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Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581:1781]

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Pozessed

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Setting aside any religious dogma. Why is it easier for some of us to consider this universe and its entirety happened by chance rather than conscious calculation? I don't think its fair to try and justify the psychology of a creator of the universe in this post. (i.e: Why is there evil?)
I'm honestly curious why it is easier to assume chaotic randomness as opposed to a calculated design.
 
re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]


Because a calculated design implies a creator, and therefore a purpose.
 
re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]

Because if we go under the assumption that the universe was designed by some external force, we are only compounding the question and making it more difficult. How did this force create the universe, why bother, and how did this intelligent force exist before existence as we know it came to be.
 
re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]

Pozessed said:
I'm honestly curious why it is easier to assume chaotic randomness as opposed to a calculated design.
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Who said it happened by chance? When a plane flies, wood burns or the sun shines - that's not "random" action. Those are all phenomena that follow the known physical laws of nature. Now we certainly have much to learn about the initial state of the Universe, but why suspect that the Universe's origin is any different? Why make an assumption that there are no larger laws at work?
 
re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]

Why must we assume the universe was created?

Maybe it has existed since the beginning of time. In fact, I would argue that logic and science demand that this be true.
 
re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]


Humans are programmed to look for reasons where none exist. Antigenicity was the explanation for virtually anything at some period in history that couldn't be explained. Admitting that one does not understand something, for some, leads to insecurity, insecurity that I suspect was already there on some deeper level. Convincing yourself that you have an answer for an unexplained phenomenon brings some level of comfort to some people.

Funny how difficult it is for some people to just say "I don't know".

When it comes to the creation of the universe I have some ideas on what I think could have happened, but I admit I really have no idea. Admitting I don't know makes it easy to change my mind as I hold those ideas separate from my identity.
 
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re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]


Well first off, I think anyone who says "the universe happened like this" is a bit too sure in themselves. No one is sure. We have amazing Physicists that are finding out new amazing things about the universe everyday but we haven't even started to comprehend about exactly how everything happened prior to the beginning of the big bang. We very well could find that natural forces dictate that the universe was required to form the way it has and that there was no planning or chance involved. I'm not sure.

The reason that I don't currently believe that the universe was created is because I haven't seen any good evidence to suggest it was created. 99.9999999999999 (fill up this page with 9's) % of the universe is void of any kind of life. It's harsh and unbearable, full of stars that are constantly exploding in on themselves etc. As of right now we know of one planet out of billions or trillions that is able to sustain life, on some of it's surfaces, at certain times. Until very recently in human history, if you didn't live near a freshwater source, you couldn't survive. The overwhelming majority of water on earth isn't drinkable unless it's tinkered with first. Not to mention that the life on this earth, if designed, was designed poorly. The very sun that provides energy and the ability for life to be on this planet will also burn you or give you skin cancer over time.

To sum it up, there are some amazing things in this universe, and some very awe-inspiring things, but there's no evidence to really say that any of it is designed. For everything that someone can think of that appears "well-designed" you can find something that seems "poorly designed" or could be improved upon easily.
 
re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]

sangha said:
Why must we assume the universe was created?

Maybe it has existed since the beginning of time. In fact, I would argue that logic and science demand that this be true.
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Do you mean in it's present state, or that it could have existed in many states, many of which could be entirely unrecognizable and defy description using terms relevant here in our universe?

Humans are temporal creatures, but it's not hard to imagine that the universe could have existed in a state that defies our experience of time. If we think of time simply as a measurement of change from one moment to the next, how would one describe a universe where nothing changed? To call that state "eternal" would be meaningless and incoherent in the way we observe time.
 
re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]


A universe of any state.

The nature of reality is that everything changes. The only way nothing can change is if there is nothing.

However, I won't close my mind to the possibility that somehow something unchanging can exist. I will admit though that I can not envision it.
 
re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]


I agree with everything, but one thing.

The only way nothing can change is if there is nothing.
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How can you know this? If something existed but it never changed how would you measure time? It violates the law of thermodynamics, but that law applies here, in this universe, it doesn't have to apply outside this universe.

I can imagine the opposite of entropy as a possible state in another universe, or something in between, where literally nothing ever changes. The hydrogen created from a "big bang" is created in a universe without gravity. Without gravity nothing ever comes together, nothing ever changes. Something exists, but entropy wouldn't apply as the lowest possible energy state is perpetually achieved....
 
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re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]

It's not easier to think the universe is generated randomly. You have to think about it look at the evidence and realize that the odds of there being a creator are, in fact, very low.
 
re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]


Because we have a bias towards causal thinking. It plays a vital role in human cognition and has greatly assisted the development of our inquisitive nature. We see an apple drop from a tree and we wonder what 'caused' the apple to fall from the tree. Did someone throw it? Was it loose on the branch? The wind? We often make this mental calculation without even thinking about it. It only makes sense that we would be bewildered at the notion that something could simply be, or exist, absent an external cause. While I consider myself to be an atheist I'll be the first to acknowledge that our explanation for the origin of 'existence' isn't very satisfying.

We can explain or hypothesize how the Universe, given the structures as we understand it, came into being but this doesn't fully satisfy the follow up question of "well... what came before that?" and the underlying message that the question conveys. Dismissing that question with a wave of hand that "nothing came before that" and an artful explanation of time isn't sufficient.

