A thread on why we're here

[SMOGZINN]

The universe certainly seems to have some point to it, and when you stand back and look, life itself seems to be the only answer.

I'm not taking it personally, I'm making an argument. I see no rhyme or reason to life. It comes and it goes. Sometimes it gets wiped out on a global scale by a random rock drawn into a gravity field. It is hard to see reason or purpose in that.

Actually, the opposite is true. People used to believe Earth was one-of-a-kind. Now we know that it likely isn't. There are most likely other planets out there that share similar properties.

Right, we use to think that the earth was the center of the solar system, which was the entirety of the universe. Then we found out that some of those little lights were planets bigger then ours, and we thought 'well surly they are orbiting us, just like the sun!' Then we found out the sun is not orbiting us, nor are those planets. We are just the 3rd planet in a solar system of a number of other planets. Then we find out that those other bright dots are stars much like our own, and there are millions or them! We soon see that there are fuzzy patches we can't identify. We find that some of those fuzzy patches are entire galaxies of millions of stars, and we are just one of many. But in all these we are the only planets, there is a lot of discussion when I was a kid about whether other starts had planets, and while most scientists thought they did, they could not agree on how common it was. Then in the last few decades we have discovered that not only are there a lot of galaxies, there are trillions of them, and we are starting to suspect that nearly all those stars have planets.

We orbit a fairly average star in a average galaxy that it self is just one of trillions of other galaxies. Each galaxy might contain hundreds of billions of planets. And we will probably never see any of it.

 

[moonbogg]

There are good reasons to think we don't matter to the universe or to any cause that may have created it. Anything else is wishful thinking, self centered and goes against all evidence.

 

[Jeff7]

Perhaps you could argue using the word design is a fallacy in and of itself, as is the entire english language is of a creation due to our existence. However that argument goes both ways. If you can show me something that is designed, I therefor could still use that object as a reference of design. And if that resembles things that I cannot prove were designed, it would not be unreasonable to also come to the conclusion that it was possibly designed.

As to why I think that is the case - if I'm going to argue it is reasonable to consider a creator, the basis of that assumption is due to the perceived complexity of things we can observe. If that in and of itself is to be used as an argument, I would also have to concede that the creator itself could not have been created, which goes against my very own argument.

If something complex HAS to come from something more complex, we're in an infinite loop.

A stick comes to rest on a rock, after falling from a tree. You now have a rock, a stick, and also a lever. Simply modifying their configuration, entirely through simple physics, has made a simple machine, more complex than either of the components by themselves. Information has been encoded :awe: by the very act of the stick falling where it did.

...

Come to think of it, if our Universe was tailor-made for life, the person responsible really didn't think things through. Why make meteors and asteroids and comets whipping through space unpredictably and occasionally smashing into things like, say, planets, which looks cool in a telescope, but has the unfortunate side effect of ending virtually all life if you happen to be on the planet that gets hit? That's not tailor-making a Universe for life unless one of the conditions of life is the insistence that there be a constant possibility that it ends in a cataclysmic fireball. Why make supernovas or black holes or quasars which can destroy entire star systems? Why make life dependant on destroying other life to maintain its own?

Why did life have to come along and ruin everything for the hydrogen atoms?

Or besides that, there's the fact that the vast majority of the Universe's volume is just empty space, quite hostile to just about any kind of life that we know of.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

<snip>

Come to think of it, if our Universe was tailor-made for life, the person responsible really didn't think things through. Why make meteors and asteroids and comets whipping through space unpredictably and occasionally smashing into things like, say, planets, which looks cool in a telescope, but has the unfortunate side effect of ending virtually all life if you happen to be on the planet that gets hit? That's not tailor-making a Universe for life unless one of the conditions of life is the insistence that there be a constant possibility that it ends in a cataclysmic fireball. Why make supernovas or black holes or quasars which can destroy entire star systems? Why make life dependant on destroying other life to maintain its own?

Why did life have to come along and ruin everything for the hydrogen atoms?

Personally, I don't think that the universe was carefully constructed as a whole unit just for life.

I think it's more likely that it was 'popped', and we have to wait for a positive result.

