Was the universe tailor made for life?

[Fritzo]

Einstein once said (paraphrased) "The most amazing thing about the universe is that it has a fixed set of rules that we can understand." Why are those rules there? It seems to be an incredible coincidence that everything is "just so" so that we can be here. Did you know that if the average proton was just .2% larger than they are right now, atoms would fly apart and we wouldn't exist? Same with gravity- if the force were infinitesimally stronger, stars would collapse and we'd most likely be a universe sized giant black hole. All of the other forces of nature seem to be equally balanced. Was the universe "tuned" to be stable so it could support life?

This may sound like an argument that a creationist might make for a supreme being that created everything. Well, not so fast---physicists are actually using this as evidence of a "multiverse". We're just one universe among many. Most universes are unstable, but a few are and can create life like us. The chances of our universe existing are along the lines of thowing millions of letter blocks in the air and having them land stacked up and spelling out the complete works of Shakespeare. Pretty interesting article from Discover Magazine:

http://discovermagazine.com/20...an-intelligent-creator

 

[Crono]

I've always been a bit iffy about a multiverse. I mean, it's fine if you want to believe it, but there is no solid scientific evidence for it.
It's fine as philosophy or faith, but not science.

 

[darkxshade]

The god that we know and love doesn't notice or know about us. He is almighty but not all-knowing. This would support my theory that he simply farted and unknowingly created the universe... we call it the big bang. Oh the irony.

 

[ElFenix]

The chances of our universe existing are along the lines of thowing millions of letter blocks in the air and having them land stacked up and spelling out the complete works of Shakespeare

with the mutliverse theory the chance of our universe and a nearly infinite number of similar universes existing basically equals 1.

 

[Fritzo]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

The chances of our universe existing are along the lines of thowing millions of letter blocks in the air and having them land stacked up and spelling out the complete works of Shakespeare

with the mutliverse theory the chance of our universe and a nearly infinite number of similar universes existing basically equals 1.

Probability doesn't quite work like that.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

this is the biggest reason why i believe that god exists.
conditions were too "perfect" and chances are too small for everything to just come together the way it did.

 

[Chronoshock]

If the universal constants hadn't aligned to make life, then we wouldn't be around to question it. It's a meaningless question. Asking "why" has no answer (or any meaningful one), the real question is "how"

 

[darkxshade]

Originally posted by: BlahBlahYouToo
this is the biggest reason why i believe that god exists.
conditions were too "perfect" and chances are too small for everything to just come together the way it did.

How would we know if the universe failed to create itself before since the only time it would be created is the one time conditions are perfect and there would be no evidence of the times it failed. It's like the saying that if a tree falls and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

 

[LinuxIdiot]

I thought Arcadio was posting another idea. Whew, glad I didn't post before seeing who it was that posted the thread!

Yea unfortunately I am not a deep-thinker. I like the idea of a multi-verse its like hedging a bet at the table to possibly get a bigger winnings and whatever happened hit the jackpot. No matter which way it goes, if there was a creator, I feel we were an experiment and we are in a snowglobe under a microscope.

 

[her209]

An atom contains over 99% empty space.

 

[AstroManLuca]

The fact is that because we exist and can't perceive other universes or anything other than our own universe, it's impossible to say whether our universe is very common or very rare. Maybe there were a billion universes that came before ours and none had life. Or maybe every single one has had life. We don't even know if there were other universes before ours or in parallel to ours, and we have no way of knowing.

It's like if someone handed you a winning lottery ticket without you having any idea what a lottery is or how it works. You just get a winning ticket and get a bunch of money, never knowing how or why you really got it.

 

[TruePaige]

Originally posted by: BlahBlahYouToo
this is the biggest reason why i believe that god exists.
conditions were too "perfect" and chances are too small for everything to just come together the way it did.

Well lots of non-perfect situations could of arose as well, but if they did you wouldn't know about them because nothing became of them.

 

[SlowSpyder]

How do we know that life just wouldn't adapt to the different rules? In a universe with different gravity and no chemical elements maybe things would have developed differently, in a way that's difficult for us imagining being able to support life.

 

[acheron]

I thought this was going to be an Arcadio thread too.

Also, anthropic principle.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

This thread is so marked for later.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
How do we know that life just wouldn't adapt to the different rules? In a universe with different gravity and no chemical elements maybe things would have developed differently, in a way that's difficult for us imagining being able to support life.

Exactly. Not only that, but how do we know that other universes aren't bound by totally different laws of physics and wouldn't be inherently unstable even with very different atomic and subatomic particles? How would we even know if other universes have subatomic particles?

We basically can't assume anything, and therefore any speculation is pretty much worthless.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

Originally posted by: TruePaige

Originally posted by: BlahBlahYouToo
this is the biggest reason why i believe that god exists.
conditions were too "perfect" and chances are too small for everything to just come together the way it did.

