Here I present my evidence for the eternal recurrence of the same, that effectively is a hypothesis capable of explaining why everything and anything exists. First I will present two premises that has to be accepted as true for the conclusions to be valid:

Premise # 1: It as a given that the Universe exists, and that its properties necessarily must meet the premises that our existence rests upon. The reasoning for this is obvious: If the fundamental physical forces and constants hadn't been exactly the way they are, we hadn't existed, hence we couldn't have observed the properties that made our existence impossible in such a hypothetical universe. That the Universe and the Earth has exactly perfect, and seemingly "fine-tuned", properties for us to exist therefore is nothing but reasonable and downright necessary.

Premise # 2: Consciousness is a consequence of physical existence. The Universe consists of a large amount of energy/matter that to any given moment is in a certain condition. The flow between different conditions is labelled with the term 'time'. Consciousness arises as a consequence of energy/matter arranging itself in a certain condition/pattern in a limited amount of time. Consciousness isn't more mystical than the sum of an individual's senses and cognitive abilities/information processing. Hence, consciousness is a natural result of an advanced sensory apparatus and an advanced brain.

Conclusion # 1: If the Universe we live in is part of an everlasting cycle, the exact same universe will one time have to manifest again. Granted that consciousness is nothing more than the sum of the organism's body, your consciousness/life will sooner or later have to be repeated in the exact same world history.

Conclusion # 2: If, on the other hand, our Universe isn't part of an everlasting cycle, but quite the contrary is a phenomenon that has spontaneously arisen from nothing, it would have to mean that something/everything can spontaneously arise from nothing. Therefore other universes can also arise whenever "they like", and the probability for another universe that has the exact same properties/physical laws as ours, to never arise, given that it has an infinite amount of time to arise again, must therefore equal zero.

Final conclusion: It seems very unlikely that none of the preceding conclusions are correct. Therefore, one must assume that the hypothesis of the eternal recurrence really is true.

Consequences of the eternal recurrence of the same: If the eternal recurrence is real, which the arguments above suggests it is, it means that every single conscious creature for ever will have to experience its existence as an endless, uninterrupted stream of being. The time it takes from the death of an individual being to the next time it incarnates, whether it is billions, quadrillions or a googolplex number of years, can neither way be experienced by that individual, since its consciousness doesn't exist in the timespan between two incarnations.

Therefore, at the death of ones body, one wont be able to experience the enourmous span of time that lies between death and rebirth, and also wont have a clear understanding of time from the first unconscious or weakly conscious years as a baby, but will rather return to the first conscious moment of ones life.
Nothing can be remembered from the previous life, since memories are stored in the brain, and the brain and its consciousness is - as stated earlier - fragmented in the time between two incarnations.


(I would love it if someone could disprove this, or at least show me some other possible solution. I have pondered a lot over this problem.
English isn't my first language, so I can only hope that the text is readable. I originally wrote this hypothesis in my native language, norwegian, but translated it to english today, in the hope of getting some fresh input from the smart guys on this forum.
I know the idea isn't new, both Nietzsche, the Roman stoics and other philosophers have proposed similar ideas before. Still, I haven't seen any arguments that can turn me in another direction.)

The Universe is not fine-tuned for us, we are fine-tuned for the Universe.


EDIT to add:
Where are my manners!
Welcome to the board!

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papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

I know that. But a lot of religious people uses such words as "fine-tuned" and the like. However, that wasn't the point of my original post. Did you read through the whole thing?

Edit to add: Thanks for the welcome!

Your reasoning is very circular, and depends entirely on a lot of logical leaping. It's an interesting idea, but I wouldn't say there's much beyond that. Well written, though.

Welcome to the board!

__________________
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."
Mark Twain

Avatar courtesy of Bunny.

Thank you. It would be interesting to hear which specific logical leaps you're thinking of?

