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An argument for creationism from an atheist
#1

An argument for creationism from an atheist
So what happens if we survive through the next couple millennia and spread out through the stars and become less vulnerable to extinction. We might continue on for a long time developing a better understanding of the universe, developing greater technologies, and probably evolving ourselves by biological and technological means into something we would not consider to even be human anymore. What if our present 10,000-year-old civilization goes on for billions of years. What will we become and what will be able to do? It is simply unimaginable. But given all that time it can be presumed that we will be able to duplicate anything in nature artificially, including the big bang. As our galaxy dies of old age and with progress toward the heat death of the universe we would be highly motivated to do so. 

With this in mind, the possibility that our own universe started this way must be considered. Unfortunately, this is currently an untestable hypothesis as we are completely unable to explore even nearby space much less the vastness of the universe for any ancient civilizations responsible. Heck, much of the universe is outside the observable and impossible by our understanding to even see it. The probability is impossible to calculate but it is a possibility that requires nothing supernatural. It is possible that nature spawns enough new universes on its own and that a billion-year-old civilization would be able to navigate them making artificial universes entirely unnecessary. 

While these beings would appear godlike I doubt any of them would be even aware of our insignificant existence in the vastness of space and if they are I doubt we warrant any attention from them at all. They certainly aren't dictating books to tell us who we can have sex with and the other silly stuff. So while I do propose a credible creation story I doubt any of the many religions would find it very acceptable.
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#2

An argument for creationism from an atheist
Pretty cool thought experiment. It would also be a cool sci-fi story. Infinite regress problem when posed as a "creation theory" though.
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#3

An argument for creationism from an atheist
Duplicating the Big Bang? I can see it, those meddling kids messing around with strings and fabrics and whatnot..

Surviving that to enjoy being right might be another issue altogether. How could anyone ensure that the laws of physics would even be the same?

Having a ringside seat? Priceless.
On hiatus.
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#4

An argument for creationism from an atheist
Argument for rational thinking from a trumpard

Fake News!
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#5

An argument for creationism from an atheist
(07-29-2021, 06:18 AM)vulcanlogician Wrote: Pretty cool thought experiment. It would also be a cool sci-fi story. Infinite regress problem when posed as a "creation theory" though.

Yeah, infinite regress, honestly I didn't think further than the beginning of particular universes and not the beginning of everything. Probably because if I was forced to pick from the possibilities I don't find an ultimate beginning to be a satisfactory solution. I find the idea that there has always been something in some form or another more appealing. The idea of infinity is a problem though time is poorly understood and perhaps it has traits that get rid of infinite time such as the entirety of all dimensions of space-time wrapping around on themselves somehow.
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#6

An argument for creationism from an atheist
(07-29-2021, 07:16 AM)Cubeology Wrote: Probably because if I was forced to pick from the possibilities I don't find an ultimate beginning to be a satisfactory solution. I find the idea that there has always been something in some form or another more appealing. The idea of infinity is a problem though time is poorly understood and perhaps it has traits that get rid of infinite time such as the entirety of all dimensions of space-time wrapping around on themselves somehow.

Are you saying that our apprehensions about an infinite regress may be a prejudice?
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#7

An argument for creationism from an atheist
(07-29-2021, 06:13 AM)Cubeology Wrote: But given all that time it can be presumed that we will be able to duplicate anything in nature artificially, including the big bang. As our galaxy dies of old age and with progress toward the heat death of the universe we would be highly motivated to do so.

Even assuming it would be possible, I very much doubt that anyone would be "highly motivated" to overwrite their own reality with a new one when the payoff of second-generation stars with (possibly) habitable planets would be billions of years in the future.
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#8

An argument for creationism from an atheist
What "banged" in the Big Bang was (something or somethings) at very high temperature and density.
We don't know what that was. "Nothing" is not at high temperature and density.
Thus we don't know even if this universe "had a beginning" and there are prominent scientists (Penrose) who think there is/was an infinite series of bangs and re-bangs.
"Creationism" is generally assumed to be ex-nihilo, and there is nowhere, any evidence for that, thus the term may be misleading.
We don't have to consider anything, until we have evidence. Dark Energy and Dark Matter comprise 95% of this universe. We know next to nothing about this universe.
Test
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#9

An argument for creationism from an atheist
I'm reminded of Asimov's The Last Question.

