A few questions

[downbeatplumb]

If you don't mind I have a few questions. I'm orthodox Christian btw

Why is the universe the way it is? Brilliant and beautiful?
Why does it have to be in order? Why can't it be chaotic? Why can't the speed of light change? Why is gravity between two bodies proportional to product of the masses? Why not anything else? (Note inversely proportional equation doesn't count). Why can't the laws of thermodynamics be changed? Why are laws the way they are?

why is the energy in the universe constant? Why can't it be destroyed or created

why is heat transfer done from warm regions to cold regions and not the other way around

In short, why does the universe need to conform to the laws? Doesn't the fact that the laws can't be changed or substituted indicate there could be a higher power that set it all in place?
Hypothetically, the universe could very well be chaotic. But it's not

I'll check out your answers and reply tomorrow

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Also notice, the actions and thinking of living things are the only things without law ( free will)

All answers are in this book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gospel_...ti_Monster

[Mister Agenda]

Hold on . . . Where did I imply that god did do it?

I was asking that since there is so much order in the universe, couldn't it also be a POSSIBILITY that a higher power made sure the big bang happened in such a way that the universe would work as we know it does now?

It doesn't matter what kind of universe you've got, it could be a possibility that some power (not necessarily higher) made it that way. It could also be a possibility that a cosmic cat hacked it up like a hairball. You can suppose possibilities all day long without getting any closer to what's real.

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That was also was what Albert Einstein said about his beliefs. That the working universe of the universe was set up so complex that it made sense to think it was all created by an intelligence

I bet you can't find a quote of him saying that.

[Chas]

Because a thinking, acting nothingness is nonsensical?

I think the universe seems to be largely nonsensical. I mean, it seems either to have always existed, or to have magically been created by something which always existed, or to be part of a chain of infinite co-existence; fuck-- none of those options makes any sense. But I do know that it includes consiousness, and so without knowing absolutely why any chain of events occurs, one of the possibilities (even if slim) is that consciousness is injected somewhere along that chain.

Injected by whom? From where?

There is no reason to believe this - no evidence that consciousness did not emerge naturally.

It depends how you look at it. On the one hand, it seems of all the things we know about, only a very small % of "stuff" involves anything we'd call thinking. On the other hand, 100% of that "stuff" is known to us only through a thinking mind-- absolutely nothing is known to exist that we are not conscious of. And 100% is a statistic worth carefully considering when drawing philosophical inferences.

That does not follow. 100% of everything we know is because we can know - we are conscious. Other animals also know things - consciousness is not binary, there or not there. There are degrees of consciousness. Consider other animals that exhibit intelligence and self-awareness like dolphins, elephants, dogs, ...

[Mister Agenda]

And please tell, what about the opinion that the universe was designed by an intelligent designer/ architect/engineer doesn't make sense.?

The part where there's no more evidence for it than for a lion with goat leges.

Can you 100 % be certain of the scenario that it isn't this way?

Some people can. How certain people are one way or the other is irrelevant, certainty has little to do with what's actually the case, else you wouldn't have people equally certain of mutually exclusive things. However such certain people are in the minority hereabouts.

If you can't, you would be agnostic.

I am agnostic. An agnostic atheist. Most of the atheists here are agnostic atheists. I bet you're an agnostic theist.

Can you say for SURE that we are the cause of our existence is that the universe just HAPPENED to start with the big bang, stars formed, chemicals formed, planets etc . . . are we to give credit for our existence just to luck?

There's a certain kind of person who can think about a universe exploding and stars forming who thinks it's appropriate to put 'just' in front of such a grand conception. And is so deficient in awe as to complain there's something wrong with it if it doesn't conform to their preferences concerning probability.

And here's where we see if you're an agnostic theist: Can you say for SURE that an infinite being just HAPPENED to decide to create the universe starting with the big bang, stars forming, chemicals forming, planets, etc...are we to give credit to our existence to just luck, when presumably the creator had infinite options and picked just this one that has you in it?

Because if the universe worked in any other way than it did in the past 13.7 billion years . . . It's safe to say we wouldn't exist.

But it's not safe to say no one would exist or that the universe could have worked any other way. We have only one universe as a sample, and no evidence that 'the constants could have varied'.

So out of the infinite possibilities of what could have happened, we have a star created from a molecular cloud collapse, 4.57 billion years ago, planets got created. If even one planet out of 8, (except maybe mercury) would never have been created, earth wouldn't still be the same distance from the sun (and our position right now is perfect).

The possibilities are vast, but not necessarily infinite. It's not clear at all that the past could have unfolded differently than it did. It's certainly a possibility, and I think it's at least a bit more likely than getting the exact same result if it was somehow rewound and started over from the beginning. Still, not an established fact.

These conditions were necessary for life. Why out of the infinite number of other possibilities, like what if dark energy really didn't / doesn't exist to expand the universe with the same "force" (I can't think of a better word) it does now?

If things were different, then they would be different. Why would a being who can make universes to order need for one to be habitable in order to have us in it? An omnipotent being could have us living on the sun as easily as anywhere else. The only universe we could live in that DOESN'T require a powerful entity to explain our existence is one whose natural laws allow us to exist.

Logic, and laws dictate that there should've been multiple future possibilities. And since you proved chaos, there was no reason for things to happen as they did. And yet they have. Out of the multiple future possibilities, we HAPPENED to come to life.
Luck?

