Is there life elsewhere in the Universe??

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#996194 28-Feb-2014 10:56

These are not my thoughts. These are the r results of people studying for 10 hours a day for decades!

I am not aware of anyone trying to study what happened before the big bang so I will not comment on that

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#996195 28-Feb-2014 10:56

Klipspringer:
Fred99:
No - there's no "surely" - that energy initiated the big bang.
In fact it creates a paradox - where did that energy come from?

That answer depends on if you religious or not.

My thoughts are not about the big bang itself. But more around what happened before the big bang, even a spit second before it happened. Did matter exist before the big bang? IMO no it did not. Only energy existed. But thats just my opinion on all this.

Again IMO, Energy can create matter. We just have not done it yet.

Yes - damned religion. But as I think I said somewhere above, for much of what we're discussing here, probably all of us are relying on "faith" - that a small handful of physicists, cosmologists etc., are on the right track.

"Before" the Big Bang isn't logical to consider, as time (and the other physical dimensions we observe) only came into existence after the Big Bang.
Now they "appeared" along with a set of "rules" or laws. Whether those rules existed anyway (I won't say beforehand) and what (or who?) set them is a good question.

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#996199 28-Feb-2014 10:58

You could say that about how the theory of evolution is accepted as proven fact

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#996204 28-Feb-2014 11:01

Klipspringer:
KiwiNZ:

As we don't know what pre-dated the Big Bang we cannot say the Laws of Physics don't apply

True. But we cant say they do apply either.

You are correct. We cannot even say the Big Bang occurred.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

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#996206 28-Feb-2014 11:01

joker97: These are not my thoughts. These are the r results of people studying for 10 hours a day for decades!

I am not aware of anyone trying to study what happened before the big bang so I will not comment on that

Nobody can study what happened before the big bang. Thats impossible. Where would you start?

Conclutions can be made about what happened before the big bang but they will be assumptions and will never be able to be proven.

Science has many major flaws. This is one of them. It relies on something being proven. Having "proof". Proving what happened before the big bang is impossible, and impossible to simulate.

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#996212 28-Feb-2014 11:06

Please ask a real scientist! I share your sentiments.

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#996227 28-Feb-2014 11:13

KiwiNZ:
Klipspringer:
KiwiNZ:

As we don't know what pre-dated the Big Bang we cannot say the Laws of Physics don't apply

True. But we cant say they do apply either.

You are correct. We cannot even say the Big Bang occurred.

There's plenty of observational evidence that it did.
So much so, that to say that it didn't, would be a huge leap of faith.

Again - "pre-dated" the Big Bang defies logic, as time (spacetime) is a dimension of our universe, inseparable from and influenced by the other physical dimensions.

There might be "something else", but defining that using terms of reference (where and when and what?) applicable to our observations of our universe is pointless.

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#996238 28-Feb-2014 11:22

This is totally OT now but here are two main things that have bothered me for years ...

Why is the earth organized chaos? Why did the big bang explode in such a way that it formed a perfect little earth, in a perfect place, with perfect beauty? Its a little like throwing a pack of cards, why did this pack of cards land in a perfect order, to form our little world as we know it? Bangs are random. They cause chaos. Why did this bang result in near perfection?

Then this one is around morals? Why is there good and bad? Why does the human race prefer good and hate evil? Are we good because we told to be good by our parents? Or is being good a force of some kind? Why is the earth not exactly like it is but evil? An earth where we all hate and do bad things to each other instead of good things?

Nearly every religion in this world focuses on "good". Different countries have very different laws, sometimes the cultures are very different, but they all focused on good above evil. Is this a coincidence?

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#996241 28-Feb-2014 11:27

Klipspringer: This is totally OT now but here are two main things that have bothered me for years ...

Why is the earth organized chaos? Why did the big bang explode in such a way that it formed a perfect little earth, in a perfect place, with perfect beauty? Its a little like throwing a pack of cards, why did this pack of cards land in a perfect order, to form our little world as we know it? Bangs are random. They cause chaos. Why did this bang result in near perfection?

Then this one is around morals? Why is there good and bad? Why does the human race prefer good and hate evil? Are we good because we told to be good by our parents? Or is being good a force of some kind? Why is the earth not exactly like it is but evil? An earth where we all hate and do bad things to each other instead of good things?

