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Who, or What is driving this thing?
We earthlings are riding a merry-go-round spinning at about 900 mph; the merry-go-round is orbiting the Sun at 66,000 mph; our solar system is orbiting the axis of our galaxy (the Milky Way) at a speed of 434,000 mph; the Milky Way is moving away from the background radiation at 1.37 million mph. Are we on auto-pilot or what?
natasha nikulina 50+
just some thoughts:
particle accelerators have demonstrated that matter and anti-matter are always created simultaneously.
On the macro scale we can observe it as a constant ecceleratng motion.
Everything is moving, changing to stay the same to stay still. At the 'moment of creation' the balance was broken and still preserved.
Peter Law 50+
"...............and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, .........."
(God holds it together supernaturally)
:-)
Obey No1kinobe 50+
Peter Law 50+
Blowed if I know. He says so, & I trust Him. I belong to a race that cannot make a blade of grass unless we are given a seed; I know my place.
:-)
natasha nikulina 50+
"God holds it together supernaturally"
I would agree, if you said : God holds it together naturally.
In scientific 'mythic' language it is ' quanta'.
A bit of description :
All energy and all matter is quantized .The consistent continuity of reality doesn't require quanta to have any specific sequence in time. It is not subject to any notion of space or time and can occupy all of its possible quantum states simultaneously. It is called quantum super position. Every electron in the Universe could be the exact same one.
Doesn't it remind you something ?
God in our human symbolic language stands for everything that IS and it is perfectly natural. :)
To look at the world as it is, not as we perceive it is means to look at it with the eye of a photon, for this eye time stops, it is called " Cosmic/ Christ consciousness and describes the state of being 'awaken alive '.
I could be wrong , but it is the way I see it now :)
Peter Law 50+
You may be right, but it's above my pay scale. I guess most things that are everyday fare to an omnipotent god will seem supernatural to me. If you're the being who made nature, then you get to decide what is supernatural & what is not. I like the bit about one electron. I seem to recall something about every atom needing to be slightly different for the whole thing to work as well. Maybe wrong.
1 Corinthians 13:12 (KJV)
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
:-)
natasha nikulina 50+
It's great !
Isn't it pretty close to ' the knower is the known " ?
Peter, I am not a scientist , just a bit of intuition ( which function is to reconcile things) added to the scientific description.
As for "every atom needing to be slightly different..." may i remind you, that an electron is a negatively charged component of an atom. So, no contradiction here.
If by 'supernatural ' you mean the sense of wonder and reverence, I am on your page here, but getting a glimpse of understanding of how nature 'works' doesn't diminish my sense of strangeness of things. Why it should ?
What i am trying to say is : 'natural' does not mean 'all explained and understood' , there is no such place in Nature. And God for me is not the 'Holy other' but the holy within us. There is nothing external here, nothing is supernatural. At least i don't see it as such.
Again... I could be wrong :)
Thank you for responding !
edward long 100+
A Relative
The formula 1+1=3 or more
Physical Laws with no intelligent agency (2)
Natural Cruise Control
Randomness (2)
Love
God (3)
Big Bang Inertia
Unidentifiable
Senseless Gravity
Evolved Scientists + Luck
So far this limited sampling of the TED community favors a natural, godless cosmology by about 13 to 3.
Anyone else?
Obey No1kinobe 50+
No wonder TED is so much fun.
Unfortunately we might all be wrong, or the direction most on target may still be way off.
Gravity - I can do the basic calcs but if think about it too hard it hurts my brain - acting over near infinite distances pulling clumps of matter towards each other, and matter is just concentrated energy. What is energy. Don't get started on dark matter and energy. Ouch.
Terry Harman
So 'my vote', if we want to use that term, is for auto-pilot.
Roy Bourque 20+
To me, God, and quantum fields, are two different expressions of the same thing. Quantum fields are everywhere, they are invisible, they are what is doing the creating, they are perfect, they are eternal. They are the driver.
Are we on autopilot? To some extent, yes. We have the ability to make choices, and that gives us a say in what happens here. But the universe is beyond our controlling it. We can interact with it within our limited abilities. But beyond that, we are at the beck and call of the forces of nature. We can't stop earthquakes, but we can engineer to be more prepared. We can't stop droughts, but we can manage our food production to take it into account. We can't stop war, unless we learn to control our reproductive habits, since the pressures of survival are what fuel war. We create rules to learn to live in harmony with each other. The ten commandments are part of those rules. The laws of the state and nation are part of those rules. OSHA regulations are part of those rules. And they all go back to the way the universe works. And we can explain it all in terms of quantum fields.
