So, what's the general consensus here on evolution?

[tom502]

Well, everything is energy, and the density is based on vibration. Nothing is ever added or subtracted, but rearranged. This is why there is reincarnation.

[sgreger1]

Well, everything is energy, and the density is based on vibration. Nothing is ever added or subtracted, but rearranged. This is why there is reincarnation.

Yes, energy is constantly recycled (as far as we know) and nothing is ever created or destroyed. So where did it come from and by what process did that energy come into being, considering it is impossible to create energy? That is why I believe in a god, I can't find any more rational explanation for this obvious paradox.

As for reincarnation, energy is recycled but not necessarily returning to it's orriginal form. I as a person may die and my energy may be recycled, but not necessarily in the form of another human being. Furthermore, even if I died and my energy was recycled 100% into a newborn baby, it would not retain any of my memories or characteristics, only the amount of energy equivalent to what my previous vessel contained. So not sure if that concept applies to reincarnation.

[bsd777]

It's not doing what it's supposed to that's all I know. So we wait. go to the laundromat for the first time in years... I hope they still have fluff and fold by the pound....

Well sometimes these are fairly simple and obvious fixes, like maybe the belt broke, so it won't spin.

[Darwin]

"nothing is ever created or destroyed"

Well yeah but in most chemical processes heat is generated which radiates away. In the case of an open fire much of the heat radiates out into space and disappears from the local system. This radiation does not represent very much mass but it is not zero so in that sense the energy is "lost" to the extent it is no longer available for us to use. Even the sun's radiation that impacts the earth does not represent all that much weight and of course most of that energy is radiated away on the night side. The "nothing is destroyed" paradigm is true only in the very narrowest technical sense.

As to where all the energy came from it came from the big bang of course which is considered by scientists to be a "singularity" which can not be examined externally only speculated upon. As to who "created" the big bang that's a question that is pure anthropomorphic hubris. We create stuff so there simply had to a "creator" who made all the other stuff. It could also just be the way a universe works. I experience no mental discomfort in any way thinking that the Big Bang "just happened". Fine by me. I do not psychologically require a putative omnipotence to have created us, the earth or anything else we can see in the universe. "Our" universe is infinitely beautiful, terrible, and fascinating all on its own with saddling it with an overarching architect who for some reason created a volume of space at least 28 billion light years across just so the smart apes that inhabit this nanoscopic bit of flotsam adrift in that vastness might abase themselves and worship the architect's glory, wisdom, and mercy. It is to laugh.

[f. bandersnatch]

Evolution is clearly a sound theory. I mean, without evolution, how would santa's reindeer ever have developed flight?

And the fact that I developed from a monkey is one of my stand-by excuses.

[Roo]

Darwin, you are awesome. If you are published let me know, I will buy it. Same goes for you, snusdog. That's all I have to add at this time. Oh yeah, for relative newcomers interested in this thread, search for a religion thread started by jamesstew at least a year ago and bump that shit. It was a good one.

[sgreger1]

"nothing is ever created or destroyed"

Well yeah but in most chemical processes heat is generated which radiates away. In the case of an open fire much of the heat radiates out into space and disappears from the local system. This radiation does not represent very much mass but it is not zero so in that sense the energy is "lost" to the extent it is no longer available for us to use. Even the sun's radiation that impacts the earth does not represent all that much weight and of course most of that energy is radiated away on the night side. The "nothing is destroyed" paradigm is true only in the very narrowest technical sense.

As to where all the energy came from it came from the big bang of course which is considered by scientists to be a "singularity" which can not be examined externally only speculated upon. As to who "created" the big bang that's a question that is pure anthropomorphic hubris. We create stuff so there simply had to a "creator" who made all the other stuff. It could also just be the way a universe works. I experience no mental discomfort in any way thinking that the Big Bang "just happened". Fine by me. I do not psychologically require a putative omnipotence to have created us, the earth or anything else we can see in the universe. "Our" universe is infinitely beautiful, terrible, and fascinating all on its own with saddling it with an overarching architect who for some reason created a volume of space at least 28 billion light years across just so the smart apes that inhabit this nanoscopic bit of flotsam adrift in that vastness might abase themselves and worship the architect's glory, wisdom, and mercy. It is to laugh.

