Who's afraid of a godless universe?

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For it to be possible however, it must be possible that an argument can pull itself up by its own bootstraps. I'm not saying that that is impossible but just that it kind of makes nonsense of any discussion about things if we accept that bootstrap arguments should be admitted into the realm of possible?

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You know, I don't really understand what you mean regarding this "bootsrap" business.Faith said that if someone had a certain feeling about life, it was therefore "impossible" that life could have arisen from purely biochemical processes, AND that her version of the Christian God HAD to be behind it all.To me, this argument makes no sense at all.How does any of that logically follow from someone having a feeling about life?I have a feeling about a Godless universe that is not anything like the terrified feeling that Faith was responding to. I am not terrified at all. Does that mean that it is IMPOSSIBLE that a God created the universe and it simply MUST be the case that we are products of purely Biochemical processes?

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You didn't strike me as someone content to reside in the realm of "absolutely anything at all is possible".

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Anything at all IS possible.It's how probable something is that is generally determinable.

The general problem with a non-god universe seems to be that everything in our universe seems just too perfectly created to support the existance of life. If there is indeed only one universe, then it is a very surprising thing that it contains life and even highly evolved life. It is not entirely impossible but just very improbable. If you have a bag with one marble in it the chances that it will be a blue shiny marble with a red dot on one side are fairly small. But there is the theory of the "multiple-story-universe", which is closely connected to the quantum theory. This theory by Mr.Feynman and mr. Hawking states that for every possible story of the universe there actually is a different universe with a slightly or very largely different shape in space-time. Among these universes are loads of universes which contain no life at all, sometimes not even stars, some of them collapsed shortly after they came into existance, and so on. And just a handfull of them turned out just right for life to develop in them. If you have an enourmous sack full of marbles the chances of there being one in there that is shiny, blue and has that red dot is much higher, you might even find several of them. (unless of course the marbles have been mass-fabricated in a cheep factory in china..).This message has been edited by AdminNosy, 02-25-2006 01:06 AM

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"I refuse to give proof",said god. "Because proof evades faith and without faith I am nothing." - "But the babelfish is a dead giveaway!",says the scientist. "Something so mindbogglinly practical could never have evolved by itself.It is a perfect proof that you exist ans so you don't" - "I hadn't thought of that.",says god and vanishes in a puff of logic.

Any idea if there is common consensus as to what the probablility is of the life we have in our universe in the state we find it. And the probability of there being other universes?Welcome to EvC. Did AdminAsgara warn you of its intellectual cocaine traits. If not then run John Ferguson...run.Unless of course your a Christian apologist in which case there is all the more reason to stay.This message has been edited by iano, 25-Feb-2006 12:31 AMThis message has been edited by AdminNosy, 02-25-2006 01:05 AM

Well, in my local bookstore every book I looked into that had something to say about this matter seemed to mention them.
But we will have to classify alternate universes into two categories here:1.Universes that exist because of decisions in our universe (or, generally in our complex of universes): It seems to be the case that for every decision of a quant to stay in one place immediately a parallel universe comes into existance where the quant decided to be in the other place. This leads to a certain amount of universes, where there is no life, no human life, where there is human life, universes in which I exist, but have a different name or might have had a car accident and so on... billions of them. And every millisecond there are more. But they all started as one, so that makes them a cluster of parallel universes.2.Universes that are in no way linked to ours.The current theory is that we live on a thing called a brane,which either exists as a single phenomenon (even though this is not very likely)or in an environment with lots of other branes which lie near our brane. The gravitational forces of these branes influence one another (this could also be the explanation for the existance of dark matter - we simply can`t see the matter as it lies in another brane.) these branes can be thought of as waterbubbles in a pot with boiling water. They come into existence, and then either collapse again immediately or reach a certain critical size so that they continue growing.The problem with these branes growing close to each other and possibly even moving is, that eventually two branes could crash. No one knows for sure what would happen then, but it probably isnt very pleasant. One theory now states that the big bang could possibly have been caused by such a collision.Hm, I actually am an evolutionist... but I still won't run ...This message has been edited by AdminNosy, 02-25-2006 01:04 AM