So we evolved from nature...from matter. It all happened by accident. But why does there need to be matter in the first place? Why does there need to be a universe at all? What's the purpose of it all? Is the very word purpose a "human" concept...is there no purpose? What law of physics says that there HAS to be a universe at all?

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Climate Change Australia

To reach the answers to all those questions, is the universe as it is not the best way to get those answers?!?

What else do we have to go on? People speak about the universe as there it is an object...one of several objects.

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Climate Change Australia

Well, not only accident, I mean if the laws of nature were different there might not be what we would call life. Anyway, yes I do think that there is no answer to that question "why?" simply because it's not necessary that there has to be a reason, and if there is, we don't know it anyway.

Isn't Western science is based on the notion that there DOES need to be a reason for an event?

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Climate Change Australia

I think I misunderstood you. I thought you meant that there might be a purpose with the universe, which I do not believe. Instead, to me it seems to just exist. A purpose would indicate an intelligence behind it. Anyway, it is possible that there was something outside the universe and that it is a product of something, but is it necessary? What if the universe is all there is and ever will be?

And what about random events, such as radioactive decay and virtual particles?

Quantum physics states that particle movement is decided largely by chance. Of course particles are still governed by certain rules, but eventually its up to chance. Maybe the big bang was just up to chance. But we can't understand the reason, yet.

Maybe there is a reason, maybe there isn't.

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MacTalk - The Australian Apple Community - iPod, iPhone and Mac.

Quantum physics also states that particle movement can be approximated by a wave function. Can the big bang (whether it occurs/occurred multiple times or just onces) therefore be approximated in such a way? How can the universe just be? That's a cop out!

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Climate Change Australia

Why does it have to be a cop-out?

Quantum theory predicts that particles can pop into existance. There could be an extremely rare chance of a few particles appearing at the same time. And an even more remote chance that an entire Universe's particles could appear in an instant.

Maybe there have been numerous Universes that appeared before this one. Ones where there wasn't enough material, or the fundamental laws didn't work the ways ours does.

But when you consider an infinate amount of time, it's inevitable that our Universe would eventually appear - it just might have taken a googol to the power of a googol years to finally happen.

Think about the countless creatures that successfully mated to finally bring Kashi into existance. Billions of little critters... what are the chances of that? Is it a cop-out for me to say that you just happened? It looks like you did, my man. Against all odds... here you are. Were you always destined to be here? Was nature working to bring you about? I don't think so.

Same thing could be possible with the Universe, only on a larger, longer scale.

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Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today - Free space news delivered by email every weekday.

I don't see it as a cop-out, rather it's like not deciding on something that we haven't got the slightest clue. I don't know how it happened, what it was like before the big bang, if there ever was a "before", I don't know if it was due to colliding membranes in a fivedimensional space or if it was a singularity, or whatever might have happened. I would like to keep the doors open at least as wide as current theories...

While I wouldn't even try to answer the why of it, the question itself always makes me think of something that strikes me as a gaping hole in our present scientific interpretation of the universe. I know a number of people that will get downright distraught (to put it nicely) if you talk about the laws of thermodynamics as anything but absolute and immutable. Try to tell a hard core engineer (something I myself have been accused of) that perpetual motion is possible -- then run for cover!

But if energy can never be added or lost in a closed system, how did energy and its sibling matter ever come to be in the first place?

One possible answer could be that thermodynamic law only applies to small, localized systems. But that's certainly not the way I see the laws used. In fact, the foundation of how we interpret what we see out there in the heavens rests squarely on the shoulders of thermodynamics. And since energy apparently 'is' (Mr. Clinton, please help me here), would it not have to have been a major lapse in thermodynamics for there to have ever been even the small, localized events of energy creation (like, perhaps, the Big Bang) which brought about the universe? What could explain why such events would be totally singular?

Another reply could be that the universe is NOT a 'closed' system. Hmmm.... that certainly makes it a more interesting place, but what would this imply? If it's not closed, what is it open to -- and, for that matter, what's feeding the outside thing that's feeding it? (Note that even the deity oriented religions will religiously not face this last question: who, or what, created God?)