Texas sharpshooter fallacy. Shoot wildly at the side of a barn and then draw the bullseyes around the bullets that hit and proclaim yourself an amazing shootist. Everything is amazingly improbable when you work backwards from the results. How could the bullet have wound up PRECISELY in this spot if it wasn't what the shooter was aiming for? What were the odds of you being born? Your parents had to meet, one particular sperm out of millions had to fertilize one particular egg to result in you, and that means your parents had to have sex at a particular point in time to conceive you. The odds against any given Bridge hand are about six billion to one and I can deal them out all day...it's only remarkable if you know what the hand is going to be before its dealt. The odds of lots of things in advance are wildly improbable...but once they've occurred the odds that they happened are 100%.

PS- I really would love to know if there were multiverses where they work different to our universe . . . How their systems formed, if and how life evolved there and how life evolved when the properties of the multiverses were different from ours. Really exciting field!

I'm hopeful something will come of it, but there's not enough evidence supporting it yet to say I'm definitely on board.

[Cyberman]

Why is the universe dull and ugly?

Sorry about the following digression, but I just can't resist the feed you provided:

[bennyboy]

That was also was what Albert Einstein said about his beliefs. That the working universe of the universe was set up so complex that it made sense to think it was all created by an intelligence

I bet you can't find a quote of him saying that.

I bet you can't find a quote of ME saying what you just quoted. If you're going to quote me saying stupid shit, please check first that it's stupid shit that I actually said.

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I think the universe seems to be largely nonsensical. I mean, it seems either to have always existed, or to have magically been created by something which always existed, or to be part of a chain of infinite co-existence; fuck-- none of those options makes any sense. But I do know that it includes consiousness, and so without knowing absolutely why any chain of events occurs, one of the possibilities (even if slim) is that consciousness is injected somewhere along that chain.

Injected by whom? From where?

There is no reason to believe this - no evidence that consciousness did not emerge naturally.

1) Did I say there was? I'm saying that if one wants to make positive assertion, one needs to demonstrate that the assertion represents fact. Someone (TreeSapNess I believe) made a positive assertion about the nature of mind which I do not consider proven or provable-- I want him to accept the BOP, and demonstrate that his assertion rerpresents fact. The truth is, I think he's probably correct-- but I don't think anyone, even sense-speaking science-minded atheists, should feel they are right in making positive assertions without support, but constantly demanding that others meet the BOP.
2) Conscious minds are one of the things that affect causality in the universe. Therefore, given an unknown cause, it may be that one or more conscious minds have contributed to it. This is not an assertion, but a logical process-- when you are considering a context about which you have no good information, you have no choice but to extend what you know about your own context into that new context. In THIS context, mind sometimes affects causality.

It depends how you look at it. On the one hand, it seems of all the things we know about, only a very small % of "stuff" involves anything we'd call thinking. On the other hand, 100% of that "stuff" is known to us only through a thinking mind-- absolutely nothing is known to exist that we are not conscious of. And 100% is a statistic worth carefully considering when drawing philosophical inferences.

That does not follow. 100% of everything we know is because we can know - we are conscious. Other animals also know things - consciousness is not binary, there or not there. There are degrees of consciousness. Consider other animals that exhibit intelligence and self-awareness like dolphins, elephants, dogs, ...

100% of "stuff" we know about is known only through a thinking mind-- true or false?

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Is 100% of thought the product of brain and brain the product of law worthy then? :-)

Absolutely, if you can demonstrate that this is the case.

[TreeSapNest]

Absolutely, if you can demonstrate that this is the case.

You got me, because I can't even demonstrate the world outside my mind exists.

But when I make a couple assumptions, I observe (assume I observe?) that 100% of thought is found in a brain. We can even tease a brain into changing the thought it produces with drugs, disease, and injury. Using sensors we can map areas of the brain associated with different types of thought. 100% brain is all we get.

Does that mean there is no way there is a ghost in the machine? I suppose not. But as you say, 100% is compelling. At least some of the time anyway?

[bennyboy]

Absolutely, if you can demonstrate that this is the case.

You got me, because I can't even demonstrate the world outside my mind exists.

But when I make a couple assumptions, I observe (assume I observe?) that 100% of thought is found in a brain. We can even tease a brain into changing the thought it produces with drugs, disease, and injury. Using sensors we can map areas of the brain associated with different types of thought. 100% brain is all we get.

Does that mean there is no way there is a ghost in the machine? I suppose not. But as you say, 100% is compelling. At least some of the time anyway?

I think given drugs and selective brain damage experiments, etc., denying a strong link between mind and brain would involve some kind of denialist stance-- i.e. a refusal to assume there's an objective physical world at all, and that instead we're in the Matrix or the Mind of God. I'm not willing to discount those positions philosophically, but I think almost all of us implicitly reject them on a pragmatic level.

However, I think we actually understand less about both the brain and the mind than we have convinced ourselves we do. For example, we've never mapped all the neural activity associated with even a single idea-- and yet we confidently assert that an idea must necessarily be completely and exclusively, mapped in either brain structure, brain chemistry, or an interaction between them. Nor do we have even the beginnings of a plausible mechanical theory of consiousness, or even a comprehensive definition of what it is-- instead, we kind of wave toward the brain and say, "It's for sure in there somewhere." So when you talk about 100% correlation, it must be considered a very course kind of correlation. It's like saying that the Earth is conscious, because all consciousness we know about is somewhere on the Earth, or that the Universe is conscious, because all thought must necessarily be happening within it.

I want a microscopic level of detail. I want to point to a specific type of neuron, firing under a specific condition, and say, "THAT, right there. . . that is the most fundamental element of consciousness." But right now, the state of neurology makes this seem unlikely (i.e. probably false).

[TreeSapNest]

That's more skepticism than I can muster. :-) No worries though. Cheers.