Take Lawrence Krauss book A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing which does a marvelous job of giving a layman's explanation of the nascent field of cosmogony, it's theories, and his own excellent analysis. However the flaw in the book, or rather the title, is that when he says 'nothing' he doesn't mean nothing as you or I would understand it. His nothing isn't, as one reviewer called it, the "philosophers nothing", instead it refers to a 'quantum vacuum. While I accept and understand this it doesn't remove the underlying sense of wonder and curiosity of what the origin of that 'quantum vacuum' which allowed the Universe to eventually come into being actually is. Again, hand waiving away words like 'origin' or 'cause' as being incompatible with the a pre-universal model is little more than obfuscation. We all understand what is being asked even if we may lack adequate vocabulary to for our question.

My fear is that in the rush to defeat creationists we have rushed into a certainty, or at least a vocabulary of certainty, that undercuts those kinds of genuinely curious questions. I earnestly hope that in the coming decades we will learn more and will have some revelations about the origin of 'existence' though it is certainly plausible that I wont see it in my life time.
 
re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]


I time is simply an abstract concept that we have invented, then what effect does it have on the universe?
 
re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]

sangha said:
Why must we assume the universe was created?

Maybe it has existed since the beginning of time. In fact, I would argue that logic and science demand that this be true.
Click to expand...

Well time only began when the universe started, so yes, it is demanded, but in the reverse way. Time (as we know and perceive it) requires the universe to exist.
 
re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]

sangha said:
Why must we assume the universe was created?

Maybe it has existed since the beginning of time. In fact, I would argue that logic and science demand that this be true.
Click to expand...

Why is there anything? Whynot just nothing?

Some Physicist have a strong inclination to think that the universe IS a net nothing, I've known professors that have explained the math to me before and what it would take for the universe to be a net zero.
But there are problems with it... A lot of assumptions are being made, as we don't have a theory of everything... the only thing that can be said about it is that it's beautiful- it works and is possible in the realm of math.

But even if we were a net nothing, it seems to be a loophole for us to exist in the first place....It makes it possible for something to be within nothing, but actually just being nothing. So the math does not fail, there is no magic... which in and of itself seems very magical to me. If there was a creator, it did it in such a fashion to not violate the very laws it is governed by.... order to perfection.

Knowing all of that... why is there something rather than just nothing?
One possible answer is that.... it just is, and it's not nothing, because... it's not... Which our human brains can't hardly grasp because I feel we innately try to find a cause and effect and have no grasp of infinity or what the universe truly is or what and what-not is possible.
-It could be just another fundamental law----> it just is



I want to hear your thoughts on this.... and Ill repeat and rephrase slightly... Why is their something rather than nothing? Why is there a difference between anything?

This sounds like Plato talking about the forms :doh
 
re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]

Nilly said:
Well time only began when the universe started, so yes, it is demanded, but in the reverse way. Time (as we know and perceive it) requires the universe to exist.
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Did time really begin with the universe, or did it begin when human beings invented it?
 
re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]

Dogger807 said:
It's not easier to think the universe is generated randomly. You have to think about it look at the evidence and realize that the odds of there being a creator are, in fact, very low.
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look at the evidense xD .... What evidence?

The evidence so far points out that our universe has a origin, a point at which it began. I think that evidence leans towards a creator than the other way around. There are no odds in this conversation, the odds are unfathomable either way...

The odds of having the biblical Christian God? 10^(-300^99999) a ridiculously unfathomable number in jest haha.... but one of indifference? An aspect of order and one of chaos? what would a god of neutrality be like? A god of Nature? A god of math?

Im agnostic by the way xD


And I would like to ask you this question... why is their something rather than nothing? And since their is something, why is their difference? Why isn't it just one?
 
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re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]

Dittohead not! said:
Did time really begin with the universe, or did it begin when human beings invented it?
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The concept of time began when we invented it, but the actual passage of time had to have began before we invented the concept of time. Ot at least all of the evidence points that way. We can measure the decay of elements, we can see how far light has traveled since the big bang etc.
 
re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]


Unless, of course, everything actually exists together and we just slowly pass through the dimension we call "time," perceiving that things change as we move along.
 
re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]

Dittohead not! said:
Did time really begin with the universe, or did it begin when human beings invented it?
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Are you asking whether time as a measurable quantity (regardless of system of measure) existed before humans invented it, or whether the second, as a fundamental unit of measure existed before humans invented it.

I would think that, as with distance, velocity, mass, temperature, energy, and weight, time has always existed.

How we observe, measure and express time is relative.
 
re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]


Of course our system for measuring time was invented by humans, and so has only existed for a short time. Has time itself always existed, though, or does it have a beginning and and end?

And, once time ends, then what?
 
re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]

I don't know if our universe has a creator. If it does I highly doubt it is some magical all powerful being. More likely it would just be some form superior intelligence (even if only slightly) running a computer simulation. Hell, a human could be the creator of this universe.

So when talking about THIS universe I wouldn't be surprised if it has a creator. But then where does that creator exist? Is it turtles all the way down? It seems to me at some point something has to exist eternally, and I see no reason why there would have to be an intelligence has to be that something.

In the end I am left with the feeling that whatever explanation we come up with, it is likely not true.

I fully realize when I start talking about this particular subject I sound like a crackpot.
 
re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]


No, a real crackpot would defend his/her absurd conclusions to the bitter end. Admitting that whatever explanation we come up with is likely not true shows real critical thinking.
 
re: Why Not Believe The Universe Was Created?[W:1581]

Dittohead not! said:
Unless, of course, everything actually exists together and we just slowly pass through the dimension we call "time," perceiving that things change as we move along.
Click to expand...

Even if you say that time is just a dimension, it would still mean that it existed prior to humans. That's like saying that the dimensions of space didn't exist until humans said they did. But that's bogus. Things were travelling on those planes or dimensions long before we called them names.
 
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