My intuition is that, while the laws of thermodynamics certainly have their usefulness, seeing around and beyond them may one day present a huge step towards greater understanding. I may have missed something important (thermodynamics was an 8:00 AM class), but the concept of entropy troubles me, too. If the universe truly tends irreversibly towards an even, random distribution of energy, why would stars or galaxies (or life!) ever form?

Current logic fails somewhere here. Perhaps mental adventurers should take thermodynamics as a useful but limited interpretation of macroscopic energetic behavior. It is obvious from the upheavals in scientific knowledge over the last century that even the most proudly pragmatic would do well to maintain a sense of awe, keeping mind that we really don't know much just yet. After all is studied and calculated, it may well be that the deepest insights we've got are still the gut level feelings that were built into us well before birth.

" Be satisfied with what you have "

Let us take this sentence in a slightly different light. We exist. There is no need for us to think what might have happened if we didn't. We do exist, that's the truth.

If we did not, If the universe did not, then we wouldn't have been there to ask this question.

If the universe did not exist, nothing would have existed. No space is a concept easy to understand, but there wuold also be no time. there wuold be nothing, no passing of time too. That's just it.

The universe may not have any purpose, but it does exist anyway (I think there's no doubt about that). It's just that we don't like to think of anyting as happening without a purpose. But we cannot suppose that in case of the universe, our notions may be obeyed.

Let us know that we are just 'things' who call ourselves intelligent and conscious witout any particular reason to think so, and that we hold no particulkar place in the universe, and that we are a part of the universe with no command over it. ]

Let us place what we call 'commonsense' aside. Let us be a part of the universe, and not assume that the universe will behave as we want it to, as we imagine it would.

NO OFFENCE meant. these are just my thoughts. Read my signature (the second qoute) and don't bite.

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Limericks, written by me: http://limericker.blogspot.com

Well - well...

Here you are touching something which in my view is not solvable ... (I hope yet).

The thing is we are part of that Universe and to try to understand it we have to come
out of it! Right? Just remember simple mathematics here. So as long we are here
we are bound to explain things like we see from inside the bubble. :blink:

One more thing:

We all think in one certain way if there is something "then" there will be something else
after that. Or that something is the continuation of something else. So as long we "think"
like this we are inside of that bubble. Even my rumbling here is the result of our way of
thinking ... That's it and full stop! The problem is in our way of thinking, but not in the
Universe. Remember, we have defined the Universe, not the Universe itself

Cheers,

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My profession is My hobby

Define nothing. Question your own existence - Wouldn't "God" question his own existence and reality?
God would be something, so why would he be here, why isn't there nothing instead!?
What does nothing look like? black? white? it can't look like anything, it's nothing! Questioning reality plays with your mind a lot but it's highly interesting. :blink:
Why is there a universe, why isn't there nothing... aaaaaaaargh! lol Thinking about it too much is probably a good way to go insane, so i'm just gunna read books and have fun all my life, there isn't anything I can do, i'm not Neo! (or Jesus) ...or Am I? O_o haha..
anyway if either of them were clever enough they would also question the existence of everything including themselves.

"It's Just A Ride" - Bill Hicks (PLEEEEASE LOOK BILL HICKS UP "Another Dead Hero")

QUOTE: VIDIOT
“… even the deity oriented religions will religiously not face this last question: who, or what, created God?”

Futility!
Who created God?
Who created the God who created God?
Who created the God who created the God who created God?
Who created the God who created the God who created the God who created God?
Who created the God who created the God who created the God who created the God who created God?
…. ad infinitum.

quantum physics" is a un natural space in time. should be ignored no logic for it,has no relevence to time and space.

relativity is an expression of matter & time. these i belive are one in the same.super particles exist only in time." not matter" ! time is the dominate article.

Until we have a theory of everything (and possibly for sometime after), we wo't have an answer to this question

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Limericks, written by me: http://limericker.blogspot.com

evolution rules it is in all that exists god is time nothing more in time all is possible

Quantum physics is space time. It is a division of physics. We could use quantum physics instead of standard physics to explain the universe, but it would be too complex.

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MacTalk - The Australian Apple Community - iPod, iPhone and Mac.