I'd heard it was his best story (his favourite too, it would appear) and then I read it and...


... maybe I expected too much. Either way, I think I'll stick to Greg Egan for now and try Asimov again later.

(Don't have much to contribute discussion-wise, only I've stopped believing we'd ever go much further than Mars. Or last long. Also, wasn't there a theory or something than any civilisation that is technologically advanced "usually goes extinct after attaining technological knowledge"?)
“We drift down time, clutching at straws. But what good's a brick to a drowning man?” 
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#10

An argument for creationism from an atheist
(07-29-2021, 02:45 PM)Vera Wrote: Also, wasn't there a theory or something than any civilisation that is technologically advanced "usually goes extinct after attaining technological knowledge"?)

Well, Sagan posited that perhaps technological species have hurdles to clear to avoid self-destruction. Not sure how a word like "usually" can be used in this context, given that we thus far have one example only -- ourselves -- and if we go extinct we won't be able to use our own demise as a data point anyway.
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#11

An argument for creationism from an atheist
(07-29-2021, 03:13 PM)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: Not sure how a word like "usually" can be used in this context,

It's a quote though I did wonder.
“We drift down time, clutching at straws. But what good's a brick to a drowning man?” 
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#12

An argument for creationism from an atheist
(07-29-2021, 02:45 PM)Vera Wrote: Also, wasn't there a theory or something than any civilisation that is technologically advanced "usually goes extinct after attaining technological knowledge"?

That's one solution to the Fermi paradox. The Fermi Paradox asks: if intelligent life exists, why isn't it all over the galaxy by now? Why haven't we seen it yet?

There are tons of proposed answers. One of them being intelligent life cannot survive its own technological advancement; it always wipes itself out. If that's true, it doesn't bode well for us...
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#13

An argument for creationism from an atheist
(07-29-2021, 04:04 PM)vulcanlogician Wrote: That's one solution to the Fermi paradox. The Fermi Paradox asks: if intelligent life exists, why isn't it all over the galaxy by now? Why haven't we seen it yet?

There are tons of proposed answers. One of them being intelligent life cannot survive its own technological advancement; it always wipes itself out. If that's true, it doesn't bode well for us...

Another answer is that interstellar space travel will always be impossible.

Yet another answer is that really intelligent life doesn't want to travel elsewhere....
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#14

An argument for creationism from an atheist
(07-29-2021, 04:12 PM)Alan V Wrote: Yet another answer is that really intelligent life doesn't want to travel elsewhere....

Seeing as our sun has a sell by date, and assuming that some intelligent life survives until that point in time, they'd have to travel elsewhere.
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#15

An argument for creationism from an atheist
(07-29-2021, 04:21 PM)abaris Wrote:
(07-29-2021, 04:12 PM)Alan V Wrote: Yet another answer is that really intelligent life doesn't want to travel elsewhere....

Seeing as our sun has a sell by date, and assuming that some intelligent life survives until that point in time, they'd have to travel elsewhere.

You are a remarkable optimist if you think intelligent life will avoid extinction for five billion years.  

We haven't yet proved that intelligence is a durable evolutionary advantage. Sun
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#16

An argument for creationism from an atheist
(07-29-2021, 04:29 PM)Alan V Wrote: You are a remarkable optimist if you think intelligent life will avoid extinction for five billion years.  

I said "assuming" and "some intelligent life", which doesn't have to be human.
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#17

An argument for creationism from an atheist
(07-29-2021, 06:13 AM)Cubeology Wrote: So what happens if we survive through the next couple millennia and spread out through the stars and become less vulnerable to extinction. We might continue on for a long time developing a better understanding of the universe, developing greater technologies, and probably evolving ourselves by biological and technological means into something we would not consider to even be human anymore.

https://www.physics.princeton.edu/ph115/LQ.pdf

The Final Question
- Isaac Asimiv
I am a sovereign citizen of the Multiverse, and I vote!