Well lots of non-perfect situations could of arose as well, but if they did you wouldn't know about them because nothing became of them.

exactly.
think about how many things have to go right in order to have life the way it is today.
i can fathom a few things happening by chance, but to have basically countless events happen in succession is a bit too much to believe.

 

[TruePaige]

Originally posted by: BlahBlahYouToo

Originally posted by: TruePaige

Originally posted by: BlahBlahYouToo
this is the biggest reason why i believe that god exists.
conditions were too "perfect" and chances are too small for everything to just come together the way it did.

Well lots of non-perfect situations could of arose as well, but if they did you wouldn't know about them because nothing became of them.

exactly.
think about how many things have to go right in order to have life the way it is today.
i can fathom a few things happening by chance, but to have basically countless events happen in succession is a bit too much to believe.

Well you have to appreciate the size of the universe.

Look at Earth. Everything we have ever done or ever will do isn't even 1% of Earth's existence.

Earth isn't even .01% of our galaxy.

Our galaxy isn't even .000001% of our universe.

Most suspect that these billions and billion of years aren't even the first incarnation of our universe.

Our universe might not even be the only universe....

 

[nakedfrog]

Do I have to dig up Douglas Adams' wonderful puddle analogy AGAIN?

 

[child of wonder]

Originally posted by: BlahBlahYouToo

Originally posted by: TruePaige

Originally posted by: BlahBlahYouToo
this is the biggest reason why i believe that god exists.
conditions were too "perfect" and chances are too small for everything to just come together the way it did.

Well lots of non-perfect situations could of arose as well, but if they did you wouldn't know about them because nothing became of them.

exactly.
think about how many things have to go right in order to have life the way it is today.
i can fathom a few things happening by chance, but to have basically countless events happen in succession is a bit too much to believe.

But when you start to imagine how many billions of galaxies there are, each with billions of suns, and that space seems to go on and on for over 12 billion light years and it's possible that all matter explodes and contracts in cycles (Big Bang, implosion, repeat) over eternity and has done so billions of times or that there are multiverses... the number of chances for the odds that we'd be here right now typing on an internet chat forum seems much more possible.

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: BlahBlahYouToo

Originally posted by: TruePaige

Originally posted by: BlahBlahYouToo
this is the biggest reason why i believe that god exists.
conditions were too "perfect" and chances are too small for everything to just come together the way it did.

Well lots of non-perfect situations could of arose as well, but if they did you wouldn't know about them because nothing became of them.

exactly.
think about how many things have to go right in order to have life the way it is today.
i can fathom a few things happening by chance, but to have basically countless events happen in succession is a bit too much to believe.

then your God has to be fallible, and simply potent. Why would an omnipotent God create so many mistakes?

boredom?

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Why assume the Universe was tailor made for life? Of the planets and stars in our own sloar system, we know of only a couple that we believe could support life, and only one that actually does. With the sheer vastness of space, travel between star systems is an incredibly unlikely goal, one that would take generations just to make the trip, so finding out about life on planets outside our own solar system is virtually impossible. None of this is a requirement for life, of course, but if I were custom-making a Universe specifically for life, I'd make it so different forms of life could actually access each other.

 

[polarmystery]

Originally posted by: Chronoshock
If the universal constants hadn't aligned to make life, then we wouldn't be around to question it. It's a meaningless question. Asking "why" has no answer (or any meaningful one), the real question is "how"

I think asking "why" leads to asking the question "how." From a purely religious standpoint, this is the fundamental difference between those who believe and those who do not.

Why is there a god? -> Because everything is perfect (believers)
Why is there a god? -> Things don't seem to line up...how did it happen? (non-believers)

 

[actuarial]

Originally posted by: Atomic Playboy
Why assume the Universe was tailor made for life? Of the planets and stars in our own sloar system, we know of only a couple that we believe could support life, and only one that actually does. With the sheer vastness of space, travel between star systems is an incredibly unlikely goal, one that would take generations just to make the trip, so finding out about life on planets outside our own solar system is virtually impossible. None of this is a requirement for life, of course, but if I were custom-making a Universe specifically for life, I'd make it so different forms of life could actually access each other.

You failed the test of your faith!

 

[AstroManLuca]

Originally posted by: BlahBlahYouToo

Originally posted by: TruePaige

Originally posted by: BlahBlahYouToo
this is the biggest reason why i believe that god exists.
conditions were too "perfect" and chances are too small for everything to just come together the way it did.

Well lots of non-perfect situations could of arose as well, but if they did you wouldn't know about them because nothing became of them.

exactly.
think about how many things have to go right in order to have life the way it is today.
i can fathom a few things happening by chance, but to have basically countless events happen in succession is a bit too much to believe.

No, it's too much to comprehend, not too much to be true. Our small primate brains can't fathom the sheer scale of the universe's size and age, much less the amount of time that would have passed if there were other universes before ours.