big, or small.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

snooker loopy

Hubris Goat
6 September, 2010 - 12:31

..that song always comes to mind when I have exactly the same thought that you've just described Goofster.

I sometimes like to think our universe is contained within a molecule in a much larger universe, maybe it's a molecule in a cow pat.. maybe it's in a drop of water.. our time frame of reference would be relative, of course, so the farmer's boot that is about to annihilate our existence when he steps on the cow pat will take about, ooh, 5 billion years to happen.

 

 

I've had a similar thought

Donaldo
6 September, 2010 - 12:41
Donaldo's picture

But hasn't science 'proven' that this cannot be?

Was only

Goofy
6 September, 2010 - 12:46
Goofy's picture

suggesting it as an amusing diversion, I don't need any proof for it to continue to pleasantly sidetrack my thoughts every now and again.

Science knows about sub-atomic particles...

battletank
6 September, 2010 - 12:56
battletank's picture

... quarks and the like - but doesn't necessarily have a view on what they're made up of.

It is impossible to ever know what the universe is like at scale larger than the current horizon to the universe some 10 to 15 billion light years distant. The universe we see certainly doesn't behave like a quark or any sub-atomic particle because the motions of the galaxies and stars we see are not dictated by the laws of quantum mechanics. However, there was one time when this was true. Soon after the Big Bang, all of the matter we see out to the farthest galaxies was crunched into a volume of space smaller than an atom. At that time, there were only the laws of quantum mechanics to determine the detailed properties of matter in the universe. Earlier still, the universe may have been smaller than a proton, and even a quark. That doesn't mean the universe was a proton or a quark, only that its size was comparable to how big these things are today. Some cosmologists believe that our universe is a part of an unimaginably vaster 'thing' and that what we now see around us may be just a small point in a vast tapestry of structure extending to infinity. We will never know, because these issues are beyond scientific analysis and observation.

On the other hand, the idea of the 'Russian Doll' universe within a universe tends to only become appealing after a reasonable dose of THC, which doesn't lend it a lot of gravitas....

 

__________________

Monday is give karma to Anonymous day.

Not at all Don,

Hubris Goat
6 September, 2010 - 13:20

multiverses and the like are all the rage in current scientific thinking. As it says in the article (if you'd care to read it, you might enjoy it): Modern physics suggests that our universe is one of many, part of a "multiverse" where different regions of space and time may have different properties (the strength of gravity may be stronger in some and weaker in others).

 

I saw it on Red Dwarf

Donaldo
6 September, 2010 - 13:33
Donaldo's picture

The one with an infinite number of possible Rimmers.

gotta be done...

Alvin Stardusts Ring
6 September, 2010 - 13:44
Alvin Stardusts Ring's picture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BliAPzEsao0


great juxtaposition in the context of this thread :-)

Yeah but, what if some bloke created this designer universe

Boston R
6 September, 2010 - 13:25
Boston R's picture

..millions of years ago and we, not knowing if his name was Patel or Chan, call him God ?

Well..

Hubris Goat
6 September, 2010 - 13:35

..is that what you mean by 'God', Bos? I don't think so. Your question is a tautology.

 

I think what you're trying to say is that 'if' some 'one' (it's hard not to be anthropomorphic, but let's try), a being who is not a 'God' by the common definition, brought the universe we inhabit into existence, would that being therefore qualify as a 'God'. Is that right? What's interesting about that idea, is that the science which theorises that possibility, equally theorises that anyone could also soon be able to create a universe, if they had access to the technology, and therefore that person, could equally qualify for 'God' status, thereby negating the whole concept of 'God' as it/he/she is normally understood.

 

I'd love to provide a serious reply

Boston R
6 September, 2010 - 14:30
Boston R's picture

but my limited knowledge of the English language prevents this.

Does this sum it up then?

exile
6 September, 2010 - 13:42
exile's picture

couldn't find it on youtube so the lyrics will have to do


Why are we here? What's life all about?
Is God really real, or is there some doubt?
Well, tonight, we're going to sort it all out,
For, tonight, it's 'The Meaning of Life'.

What's the point of all this hoax?
Is it the chicken and the egg time? Are we just yolks?
Or, perhaps, we're just one of God's little jokes.
Well, ça c'est 'The Meaning of Life'.

Is life just a game where we make up the rules
While we're searching for something to say,
Or are we just simply spiralling coils
Of self-replicating DN-- nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, nay.

What is life? What is our fate?
Is there a Heaven and Hell? Do we reincarnate?
Is mankind evolving, or is it too late?
Well, tonight, here's 'The Meaning of Life'.

For millions, this 'life' is a sad vale of tears,
Sitting 'round with really nothing to say
While the scientists say we're just simply spiralling coils
Of self-replicating DN-- nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, nay.

So, just why-- why are we here,
And just what-- what-- what-- what do we fear?
Well, ce soir, for a change, it will all be made clear,
For this is 'The Meaning of Life'. C'est le sens de la vie.
This is 'The Meaning of Life'.

__________________

I’m known as Exile and I know where you live.

Well perhaps more appropriately..

Hubris Goat
6 September, 2010 - 13:48

..also from 'The Meaning of Life' (I love this):

Man in Pink sings:

Whenever life gets you down Mrs. Brown, and things seem hard or tough, and people are stupid, obnoxious or daft, and you feel that you've had quite enough! Just remember that you're standing on a planet thats evolving, revolving at nine-hundred miles an hour, its orbiting at ninety miles a second, so its reckoned, a sun that is the source of all our power, the sun and you and me, and all the stars that we can see, are moving at a million miles a day, in an outer spiral arm at forty-thousand miles an hour, of the galaxy we call the Milky Way.. Our galaxy itself, contains a hundred billion stars, its a hundred thousand lightyears side to side, it bulges in the middle, sixteen-thousand lightyears thick, but out by us its just three-thousand lightyears wide, we're thirty-thousand lightyears from galatic central point, we go round every two-hundred-million years, and our galaxy is only one of millions of billions in this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding, in all of the directions it can whiz, as fast as it can go, the speed of light you know, twelve million miles a minute and thats the fastest speed there is, so remember when you're feeling very small and insecure, how amazingly unlikely is your birth, and pray that there intelligent life somewhere up in space, cause theres bugger all down here on Earth..

the gravitational pull

morphine apiary
6 September, 2010 - 14:33
morphine apiary's picture

exerted by the scwarzchild radius of Willie Thorne's cranium was (and still is) enough to divert the path of a free moving snooker ball



to some a trick shot, to others a creation myth ...

spacker

S.O.N.I.C
6 September, 2010 - 14:33

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