Or, if the repeated expanding/shrinking big bang theories are true, perhaps it's something that has an 'understood' beginning and end. Maybe it's not possible to just create an earth and dump life on it, but it is possible to essentially produce the very beginning of a huge chain reaction and see what comes of it. This is where it starts to make more sense (to me anyway) that lifeforms are essentially some sort of vessels for souls to experience.

 

[moonbogg]

If there is even an answer to the question, or if there are clues, I don't think we are intelligent enough yet to find them. A tree monkey in the forest has no idea that there is advanced life on his planet. If he could hear the radio signals around him he would know, but hes not intelligent enough and doesn't have the tools. We could be like that monkey. We could be right in the middle of a huge information super highway of the cosmos and not know it, like ants on the side of a freeway without a clue as to what the huge thing they are crawling on really is. I heard this on the science channel and thought i'd jack it and pretend like it was my own original thought.

 

[Tweak155]

If there is even an answer to the question, or if there are clues, I don't think we are intelligent enough yet to find them. A tree monkey in the forest has no idea that there is advanced life on his planet. If he could hear the radio signals around him he would know, but hes not intelligent enough and doesn't have the tools. We could be like that monkey. We could be right in the middle of a huge information super highway of the cosmos and not know it, like ants on the side of a freeway without a clue as to what the huge thing they are crawling on really is. I heard this on the science channel and thought i'd jack it and pretend like it was my own original thought.

Haha. Extremely interesting idea I must admit. And very plausible.

 

[moonbogg]

Haha. Extremely interesting idea I must admit. And very plausible.

I find it nearly impossible to not be the case. In 100 years, what did intelligent beings do here on this planet? Add 5 million years to that and what do you get? A super society that makes us look like ants intellectually. A civilization 5 million years ahead of us is a near certainty if life is infact common. I see no reason for it to be rare. I wish they could hear my thoughts and drag me along with them.

When will we learn that there will always be something more? We thought america was a big discovery. We thought the solar system was all there was. Now we follow the same logical path to yet another error in thinking? There is more than we can imagine. Its too much and its too big.

 

[SMOGZINN]

I find it nearly impossible to not be the case. In 100 years, what did intelligent beings do here on this planet? Add 5 million years to that and what do you get? A super society that makes us look like ants intellectually. A civilization 5 million years ahead of us is a near certainty if life is infact common. I see no reason for it to be rare. I wish they could hear my thoughts and drag me along with them.

When will we learn that there will always be something more? We thought america was a big discovery. We thought the solar system was all there was. Now we follow the same logical path to yet another error in thinking? There is more than we can imagine. Its too much and its too big.

Because most of those errors were made from base ignorance. But now we are learning the laws that govern the very fabric of space and time itself. We are learning not just what is, but what is even possible. Our vision is getting pretty clear, and it looks a whole lot like reaching the stars is impossible. If there are civilizations out there (and I think there are) they either destroy themselves or they run out of energy and just fade away. This will almost certainly be our destiny as well.

 

[chris9641]

I find it nearly impossible to not be the case. In 100 years, what did intelligent beings do here on this planet? Add 5 million years to that and what do you get? A super society that makes us look like ants intellectually. A civilization 5 million years ahead of us is a near certainty if life is infact common. I see no reason for it to be rare. I wish they could hear my thoughts and drag me along with them.

When will we learn that there will always be something more? We thought america was a big discovery. We thought the solar system was all there was. Now we follow the same logical path to yet another error in thinking? There is more than we can imagine. Its too much and its too big.

Good points moon, explain to a person from the 1800's the capabilities of a cell phone and they would think you're crazy.

Problem is a civilizations. Other planets are probably full of life, but the highest chain may be inhabited by giant predatory life forms like was the case here. When was 'self-awareness' developed. Is the mind separate from the brain, and if so then what is the mind, or what makes up the mind?

Dr. Wilder Penfield...

Throughout my own scientific career, I, like the other scientists, have struggled to prove that the brain accounts for the mind. But now, perhaps, the time has come when we may profitably consider the evidence as it stands, and ask the question: "Do brain mechanisms account for the mind?" Can the mind be explained by what is now known about the brain? If not, which is the more reasonable of the two possible hypotheses: that man's being is based on one element, or on two?