David Hamilton 50+
1 + 1 = 3 or more
Who wrote the formula, and why there were ever 2 atoms, instead of none, we will probably never know.
natasha nikulina 50+
Your question reminds me of the zen koan " Is it the wind moving or is it the flag?" The monk answers: "neither, its your mind that is moving."
All these relentless motion, you've described in your question somehow connected with consciousness.
Is there any movement without Time ? And where it could possibly take place ? Time and Space is the same fabric..So, nothing is external for our mind.
As T. S Eliot put it " To be conscious is not to be in Time" Is it possible ? I don't know, but i guess your question can be answered only from there :)
Or maybe i am wrong, since mathematical equations can go in both directions and are, in a sense, time free, science has the possibility in its own 'mythic' language to describe what is going on here/ there.
edward long 100+
Anne Dagen 10+
Peter Law 50+
You never fail to bring a smile to my face. I get sick on the channel ferry, so I reach the inevitable conclusion that I am stationary & the universe is moving relative to me. I know Mr. Dawkins also believes this, but I thought of it first.
Seriously though, speed, rotation, etc. can only be measured as relative to a fixed point. There are no fixed points, so nothing is moving.
That didn't help, did it ?
:-)
edward long 100+
Peter Law 50+
But wait; there could be zillions of universes & we just got lucky. I just knew there was a simple explanation. Maybe now I'm in the spot you were an hour ago!
:-)
edward long 100+
Gabo Moreno 100+
Gabo Moreno 100+
Peter Law 50+
I guess we need to keep our sense of humour. I like Ed's wit, but am not really up to doing it justice. Not a multiverse fan I must admit, smells of desperation.
:-)
Gabo Moreno 100+
Well, still your first comment was great. As for the second, I was talking about the cracked egg, not about the multiverses. The multiverses is still a very immature field of research, so nothing very definitive, so I don;t care too much about it. I don't see why it would smell as desperation though, but I am guessing this has to do with that other thing you guys have with "fine-tuning." But if I were to argue against your fine-tuning, well, I would show you the obvious contradiction in your own arguments: you say that natural laws, such as entropy, go against life, yet proclaim that the universe is fine-tuned for life. So, which is it? Is the universe built for life, or against life? See? Easy. There is much more wrong with fine-tuning. So much that it indeed smells like desperation. But no need to bother.
:-)
Peter Law 50+
Cracked egg is 'tongue in cheek'. Although orbiting solid balls is hard enough without including liquid ones with a thin shell & a lump of iron in the centre. I'm impressed that's for sure.
Life wouldn't work without the precise 'tuning' , but the tuning in itself does not make it inevitable. The fact that everything is so beautiful, comfortable, & exciting just makes life so worthwhile. All too 'coincidental' for me.
:-)
Gabo Moreno 100+
But then you lose the whole idea about fine-tuning, just as you miss important contradictions in many other arguments you propose. The fine-tuning argument is about several constants in physics. The thing starts with the big bang and what would have happened if such constant was not precisely whatever. Then the universe ... Wait! What? That argument is accepting the big bang in the first place! Thus, you should reject it Pete! Another one is about one that would it be different hydrogen atoms would not have collapsed into stars ... Wait! What? That accepts both the big bang, and the collapsing that you try so hard to deny! So, to be consistent you have to reject the argument. Another one is about the impossibility for stars fusing atoms, which means there would be no heavier elements ... Wait! What? That accepts the Big Bang, the formation of stars, and the "evolution" of heavier atoms (since you want that word everywhere so rejecting one part suffices in your logic to deny the whole of science) ... then some "constants" are ratios of other constants, who knows why except for rhetorical effects, and so on. The thing is, When the constants are discussed, all of it ends in the possibility, not just for life to exist, but for life to evolve. For life to arise from a simple beginning to what you see today. Only your quacks won't tell you that. None of them is about "comfortable and beautiful." This means that you accept the fine-tuning argument by name, but not by meaning.
The argument is also blasphemous. It assumes that your god is not omnipotent. An omnipotent god could create us, and life, and everything else, regardless of whatever kind of universe this god decided to create. Thus, if anything, "fine-tuning" would be evidence against omnipotent gods.
