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/sci/ - Science & Math

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1016735 No.1016735 [Reply] [Original]

Dearest /sci/,

How can there ever be an answer to the big question -- how did we get here?

No matter how many times you answer the question, every answer MUST lead to another question. For example:

Q: How did the Earth get here?
A: It formed from the dust ring around our Sun.
Q: Then how did the Sun and the dust ring get here?
A: Leftover stuff from a supernova collected together by gravity.

[... and so on until you inevitably reach the following ...]

Q: Then what caused the big bang?

And even if you think you have some sort of answer to that question, you'll have to follow up with a question about what caused the vacuum fluctuations or whatever... And even if you can answer that with something about "nothingness" being unstable, then you'll have to ask what makes nothingness unstable...

So, what "answer" could ever possibly end the endless chain of questions?

>> No.1016744

workin on it hold on

>> No.1016748

God here, that's kind of the point.

>> No.1016749

>>1016735
>implying causality makes sense without time
but also, yes, we'll probably never know

>> No.1016755

*Sigh*

You've obviously never seen A Universe From Nothing, by Lawrence Krauss.

That's the logical explanation. A universe can come from "nothing" because of quantum blah blah blah. Become a cosmologist to learn more, but here's the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo

Gtfo until you watch it.

>> No.1016758

>>1016749
I hear you... So we go back to time zero and just say that we don't have to ask about anything "before" then because there can't be anything "before" time. But even saying that requires that time exists, which leads to the question of what caused time to exist.

>> No.1016760

>>1016755
Me again. Read the rest of your post.

There are some things that just "are." That's like asking "why" photons do X and not Y. They just do. Why is outside the realm of science.

>> No.1016762

>>1016755
Yes, but your "quantum blah blah blah" follows a set of rules. Why do those rules exist?

>> No.1016767

>>1016760
> Why is outside the realm of science
I disagree... I think that this question is exactly the sum total of the realm of science.

>> No.1016769

The Laws of Physics do not apply outside of our universe. Therefore, something can come from nothing. It's difficult to grasp because you've grown all your life with the universe following a set of laws, but out there, before the big bang, anything could happen.

>> No.1016771

>>1016767
No. Science is 'how', not 'why'. Philosophy is 'why'.

>> No.1016778

>>1016769
> something can come from nothing
I'm ok with that but all you've really done is widened the question. You've brought things outside our universe into the discussion, and that simply brings up the question of how those things came to exist.

>> No.1016775

>>1016767
no science is how

why belongs to philosophy

of course how and why used belong to the same discipline but the enlightening ruined that and plummeted us into a dark age where nobody can communicate because everyone uses a different language.

>> No.1016788

>>1016778
Like I said, it's difficult to grasp. There was nothing. And then there was something. Imagine a universe where things fall up. You would be amazed since you have grown up in a world where things fall down. Now realize that you come from a universe where things come from other things. It does not work like this outside of here.

>> No.1016790

The general expectation is that there will be some simple set of principles that explains everything. These fundamental laws will have no explanation; they're just the way things are. It won't stop anyone from asking for one though, even if we do finally discover them, especially given that we'll never really know if we've got it 100% right.

>> No.1016793

the universe is based upon a complex paradox systems. Its a recursive loop between ppl believing it exist and thus creating it and it actually existing and allowing for humans to make it exist. There is no time, no causality, just super position of all possible and impossible states.

/thread

>> No.1016798

Just to be clear here, I don't mean to sound like I expect an actual answer to the question.

Maybe what I'm really asking is "how could there ever be an answer to such a question, even if it's an answer that we don't know?"

Or, better yet, what does it mean to us if the question can't possibly have an answer?

Even if you bring religion in and say "God did it," you have no choice but to ask how God came to exist. Both science and religion fail equally here.

>> No.1016800

>>1016778
Those things are and always will be impossible to determine, impossible to detect, etc.