For my own part, after years of striving to explain the mind on the basis of brain-action alone, I have come to the conclusion that it is simpler (and far easier to be logical) if one adopts the hypothesis that our being does consist of two fundamental elements. Because it seems to me certain that it will always be quite impossible to explain the mind on the basis of neuronal action within the brain, and because it seems to me that the mind develops and matures independently throughout an individual's life as though it were a continuing element, and because a computer (which the brain is) must be programmed and operated by an agency capable of independent understanding, I am forced to choose the proposition that our being is to be understood on the basis of two elements. This, to my mind, offers the greatest likelihood of leading us to the final understanding [for] which so many stalwart scientists strive.

 

[Kadarin]

Why do you think we exist?

I don't think we exist for any particular reason or higher purpose. Certainly no such reason or purpose has made itself evident, and there is no evidence whatsoever that any kind of "higher power" exists. Shrug.

 

[coldmeat]

Dr. Wilder Penfield...

He died in the 70s.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Take about 10 steps back.. I'm not intending this thread to be on any personal level, it's not why am I here, I am clearly not special.

The question to be asked, is why are WE here. Not even just us humans or even bacteria.


The universe certainly seems to have some point to it, and when you stand back and look, life itself seems to be the only answer.

You're a mud puddle.

 

[DrPizza]

You're assuming that our planet is the only type that can support life. You're also assuming that all life out there is similar to us.

I'm not too sure what you mean by "type." I know there's plenty of speculation, spawned from shows like Star Trek, such as "maybe there's a silicon based life form." The likelihood is very small.

The periodic table is the same, wherever you go. Those are the elements. You're obviously not going to have a helium based life form - helium is inert; it doesn't bond to other elements. After the Big Bang, and the universe cooled a bit, there was hydrogen, helium, and perhaps a little lithium floating around (and a tiny amount of beryllium & boron.) The rest of the elements were made in stars & released when those stars exploded in super novas.

In order of abundance, that which we have observed in the Milky Way (and I would assume, we would suspect is roughly the same proportion in galaxies of the same age, though as galaxies age, the abundance of hydrogen would decrease, as that's the ingredient of the other elements) hydrogen is the most common element. That's followed, in order, by helium, oxygen, carbon, neon (also inert), iron, and nitrogen. There is approximately 7 times more carbon than there is silicon.

Now, look at life on earth. The most common element in humans is hydrogen (2 hydrogens in each of those water molecules in your body.) That's followed by oxygen (ditto, except one.) Then carbon. Coincidence? Or is that more of a duhhh! Furthermore, we can look at the chemical properties of the elements. Look at the vast array of compounds that can be made with carbon. Look at the shear number of chemical compounds made from carbon that we can make - that CAN be made.

Now, silicon is directly below carbon on the periodic table; everyone knows that. Thus, it's capable of forming the same types of atomic bonds. I think that's why people have speculated "well what about silicon?" Unfortunately, those compounds don't have the same properties. Bond a carbon to oxygen. Since carbon likes 4 covalent bonds, and oxygen likes 2, you end up needing 2 oxygens. This is simply the way it is. So, you get carbon dioxide. You know what that stuff is, right? Now, how would silicon like to bond with oxygen? The same way (It's in the same column on the periodic table.) So, you get silicon dioxide. So, your silicon people are going to inhale oxygen and exhale sand?!

Life elsewhere in the universe if it exists (which it very very very very likely does) is also very very very very likely to be a carbon lifeform. Now, is that what you mean by "like us?"


Also, to touch on the emotional aspect of religion or whatever people want to get into, I'll let Neil Degrasse Tyson summarize what I just said, perhaps a little more elegantly than me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEB-ew5UwNU

 

[DrPizza]

Our current knowledge is building up a better understanding of HOW we're here. "Why" questions are somewhat silly in that the answer to a why question has to be within a framework of previously understood knowledge. It doesn't matter WHAT you're asking "why" to - you can ask why after why after why, exploring an answer further and further until there is no answer. It's amazing that a large segment of the population is satisfied when they reach one particular given answer, and refuse to go no further with their questioning.

To them: "well then why..." eventually leads to "God."
Why do we exist? God wanted to make us.

But, keep going. Why does God exist? They refuse to answer that one. "God has always existed." "Why has he always existed?" "Uhhhh, because. It says so right in the Bible." "Who wrote the Bible?" "God." "How do you know God wrote the Bible?" "Says so right in the Bible." Eventually, you get into some circular logic.