Peter Law 50+
I don't accept the Big Bang concept at all. My view is that God put the whole thing together in 6 days, as I'm sure you know.
When folks propose the BB I use the hydrogen/star formation/fine-tuning arguments to show how unlikely it would be for the present, ordered universe to appear from such an event.
I like to ask the awkward questions, sometimes I get an answer, sometimes not, sometimes I just get told how silly I am for believing the bible. I enjoy the banter whatever.
:-)
Random Chance 30+
Random Chance
Bernard Seremonia
WHAT IF EVERYTHING IS RANDOM ?
If everything is random, then there is no certainty, even when it viewed from the same viewpoint, because things can change at any time.
Now assume that all randomness, then this just the same as saying there is no certainty for even the minimum that you could recognize, therefore there are:
1. no social activities between us (because we always find new things that we do not understand)
2. such things can harm us, because things that we might throw, it will back to our own
3. and a lot of silliness like that, some humor more often ends with disastrousis, even within ourselves.
Now, the difficult part of thinking of it, while we are going to understand about there is no randomness should lead us to another thinking about there must be something intelligence driving all of these.
The easy way at least on my side is by thinking using our own experiences become witness to the truth itself. Difficult for us (based on our experience) to produce such certainty (as agreed by ourselves) without controlling based on understanding. In another simple words, if we need to control something, we have to understand to what will happen (who, where, why etc), to make easier in controlling.
At least by experience: less understanding of something, then less control to it, then less certainty and more to randomness. The question is whether we believe in randomness.
Less or more ...
It's just debatable question for some people, and there might be another thought about it, but this is just my other share of thought. Thanks.
Gabo Moreno 100+
This is very hard for theists to understand. But think deeply and carefully and you will see that your false dichotomy: either a god or total abject randomness, is nonsense. A result of deep indoctrination, to the point that you probably think that such a thing is self-evident.
Best in your pursuit for knowledge.
P.S. The proper question might be: what if everything is natural? But I doubt that such question alone could lead you either way (towards or away from a god belief).
Bernard Seremonia
Sometimes we try to find justification from areas that is unreachable, far away from ourselves (although using axioma or other logic rules can be done). But I found it much easier to see the truth to confront based on experiences that as closer as within myself.
This is not always axiomatic and sometimes subjective, but when it is clear to me that experience shows the truth and assert something, so I may be able to believe it easily. It's complicated process.
Even when my assertion was not tested through scientific instruments, but if our weaknesses have shown a particular assertion, then hopefully that's enough for me. Sometimes we only need ourselves as starting point for the comparison that can assert a truth. And I think this is natural.
Reality does not require intelligence is probably true, but as far as my experience, producing something beneficial for us can never be performed better without our intelligence.
But as I mentioned, sometimes we are too far to see proof, so that we can not see the truth of some relations, that have been told silently by ourselves in its interaction with something.
This does not mean I refuse proven truth that is considered to be feasible, but only to train myself to balance the achievement of truth received from different directions. Without limiting my attitude, i can see things fairly from different direction, so hopefully i won't say, where is my chance ?
Besides, who can ensure something for someone else except for ourselves. This is subjective, but in the subjective hopefully I've chosen the best effort to get closer to the truth whatever it is.
But, anyway, i accept your share of thought, without it i am limiting my own self. Thanks.
Adriaan Braam 20+
"This can be somewhat grasped when we give thought to the topic of order in the universe. Physicists will tell you that the universe has unity, order and orientation. They suspect that the force of gravity is responsible for Nature’s “blind” disposition toward self-organization. But the current state of physics has no real grasp of gravitational order and how its thermodynamics produces coherent and understandable structure."
This is taken from,
http://thegodguy.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/valentine%e2%80%99s-day-and-the-laws-of-physics/
In principle we can paint a picture with our hands, brushes and cloth. But what really paints the picture is the love we have in our mind. We can call it creation or there was a big bang, but Love was the cause.
Added-------
Talking about gravity, you'd like this too
http://thegodguy.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/spiritual-gravity/
edward long 100+
Gabo Moreno 100+
(My explanation is necessarily incomplete and simplistic too, thus prime for equivocation. For the proper understanding of thermodynamics and their underlying reasons-d'etre, you need to study a heck of a lot. Creationist quacks rely on our natural human ignorance, and the over simplification of entropy as a tendency towards disorder once unfortunately thought of as a proper way of explaining entropy in KinderGarden. That and other over simplified concepts fuel a lot of quackery. Understandably, but unjustifiably. Serious people should know better.)
