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-- So, evolution or creationism - the poll
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Originally posted by Ondrayce Good article, but it seems that these scientists' brains are running around in circles along with their universe. They haven't really answered anything. We could be in an endless cycle right now, but the cycle did have to start somewhere. Thats basic human logic. Saying that there is no beginning and that the universe always existed seems just as confining as saying "Adam and Eve were born and life continued from there." For the universe to exist, there has to be a point where it didn't exist. You can't count to one without starting with zero. And Constant Cycle does not address that zero factor.

Take a basic mathematics course and learn what infinity is. There did not have to be a beginning, there does not have to be an end, and "basic human logic" suggests nothing of the sort. Religion and religion alone teaches you that there was a beginning.

Don't be a fool. Mathematics DOES teach you that zero is the constant. Just because there are an infinite number of fractions between zero and one, doesn't change the fact that one (or one half, or one millionth, etc...) comes AFTER zero on the numeric scale. And don't start talking about negative numbers. When talking about time, negative numbers have no application other than signifying a moment before a given point on a timeline. And that moment, signified by a negative, is still a moment that occured AFTER another moment further back in that timeline. Now let me make this clear. I absolutely do NOT believe in any kind of God. And if I did I would probably be asking where that God came from. I think all religion is an exploitation of people's ignorance, and is driven by fear and guilt, especially Christianity. But there has to be a beginning. Its physics. For an object to be in motion, it must be set in motion. This applies to the Universe just as much as it does to anything else. Where that beginning would be; I'm not so bold as to tell you as some seem to think they can. I especially don't think that the beginning will EVER be found within our existance. Not as long as we continue to have the ability to ask questions without being stifled by mindless, non-forward thinking, religious intervention.

But, you're right on one thing, Diginut. There doesn't have to be an end. But that's not the debate.

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Originally posted by Ondrayce Don't be a fool. Mathematics DOES teach you that zero is the constant. Just because there are an infinite number of fractions between zero and one, doesn't change the fact that one (or one half, or one millionth, etc...) comes AFTER zero on the numeric scale. And don't start talking about negative numbers. When talking about time, negative numbers have no application other than signifying a moment before a given point on a timeline. And that moment, signified by a negative, is still a moment that occured AFTER another moment further back in that timeline.

I looked as hard I could to find the equation and solution to Einsteins GTR but all the solutions could not reach zero in any way, so in this cause zero is the absolute beginning.

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Originally posted by Ondrayce Now let me make this clear. I absolutely do NOT believe in any kind of God. And if I did I would probably be asking where that God came from. I think all religion is an exploitation of people's ignorance, and is driven by fear and guilt, especially Christianity.

I totally agree with you here, there had to be some thing that created god and something that created that thing and so on and so forth. Couple sites one defending Creationism and one kinda supporting Big Bang (albeit weak sites).

http://www.deafhope.org/theater/theatr1.htm
http://www.dd-b.net/~raphael/jain-list/msg00111.html

And here's one showing the ignorance of religious followers.

http://www.birdville.org/text/originoftheuni.html

even with the your Zero theory there had to be something before that zero time as you stated.

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Originally posted by Ondrayce But there has to be a beginning. Its physics. For an object to be in motion, it must be set in motion.

And I believe the beginning of the universe will never be found, before the end that is.

*EDIT* I know I make a weak argument on either side but I'm more set on my belief system.

In this case, when I use the term "zero," what I really mean is "nothing." No mass, no matter, no elements, nothing. Just empty space. If the universe gradually grew and evolved into what it is now, it had to start from nothing. The universe can't begin from a single element. Because you can still ask "where did that element come from?" The beginning of the universe lies where you can no longer ask those kinds of questions. And you cannot ask "where did nothing come from?" because, well, nothing is there. Then comes a new question. "How something be created from nothing?" And that is a question that I will neither answer or debate. My brain hurts just thinking about it.

Oy, I think my heads gonna explode.

Good. Then My devine plan is working perfectly. Excellent...

First StealthAssassin, then the Universe.

^^^^ROFLMAO

Good one, as long as I can rule over at least two planets.