Well I tend not to want to mix my god with my science. I don't believe in religion, nor do I believe that we are here to worship anything. As far as your "nothing is created or destroyed" comment, last I checked, even if it radiated to another system, it is still in existance, hence not destroyed, just redistributed somewhere else.

Sure you can take the easy way out and say "It just happened" but that's equally as lazy as creationists claiming "he just made it happen". I mean think about it, all these rules and processes that regulate the universe we live in so that it doesn't just become some vast expanse of equally distributed energy is pretty complex, so how did it become so complex? How can you take the easy way out and say "it just happened"; gravity, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, etc are all very complex and I doubt they "just happened", and I also doubt that they also just so happened to form all in a split second when the big bang singularity occurred. They must have formed as part of some process, but then how did that process start, and where did it come from? Does it mean a god created it? Not necessarily, but for now there is no evidence as to where it came from and I doubt we will ever find it.

While it's easy to dismiss that "Our" universe is infinitely beautiful, terrible, and fascinating all on its own with saddling it with an overarching architect who for some reason created a volume of space at least 28 billion light years across just so the smart apes that inhabit this nanoscopic bit of flotsam adrift in that vastness might abase themselves and worship the architect's glory, wisdom, and mercy", it's also easy to dismiss that it just happened.

How do all of those laws of physics and of the universe "just happen"? They must have come into being through some process, but then what process is that? How did it build such complexity and what governs it, why do we not just see chaos or an equal distribution of energy across the universe, where did this complex system come from?


Again, I am not arguing that God did it, i'm just saying don't be lazy like the creationists and assume it was just made that way and leave it at that.

The problem with creationism is that they claim a creator made everything, but how did the creator come about, through what process, did someone create him? Like you said, that's just us ascribing human concepts (creating) to this God, which is lazy. But the other side of the argument has the same flaw, in that if we live in a world that changes and evolves over a vast period of time, than what created all these rules of the universe? They must have already been in place when the big bang happened or we would not see the universe we see today, but prior to the big bang, where did they come from? What did they evolve from or what process brought them into creation, and even if we know what process created them, what process created that first process which led to our current system?

It goes back into infinity, where did it start and why, what is the mechanism that brings about such concrete rules and such complex things as thermodynamics or gravity.


So, kind of in the same way dog was saying earlier in regards to the philosophy part, it doesn't work, both concepts rely on the same premise, a god always existed and he just made this all happen or these rules already existed and it just happened. I cannot be lazy enough to subscribe to either of those non answers. So while you may take the creationist easy route, I think that it didn't "Just happen". It is to laugh.

[shikitohno]

It could all just be a result of the human tendency to see patterns where none really exist, sgreger1. Humans want to make sense of the world around them, so they try and create patterns that explain things. I forget the name of it, but there's a term for people seeing patterns or images where there really isn't anything there.

[sgreger1]

It could all just be a result of the human tendency to see patterns where none really exist, sgreger1. Humans want to make sense of the world around them, so they try and create patterns that explain things. I forget the name of it, but there's a term for people seeing patterns or images where there really isn't anything there.

Yes it's called Clustering illusion – the tendency to see patterns where actually none exist. I understand that concept, but what I refer to is not a pattern.


I will try to put it as basic as I can. We know there is gravity, we know that there is thermodynamics, that there is a universal speed limit (light speed), cause and effect etc etc etc. These things combined allowed the energy released in the big bang to turn into something meaningful, as opposed to just distributing all the energy equally. Entropy, causality, radiation etc are all part of the system we exist in, without these things, all that energy would have just released itself equally, and no universe would have been formed. Because of thermodynamics, quantum physics, gravity etc, the energy released in the big bang assembled itself in a meaningful and organized manner, it created a system we see today.


