Okay, here is a strange topic... Maybe this thread is too strange to exist.

My eight year old son wants to know the answer as to WHY we exist. He also wants to know what existed before either the Big Bang or before God made the universe. It is on his mind and he is attacking the question from every angle. He has renewed my interest in the question. But it has also thrown me into a really bizarre corner of the equation.... Is it possible that we could suddenly cease to exist? Not just humans, but everything in the universe.

If the universe exists because of a big bang, the obvious question is "what existed before the big bang?". Other obvious questions are "What went BANG" and "WHY did it go Bang?"

Now, I know that from the religious perspective, God created the world. This is a nice answer to the nagging question. Whether it is true or not, WHY did God create the world? Why did he make humans, animals, water, mountains, clouds... And what is up with cockroaches?

Regardless of how valid the theory of God is, something created us. Maybe there was no reason or "Plan" in creating us, maybe our entire existence of millions of years is occurring in a nanosecond in a nucleus of a cell in the bowels of a massive tree sloth. As soon as the cell dies, the power is turned off on our existence.

Since we don't really know Why we exist, and we have no clue as to How we started existing, and we don't really know how long we have existed.... Is it possible that we could simply cease to exist?

I am telling you my theory. I have been whacked in the head many a time because of this, but here it is:
We have one god. The human species, and everything we know about was created by him. To us, there is only and ONLY one God. He may be able to take different froms, or maybe, if it suites you, multiple forms at once. HOWEVER, there could be another dimension only a god can traverse. It may take him to ANOTHER god that has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with us. These gods can have conversations, and invite other gods they like. Their talks might go somthing like

-"Hey, so how is your civilizaion doing?"
-"Well, 'cause I gave them free will, they just blew themselves up. Oh well, at least it wasn't like the other guys that obliterated my entire universe"
-"But wasn't that how you got your idea to start the one you have now though?"
-"Yeah, guess your right... So, are we on for Euchre tomorrow?"

The all mighty geek has spoken

Interesting...I think I started a chain reaction of threads...or did it start with the Antichrist thread?

Monica.... This kind of thread is like a strange creature that is lurking below the surface of this forum for more than two years. Either your thread or the Anti-Christ thread made it come up for air again.....

This ties in perfectly with my "Does God answer prayer?" thread. XD

Hmm, using the "God theory", I suppose a spoken creation could be ended with a spoken destruction. So if God sez, "Let there be nothing", it will cease to be.

If we go with evolution, I guess there's a few things that could happen. We run out of energy and everything slowly burns out and dies. Not very sudden though. Maybe everything will continue to spread out until everything is so totally far apart that it will seem like any single object (sun, planet, quasar) is the only thing in existance and when that happens, another "big bang" occurs for each object and it starts all over again.

Anyway, I'll be praying for you TG. ;)

It seems to me as though the adults are going to be the ones to answer this question if we ever do find an answer. The kids, who have had no influence on the subject, will give the best theory we could possibly have.

Look at it this way.

First, there was nothing. Nothing is unstable, so it broke apart and caused reactions. The reactions turned into the sun, the planets, and everything else in the universe. How we were made? Random events caused by the reaction.

Nothing>Unstable>Reaction>Solar System>Sun>Planets Formed>Water>Plants>Nature>Wildlife>Random *delayed Events caused by reaction>Humans.

Taking it slow and breaking it down to tiny bits helps.

Hey Rabby....

There is a twist to the question..... Don't hypothesize what would happen if the "power runs out". I am not thinking about what if the universe started to die.... Think bigger and in a more abstract way... What if the universe suddenly didn't exist?

For starters, I agree that if God turned on the power, She could just as easily turn it off.
:)

Regarding the Big Bang.
The theory of evolution is not part of this thread, I am not discussing our place in the universe, but how the universe got here to begin with and could the universe just as quickly go away? Vanish? Have a universal power outage? Just plain cease to exist?

The big bang suggests that all matter was created with a singular event (I suggest that is bull, but lets go with it for now). Basically, the power got turned on.
I find myself thinking that whatever it is that powered up the universe could just as easily, and just as instantly turn the power off... For example, our entire existence is inside a cell, and the cell eventually dies. Millions of years to us, a few hours to that cell, but the moment the cell loses its power is just as instantaneous for us to cease existing.

We don't know what initiated the physical universe.... We don't even know what gives single cells the power to divide. Here is a headslap moment for you.... A force much greater than ourselves must be at work.(Yes, I DID just say that). But I imagine that the minutiae of our lives are not on the radar of the greater force.... Like I said, we might be of no more significance to a "god" than the contents of a cell under your fingernail are to you.