The Universe is two big for just two planets. You can have a couple million solar systems. Just make sure you do right on the female to male population ratio. You know what I'm sayin'?

let all the christians and muslims share a black hole

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Originally posted by Ondrayce Don't be a fool. Mathematics DOES teach you that zero is the constant. Just because there are an infinite number of fractions between zero and one, doesn't change the fact that one (or one half, or one millionth, etc...) comes AFTER zero on the numeric scale. And don't start talking about negative numbers. When talking about time, negative numbers have no application other than signifying a moment before a given point on a timeline. And that moment, signified by a negative, is still a moment that occured AFTER another moment further back in that timeline. Now let me make this clear. I absolutely do NOT believe in any kind of God. And if I did I would probably be asking where that God came from. I think all religion is an exploitation of people's ignorance, and is driven by fear and guilt, especially Christianity. But there has to be a beginning. Its physics. For an object to be in motion, it must be set in motion. This applies to the Universe just as much as it does to anything else. Where that beginning would be; I'm not so bold as to tell you as some seem to think they can. I especially don't think that the beginning will EVER be found within our existance. Not as long as we continue to have the ability to ask questions without being stifled by mindless, non-forward thinking, religious intervention.

You're trying to apply grade-school mathematics and physics to a very complex theoretical question. Mathematics is merely a tool and a model for problem solving, it does not serve to explain anything profound about nature.

By your logic I could just as easily say that time is an exponential function and therefore it never reached 0 and time will somehow massively explode in the future. Or I could say that it's a reciprocal function and started out with a massive IMplosion, has been shrinking ever since then, and will eventually fade out and disappear. Neither of these things make any sense, nor are they supposed to - they're just to illustrate how ludicrous it is to simply assume that time operates in a linear fashion with a clear beginning and/or end. You're using "zero" and "one" as if there actually is a time at "zero" or "one", but what makes you think that time even exists on such an absolute scale? There is only a "zero" time when it is used on a relative scale, i.e. with a stopwatch, starting at point A and ending at point B, and this is how we use it in day-to-day applications.

Is this sinking in yet? Just because you cannot grasp a concept doesn't mean it cannot exist. Many forces in nature are not linear at all. Look at our physiology and the way we hear - on a logarithmic scale. And guess what, on a logarithmic scale, zero does not exist as an input.

Study some quantum. Learn about quantum foam. This thing we call "nothing" - a vacuum, for instance - it doesn't exist. Even in a total vacuum without any matter, there are still oscillations - quantum fluctuations, or quantum foam. Matter and anti-matter simultaneously coming into existence and annihilating each other on the quantum level. "Nothing" only exists in the general sense, as a macro property, as the sum of many smaller parts, like when you zoom into a seemingly smooth curve and find out that it has jagged edges, or when you zoom into a DC signal and find out that it has noise or ripple.

And mathematics has limitations even in its own field. We can't integrate compound exponentials like the Bell curve [e^(x^2)] - the mathematics to represent its integral simply does not exist, that's why lookup tables or computer programs are used for statistical applications. So it's hardly reasonable to expect that such a limited faculty of thinking is sufficient to explain the origins (if there indeed were any) of the universe.

You don't have to be a religious nut to be wrong in your argument - the fact is, the logic you're using to imply that there ever was a beginning is completely fallacious. I'm certainly open to anyone presenting a proper scientific proof that such a beginning ever existed, but a proper scientific proof is worlds apart from what you've presented to us. All you've given us is a weak argument having something to do with number lines (something we learned about in grade 6), and a gross misinterpretation of the law of inertia (which, properly read, states that a body will tend to remain in motion once it is set in motion, NOT that a body must have been deterministically set in motion in order to be in motion).

Next contestant?

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Originally posted by Ondrayce Good article, but it seems that these scientists' brains are running around in circles along with their universe. They haven't really answered anything. We could be in an endless cycle right now, but the cycle did have to start somewhere. Thats basic human logic. Saying that there is no beginning and that the universe always existed seems just as confining as saying "Adam and Eve were born and life continued from there." For the universe to exist, there has to be a point where it didn't exist. You can't count to one without starting with zero. And Constant Cycle does not address that zero factor.

That is human logic, why it had to start? That is the way humans are used to thinking. It absolutely has to start. Why? Also, I don't buy the whole theory with Adam and Eve. Again, it comes back to the notion of the start. How about we go past that confinement and imagine that there was no beginning. It has always existed.

Again, I must agree with diginut here. There's no reason for us to believe that universe ever had a beginning. The theory is quite interesting, but as most cosmological theories, it's just a speculation and not very proveable. If it, however, somehow proves to be true, it would open up a series of interesting questions, primarily the one asking how those 2 3D membranes came to exist in the first place, as the theory really doesn't ensure their temporal infinity. Anyway, if the theory is true and there's somebody outside of our universe, they could certainly use us as a pretty good impulse generator.

