Saerules you seem to be fairly concerned with the definitions of words (by the way I do agree with what you said about above though).

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(November 4, 2009 at 3:37 pm)leo-rcc Wrote:

(November 4, 2009 at 3:25 pm)solarwave Wrote: I would also like to vote for Tiberius's definition of the universe since I think that is closer to what science says. Isn't the universe pretty much everything that was created by the big bang and so inside out spacetime and anything outside that is another universe?

I see no evidence for an "outside" of the universe, if you know of some please enlighten me.

I don't think currently any evidence for the multiverse, but string theory,etc, is still fairly new so we'll have to wait a few decades (Im guessing) for more results.

Sae has a radio in his fingernail!

By his I mean chocolate which of course means girl in liliputian, just ask Gulliver. So apparently everyone needs to specify that they are speaking english when they start a post? The fact that every single post on this board is in English does not have any bearing on how to interpret the letters in each post? *huge eyeroll, like popping out of the socket huge!*

Rhizo

Quote:I don't think currently any evidence for the multiverse, but string theory,etc, is still fairly new so we'll have to wait a few decades (Im guessing) for more results.

That may be case, but until then I will not hold the position that there is indeed such a thing as outside the universe.

Saerules Wrote:We don't want to spend 3 pages discussing the nature of something, only to find out in the middle of the fourth that one of us was talking about the nature of chocolate, and the other but the nature of the orangutang

My beef was that this doesn't happen. If something has a debatable definition it comes out very early in a dicussion, if it doesn't then all parties have apparently failed to communicate.

If it doesn't have a debatable definition, then someone is a loon.

Rhizo Wrote:Sae has a radio in his fingernail!

By his I mean chocolate which of course means girl in liliputian, just ask Gulliver. So apparently everyone needs to specify that they are speaking english when they start a post? The fact that every single post on this board is in English does not have any bearing on how to interpret the letters in each post? *huge eyeroll, like popping out of the socket huge!*

'his?'

I was making the point that we don't all speak one language (hence English, French, Russian, Icelandic, Greek, Hawaiian, etc.)... therefore one possibility for misinterpretation in colloquial speech I wasn't directing it at particularly this forum, but the world in general

And yes, I do have a radio in my fingernail An invisible pink one that broadcasts the channel of pink felt love I listen to it frequently __

solarwave Wrote:Saerules you seem to be fairly concerned with the definitions of words (by the way I do agree with what you said about above though).

I'm not quite sure how you mean? <--It is difficulties like these (in communication) that I find quite fascinating... like how I can be speaking in nice clear Icelandic to one person, and another person standing next to me won't have the faintest clue what I am saying.

meatball Wrote:My beef was that this doesn't happen. If something has a debatable definition it comes out very early in a dicussion, if it doesn't then all parties have apparently failed to communicate.

If it doesn't have a debatable definition, then someone is a loon.

Just so long as we don't forget that the bold sometimes does occur

(November 4, 2009 at 3:34 pm)leo-rcc Wrote: Is there any evidence for it? Mathematical models do not impress me to be honest unless it is directly applicable in real world applications.

Some people claim it neatly solves the problem of what happened to cause the Big Bang, others say String theory explains the existence of pretty much everything. However there isn't anything solid to go on since it's all a bunch of hypotheses, so I don't support calling it "theory".

(November 4, 2009 at 3:37 pm)leo-rcc Wrote: I see no evidence for an "outside" of the universe, if you know of some please enlighten me.

But by this very discussion you wouldn't see any evidence anyway surely? Science works for our universe, and the point was that if other universes exist, we can't detect them (at least not yet) scientifically since they may operate with other laws of physics. Asking for evidence of something that cannot have evidence by definition is pointless.

(November 4, 2009 at 6:08 pm)Tiberius Wrote: But by this very discussion you wouldn't see any evidence anyway surely? Science works for our universe, and the point was that if other universes exist, we can't detect them (at least not yet) scientifically since they may operate with other laws of physics.

But that is just it. It is all just speculation. I encourage scientists to look for any evidence for alternate universes but until they do I am not going to assume anything like an outside of our universe.

(November 4, 2009 at 6:08 pm)Tiberius Wrote: Asking for evidence of something that cannot have evidence by definition is pointless.

Which has my point exactly. http://atheistforums.org/thread-2147-pos...l#pid40027

You are using a definition based on a set of hypotheses while I use the term universe exactly as I said before, everything that exists, has existed, and will exist.

My point is and has been all along that if there is a future possibility to detect this "outside" the universe then it is part of the Universe. You may call that reality, that is your prerogative, but unless you can show me why that part is not just an up to now unknown part of the universe I do not see any reason to change my opinion on this matter.

As for laws of physics working differently in other universes, that too is a possibility but should we be able to detect their effects in this universe that means that their are either more laws at play than the ones we know to be working in our part of the universe, or our laws as we know them may be proven to be wrong, or they may be some other reason that I can't think of. Either way we would need data to verify and test.

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

leo-rcc: Well you can keep using the word universe for everything that exists just as I could use the word earth to mean everything (the sun in the the earth, so is the milkyway), but I think you'll find more people using it as meaning this spacetime created by the big bang eventually.

(November 4, 2009 at 6:48 pm)leo-rcc Wrote: As for laws of physics working differently in other universes, that too is a possibility but should we be able to detect their effects in this universe that means that their are either more laws at play than the ones we know to be working in our part of the universe, or our laws as we know them may be proven to be wrong, or they may be some other reason that I can't think of. Either way we would need data to verify and test.

That's the whole point though, you wouldn't be able to. The universe in which we live is a closed system; it isn't affected by any external systems. Thus if they exist, it is impossible to detect them.

It's all hypothetical, and I'm not disagreeing with you in any particular way, but the fact is that the mathematical models work and it could very well be the case. You can dismiss it without evidence, but that doesn't mean you have to refuse to discuss it. We dismiss God, yet we discuss God at length. It's an idea, and to understand the idea you need to have definitions for "universe" that comply with the "multiverse", hence why "reality" is usually used as describing the set of everything that exists.

(November 5, 2009 at 4:33 am)solarwave Wrote: leo-rcc: Well you can keep using the word universe for everything that exists just as I could use the word earth to mean everything (the sun in the the earth, so is the milkyway), but I think you'll find more people using it as meaning this spacetime created by the big bang eventually.

I doubt that very much. The universe is regarded as being "everything" by far more people than "this spacetime created by the big bang". It is even where the word comes from, "Universum, everything is one"