Quote:
Originally Posted by antikristuseke
(Post 1219177)
And scientists share your opinion, we simply do not know. Besides atheists don't make a claim that t came from nothing, atheism is simply a lack of faith in a god or gods, nothing more and nothing less.
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Well I should correct a few things on this matter, between you Anti and Iceman. First, true singularities do not exist. It's simply a mathematical term used to describe where general relativity and quantum mechanics, to put it bluntly, go bats*** insane together. This isn't because the math behind them is flawed; it's because we reach states of infinity, with what is generally regarded as the universe's "birthpoint" marking a finite beginning- because the universe will end eventually even though it's infinitely expanding.
One of the things the LHC is hoping to solve on a tiny scale is what it was like after the Big Bang, and during it. Little is known of the Planck Epoch, in terms of observable evidence anyway. Again, it's mostly based on math and hypotheses. But the LHC offers us a chance to know, or at least start to journey to, the answer to the ultimate questions about reality- our very universe's origin itself.
To be frank, if the String Theory, Multiverse Theory, and Superstring Theory are all correct, then we're just one universe in an endless existence of other universes (that literally are infinite in number). It's possible our universe exists within a larger universe, and that universe within an even larger one; etc.- for an infinite number. And vice versa with smaller universes existing within our own universe. An infinite number therein could exist on smaller and larger scales. This gets into plausible worlds and the like, though.
Theoretically, it's possible and quite likely there exists a universe where you and I are made out of chocolate, the sky's yellow, and we breath methane. Even universes where we don't exist.
Consider, if you will, a movement you make. Let's say here, you take two steps backwards and four steps to the right. There exists a universe where you took two steps forward, and four steps left. And a universe where you took two steps to the right and four steps to the left. Etc. With the movement possibilities other dimensions, like the fourth, fifth, sixth, etc., open up, there's an infinite number of movements you could make. Assuming that any one of the universes that exists within these dimensions contains you. Well- a version of you anyway. Again, there's places where you don't even exist.
Think about that for a moment. The sheer size of this universe that we've observed with telescopes and imaging devices is impossible for our fragile minds to comprehend, but even so we know from it that we're small. We can rationalize it by saying that magical beings created us to make ourselves comfortable and feel special in the thought that there is purpose to it all (this is embedded in our nature), but the reality, logical, observable, and philosophical reality, is that we're meaningless. Something less than meaningless really. Multiply that by infinity, and you amount to less than nothing. Sounds weird, but then again, existence and reality normally are weird. For good and ill.
There's no one question we could ask that could possibly answer all the questions we have about existence; what does it look like beyond this universe, what's beyond the infinity of the dimensions and universes, how did all this come to be, etc. And there's no one answer that could possibly explain all of it. Even so- we'd never be able to understand. That's not cliched or even merely a matter of opinion; the simple fact of the matter is that there are some things too big and complicated for the brain to comprehend- particularly when you're dealing with the very existence of it, and of what it exists in.
It's scary, to say the least. I personally will always agree with Lovecraft:
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.