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Originally posted by Ondrayce In this case, when I use the term "zero," what I really mean is "nothing." No mass, no matter, no elements, nothing. Just empty space. If the universe gradually grew and evolved into what it is now, it had to start from nothing. The universe can't begin from a single element. Because you can still ask "where did that element come from?" The beginning of the universe lies where you can no longer ask those kinds of questions. And you cannot ask "where did nothing come from?" because, well, nothing is there. Then comes a new question. "How something be created from nothing?" And that is a question that I will neither answer or debate. My brain hurts just thinking about it.

Well, at least you yourself admit that you don't know what you're talking about. You mention that only empty space existed. Well, I've got a newsflash for you: nothing does not include empty space either! Besides, that empty space is not really empty, so empty nothingness is not really nothingness in a pure sense of the word. And you can sure as hell ask yourself if there was something else before that nothingness. If something appeared out of nothing, there had to be some unusual fluctuations in that nothingess, right? And if there were, then it wasn't really nothing, there was something going on.

QUOT

Perhaps a little off-topic, but interesting nonetheless:

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'God particle' may have been seen By Paul Rincon BBC News Online science staff A scientist says one of the most sought after particles in physics - the Higgs boson - may have been found, but the evidence is still relatively weak. Peter Renton, of the University of Oxford, says the particle may have been detected by researchers at an atom-smashing facility in Switzerland. The Higgs boson explains why all other particles have mass and is fundamental to a complete understanding of matter. Dr Renton's assessment of the Higgs hunt is published in Nature magazine. His paper in the journal reviews the current state of play. "There's certainly evidence for something, whether it's the Higgs boson is questionable," Dr Renton, a particle physicist at Oxford, told BBC News Online. "It's compatible with the Higgs boson certainly, but only a direct observation would show that." It's compatible with the Higgs boson certainly, but only a direct observation would show that Dr Peter Renton, University of Oxford If correct, Dr Renton's assessment would place the elusive particle's mass at about 115 gigaelectronvolts. Unstable particle This comes from a signal obtained at the large electron positron collider (LEP) in Geneva, Switzerland, which has now been dismantled to make way for its replacement - the large hadron collider (LHC). However, there is a 9% probability that the signal could be background "noise". Before the LEP accelerator was decommissioned, physicists used it to send particles called electrons and positrons careering in opposite directions around its circular pipe, which had a circumference of about 27km. When these particles collided, they created bursts of high energy. Such collisions themselves are too small to study but new, heavier particles can appear amongst the debris. The Higgs boson is thought to be highly unstable and, once produced, should quickly decay. Dr Renton cites indirect evidence taken from observations of the behaviour of other particles in colliders that agrees with the figure of 115 gigaelectronvolts for the mass of the Higgs boson. "It's controversial. The data is possibly indicative, but it needs confirmation," said Bryan Webber, professor of theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge. "Its mass is right at the maximum energy they could run the [LEP] at. But the indirect indications are that the Higgs boson should be close to that value." Mass giver Physicists have observed 16 particles that make up all matter under the Standard Model of fundamental particles and interactions. But the sums do not quite add up for the Standard Model to be true if these particles are considered alone. If only 16 particles existed, they would have no mass - contradicting what we know to be true in nature. Another particle has to give them this mass. Enter the Higgs boson, first proposed by University of Edinburgh physicist Peter Higgs and colleagues in the late 1960s. Their theory was that all particles acquire their mass through interactions with an all-pervading field, called the Higgs field, which is carried by the Higgs boson. The Higgs' importance to the Standard Model has led some to dub it the "God particle". Dr Renton said he hoped that once the large hadron collider was up and running in 2007, the Higgs boson would be detected within a year or two. The LHC is a more energetic accelerator which will allow a much higher mass range to be explored. It will also be capable of producing much more intense particle beams which means that data can be aggregated much faster. It is also possible the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory outside Chicago, US, could make the discovery. Researchers there are hopeful they can secure enough data to prove the Higgs' existence before the LHC comes online. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/...ech/3546973.stm Published: 2004/03/10 18:02:44 GMT � BBC MMIV

Re: QUOT

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Originally posted by MisterOpus1 Perhaps a little off-topic, but interesting nonetheless:

Plagiarism!!!

http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...threadid=167087

Re: Re: QUOT

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Originally posted by occrider Plagiarism!!! http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...threadid=167087

Oopsies!

Well call me your bitch for that one!

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Originally posted by DigiNut You're trying to apply grade-school mathematics and physics to a very complex theoretical question. Mathematics is merely a tool and a model for problem solving, it does not serve to explain anything profound about nature.

I'm using grade school mathematics so that you can understand that one comes after zero.

