Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Fluther on January 14, 2009 at 4:21am

Ha ha, nice one Liam. I agree 100% but I'm sure even Mr Adams would've got that 'someone's looking at me' feeling had he studied enough physics. Even our earth would not be much use to anyone if our sun were a binary star, or our orbit were eliptical, or we didnt have a liquid centre, or we weren't in the Goldilocks zone, or the ozone layer weren't there .. etc etc
The strong nuclear force for example is very strong but reaches only over 0.7 of some very very small measurement, if it reached 0.6 or 0.8 then certain elements couldn't form and the universe would be an eternal cloud of gas and nothing more (correct me if I'm wrong on any details here).
Biologists (like Dawkins) are usually the least religious (in a sense) of all scientists, because evolution covers nearly all of what they study whereas physicists and cosmologists usually have a more awe-inspired glazed look in their eyes and are more prone to mention god.

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Permalink Reply by Liam on January 14, 2009 at 5:22am

But if only 1% of all galaxies in the universe had a 1% chance of a planet with 1% chance of the right physical factors and only 1% of those had the right soup mix for life to start and only 1% of those, life actually DID start and if only 1% of those evolved sentient life...you'd still have millions of planets with sentient life.

As Carl Sagen said (in Contact). If there isn't life out there...thats an awful waste of space.

You are getting an eerie feeling of being watched because the factors that exist to make YOU exist are perfectly matched. If not...you wouldn't exist.

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Permalink Reply by Fluther on January 14, 2009 at 9:36am

The original question was about the origins of the laws of physics, about which we know fuck all, so all we can do is theorise. You're talking about the anthropic principle if I'm not mistaken, in this universe; but if at the big bang things had gone differently then nothing would be here. It's not a question of degree, it's all or nothing. There is either solid matter or there isn't.
I was asking that if the laws of physics had rendered the universe nothing but a gassy mass, would some other life evolve there to think how perfectly balanced their universe was? I restate my position: I don't know!
I have 'Just 6 Numbers' by Martin Rees on audiobook, If you haven't read it I can send it.

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Permalink Reply by Liam on January 14, 2009 at 10:17am

I am indeed.

I misunderstood your question! And yes I would agree with you I don't know. But what I am willing to bet is that God didn't do it. I don't need to fill the gaps with God.

I am confident that someday someone will know. That's fine for me.

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Permalink Reply by Liam on January 14, 2009 at 12:30pm

Oh and yes please on the Audiobook!

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Permalink Reply by davesnothome on January 29, 2009 at 6:07pm

I found a little math in the Bible that some might find interesting, some might find as irrelevant, and others as simplistic in the light of such brainy discussions of the universe: I share it here anyway!!
1 Kings 7:23 (NKJV)
And he made the Sea of cast bronze, ten cubits from one brim to the other; it was completely round. Its height was five cubits, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference.
Any takers?
Regarding the dogmatism: it's what all (I think) of us here find most annoying, whether it's absolute belief or absolute disbelief. However, I know the following construct does not work:
Christianity: The belief that a two-thousand-year-old jewish zombie, can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-women was convinced by a talking snake to eat an apple of a magical tree in a wonderland.

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