Nearly every religion in this world focuses on "good". Different countries have very different laws, sometimes the cultures are very different, but they all focused on good above evil. Is this a coincidence?

My answer to this would be "Time"

I'm going to noob myself past judgement

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#996244 28-Feb-2014 11:28

Klipspringer: This is totally OT now but here are two main things that have bothered me for years ...

Why is the earth organized chaos? Why did the big bang explode in such a way that it formed a perfect little earth, in a perfect place, with perfect beauty? Its a little like throwing a pack of cards, why did this pack of cards land in a perfect order, to form our little world as we know it? Bangs are random. They cause chaos. Why did this bang result in near perfection?

Then this one is around morals? Why is there good and bad? Why does the human race prefer good and hate evil? Are we good because we told to be good by our parents? Or is being good a force of some kind? Why is the earth not exactly like it is but evil? An earth where we all hate and do bad things to each other instead of good things?

Nearly every religion in this world focuses on "good". Different countries have very different laws, sometimes the cultures are very different, but they all focused on good above evil. Is this a coincidence?

The answer is .....

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

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#996245 28-Feb-2014 11:30

KiwiNZ:
Klipspringer: This is totally OT now but here are two main things that have bothered me for years ...

Why is the earth organized chaos? Why did the big bang explode in such a way that it formed a perfect little earth, in a perfect place, with perfect beauty? Its a little like throwing a pack of cards, why did this pack of cards land in a perfect order, to form our little world as we know it? Bangs are random. They cause chaos. Why did this bang result in near perfection?

Then this one is around morals? Why is there good and bad? Why does the human race prefer good and hate evil? Are we good because we told to be good by our parents? Or is being good a force of some kind? Why is the earth not exactly like it is but evil? An earth where we all hate and do bad things to each other instead of good things?

Nearly every religion in this world focuses on "good". Different countries have very different laws, sometimes the cultures are very different, but they all focused on good above evil. Is this a coincidence?

The answer is .....

Love it. I have watched this show before. What a laugh

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#996246 28-Feb-2014 11:31

Klipspringer: This is totally OT now but here are two main things that have bothered me for years ...

Why is the earth organized chaos? Why did the big bang explode in such a way that it formed a perfect little earth, in a perfect place, with perfect beauty? Its a little like throwing a pack of cards, why did this pack of cards land in a perfect order, to form our little world as we know it? Bangs are random. They cause chaos. Why did this bang result in near perfection?

Then this one is around morals? Why is there good and bad? Why does the human race prefer good and hate evil? Are we good because we told to be good by our parents? Or is being good a force of some kind? Why is the earth not exactly like it is but evil? An earth where we all hate and do bad things to each other instead of good things?

Nearly every religion in this world focuses on "good". Different countries have very different laws, sometimes the cultures are very different, but they all focused on good above evil. Is this a coincidence?

The Big Bang didn't create Earth. BB was circa 13.7 billion years ago, Earth was circa 4.7 billion years ago. We were created by the birth of a star, planets appeared as particles coalesced. The two asteroid belts are un claolesced particles, rocls, etc. Stars get born all the time, our solar system is just the birth of yet another star. Many stars have planets, some wil be in the goldlocks zone, many wont. We arent in near perfection, we are just in a liveable window. True, many other things had to fall into line though

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#996247 28-Feb-2014 11:34

When you consider the sheer number of galaxies, and by extension, stars and planets, that we already know of, it is completely unsurprising that at least one of them has purely by chance evolved life as we know it.

By extension, it seems foolish to assume that life has not evolved elsewhere as well. Is it similar to ours? There are reasons to believe so, based on what we understand to be "life". But who really knows for sure.

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#996248 28-Feb-2014 11:38

Klipspringer: This is totally OT now but here are two main things that have bothered me for years ...

Why is the earth organized chaos? Why did the big bang explode in such a way that it formed a perfect little earth, in a perfect place, with perfect beauty? Its a little like throwing a pack of cards, why did this pack of cards land in a perfect order, to form our little world as we know it? Bangs are random. They cause chaos. Why did this bang result in near perfection?