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Originally posted by DigiNut By your logic I could just as easily say that time is an exponential function and therefore it never reached 0 and time will somehow massively explode in the future. Or I could say that it's a reciprocal function and started out with a massive IMplosion, has been shrinking ever since then, and will eventually fade out and disappear. Neither of these things make any sense, nor are they supposed to - they're just to illustrate how ludicrous it is to simply assume that time operates in a linear fashion with a clear beginning and/or end. You're using "zero" and "one" as if there actually is a time at "zero" or "one", but what makes you think that time even exists on such an absolute scale? There is only a "zero" time when it is used on a relative scale, i.e. with a stopwatch, starting at point A and ending at point B, and this is how we use it in day-to-day applications.

Time is not calculatable. There is absolutely no way to predict the future. And technically the future doesn't even exist. If someone were able to see into the future, because of their response to it, that would no longer be the real future. Based on our perception. There is only "then" and "now." And in that sense, Time is absolutely linear. Say if someone were able to travel from now to 1786. From the perspective of the Time Traveler, technically he is not travelling backwards. His timeline will continue to move forward and he will grow older. He just happens to be in a representation of 1786. And I say representation because the fact that he is there makes that a false 1786. Based on the perception of that single entity, Time Travel is impossible and will continue to be linear. A circular universe that has no beginning or end would have to introduce time travel somewhere into its existance.

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Originally posted by DigiNut Is this sinking in yet? Just because you cannot grasp a concept doesn't mean it cannot exist. Many forces in nature are not linear at all. Look at our physiology and the way we hear - on a logarithmic scale. And guess what, on a logarithmic scale, zero does not exist as an input.

No, not everything in the universe is linear. As far as hearing, the time it takes for a sound to travel from its origin to our brain is deffinately linear. For hearing, consider "zero" as the piont of origin.

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Originally posted by DigiNut Study some quantum. Learn about quantum foam. This thing we call "nothing" - a vacuum, for instance - it doesn't exist. Even in a total vacuum without any matter, there are still oscillations - quantum fluctuations, or quantum foam. Matter and anti-matter simultaneously coming into existence and annihilating each other on the quantum level. "Nothing" only exists in the general sense, as a macro property, as the sum of many smaller parts, like when you zoom into a seemingly smooth curve and find out that it has jagged edges, or when you zoom into a DC signal and find out that it has noise or ripple.

"Nothing" exists when "something" doesn't exist. Simple as that. When speaking on macro properties, you refer to something that exists. Matter and anti-matter simultaneously coming into existence? WHERE DID IT COME FROM? That matter and anti-matter had to come from somewhere.

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Originally posted by DigiNut You don't have to be a religious nut to be wrong in your argument - the fact is, the logic you're using to imply that there ever was a beginning is completely fallacious. I'm certainly open to anyone presenting a proper scientific proof that such a beginning ever existed, but a proper scientific proof is worlds apart from what you've presented to us. All you've given us is a weak argument having something to do with number lines (something we learned about in grade 6), and a gross misinterpretation of the law of inertia (which, properly read, states that a body will tend to remain in motion once it is set in motion, NOT that a body must have been deterministically set in motion in order to be in motion).

If you need scientific proof, then why are you so adement that there is no beginning? You have no evidence to prove me wrong in any way. I'm not really saying that the beginning is where nothing exists. Because we can still ask where nothing came from, as Drug Tito asked. And "nothing" is only a comparison to a lack of "something." I'm just say that the end of this universe cannot trigger the beggining of this same universe. I'm open to it triggering the creation of ANOTHER universe. Time doesn't loop like that. Time is continuous.

This is an awesome discussion, though. I'm glad you're here Diginut. Its deffinately been fun.

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Originally posted by 3xx3r7 That is human logic, why it had to start? That is the way humans are used to thinking. It absolutely has to start. Why? Also, I don't buy the whole theory with Adam and Eve. Again, it comes back to the notion of the start. How about we go past that confinement and imagine that there was no beginning. It has always existed.

The human logic isn't WHY it had to start. The logic is THAT it had to start. Religion doesn't tell you THAT there is a beginning, only WHAT that beginning is. The story of Adam and Eve is a story written for children. Its just that those children grew up without being told that the story was fiction. Now 95% of this planet is suffering from neurological dissorders. Besides imagining that that there is no beginning, doesn't prove that there isn't. I'm not saying that you're wrong. I can't prove that either. I'm just debating the other side.

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Originally posted by DigiNut All you've given us is a weak argument having something to do with number lines (something we learned about in grade 6), and a gross misinterpretation of the law of inertia (which, properly read, states that a body will tend to remain in motion once it is set in motion, NOT that a body must have been deterministically set in motion in order to be in motion).