Last edited: Friday, May 12, 2006 at 2:44:36 PM

Actually it didnt go "BANG" as many say. It cannot go "BANG" because in space there are no walls that the sound can bounce off so it wasnt possible to hear the big "BANG"

Hes right

Pedro does have a point. In space, there is no matter for which sound can go through. So in other words, complete silence.

Well regarding this topic. I guess it will be possible. But I dont think it would happen just know...and what exactly do you mean by suddenly sease to exist? ALl humans die? "BIG BANG"? Or Just simply vanish?

ON that topic it's encouraging to believe in the immortality of the soul ('believe' is the word here, since empirical evidences are slim), which makes existence in this body a temporary bus stop.

I think we will eventually 'cease' naturally in due time, but not suddenly, simply because there's no reason to rush to nil.

Like you know they say the universe started with a ^silent bang, has been expanding ever since (I know my credit line is, so right there I have an empirical evidence), apparently it will at one point stop expanding (although some say it's expanding ever faster). When it will reach its maximum expansion then it's suppose to start to shrink - the famous 'entropy' theory (over gazillions of years like usual; the dude is slow), for eventually return all matter to a primordial core, a big smoking ball of magma, where it will simmer for a while, and then explode once again, for ever and ever.

Thus why stop now? We have time aplenty, and space is (still) cheap! Let it expand, let the universe be. Naught is kinda boring, and can take a while to pass!

If we suddenly ceased to exist, then...wait for it...nothing happens. If everything went out like a light, we wouldn't be here or "over there" to realize that something just happened, because the big nothing happened. I'm starting to sound like Douglas Adams here, but if everything just disappeared, even our disembodied spirits couldn't even float in the ether and pulse, "Did you just feel something?"

Last edited: Sunday, May 14, 2006 at 5:24:37 AM

The answer is simply put: yes. We could simply cease to exist (commonly known as death).

Here's another question: Why are certain concepts SO amazing that we invoke religion to explain them? Why is it difficult for us to be comfortable with the unkown?

Interesting question.

Yes the universe could cease to exist due to phenomenom that we have no ability to detect or explain at this time. However as there is ^"no empirical evidence", there is no way to predict or even theorize about what the causitive agent could be or even if it is within the realm of possibility.

I was watching an interesting theory on multiverses and time travel yesterday that might apply, but I was pretty out of it so I will not attempt to summarize it (100 degree fever). PBS occasionally has really good programs on this kind of thing.

On a side note the big bang was not "silent" Sound is vibrations passing through matter in close proximity to each other. Sound doesn't travel in space (mostly) because of the distance between the individual particals. Right after the big bang all the matter in the universe was in close proximity to each other so sound was definately able to travel. Until the matter got too far apart from the force of the explosion of course.

^ good post.

Think matter, enery and probably some other factors that our human brains can't recongize as the V pointed out. It's probably not a "ceasing to exist" scenario you should be thinking about, but rather a more rapid change in the state in the balance of matter and enery from where is stands now. Dying is not ceasing to exist. It's just a tranference of energy. Dead bodies decay, breakdown in to simpler compounds. When suns explode, they may create other systems of energy as a result, but no longer be recognized as suns.
In the broader perspective, discusing the universe as it is understood in the realm of generally acceptable academia yeilds the idea of the universe as the entire "thing" if you will. Perhaps the universe as humans have observed (stars, solar systems, on and on, seemingly infinite) is not really the whole scheme, but one small element in a larger unimaginable scheme of universes (similar thinking as the universe as a "cell" in a larger body sort of thing). In come the big questions then of time, string theory, etc.... Is time a continuous motion going forward... Or can the theory of relativity really be ever be in effect where time gets reversed? Mathmatics will tell you it's possible... But it seems inconcievable. We haven't even been able to prove out these, which must be small theories in the big scheme of things, so imagine what comes next if they can be proven or dis-proven.
As a personal view, I don't think that this truth of the universe can be revealed through parabels and stories in human history.... There is simply much much more going on than the human experience has or will ever be able to comprehend, and I'm OK with that. Fascinating stuff though. For some, it seems that these questions of matter, energy and the universe may contain or resolve the unanswered questions brought about by their religious endevours.

I know people are going to judge me harshly on what im about to say but I do not believe that god is real, I think that god is a myth. You cannot be a great scientist and still believe in god. Nothing will make sense. I know im still 15 and probably wont be taken seriously but I believe that everything has evolved from this "BIG BANG" and we were not created by this so called "God"

^ Yes, and I think we have to have some sort of "immortality" thing in it because we can't get the concept of nothing. We can't accept that we will not exist someday. We want to keep investigating, knowing, observing, being aware of our environment. We don't have the capacity to think of ourselves not existing or being aware.