(I'm asking that (why does God exist) of the religious, not of the non-religious. The answer of the non-religious is different: God exists as a man-made answer to deal with the problems of "why?" And often is the man-made answer to "how?" As in "how did the Earth get here." Virtually all religions, ancient and present, have a creation story. It amazes me that people can study history, see that religions prior to fundamentalist Christianity have origin stories, and think, "well, those Romans.. HA! They had NO idea how the Earth was created! They believed some idiotic story about Romulus and Remus. Of course, they weren't advanced enough in knowledge to know how the Earth really came to be." How ironically correct they are.

 

[moonbogg]

I suspect that we (the universe as we identify it) are simply a small part of a larger structure, either physical or dimensional. If dimensional, then other physical locations likely exist, perhaps of a different nature altogether. Every time we have looked up and out, we have always observed a part of a larger structure and there is no reason to think our universe is the alpha and omega of existence. It is certainly part of a much larger super structure.
I can accept anything. No discovery would shock me. None at all. But there is the problem of the infinite regress that just stops my thinking in its tracks. I have been conditioned to think in terms of cause and effect. This thinking almost HAS to be irrelevant in order to comprehend how it all "started" since time and space were likely not involved, but resulted as a byproduct of whatever event took place.
No matter how far I let my imagination wander about origins, I cannot deal with a first cause. In a cause and effect universe, our existence, experience and ability to ask the question are all impossibilities, yet we are here. If ever there was nothing, then nothing there should still be.

 

[chris9641]

I suspect that we (the universe as we identify it) are simply a small part of a larger structure, either physical or dimensional. If dimensional, then other physical locations likely exist, perhaps of a different nature altogether. Every time we have looked up and out, we have always observed a part of a larger structure and there is no reason to think our universe is the alpha and omega of existence. It is certainly part of a much larger super structure.
I can accept anything. No discovery would shock me. None at all. But there is the problem of the infinite regress that just stops my thinking in its tracks. I have been conditioned to think in terms of cause and effect. This thinking almost HAS to be irrelevant in order to comprehend how it all "started" since time and space were likely not involved, but resulted as a byproduct of whatever event took place.
No matter how far I let my imagination wander about origins, I cannot deal with a first cause. In a cause and effect universe, our existence, experience and ability to ask the question are all impossibilities, yet we are here. If ever there was nothing, then nothing there should still be.

Great post. Check out A Guide For the Perplexed to help dissolve that cause and effect type thinking, not to get rid of it, but to think more dynamically... it was a great read. And conditioned is exactly the right word, awesome way to put it.

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

Skipped replies so maybe someone said this already but, on the Michio Kaku analogy, the thing you gotta realize is, the number of tornados hitting junkyards in the universe is so ridiculously huge that it dwarfs the "improbability" of the event

 

[moonbogg]

Skipped replies so maybe someone said this already but, on the Michio Kaku analogy, the thing you gotta realize is, the number of tornados hitting junkyards in the universe is so ridiculously huge that it dwarfs the "improbability" of the event

Well yes exactly. The amount of "opportunities" in this universe for improbable events to occur is so high that they become a near certainty. This is also the problem of any afterlife or immortality. With limitless time, all that can be accomplished, will be, rendering the subject's existence pointless after a relatively short time. Heaven becomes hell. Good thing theres no evidence of any of that happening.

 

[Braznor]

There was a primordial universe and then there is the universe today and there will be a completely different universe at some point in future. If you noticed, this march of the universe itself is towards an ideal i.e an equilibrium. Now I do not know what the future ideal universe would be, but I do think that everything here (life, planets, galaxies etc) is the result of this relentless march towards reality trying to achieve an ideal i.e equilibrium with itself.

 

[PowerEngineer]

First, nice post DrPizza. My thoughts paralleled yours as I read through this thread, but found them too challenging to put down in words.

I've also noted in several responses that their authors put too much weight on what they want the nature of universe/reality to be. Perhaps the best example of what I mean is the assertion by some that our existance must have "purpose". I submit to you that the universe/reality is not bound to conform to your desires (just ask Einstein about quantum physics!). You may decide to test "purpose" as a postulate by looking for supporting evidence, but if you find no evidence then that idea should be discarded. Let the universe/reality explain its true nature to you through facts/evidence while minimizing the distortions added by your preconceived desires.

My two cents...