The law of inertia wasn't misinterpreted. Newton's Laws of Inertia do not address how the object in motion was set in motion. Newton's Laws only address the motion, speed, and force and implies that the object in motion was previously set in motion. How does a baseball travel from the pitcher to the catcher? THE PITCHER THREW IT.

Occ, Tito and Yoepus, I leave this thread up to you, I'm not eeeeven going to waste my time.

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Originally posted by Ondrayce If someone were able to see into the future, because of their response to it, that would no longer be the real future.

A bit off topic, but if someone sees into the future, that would imply that the future is predetermined. That would mean that the future someone sees is a result of their reaction to their forsight.

Hmph, I'm bored tonight, so I am going to waste my taking taking apart this "argument."

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Originally posted by Ondrayce I'm using grade school mathematics so that you can understand that one comes after zero.

Gee, thanks for dumbing it down, my pitiful 4 years in engineering couldn't possibly compare to an American grade school education.

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Time is not calculatable. There is absolutely no way to predict the future. And technically the future doesn't even exist. If someone were able to see into the future, because of their response to it, that would no longer be the real future. Based on our perception. There is only "then" and "now." And in that sense, Time is absolutely linear. Say if someone were able to travel from now to 1786. From the perspective of the Time Traveler, technically he is not travelling backwards. His timeline will continue to move forward and he will grow older. He just happens to be in a representation of 1786. And I say representation because the fact that he is there makes that a false 1786. Based on the perception of that single entity, Time Travel is impossible and will continue to be linear. A circular universe that has no beginning or end would have to introduce time travel somewhere into its existance.

What the hell does time travel or prediction of the future have to do with this debate, anyway? If you want to talk about that, save it for another thread.

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No, not everything in the universe is linear. As far as hearing, the time it takes for a sound to travel from its origin to our brain is deffinately linear. For hearing, consider "zero" as the piont of origin.

This doesn't even make sense. The time it takes for a sound to travel from its origin to our brain is linear in relation to what? To itself? Yes, I suppose if you plot "f(x) vs f(x)" then you will get a linear graph.

Or are you trying to say that the time it takes for a sound to travel from its origin to our brain varies linearly with our distance to that point of origin? If so, that sort of makes sense, but my whole point was that this only holds true because we sense and measure time linearly. But there is no reason why we can't reference time on a logarithmic scale, and indeed that is done in many applications such as passive electronics - and if time can be represented on a logarithmic scale, which it can, then who is to say that logarithmic is not it's "natural state" and that no zero time could ever exist?

Consider "zero" as the point of origin - that makes even less sense. It might makes sense if you worded it backwards - i.e., "let the time of origination of the sound wave be zero" - okay, that makes sense, I guess, but so what, what does it prove? That we can take a point of reference on a much larger absolute scale and call it zero and take measurements relative to it? Wow, thank you for that glorious insight, I never would have figured it out without your help.

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"Nothing" exists when "something" doesn't exist. Simple as that. When speaking on macro properties, you refer to something that exists. Matter and anti-matter simultaneously coming into existence? WHERE DID IT COME FROM? That matter and anti-matter had to come from somewhere.

It doesn't "come from" anywhere. If you want to learn the answer to your question then read a quantum mechanics textbook or search on the web for quantum foam - don't ask it in CAPS like it's same age-old philosophical questions that nobody's been able to come up with a sensible answer to. We are talking about quantum fluctuations, and everyone with even the most elementary knowledge of quantum mechanics knows that the very first principle of quantum mechanics is that it isn't subject to the same laws as classical (macro) mechanics. Energy can be quantized and is not necessarily able to take on an arbitrary value. Energy and matter do not have to be conserved (on the quantum scale). And matter can and does come and go without any causation!

You may think it's some sort of impossible-to-understand miracle that a matter-antimatter pair can materialize out of "empty space", and yet it happens every nanosecond of every day! w00t! Because the fact is, it's not "materializing" out of empty space, it IS empty space. And that's where so many people fail to grasp the concept - it's like an AC current with no DC offset whose average value is thus zero - it's an AVERAGE, the current still EXISTS. Come to think of it, those quantum fluctuations on a sub-microscopic scale would seem to be a very good model for - you guessed it - OUR UNIVERSE!

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If you need scientific proof, then why are you so adement that there is no beginning? You have no evidence to prove me wrong in any way.

I don't seem to recall saying that I'm adamant about there being no beginning. The fluctuation theory is just one of an unproven few. However, YOU are adamant that there WAS a "beginning", and my adamance lies with the fact that your assumption is WRONG, there IS no evidence that there was a "beginning" and it is not "basic human logic" to assume that it is!