We can make guesses all we want, but we'll never know why vacuum fluctuations work as they do, we'll only be able to measure the fluctuations in THIS universe.

That's it. It's not an answer, but that's all it will ever be. (Unless there's a way to go into other dimensions, and if there is, we'll take that road when we get there).

>> No.1016817
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1016817

Good question and one that I wonder why more people arent preoccupied with.
Also, a good question is what is consciousness, why are we self aware.

>> No.1016824

>>1016788
> it's difficult to grasp
I think it's worse than that... but you're missing my point about what you're calling "outside of here." No matter how many levels of "outside the universe" you introduce, you don't get any closer to where it all started.

>> No.1016842

>>1016824
meet
>>1016793

>> No.1016849

>>1016800
I can totally accept that we'll never know the ultimate answer. But that is not the same as saying that there IS no ultimate answer, or even saying that there CAN'T BE an ultimate answer.

>> No.1016854

AND IT WAS ALL JUST A DREAM

>> No.1016859

>>1016824
Yeah we do. It all started outside of any universes. In nothing. Literally nothing. Not nothing as in "nothing is still something" just actual nothing. I mean, philosophically I suppose nothing is something, but scientifically it isn't. And then out of this nothing arose something. It came from nowhere, it just didn't exist, and then it did. And then the big bang happened and all of the universes were created.

>> No.1016864

>>1016793
depak chopra is retarded

>> No.1016868

>>1016849
If it isn't in our universe, then the answer doesn't exist (in our universe). Outside of our universe is unknown, untestable, and irrelevant.

There is no answer (that we can ever know).

>> No.1016872

>>1016859
Ooh, I hate that answer. It has a tremendous religious overtone. It's basically "There was nothing, and then there was something, and you'll never know why, and you just have to accept it, so there's no point in asking about it."

You might as well start it off with "In the beginning..."

>> No.1016878

nothing and everything are the same thing, a singular thing is just the absence of all alternative possibility. Things are divisions of nothing.

This is why the same thing can not exist twice.

>> No.1016884

You do not have enough data to receive an answer meaningful to you.

>> No.1016897

>>1016891
I really did try to avoid that: >>1016798

>> No.1016891

New question: Why do science fans like to pretend we have an answer to this question?

>> No.1016899

>>1016891
Because it extends our /sci/dicks

>> No.1016906

>>1016872
I am sorry that you feel it has a religious undertone. I am sorry that you ask for answers, I spend time writing responses and posting, and then you tell me it's "too religious" just because you are fueled by your own hatred. Nobody here is suggesting that there is a God. There certainly isn't a personal or interfering God. But I gave you the answer to your question. Take it or leave it, although judging by your responses thus far it does not seem that you are yet able to comprehend what I've been saying anyway.

>> No.1016956

>>1016864
do u even know who the fuck depak chopra is. i did a google search n he doesnt talk about this shit at all.
also, no its not deepak chopraa. Its something any fucktard can figure out. Life is a paradox. It rests on a paradox.

>> No.1016968

>>1016906
Wow, first time on 4chan? Thanks for stopping by.

>> No.1017004

>>1016793
I've read this in John Gribbin's books. He writes very layman-oriented physics stuff. But yes, he dips into the Anthropic Principle a little, which is basically what you're describing, as far as human observers. He also mentions the fact that time really might not exist.

>> No.1017482

the idea that time or space are things that can be finite is an erroneous one caused by the childish projection of our our own limited nature onto that of the universe where it has no place.

>> No.1017674

>>1016769
That is the stupidest fucking I have ever heard.

>> No.1017678

>>1017482

One of the more intelligent things I've heard.

>> No.1018167

there will be things out there that we cannot prove, as in either we came from nothing (eventually if you go far back enough) or there is an endless chain of events that are impossible to answer. ie if we came from nothing, why did we come from nothing etc where did the stuff that came from nothing come from,

the idea is that we try and find out as far back as possible to gain a better understanding of the now