I'll do one, for now. Sorry, but I have a headache. #-o

If there is an everlasting cycle, you're assuming that the cycle is exactly the same each time. In a Big Bang / Big Crunch scenario, that's not the case. While the physical properties will likely be the same (C, for instance), the sheer nature of quantum dynamics indicates that the various events which led to our creation will not happen again. It's far too improbable. Thus, my consciousness would not be made again. There would be enough differences that it wouldn't be the same. More to the point, there likely wouldn't be an Earth for my consciousness to form on!

So, it's a bit of a leap to go from a repeating cycle to an exactly repeating cycle.

__________________
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."
Mark Twain

Avatar courtesy of Bunny.

And there is no real reason to expect that a spontaneously emerging universe is unrepeatable;
there will be a very small, but finite, possibility that a spontaneously emerging universe will be repeated exactly by another spontaneously emerging universe.

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Orion's Arm . The Starlark . Voices: Future Tense . OA Flickr set

I think the point is this.
Since it is an infinite cycling, sooner or later the same conditions arise and the same Universe is produced, as improbable as it might be.
The keypoint is the "everlasting cycle", which leaves enough time to try all possible conditions and configurations possible.

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papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

papageno has understood the point.

But that makes it an everlasting cycle which will take forever (pun intended) to repeat itself, as there are (almost literally) countless possibilities. The chance of the same Universe happeng again is close enough to zero to be considered zero in my view.

Also: time is embedded in the universe. It is illogical to say that one universe comes earlier or later than another. If two universes would be identical, then they couldn't be distinguished from one another, and thus can be considered to be one and the same. Ergo, every possible universe exists for all practical purposes only once at most.

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Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse

... Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. Sounds like the same old, same old, to me. ...

BTW, if you quote this, please don't quote the whole thing! :wink:

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

But it is not.
There is always enough "time" for repetitions.

As a matter of fact, I do not think we have physically meanigful way to formulate the question "What was before the Universe?", at least not yet.

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papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

Could you repeat that? #-o :wink:

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Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend,... - Moody Blues.

From a positivist point of vantage this is very true. Refer to Vacuum fluctuations.

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"As truth is gathered, I rearrange,
Inside out, outside in - Perpetual change." - A British rock band

Is the reincarnated "me" me again or just someone exactly like me? The latter makes more sense to me than the former.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

He is indeed you again, the same consciousness that reads these lines in this moment. He would not be the same as an identical twin or a clone, neither of which are completely identical to you or share your mind/consciousness.

Remember though, that you have already lived life an infinite number of times, and you still can't remember having lived it before. Each time is essentially experienced as the first time.
This is not a hypothesis that is testable by scientific means, so it can never become a scientific theory. It will remain in the realm of philosophic speculation, but I - personally- have no doubt that it is true.
I'm not going to impose this belief on other people, but it is a thought that has transformed my life and the way I think, since I know that every choice I make leads to consequences that will have to be dealt with through eternity.

SSDD, OAOAO...

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"If a tree is cut down in the rainforest, and is used to make paper to print a book, and the book is really bad, and there's nobody that will read it, do you still hear a sucking sound?"
Charlie in Dayton, A.AsC.

I agree. The Anthropic Principle, as this premise is called, is to my mind overly obvious and essentially unneeded. It's like saying A=A. It's tautological.
Again, pretty simple. We are conscious, therefore consciousness has occurred. OK.
Well, you're starting off your conclusion with another premise. If, as you say, the universe "cycles" infinitely, then fine, anything can happen, so anything can happen again. But I doubt the universe "cycles" in this fashion (or any fashion, for that matter), and even if it did, the odds of such a recurrence are so small, they might as well equal zero. Murray Gell-Mann mentioned in The Quark and the Jaguar that as an undergrad he was given the assignment to calculate the probability that his entire body would suddenly appear on the moon due to quantum tunneling. He actually came up with a certain probability, but soon realized that such a small probability was essentially the same as zero.

You're placing an unnecessary constraint ("must arise from nothing") on this sub-premise ("no everlasting cycle"). From the looks of Maurizio Gasperini's research into a Pre-Big Bang Scenario, there may be other possibilities.
Well, I think