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I'm not really saying that the beginning is where nothing exists. Because we can still ask where nothing came from, as Drug Tito asked. And "nothing" is only a comparison to a lack of "something." I'm just say that the end of this universe cannot trigger the beggining of this same universe. I'm open to it triggering the creation of ANOTHER universe. Time doesn't loop like that. Time is continuous.

And your evidence of this is where? Have you been to the end of time and back? Have you been to the beginning of time and back? No? Then HOW DO YOU KNOW THEY EXIST? People thought the Earth was flat many centuries ago, I guess they would have thought it had corners and a beginning and an end too, but apparently, THEY WERE WRONG! MAYBE YOU ARE TOO!

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Originally posted by Ondrayce The human logic isn't WHY it had to start. The logic is THAT it had to start. Religion doesn't tell you THAT there is a beginning, only WHAT that beginning is. The story of Adam and Eve is a story written for children. Its just that those children grew up without being told that the story was fiction. Now 95% of this planet is suffering from neurological dissorders. Besides imagining that that there is no beginning, doesn't prove that there isn't. I'm not saying that you're wrong. I can't prove that either. I'm just debating the other side.

Religion tells us what the beginning is, but that by definition drills the idea into our heads that there WAS a beginning. "Imagining" that there was no beginning obviously does not prove that there wasn't one, but "imagining" that there WAS a beginning doesn't prove that there WAS one either. The singular reason why people choose the latter is because it is easier to imagine than the former, because they haven't had enough of an education in mathematics and sciences to wrap their minds around the concepts of an infinite phenomena.

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The law of inertia wasn't misinterpreted. Newton's Laws of Inertia do not address how the object in motion was set in motion. Newton's Laws only address the motion, speed, and force and implies that the object in motion was previously set in motion. How does a baseball travel from the pitcher to the catcher? THE PITCHER THREW IT.

Well if what you posted originally wasn't a misinterpretation of Newton's Law, then it was just crap pulled out of your ass. You said it yourself, Newton's Law doesn't make any reference to how, why, or when an object was set in motion. Therefore, your "pitcher-baseball" comment is nothing more than a warped version of the classic fallacious Theistic "argument from design" - i.e., the complexity of an object suggests that it must have been designed and that therefore there was a designer.

Your argument is fallacious for the same reasons that the Intelligent Design argument makes no sense: specifically, the baseball is an object WE create and WE set in motion and thus it is reasonably to assume that it won't fly by itself if it isn't thrown. This logic, however, does not and cannot apply to, say, the movement of planetary bodies. We didn't create those and they are quite good at moving on their very own due to interacting gravitational forces. The planets weren't "thrown" by anyone, they move due to a phenomena that simply exists. Period. And sure, you can go ahead and ask and imagine where gravity came from but that doesn't mean that there's a logical answer to your question. If we didn't create it, then there's no reason to assume that anyone created it, and thus no reason to assume that it had some kind of beginning or will have some kind of end.

Please, don't pursue this line of reasoning any further. It's a good start that you don't believe in any God or Creationist arguments, but you're still trapped in the religious view of cosmology that suggests everything must have a beginning and/or end. This isn't true! I'll say what my professors have said so many times in our classes - you don't have to understand it, just accept it.

sweet jeebus i read this whole thread, my head hurts

Ps. im still looking for dinosaurs in the bible

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Originally posted by DigiNut Gee, thanks for dumbing it down, my pitiful 4 years in engineering couldn't possibly compare to an American grade school education.

I don't mean to offend. I'm just trying to simplify my point, thinking that the simplest explanation is probably the most likely. Though its probably impossible to do at this point in this discussion. Its not an attack on your intelligence.

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Originally posted by DigiNut What the hell does time travel or prediction of the future have to do with this debate, anyway? If you want to talk about that, save it for another thread.

My original response was to the idea of cycling universes that have no beginning or end. I interpreted this cycling as either:

[ Universe A dies, then creates Universe B; B dies then creates C. C dies then creates Universe A again. Time travel would be required for C to create A again. To go back to a point where A never existed in the first place. Then a paradox comes into play. How can C create an A, that doesn't exist yet, when C can't exist itself without A. You know the "Kill your Great Grandmother" time travel paradox. But without time travel, Universe C would only be able to create Universe D. Then infinately expand that way, which I do think is possible. This would make a long, linear, string of cycles, or dimensions, that exist in something even larger than our universe. And there's probably something even larger than that. My point is that no matter how large we are thinking, we cannot escape the grasp of time. ]

or:

[ Universe A dies then creates Universe A again. And so on...
The same pardox as above would occur between the death of A and the creation of A. So a linear string of different Universe A's would infinately expand just like above. ]

I've just been trying to say that these strings should have a beginning. Created by something outside of where these infinate dimensions are held. Then that will lead to more questions. Where did the "something" that created the string come from? And so on. The further outside you think from, the more Linear things are going to look.

