h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

And presumably it had been in equilibrium prior to exploding, so what acted upon it to disturb the equilibrium?

"so the stuff that exploded and became the universe was already there before the big bang, was it?"

" it had been in equilibrium prior to exploding"

Oh good grief.

We've been through this. It's getting tedious.

You used the word "before" with reference to the big bang. You have therefore rendered your question grammatical but meaningless. No answer is required because the question does not make sense.

Similarly, you have used the phrase "prior to", which again is meaningless in this context.

I can think of only two reasons why you might, after this has been explained to you in depth more than once, persist in asking such meaningless questions:

1. You simply cannot grasp the concept. This is forgiveable, if regrettable, as it brings the conversation, such as it was, to a close, as we have reached and exceeded the limits of your intelligence.
2. You do understand, but are persisting for your amusement in pretending to be stupid. This is "trolling", and strictly speaking is against the House Rules.

Which is it?

SoRB

"The difference between rational people (like myself) and superstitious people (like, well, most people it seems) is that the rational person sees something inexplicable and says "That's interesting. I have no idea how that happens, but there's bound to be a rational explanation. Let's see if we can find out."

While this seems broadly correct to me I just have to question the conlusion that phenomenon are "bound to have a rational explanation".

While many of the things previously ascribed to interference by deities have subsequently been shown to be due to everyday priniciples that can be scietifically defined I think it is a little strong to assume there must be a logical explanation for everything. Im inclined to believe that but wont let myself because having thought about it its the same unshakeable faith that drives religious thinking. Yes there is a tremendous weight of evidence that can confirm that the "bound to be a logical explanation" outlook is sound but the major premis of science is that you should check everything and assumptions should only be a starting point for experimentation not the end result or taken as read to be true. Isnt this why some not too bright people start to compare atheism/ratinalism/science with religion?


Id like to ask Welshy why given that there are a plethora of Gods, demons and other supernatural beings that have extensive written testimony of their origins and works each with thousands or millions of believers who will tell you, wether you want to hear or not, how great their favourite spiritual guide/protector/creator is why did you choose the one you did?


ne love

having spent a goodly portion of my life within the judeo-christian belief system... i think i can offer some of those reasons ...after all they were the hurdles i had to get over to break free of all of all this garbage below.

Fear: Fear of going to hell. fear of not going to heaven. Fear that, if i dont spread the word (proving i dont really believe) of the only way to get to that heaven, that i wont be allowed in either. Fear of missing the boat (even tho im not entirely sure what the boat is or where its going.) Fear of dying and having no afterlife, period. Fear of the mind boggling immensity of the universe and its meaning and my inability to understand it (therefore making me less of a human cuz im just not so smart as those who can understand all that science stuff) Fear that i wont fit in with people who have my kind of morals because everyone knows that only people who believe in god are moral ethical people. Fear that i cant solve problems (personal, public or world wide) so i need a father figure to help me. Fear of flying. yes, fear of flying... of spreading my wings of consciousness... making my own decisiions... acting on them and messing up but hey not going to hell cuz i did. aaaand... the clincher for me.... the hardest hurdle to get over...... Fear of being alone. of not having a spiritual friend. someone who will always love me.

heh heh and whats the name of this conversation forum?

oops forgot to put the reference

SoRB >>>You choose to invent a supernatural being, or (a little more lazily) rather to believe in one that has been invented for you by someone else. Why would you do something like that? There are all sorts of really good reasons <<<

Here's a pretty neat explanation of the difference between 'imply' and 'infer' (From RIT University Publications - Grammar & Style Guide): "Writers or speakers imply in the words they use. A listener or reader infers something from the words."

So, the question *implies* two or three things; a) That the Big Bang *had* a cause. b) That there *was* a Big Bang. c) That there was only one Big Bang...

yes!!!

and what i meant to say i actually said then, because the reader infers what the question leads to:

the question 'what caused the Big Bang?' infers 'what circumstances led up to the Big Bang?'... not 'WHO caused the Big Bang?'



and i love what it implies very nice little piece of work Rudest Elf!

"I just have to question the conlusion that phenomenon are "bound to have a rational explanation"."

You know, when I first typed that, I wrote "probably have a rational explanation". Because yes, in principle, one keeps an open mind. But after a while, one gets ground down by the abject failure of every irrational explanation to, well, explain anything.

For instance: James Randi offers a million dollar prize to anyone who can demonstrate supernatural or paranormal powers. By some way the most frequent applicants for the prize are people who believe they can dowse. They offer various irrational explanations for this ability, usually to do with words like energy field. I offer one explanation - the ideomotor effect. Unfortunately, my explanation implies that, in fact, they cannot find anything they do not already know is there.

Now, Randi cares nothing for explanations. He requires only a demonstration of the ability. He is completely open-minded, requiring only that the test excludes the possibility of cheating and using means other than paranormal to achieve the effect.

He has tested many, many dowsers. He hasn't paid out yet. In fact, not a single applicant has ever passed even a preliminary trial of their abilities.