Edward Sylvia
(This explanation is also incomplete and simplistic, which is why I wrote about it in my book "Proving God," where I attempt to unify science and theology.)
Obey No1kinobe 50+
May as well ask who is driving the wind, ocean currents, and continental drift. Who makes rainbows and earthquakes?
Perhaps there are invisible beings making sure the moon stays in orbit around the earth, pulling us towards the centre of the Earth. The human trait to look for agency is still as strong as ever. The god of the gaps.
edward long 100+
Obey No1kinobe 50+
You probably know there are well established explanations the wind; ocean currents; continental drift; rainbows; earthquakes. If you think there is an agency for all these things, you need a bit more proof then simply not understanding the bits humans have figured out, let alone the bits we struggle with.
We don't need to understand or prove every single thing with a natural explanation in order to finally say there is probably no interventionist cultural gods, particularly one that apparently waited between 4000 and 14 Billion years before offering salvation to those who were not the chosen people.
Firstly the apparent order in the universe ignores the disorder. Look at how many times the moon has been hit. Look at the earthquakes. Why would god invent an unstable earth with crazy weather? Do we really need bed bugs, and polio, and miscarriages, and MS. Great design. With suns that run out of juice or super nova destroying any nearby life. All animals including humans kill or eat other living things. This violence is not evidence of design by a loving entity.
And the order we see is not direct evidence of gods. In the past the answer for ignorance was often this or that god.
You just seem to jump to agency - asking who. I suppose it is a human trait that may of helped us survive. It is safer to assume a bump in the night might be some agent threatening you if surrounded by dangerous animals. Most things that tried to kill us and many that tried to avoid being killed were agents - human and other animals. We seem to have projected that onto the sun and moon and earthquakes and disease and the entire universe.
Obey No1kinobe 50+
edward long 100+
Obey No1kinobe 50+
So my answer is it is something else. There are physical laws and processes with no intelligent agency making sure each electron is in the right place, or moon stays on the right course.
edward long 100+
Gabo Moreno 100+
edward long 100+
Gabo Moreno 100+
Best!
Fritzie Reisner 100+
I think gravity specifically is still poorly understood, though there is conjecture that there may be force carrying particles at the root.
I have no expertise in this. If you are interested in learning more in this area, there is a very well written book for popular audiences by Harvard physics professor Lisa Randall called Warped Passages. You may enjoy it.
edward long 100+
natasha nikulina 50+
I like this description ! :)
edward long 100+
natasha nikulina 50+
As for the metaphor, it is quite viable if we accept a 'cyclic' dynamic .
edward long 100+
natasha nikulina 50+
if you keep a kind of statistics here, you'd better to remove my vote or to be more precise: your interpretation of my vote.
I would gladly help you to define the category, but i don't know either.
So mark it as 'unidentifiable'.
Sure, my point has little ( if anything) to do with nihilism, except the fact that I am Russian and Russians, over history invested a lot into the term.
But now it is not the case :)
edward long 100+
Ady Los Zonga
Your questions will get you killed my dear fellow human :) Why are you bothering with this kind of stuff? Please, get some pills, drink some water, watch a movie, do some shopping and stop thinking! Is bad for your brain! Just fade away quiet into the night....
edward long 100+
Gerald O'brian 50+
We're the only ones driving. Everybody else out there is asleep.
edward long 100+
Gerald O'brian 50+
edward long 100+
Gerald O'brian 50+
The answer to that is ; nothing. who's driving snow flakes in a blizzard?
edward long 100+
Comment deleted
edward long 100+
Jose Blg
edward long 100+
Jose Blg
The need of that "sense" is your personal need and It never implies that this sense should BE.
The existence of the universe, forces, planets and life has no sense itself.
The fact that you don't like It doesn't change the reality.
edward long 100+
Gabo Moreno 100+
That should take care of the straw-men.
---
I love your sentence: "I know my personal whims and desires have nothing to do with determining what is real." I have said so many times. But certain creationists don't believe me. They think that I reject their gods because I want to swim in my sins and such nonsense. It's just the evidence. I have no say in what the evidence indicates. It does, ergo that's it.
edward long 100+
Gabo Moreno 100+
edward long 100+