woolley Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 Brilliant and thought provoking post as ever, Chinahand. I can see I obviously pulled your chain with my throw away comment equating "God did it" and "It just happened". I didn't really mean to do that and I am not going to argue with you about it, I hope. You are pushing against an open door as far as religion is concerned with me. I don't have it. I have studied Einstein avidly and yes, I know about his cosmological constant and the later theory of inflation, the discovery of background cosmic radiation, dark matter projections etc. etc. It is absolutely fascinating. I appreciate the way that science grows too, through proposition, refutation, study and finally proof as with the observation of the Higgs Bosun at Cern. Where I part company with you slightly, and you yourself actually nodded in this direction in your linked post about Hawking, is that we are in danger of being swept along by theory after theory, each more exotic than the last about the nature of the universe and existence, without the slightest evidence for multiverses etc. and inflation is still just a theory as is the big bang itself. When I read some of this stuff, I start to wonder whether we're all having our chains pulled by people not fit to lace Einstein's boots! As you imply, we are actually no nearer than Einstein was to explaining what lay behind the big bang if I can use that form of words to avoid saying "before" the big bang. We simply don't know enough to say that it was this or it was that, or it was indeed created by a superior entity. Perhaps, it is a million percent beyond the capacity of our feeble minds ever to know the true nature of our being. A depressing thought but nonetheless quite possible. Have you ever wondered what proportion of the total knowledge that exists out there is currently in human possession? I would wager that it is vanishingly small. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheldon Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 we are in danger of being swept along by theory after theory, each more exotic than the last about the nature of the universe and existence, without the slightest evidence... https://youtu.be/FMSmJCKaaC0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gerrydandridge Posted June 14, 2015 Author Share Posted June 14, 2015 An impressive image of comet p67, no doubt taken by the Rosetta orbiter, such beautiful detail, shame it didn't snap a few pictures of the Earth on its way out, it would of saved NASA the trouble of CGI rendering Earth, an update of the Apollo 17 photo from 1972 would have been nice... I have to wonder if the picture is real or a piece of skillfully crafted clay dangling in a dark room! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 Yeah Gerry it must be so hard for you continually wondering about the lizard people faking everything. Surely the people at Rosetta and ESA have to be in on the conspiracy. It does look a bit like a lump of clay your right. And the Chinese - I've already put up there imagery of the earth from the moon. Weathermen too - do you think that nice Mr Fish was just a dupe, or did he know the geostationary satellite data he used was fake? I wonder how you fake weather data - it's quite clever for them to paint all those clouds and things in the right place so it looks the real weather. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 Whenever Gerry posts something I usually find myself, first of all, taking it at face value and marveling at the paranoia he manifests - everything is faked and hidden via a huge conspiracy.And then, later, I often wonder whether he's got completely the wrong end of the stick, once again.Now. what did Gerry say:"shame it didn't snap a few pictures of the Earth on its way out"Erm ... it did. Pretty aren't they.Rosetta Earth Flyby #3, Outbound by Gordan Ugarkovic, on Flickr More info here and here I'm sure Gerry will worry that they are all fake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isaac Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 FFS. I just wrote a very long reply to Chinahand and then hit the back button by accident. I'll try again tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 It's really annoying when that happens! Bad luck! One thing to check is the saved text cache. Erm can't find it that's annoying. Has it been removed in an upgrade? The text editor used to have a save function which sometimes came to the rescue. Where's it gone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isaac Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 I'll sum it up: 1. "God did it" might be the approach of dogmatic religion which doesn't look further and is closed to further inquiry, but dogmatic religion doesn't have a monopoly on spirituality, or even on religion. 2. Historical examples of religion standing in the way of enlightenment and progress were down to particular social and political contexts and can't specifically be attributed to spirituality or belief in the supernatural except to the extent that those beleifs were used as a justification. Geocentrism was as much (if not more) about a need to maintain a rigid hierarchical system of feudalism on earth by perpetuating the myth of a rigid hierarchical system in heaven above and in hell below - where they said you'd end up if you didn't obey the temporal authorities and know your proper place [at the bottom] in society - as it was about any legitimate theological concern. That the earth orbits the sun has no theological implications, but it did have social implications. 3. Science is also susceptible to the above. Science and technology, like religion, can be used by the ruling powers to perpetuate their control. This is done through monopolisation of access and distribution. Intellectual copyright laws come into play with corporations looking to maintain their market dominance - a case in point would be agriculture and copyrighting the genetic code of the seeds and putting something in the code so the crop's seeds can't be re-used. Not that different to the feudal era church banning the printing of the Bible in the English language to maintain their monopoly on the reading of the Bible, which was integral to maintaining the rigid feudal system. 