Now, one does of course remain open-minded, and alert to the possibility that the next dowser may, possibly, turn out to have paranormal abilities. But for all practical purposes, it is fair to say that, no matter how they say they do it, no matter what tools they use - hazel twigs, coat hangers in biro cases, crystal pendulums - when asked to perform even a simple detection without being able to cheat - they will fail. It's not closed-minded to predict this. It's a simple observation of the MASSIVE weight of evidence so far, ALL of which without exception points in one direction only.

So yes, in principle, phenomena are "probably" going to have a rational explanation. Just as the sun will "probably" rise tomorrow, and if I drop my pen it will "probably" fall to the ground rather than floating into the air.

SoRB

I tried to apply Occam's Razor to this thread much earlier. If you consider it to mean "the simplest explanation is usually the right one", then WG has a point; "God did it" is indeed very simple. But IT IS NOT AN EXPLANATION.

If my daughter asked "daddy, why does electricity come out of the wall and make things go", and I replied "because the electrician made it happen", I would not be explaining a damn thing.

<>

You might not be *explaining* much, but it doesn't make your statement untrue.

The electrician makes "electricity make things go"

""God did it" is indeed very simple"

No, it isn't, because "god" is a complex object. This is always the problem when you try to apply common sense to something like this.

An analogy:

You tell me that my pen is haunted by a flying invisible fairy who loves the carpet. You can prove this. I drop the pen. IMMEDIATELY, the pen heads for the carpet. The fairy is a very simple explanation, isn't it?

But then my killjoy physicist friend points out that gravity is doing it. "Oh yes?", you say, "and what is this 'gravity'?"

My friend then starts talking about the bending of spacetime and the inverse square law and gravitons and complicated maths. "And this is the SIMPLE explanation?" you say sarcastically.

He then points out that it is simpler than the fairy, which has to have evolved or appeared from somewhere, has to be attached to the pen in some way which defies detection, and has to be invisible. As soon as he starts talking about it, you roll your eyes and go "well, the fairy story is simpler, so that's what *I* believe!".

"Simplest explanation" does not mean "easiest to understand", it means "one that postulates minimum number of entities".

SoRB

<<"Simplest explanation" does not mean "easiest to understand", it means "one that postulates minimum number of entities".>>

Ok, I see. Thanks for the explanation.

<>

Exactly. Ostensibly correct, utterly immune to disproof, and doesn't even come close to answering the question. My analogy falls down here since I have evidence in support of the existence and abilities of electricians.

<>

Yes. He put the sockets in, was therefore responsible (albeit indirectly) for the power they provide, and utlimately for making all the connected devices work. Questions of how he did it, where the current actually comes from and *how* it makes things go are conveniently overlooked.

<<<<""God did it" is indeed very simple">>>>

<>

It is simple as a first-order explanation, as is your fairy analogy. Something inexplicable happens, it must be another intelligence doing it. It only becomes complicated when you try to explore the implications, and find that, actually, the second-order explanation implies an untenable level of complexity.

It reminds me of the climate sceptics who infer that CO2 does not cause global warming from the graphs that show CO2 levels lagging temperature. Feedback mechanisms are second-order; I'm routinely amazed at how may people cannot cope with that.

<>

If we halt our reasoning process at the first level, there is no problem. The fairy has always been there, lives outside our physical universe, but has the ability to influence it.

It just does, OK?

When I try to picture the sum of Creation, I imagine the entire universe *at one instant* as an infinitesimally thin slice of an enormous sausage, stretching back in time to the Big Bang at one end, and going on to the Big Crunch at the other (or infinite expansion, creating a sausage that stretches on forever but becomes progressively less and less nutritious). So time becomes a measure of the length of the sausage - which outside of it, carries no significance. The Big Bang is nothing but one end of the sausage, and as far as science is concerned, there is nothing that is not sausage, thus no 'before' and no cause. Though there's plenty of debate about earlier links.

But God is omnipresent, thus simultaneously is both sausage and sausagemaker. Tough gig, but if you think of God as a force of divine will, and don't want to introduce a Butcher's Apprenticeship Course into it, you're presented with an overwhelming, unwarranted cosmic urge for sausage. But why?

Sorry, it's Friday afternoon. Have a nice "weekend", everybody.

Very interesting way of looking at it, and is kind of how I see it (not that I would have thought of saying it that way) but it does match the picture I had in my head of things.

the fluffy kerfuffle silly-walks in with a bag of groceries.... a length of sausage links dangling out of the top... writes a check for the electrician... inadvertantly drops her pen... apologizes to the fairy... then silly-walks to the kitchen to put away the groceries and cook dinner....

. . .. .. ... ....sentimental strains from the radio of "Oh, My Papa" waft back down the hall.
http://www.redsal.com/papa.htm

<>

By BBC News Online science editor Dr David Whitehouse
A new theory for the origin of the Universe is intriguing astronomers with the idea that a "Big Splat" preceded the Big Bang.

The BBC science editor then goes on:

"The idea, which is still at the development stage, may provide hints about what happened before our Universe exploded into existence some 15 billion years ago."

Good grief! He said "before" when talking about the Big Bang, and Sorb says that's grammatical but meaningless. I suspect Sorb is talking out his jacksy.