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Originally posted by DigiNut Or are you trying to say that the time it takes for a sound to travel from its origin to our brain varies linearly with our distance to that point of origin?

Yes. That is what I meant. Sorry for the poor wording.

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Originally posted by DigiNut If so, that sort of makes sense, but my whole point was that this only holds true because we sense and measure time linearly.

Yes, my point as well.

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Originally posted by DigiNut Consider "zero" as the point of origin - that makes even less sense. It might makes sense if you worded it backwards - i.e., "let the time of origination of the sound wave be zero" - okay, that makes sense, I guess,

That is what I meant too. Didn't think there was a difference between considering "zero" as the origin of the sound wave and considering the origin of the sound wave as "zero."

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Originally posted by DigiNut but so what, what does it prove? That we can take a point of reference on a much larger absolute scale and call it zero and take measurements relative to it? Wow, thank you for that glorious insight, I never would have figured it out without your help.

I'm TRYING to be simple. I'm not using exponential, logorithmic equations as source for a reason. They are not applicable because, when talking about the size, age, or origin of the universe, there is no scientific data to apply them to. Everything is speculation.

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Originally posted by DigiNut It doesn't "come from" anywhere. If you want to learn the answer to your question then read a quantum mechanics textbook or search on the web for quantum foam - don't ask it in CAPS like it's same age-old philosophical questions that nobody's been able to come up with a sensible answer to. We are talking about quantum fluctuations, and everyone with even the most elementary knowledge of quantum mechanics knows that the very first principle of quantum mechanics is that it isn't subject to the same laws as classical (macro) mechanics.

I have studied basic quantum mechanics, and the subject is amazing. I try learn as much as can, though that is not a field that I wish to take a career in. But Quantum Mechanics is only based on data that scientists have at hand. It can't be applied to something that we know nothing about...yet. Its still speculation that quantum foam has or will always exist when nothing else does. Maybe we will find that this is an age-old question that can't be answered. Who knows?

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Originally posted by DigiNut Energy can be quantized and is not necessarily able to take on an arbitrary value. Energy and matter do not have to be conserved (on the quantum scale). And matter can and does come and go without any causation!

Kind of like God then, I guess. And you say I'm the one thinking religiously.

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Originally posted by DigiNut You may think it's some sort of impossible-to-understand miracle that a matter-antimatter pair can materialize out of "empty space", and yet it happens every nanosecond of every day! w00t! Because the fact is, it's not "materializing" out of empty space, it IS empty space. And that's where so many people fail to grasp the concept - it's like an AC current with no DC offset whose average value is thus zero - it's an AVERAGE, the current still EXISTS. Come to think of it, those quantum fluctuations on a sub-microscopic scale would seem to be a very good model for - you guessed it - OUR UNIVERSE!

I don't think anything's is a miracle. I just believe in causality. We may not see it now, but there may be a cause for the materialization of matter-antimatter pairs. I don't think that we have the knowledge, yet, to consider our take on Quantum Mechanics final, and applicable to the rest of the universe.

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Originally posted by DigiNut I don't seem to recall saying that I'm adamant about there being no beginning. The fluctuation theory is just one of an unproven few. However, YOU are adamant that there WAS a "beginning", and my adamance lies with the fact that your assumption is WRONG, there IS no evidence that there was a "beginning" and it is not "basic human logic" to assume that it is!

Let me be clear. I'm not adament about anything that I have no proof to back up. I take an opposing view on a topic like this to try and understand why an individual can believe in something that they have no solid reason to. Thats my extreme anti religious background in effect. The conflict arises when someone sees this and assumes that I actually believe in everything I say, and does the same thing I do. To me. Which you have done very well and very intelligently. Please don't consider my responses as attacks. I just like to oppose. I'm an Anarchist. I'm not here to prove that I'm right, I'm here to be proven wrong. It might not be basic human logic to assume there is a beginning, but for me it is less logical for me to think that there isn't. I believe that we came from somewhere, maybe the Giant Cookie Monster, and we continue to move forward. I believe its impossible to move backwards and end up where we started. Quantum Mechanics doesn't seem to refute that in any way.