4. I basically agree with all your points about the advantages of science - as a practical method of figuring things out - over spirituality or religion. I think science is the way forward. However, I just can't help it - I can't pin it down to any objective proof or evidence but I "feel" that there is more than what a naturalist framework would afford, that there is some inner meaning and purpose which is connected to creativity and dreams, and is good, just, emanating love, even if the world is lacking in those things. Is that God? I don't know. But I'm not going to say "there's something higher, therefore don't bother to investigate". I think we should investigate and be open to every possibility, especially the possibiltiy that we're wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lxxx Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 When looking at the probability of this 'big bang' happening and everything falling into place to put together the building blocks of life and to get to this fantastic world we see around us today I am more inclined to think along the lines that this is the product of intelligent design. Whilst I am neither in the religion nor science camp the sheer probability of the perfect environment evolving to spawn this would, from a mathematical perspective, would be so slim as to be virtually impossible and wouldn't even be considered in any other context. I'm not saying science shouldn't continue to try to seek the answers however I fear if we were to continue as a species for another thousand years we'd still be no closer to a definitive answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolley Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 Who is to say it is perfect though? We think it is because we are of it. We are made in its image if you like for the conditions obtaining so naturally it is perfect to us. In many ways it is pretty messy. If we go outside of our very limited habitat either in the constitution of Earth's very narrow atmosphere, or a very restricted temperature range, or atmospheric pressure etc. we cannot survive. If it did "just happen" then remember that it has had an inordinately long time to do so in the view our feeble minds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolley Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 An impressive image of comet p67, no doubt taken by the Rosetta orbiter, such beautiful detail, shame it didn't snap a few pictures of the Earth on its way out, it would of saved NASA the trouble of CGI rendering Earth, an update of the Apollo 17 photo from 1972 would have been nice... I have to wonder if the picture is real or a piece of skillfully crafted clay dangling in a dark room! Are you over compensating for discovering Santa Claus isn't real? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeliX Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 When looking at the probability of this 'big bang' happening and everything falling into place to put together the building blocks of life and to get to this fantastic world we see around us today I am more inclined to think along the lines that this is the product of intelligent design. Whilst I am neither in the religion nor science camp the sheer probability of the perfect environment evolving to spawn this would, from a mathematical perspective, would be so slim as to be virtually impossible and wouldn't even be considered in any other context. I'm not saying science shouldn't continue to try to seek the answers however I fear if we were to continue as a species for another thousand years we'd still be no closer to a definitive answer. The Universe is pretty far from perfect! I'd argue with the number of planets there are, it's statistically probable that there should be at least one "earth" (not too hot, not too cold, right composition etc). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ans Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 Whilst I am neither in the religion nor science camp the sheer probability of the perfect environment evolving to spawn this would, from a mathematical perspective, would be so slim as to be virtually impossible and wouldn't even be considered in any other context. There are a conservative 2-3 TRILLION estimated planets in our galaxy (not the universe) so yeah, I think the odds are actually much better than you think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gerrydandridge Posted June 15, 2015 Author Share Posted June 15, 2015 I think it was some years ago reading Brian Greens elegant universe and he mentions the change of any of the forces by a tiny fraction would make the whole thing never happen..Just an empty cold nothingness. and the phrase (I don't remember who said it) "it can be likened to a tornado, whipping through a junk yard, leaving a fully formed jumbo jet in its wake" when comparing the probability of it all happening without some sort of guidance... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vulgarian Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 Google 'anthropic principle'. The most rational interpretation is that only a universe which has the properties that can lead to the emergence of sentient beings can lead to those beings asking the question 'Why are we here?'. To jump to the conclusion of designers being involved is irrational. What are the other possibilities? To answer the question of the probability of this universe happening you would need to know the parameters and variables. How many other universes are they? What are they made of? Where did they come from? You can't determine the probability of a particular number being rolled on a die without knowing how many sides it has. If there are infinite universes then ours can't not happen. Even if there's only one universe which contains all the matter there is (knowing this might be impossible) there's still no need to invoke a creator to explain why it is the way it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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