Posted on 05/24/2006 3:59:24 PM PDT by LibWhacker
The old universe junkyard?
In fact, as Reactionary (#55) has mentioned
Nietzsche thought it self-evident
since a finite universe only can have a finite number of states.
I've got to get that article written, and now I suppose I'll have to include the cyclical universal creation and destruction cycle as well!
DING DING DING, we have a winner. When the physicists can explain that one I will give up my belief.
Even the hydrogen could have been through one or more stars in the past.
Have you accepted the Spaghetti Monster as your personal Lord and Savior?
The command was "LET ... THERE ... BE ... Light. Spoken to a zero variable spatial expression in a gel of constant present. The resonance created between the point and the gel brought about a summing of the energy and the subsequent expression of linear then volume space and past then future temporal ... a bang followed by a linear rush followed by a planar burst followed by a slow dance.
It could, I suppose, although I would think that each trip through a star would make it more probable to get converted into a heavier element. In other words, I don't think that hydrogen would pass through multiple lifetimes of stars without being made into other stuff, i.e., the total quantity of hydrogen in the Universe will decrease over time as other heavier elements increase.
This is a sophisticated attempt to revive the old pagan notion of an eternally existing material universe.
Since the observable universe shows every evidence of having a beginning (no surprise to monotheists of any of the strains derived from the ancient Near East, but a great discomfort to atheistic materialists), the eternally existing material world must simply be unobservable, and partitioned into 'other universes' by states dense enough that the physics we can experimentally verify breaks down.
Notice that in doing this, the materialist abandons any rightful claim to being more scientific than the theist, since by definition 'another universe' is as unobservable as an initial divine fiat. Theism gains the advantage, though on the basis of Occam's Razor: one transcendant God is fewer unobservable entities than the infinity of 'other universes' this theory needs.
Personally, I quite like Hawking's null-initial condition proposal: there is *nothing* before the beginning, not even a 'before'. It's a nice mathematical model for a universe created ex nihilo, even getting the nihil right.
Try this thought: think of dimension space as having three variablity expressions, linear, planar, and volume; now posit dimension time as having three variability expressions, past, present, and future (corresponding roughly to the three expressions of dimension space; to ask about 'eternity before a present' is to ask the wrong question ... temporal existence takes place in one of three variable epxressions, past, present, or future, eternity being a subset of future.
That looks about right..
The same science that can not explain how aspirin works ...
I think our Medical Professionals understand this quite well. Would you like me to point out some web sites for you?
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Oh good, mystery solved at last - I had given up. Now about that second universe...
Not recently but I've come to accept the fact that loons accept Popper as their lord and saviour except when they don't. You really should consider the grapefruit hypothesis, it seems to fit in well with your definition of science.
You are quite correct. Every atom in our bodies, except for the hydrogen, has been through a star at least once.
. . . what was God doing for the eternity before that?
Getting very bored. He only keeps us around for laughs...
>>>Observational data seems to indicate that the rate of expansion is slowing, which eliminates number one.
Actually, the expansion seems to be accelerating (increasing rate), hence the postulation of "dark energy". Dark energy would presumably be antigravitational. If I am not mistaken, string physicists suggest this could be an effect of gravitational particles from an adjacent universe or p-brane, leaking into ours.
Here's one question I have (perhaps the answer is elementary for the average garden variety cosmologist, but, I'm not a cosmologist of any rank - I haven't ever even been to a cosmologist).
Anyway...How does an explosion (of volatile matter, much less volatile dense gases) result in the formation of solid matter? From what I understand, say, in an underground nuclear explosion - the end result is a big hole, not a monolith.
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