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#18

An argument for creationism from an atheist
I'll be dead.  I won't care.
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
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#19

An argument for creationism from an atheist
(07-29-2021, 04:04 PM)vulcanlogician Wrote:
(07-29-2021, 02:45 PM)Vera Wrote: Also, wasn't there a theory or something than any civilisation that is technologically advanced "usually goes extinct after attaining technological knowledge"?

That's one solution to the Fermi paradox. The Fermi Paradox asks: if intelligent life exists, why isn't it all over the galaxy by now? Why haven't we seen it yet?

There are tons of proposed answers. One of them being intelligent life cannot survive its own technological advancement; it always wipes itself out. If that's true, it doesn't bode well for us...

I think the primary solution to the so-called Fermi paradox is that it was posed when a universe that was infinite in time, the Steady State universe, was a real and active theory.

When the universe has a definite beginning in time, then there are limits to what can be accomplished in that time.  And space is very, very big, and evolution is very, very slow, and the speed of light appears to be an absolute limit.

Applying the principle of mediocrity—that our experience in the universe is much more likely to be typical than unusual—then perhaps it takes around nine billion years to have sufficient abundance of heavy elements to make the development of a world that can host complex life possible.  Even though it appears that abiogenesis is pretty easy—in cosmic terms, it began on Earth very quickly after the planet cooled and water collected—it took three billion years to get to complex life and another six hundred million to get to candidates for sentience.  Life might be easy, but complicated life and sentient life might not be.

So no, I don't think it's at all a 'paradox' as to why we don't see life everywhere, although I think it's probably out there.  It takes a long time for life to get going, there's no guarantees that it will make it to sentience in the first place, and even if it does, the speed of light puts hard limits on what they can detect, when they can detect it, and how long it would take to get something there to look at it.  Remember that no one outside of about a 200 light year radius can have the faintest idea we're here, and that's in a galaxy of a couple hundred billion stars spread out in a lens nearly 200,000 light years in diameter and 2,000 light years thick.  It would be more shocking if we had made contact already.
"Aliens?  Us?  Is this one of your Earth jokes?"  -- Kro-Bar, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra
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#20

An argument for creationism from an atheist
(07-29-2021, 04:29 PM)Alan V Wrote: You are a remarkable optimist if you think intelligent life will avoid extinction for five billion years.  

We haven't yet proved that intelligence is a durable evolutionary advantage.  Sun

Intelligent life may or may not be around in five billion years. It's independently evolved in several different genera -- primates, cetaceans, and loxodonta (elephants) -- and so in the right circumstances seems to have some survival value.

I'd be willing to bet that every single species alive today will be extinct in that timeframe, anyway.
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#21

An argument for creationism from an atheist
(07-29-2021, 04:12 PM)Alan V Wrote:
(07-29-2021, 04:04 PM)vulcanlogician Wrote: That's one solution to the Fermi paradox. The Fermi Paradox asks: if intelligent life exists, why isn't it all over the galaxy by now? Why haven't we seen it yet?

There are tons of proposed answers. One of them being intelligent life cannot survive its own technological advancement; it always wipes itself out. If that's true, it doesn't bode well for us...

Another answer is that interstellar space travel will always be impossible.

Yet another answer is that really intelligent life doesn't want to travel elsewhere....

While I can see that interstellar travel for biological life includes huge hurdles to overcome, I see no great technological leaps necessary to send machines out into the universe, perhaps intelligent self-replicating machines. Just like we currently send rovers and helicopters to Mars even though I think it unlikely that we find a way to safely send humans there anytime soon. 

But I do think we underestimate the vastness of space and the effort it takes to go from star to star even if some technology is developed. Civilizations that arise closer to the galactic core may find star-hopping much more practical where stellar distances are less. They would find colonizing much easier and the chances of two such civilizations running into each other much greater.
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#22

An argument for creationism from an atheist
(07-29-2021, 08:14 PM)Cubeology Wrote: Civilizations that arise closer to the galactic core may find star-hopping much more practical where stellar distances are less. They would find colonizing much easier and the chances of two such civilizations running into each other much greater.