My question: How did all these laws of the universe come into being. I don't think I am seeing patters, I am saying that these laws which give our universe meaning must have developed through some process. If these laws did not exist in their current form when the big bang happened, the singularity would have just shot energy out in all directions and it would have just kept going, never assembling itself into clusters of energy we call stars etc.

Evolution is how life evolves, I do not believe there are any theories regarding basic processes like gravity or entropy being evolutionary in nature, they must have just always been (at least in our current system). But how have they "just always been"? Where did they come from? Where did the rule come from that says the larger the mass the more the gravity, what is it that says light can only travel light speed. This is my question.


We have some guys on here that if they wrote a book I would pay 100$ for it, (and that includes you, Darwin and Dog in particular). I really want to know the scientific answer to this question. Surely someone has tackled it at some point, how did these things develop? If they always just were, I cannot accept that answer, complex systems don't logically just come from nothing, such complexity existing from the beginning would make me think a god just made it that way, but then the question would be "Why would god make it so complex, why make it so it would take a trillion years for humans to come around, if he is truly that powerful he would just create everything as it is. But even if he DID create it as it is, why did he chose this model, one that includes a billion planets and stars which man will never see? If it's about us, than how do you explain the rest of the universe?"

Again, neither scientific theory or creationism have a rational answer to this question.

[shikitohno]

Well, the actual source of gravity is still hypothetical. It's currently explained as being the result of an as yet undiscovered particle called a graviton, which I believe is something the Large Hadron Collider is designed to prove the existence of. As I see it, all these things are a result of the very way matter is made up, the components that make up everything around you. It is due to the way these components at the most basic level interact with one another that these laws exist and not the laws which define the actions of the components. Of course, I'm not exactly a brilliant chemist or physicist, so anyone more qualified to speak on the matter feel free to correct me. On the other hand, I found the quote that I couldn't quite think of before.

The only laws of matter are those that our minds must fabricate and the only laws of mind are fabricated for it by matter.

On an unrelated note, though I'm flattered to know my knowledge/opinion could be considered of any worth, any book I write in the future is most likely going to be fiction or a computer science book, so it may be of limited interest to you.

[tom502]

Memories are eternal, though they may be hard to dig up, you have a full recall of every moment of your existence since time without beginning.

[lxskllr]

My question: How did all these laws of the universe come into being. I don't think I am seeing patters, I am saying that these laws which give our universe meaning must have developed through some process. If these laws did not exist in their current form when the big bang happened, the singularity would have just shot energy out in all directions and it would have just kept going, never assembling itself into clusters of energy we call stars etc.

Because it works. Things that don't work, fail by definition. Square wheels don't work, because they suck. Getting too philosophical about this stuff doesn't accomplish anything. Philosophizing about this stuff may be a fun mental exercise, but it doesn't get you any closer to understanding. Religion likes to point to science, and ask "what about x?". When science doesn't know the answer, they say "Ah Ha! Well if you don't know that, how do you know it wasn't caused by sky fairies?" The difference is science comes up with a reasonable hypothesis, and then tests it to find out if it's true. Science will never know EVERYTHING, but going a little bit at a time, it's learning a lot.

[NonServiam]

It could all just be a result of the human tendency to see patterns where none really exist, sgreger1. Humans want to make sense of the world around them, so they try and create patterns that explain things. I forget the name of it, but there's a term for people seeing patterns or images where there really isn't anything there.

This happens to me every time I'm on the crapper. I sit there staring at the tile floor and I start to see faces in the marble patterns. It has something to do with the fact that humans are very inclined to facial recognition.

[truthwolf1]

This happens to me every time I'm on the crapper. I sit there staring at the tile floor and I start to see faces in the marble patterns. It has something to do with the fact that humans are very inclined to facial recognition.

I was thinking about this last night again. Had a bad migraine at work and then after work told the wife about it. Watched a movie called "Staten Island" where the character was having bad migraines during the movie. See these type of patterns or relations all the time. I am wondering if there is something more to it like a vibrational matrix that plays off of my consciousness.

[deadohsky]

I usually have to take hallucinogens to that kind of stuff.

Thanks for that video,truth, very interesting.