Lately a lot of threads have debated why and how humans, life, Earth, and/or the universe came about. If it started with the Big Bang, what started the Bang? Or if a diety created it all, from whence came the diety? These questions share a common assumption: that the universe began. This brings about my question, a question I think we've been missing: Did the universe have a beginning at all? Logic is based in causality--the idea that everything is caused by something else. Nothing just happens; nothing just is. Both the Big Bang and the existence of God need a cause, or else logic itself--the basis for all our deductive knowledge and reasoning--is fundamentally flawed. To me this suggests only one thing: The universe did not have a beginning. While I believe in the Big Bang, I suspect it has happened many, many times before. Infinitely, in fact. The entire universe explodes from a superdense packet of energy, expands (we are here), then eventually collapses back into the original packet. Rinse. Repeat. I think the only reason we believe the universe needs a beginning and an end is because we cannot comprehend anything else. We are mortal creatures with finite lives. We cannot possibly comprehend infinity, so we have decided it simply doesn't exist. Much as we've cast a human-like God into the heavens, we've invented a finite universe to represent our own finite existences. We even betray logic, another human invention, in doing so. Any thoughts?
yea, ive heard that the universe has existed many times before... and on top of that, there are alternate universes, parallel universes, and just many many universes. All we know and all we see is our universe.... what happens in the other universes??
I agree that the universe has no beginning or end. It only has now, i doubt the universe has a conception of time, and the need to know if the universe had a beginning is almost like thinking things happened "one-at-a-time" to create the present. in other words, the objective to have a beginning start to accomplish in one point of time, a goal or ultimate conclusion(assuming you take it step by step) these are more human tendencies and i don't think the universe would pertain to them. if we say it did, i belief it would be like putting human characteristics onto God which is already done so in many perspectives. my opinion is that the universe is like a circle, no beginning no end, no was or to be, only now hope it makes sense
Everything has a begining and an end, its just that we dont know what that is. The universe comes in number patterns for the most part and the numbers 1-4 are the most powerful, and the numerical significance of 2 is the most powerful of numbers IMO 1 being a point and also being infinity 2 Being a line 3 being a triangle 4 being a square 1+2+3+4=10, we all have 10 fingers. And all these numbers are most commonly used in string theory, and also their being 10 dimensions in string theory. The number 2= Light, dark Down, up Life, death Action, reation Gravity, weightlessness Cold, hot Pain, joy This stuff really blows my mind
“Everything’s impossible…till it ain’t.” ~Ben Hawkins – Carnivale~ It’s always interesting to read what everyone thinks on a given subject which is probably why I like this section most of all. Don’t get me wrong there’s something oddly endearing about reading “My Armpits Smell like Hash,” in Pandora’s Box but here in Spirituality and Philosophy it seems like members really put some thought into their posts. Cool. Anyway… My thought on this matter is we will never know the origins of the universe, at least not in this life and that’s perfectly okay. Think about the proceeding generations that have lived before us and the knowledge that was never available to them. What was brilliant to Sir Isaac Newton is common knowledge to the everyday person in these modern times. If our species survives this era of shortsightedness and our children’s children stand on a better shore maybe they will make more out of this question, but until then or never, all we can do is imagine, speculate, and dream. I don’t know about the rest of you but that’s good enough for me. Stay green.
I agree, and many cosmologists do too, that the Universe may be cyclical. But just a small point, in the world of quantum physics particles pop into and out of existence all the time and the idea that we're a closed system where no new energy can be introduced or lost from the Universe has gone. MelT
Trying to make logic of something as illogical as existence is impossible. Either something must have happened at the beginning of time that goes against all known physics, or our conception of the universe just isn't what we believe it to be.
Last night, the National Geographic channel had an episode of Naked Science about the "birth of the universe". According to the show, it was once very small(could fit in your palm). Then the big bang happened, and the universe started to expand, and is still expanding. Eventually stars and planets begin to form, and we get to where we are now. Apparantly the universe is still expanding, and will continue to until everything, including atoms, are just pulled apart and everything just ceases to exist. This all according to National Geographic. You'd have to watch it for yourself if you really want to understand, since I can't explain the whole show.
Bah, big bang is just a theory scientists made up because they have no fucking clue what the universe is and how it started. They only say it's expanding because things are moving apart, or how it appears to be so. Noodles: good point, it is basically impossible to conceive the universe into simple terms that we can understand, other than scientists making stuff up to try and make sense of it. Our problem is that we try and force human characteristics or traits onto things we don't understand, which in my opinion is stupid. Coop: do you have any counterevidence to that statement? other than what you say about numbers, which i think is just another concept humans made to make sense of things(no offense), i think there is about no proof of anything relating to the universe, other than it being there. It's just my opinion that science will never prove anything except the fact that we don't know anything.