Given the irradiation of such a central sector of a galaxy, I'm left to wonder if galaxies too don't have their own "Goldilocks zones"? You'd need one hell of a Van Allen belt to shelter protolife molecules from the rads raining down, I think.

Perhaps there's an inverse relationship between the evolution of life, and indeed intelligent life, and distance from galactic centers?
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#23

An argument for creationism from an atheist
(07-29-2021, 02:45 PM)Vera Wrote: I'm reminded of Asimov's The Last Question.

I'd heard it was his best story (his favourite too, it would appear) and then I read it and...


... maybe I expected too much. Either way, I think I'll stick to Greg Egan for now and try Asimov again later.

(Don't have much to contribute discussion-wise, only I've stopped believing we'd ever go much further than Mars. Or last long. Also, wasn't there a theory or something than any civilisation that is technologically advanced "usually goes extinct after attaining technological knowledge"?)

I loved that story, many of his stories tuck in my head but that one most of all.
Those who ask a lot of questions may seem stupid, but those who don't ask questions stay stupid.
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#24

An argument for creationism from an atheist
(07-29-2021, 08:14 PM)Cubeology Wrote: While I can see that interstellar travel for biological life includes huge hurdles to overcome, I see no great technological leaps necessary to send machines out into the universe, perhaps intelligent self-replicating machines. Just like we currently send rovers and helicopters to Mars even though I think it unlikely that we find a way to safely send humans there anytime soon. 

But I do think we underestimate the vastness of space and the effort it takes to go from star to star even if some technology is developed. Civilizations that arise closer to the galactic core may find star-hopping much more practical where stellar distances are less. They would find colonizing much easier and the chances of two such civilizations running into each other much greater.

Hello. Smile

While space is, indeed, big (Douglas Adam's quote here) the distance isn't quite surmountable.

So.. back in the 50's they gave some of the Atomic Scientists things to do to keep thier knowledge in the States.

Freeman Dyson and others came up with a 'Brute force' atomic powered rocket.

At the extreme upper scale? They were postulating a machine weighing in at 8 million tonns. Basically a small city powering itself through space.

Said vehicles should have been able to achieve upto .33% the speed of light. (Note. Look up "Project Valkyrie" for an even faster antimatter powered rocket. Smile        )

So, you launch it and roughly 150 odd years later you get information back. Look at how long people waited patiently for the Pluto Express to get out that distance.

So, with enough time spent pretty much any distance can be coevered at a low light speed crawl.

That leads into the limiters of course. Maybe societys simply don't stablily last over those scales? Maybe the distance between 'habitable' spots is so vast that it's thousands of years at low 'C' speeds between watering holes?

However, as has been acknowledged. IF there's a species that's stable enough and commited enough to keep sending even 'Simple' brute force Orion type ships out and keep doing it and keep on expanding?

Then given the age of our galaxy we migh have been able to see their firefly atomic flckerings in the dark between the stars by now.

Sorry, enough of my ramblings. Hopfully something of worth was conveighed. girl blushing 

Cheers.

Not at work.
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#25

An argument for creationism from an atheist
(07-29-2021, 08:50 PM)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:
(07-29-2021, 08:14 PM)Cubeology Wrote: Civilizations that arise closer to the galactic core may find star-hopping much more practical where stellar distances are less. They would find colonizing much easier and the chances of two such civilizations running into each other much greater.

Given the irradiation of such a central sector of a galaxy, I'm left to wonder if galaxies too don't have their own "Goldilocks zones"? You'd need one hell of a Van Allen belt to shelter protolife molecules from the rads raining down, I think.

Perhaps there's an inverse relationship between the evolution of life, and indeed intelligent life, and distance from galactic centers?

Fun thread and thoughts. Perhaps our notions of life are so limited that we cannot imagine life forms that can not only tolerate those higher levels of radiation, but thrive in them.
When life was discovered around black smokers deep in the ocean, scientists did not immediately leap to those being the source of all life. The intense pressures and temperatures seemed insurmountable.
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