Then this one is around morals? Why is there good and bad? Why does the human race prefer good and hate evil? Are we good because we told to be good by our parents? Or is being good a force of some kind? Why is the earth not exactly like it is but evil? An earth where we all hate and do bad things to each other instead of good things?

Nearly every religion in this world focuses on "good". Different countries have very different laws, sometimes the cultures are very different, but they all focused on good above evil. Is this a coincidence?

Actually, despite your observation of how a "perfect little earth" came to be, the bigger question is how come anything (and everything) substantial came to be, because unless something happened to "seed" the formation/coalescence of matter, then the stars and galaxies, then the expansion of the universe following the big bang would have been symmetrical, perfectly even, nothing would form, just energy radiating evenly into space. The asymmetry can be observed, because the stars and galaxies did form, and also in the variation (anisotropy) in the cosmic microwave background radiation.

Morality is just behavioural adaptation. At a very basic level, morality can be seen to be consistent with the "selfish gene" hypothesis.

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#996332 28-Feb-2014 12:58

joker97: You could say that about how the theory of evolution is accepted as proven fact

I think you need to define what you mean by evolution:

The theory of common descent: The tree of life: all organisms alive today are the result of diverging evolution from a common starting point; a single cell that could self replicate.

Evolution happens when the process of natural selection promotes the survival and reproduction of individuals with advantageous phenotypes over individuals with less advantageous phenotypes.

New genetic variation occurs through random mutation in DNA, and this variation is then acted upon by the process of natural selection to drive evolution.

This is the 'modern synthesis' of Neo-Darwinism.

The Theory of Common Descent is supported by the fossil record, the geographical distribution of organisms (closely related organisms being confined to connected or adjacent geographical areas), and genetic analysis (closely related organisms have very similar DNA). These 3 lines of evidence all strongly suggest that Common Descent is true.

However, the problem starts when you go back to the point of origin; the first self-replicating cell. Any biologist will tell you that there is a huge amount of molecular machinery working in concert involved in self-replication. Without the ability to self-replicate there can be no natural selection, there can be no evolution. The ability to self-replicate had to be there at the start. That the complex molecular machinery required for self-replication could form 'de novo' by chance occurrence is a probability, but in real terms the size of this probability is quite absurd, and of little value in the real world ( a larger probability might be that there is a planet in the universe with seas of lemonade and continents made of toffee; we all know this is quite absurd) . So we are left with a big question mark. Did this first self-replicating cell form by some natural process that we currently know nothing of, or did something with intelligence make it? Since modern humans are yet to create life in the lab via random processes ( Craig Venter has reconstructed life, but he used information from living organisms and human intelligence to do it ), it is highly unlikely that life started spontaneously without some kind of directing intelligence (this is quite uncomfortable for some human ears, but from what we can see of this world it is more probable than life forming 'de novo').

That Natural Selection occurs is a well proven fact, but does this process account for all evolutionary change? The most fit organisms are often the ones that out compete the less fit, and then leave more descendants (although not always, sometimes random processes are more successful than natural selection; the luckiest can survive better than the most fit). There are some random mutations that prove to be beneficial that natural selection promotes, but due to the complexity of life, most random mutations are neutral or negative in effect. Of course, evolution by natural selection of beneficial mutations requires change to occur gradually, and each successive step has to confer increased fitness. For some biological structures it is very difficult to see how gradual change could produce a functional and more fit organ. Sometimes it is almost impossible to see how the evolutionary pathway to a better functioning organ can be achieved by small, successive steps of increasing fitness. Sometimes there is radical change required to bridge the gap in the tree of life, which cannot be reached by small steps, because the intermediate stages would have less function or no function. So in the evolutionary landscape, fitness would have to reduce rather than continually increase before finally reach some goal that provided a radical new level of fitness (you have to go into the valley before you can reach the mountain top). So it is not so clear cut that natural selection of random mutations accounts for all evolutionary change. Some things just don't add up using that model.

Some aspects of Neo-Darwinism are crystal clear (like the theory of common descent), but I wouldn't say all of it is a proven fact. Natural selection is a powerful force to direct evolution, but it is not clear that this can account for all change we see in the tree of life. There is still a great deal that we do not have the answers for. There are a lot people that accept all of Neo-Darwinism by faith rather that by logical fact; this has more in common with religion than science.

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