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Originally posted by DigiNut And your evidence of this is where? Have you been to the end of time and back? Have you been to the beginning of time and back? No? Then HOW DO YOU KNOW THEY EXIST? People thought the Earth was flat many centuries ago, I guess they would have thought it had corners and a beginning and an end too, but apparently, THEY WERE WRONG! MAYBE YOU ARE TOO!

Again, as shown above, to have the future affect the past would create a paradox in which none of us would exist. Since I believe that we do exist, I think looping time is extremely illogical. You don't have to travel to the end of the universe to figure that out. Not when talking about time. And whether people thought the world was flat in the past has no barring.

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Originally posted by DigiNut Religion tells us what the beginning is, but that by definition drills the idea into our heads that there WAS a beginning. "Imagining" that there was no beginning obviously does not prove that there wasn't one, but "imagining" that there WAS a beginning doesn't prove that there WAS one either. The singular reason why people choose the latter is because it is easier to imagine than the former, because they haven't had enough of an education in mathematics and sciences to wrap their minds around the concepts of an infinite phenomena.

I don't like believeing in the easier things. Especially when I see major problems with those things. If I did, I'd believe in God and leave it at that. I have to ask questions.

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Originally posted by DigiNut Well if what you posted originally wasn't a misinterpretation of Newton's Law, then it was just crap pulled out of your ass. You said it yourself, Newton's Law doesn't make any reference to how, why, or when an object was set in motion. Therefore, your "pitcher-baseball" comment is nothing more than a warped version of the classic fallacious Theistic "argument from design" - i.e., the complexity of an object suggests that it must have been designed and that therefore there was a designer.

Then there was a designer of the designer, and a designer of that designer, and so on...But under the cycling universe theory, the pitcher would throw the ball to the catcher, the ball would instantly be in the pitcher's hand again. He will not have memory of throwing it in the first place and throw it again, and again, forever. That seems much more likely. Right.

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Originally posted by DigiNut Your argument is fallacious for the same reasons that the Intelligent Design argument makes no sense: specifically, the baseball is an object WE create and WE set in motion and thus it is reasonably to assume that it won't fly by itself if it isn't thrown. This logic, however, does not and cannot apply to, say, the movement of planetary bodies. We didn't create those and they are quite good at moving on their very own due to interacting gravitational forces. The planets weren't "thrown" by anyone, they move due to a phenomena that simply exists. Period.

Take a comet. Probably a piece something that was projected off of something else. Who knows how? Explosion, ricochette, Giant being from from Giant planet hurls Giant rock into space towards our sun. Whatever. The comet moves toward our sun. Doesn't hit it, but passes it, gets caught by the sun's gravity, and gets hurled in a different direction. During this the comet's speed is decreased by the gravity of the sun. So it moves away slower than it came. Say that comet's speed was affected so much that it didn't have enough speed to escape the sun's gravity then gets locked into a decaying orbit around the sun. Such is our planets. They are not in a perfectly stationary, circular orbit around the sun. We are, very slowly, actually falling into the sun. This is a recent NAS finding, I'll try to find the article. Cool stuff. But our planet is not in the same place it was a million years ago. And it isn't moving on its own. It could very well have been thrown here.

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Originally posted by DigiNut And sure, you can go ahead and ask and imagine where gravity came from but that doesn't mean that there's a logical answer to your question. If we didn't create it, then there's no reason to assume that anyone created it, and thus no reason to assume that it had some kind of beginning or will have some kind of end.

I'm not going to even touch on how gravity is formed. You say if we didn't create it, then there's no reason to assume that anyone created it. But you might as well say that if we didn't create it, then there's no reason to assume it even exists at all. Everything outside of ourselves is just our imagination. We're all trapped in The Matrix. Possible...but The Matrix sucked.

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Originally posted by DigiNut Please, don't pursue this line of reasoning any further. It's a good start that you don't believe in any God or Creationist arguments, but you're still trapped in the religious view of cosmology that suggests everything must have a beginning and/or end. This isn't true! I'll say what my professors have said so many times in our classes - you don't have to understand it, just accept it.

Thats what preists say to their followers too. Funny.


ps. I'm glad that you're a trained engineer and intelligent with your opposition.
Again, I'm not saying I believe in everything that I say, I'm just opposing. You have made it a lot more interesting. Respect...

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Originally posted by nic01445 A bit off topic, but if someone sees into the future, that would imply that the future is predetermined. That would mean that the future someone sees is a result of their reaction to their forsight.

If someone were able to see the future, it would be an estimation based on our standing right now. During that forsight the person seeing would react to what they saw. Then the future would react to their reaction and change. then the person would react again, and the future would change again.

That is why the future cannot be accurately seen or predicted.

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