Uh, hello.

NATURAL causes of death?

Anyone want to remember about the bird flu, cancer, aids, global warming etc. ?

I doubt the earth will give us enough time for the universe to close in on us.

THINK INSIDE THE BOX.

Davinci said that the move he studied the universe the more he came to realize that some form of a "greater being" had to cause all of this.

When I was younger and I still do today wonder what this statement by davinci truely meant. The only thing that I came to a conclusion was that "God" had to be this greater being who started it, but then how did god come to be and how was he able to start the big bang and so on. The move I thought of these sort of questions the more I wanted to know.

Now that I look at this I see that as humans our brains are not capeable of understanding such a topic. We search for knowledge continuously and are always wondering and thirsting to try to understand things. We always try to find a logical answer to things.

When faced with such as topic as how things were created and things could cease to exist at this moment, we may never know the answer. We may always try to understand it, but will always be faced with the idea of trying to find the answer. And from my view there is no logical answer for it. So my simple answer for myself.......just something or some being made and started everything and may never know why or how or what came before what. What I do know is that here I am alive right here typing this on my sofa watching bernie mac and I'm grateful to be alive and happy with a good family and many friends.

Technically the thoery of the big bang is that the ubiverse is ever expanding and eventually it will implode to start expnading all over again so if you believe in the big bang thoery yes we all will eventually cease to exist in a mere matter of seconds

PS: you know whats funny im 15 years old and im talking about quantum physics to a sexy smart girl lol

^Keep it up TTB. Maybe girls will fall for you brain and ignore any gigantic zits, unkempt hair, and shaggy knuckles. Personally I had to sink even lower and use pity. She thought I looked like I was starving and had to feed me (even though she couldn't cook). Now I'm battling the bulge.

@ Reagent X

This has got me thinking some about why so many humans have the need to believe in divinity. I've got a hypothesis forming but it will need more time to ferment. Basically it is along these lines: The belief in a supreme being is very prevalent so it must be a selection factor... Intriguing no? I think I'll spend some time on it and start a new thread.

What if God created us. Then he would have maken the first computer-game, also. Since he controlls us all, if he created us.
---
We don't even have to think about what/who created us. What do we have to think about? About how to survive! Oil gets low, and costs millions of $. How will we EVER survive whitin 1000 years...? If we even do.

- C@S

Yes, but who would notice?

^ lol! :)

@ V sry but im black I dont get pimples lol

LOL so true BC.....so true no one would know....or would they o.0 :P

Probably not DA. Since we are (as far as I know, which tells you that you should ignore this since it is posted based on my knowledge) on the only planet in this galaxy with life.

Then again, there are those ppl with foil hats and nerdy glasses mumbling about life on other planets.

"I think, therefore I am"

Let him contemplate that one for a while. B)

I think, therefore I am...hmmmmm...I think I got this one. XD

"I think, therefore I am" probably relates to someone with an over pumpous ego who thinks and says he is soooo great. Do I get a cookie if I get this right?

I think, therefore I spam.

I think, therefore I tank.
Sorry I had to! B)

What if there is more than one universe out there in space. Some believe that there could be! Or even that the big bang is an on going thing, you know for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That is to say after everything shoots out for a time it will, because of gravity, come flying back in, and once again create a big bang. This could have happened billions of times! But all the various big bang theories are still just theories, so it is unlikely that any of us will know for certain, at least for the foreseeable future. Science is so cool!

TG,

You can answer that two ways:

1.(spiritually) we exist to evolve to be next to God.

2.(scientifically) we exist becuase of a chemical reaction
mixed on this planet from space.(of course with more detail)

This one only God can answer.

But for fun I'll give it a shot.
in my own conclusion from pondering this question is....

There are many many many universe besides ours.

A big bang had to gain its energy from somewhere, I
think its from black holes, for each black hole we
have a BIG BANG, a subuniverse of sorts. Its a endless
cycle of creation.

I think the answer to this would NO.

If u believe God created us than the answer would be NO, becuase
if God wanted to wipe us out of existance he would have done it already.

If you have no faith and science is the only way you can understand the
universe, then the answer is still NO. All energy never dies, it only changes
form. So in a way you will always exist.

There is such a thing called quantum intelligence and consciousness
we are made from these thingys called atoms.

We can only perceive what we can only experiance. We are like
a fish in a pond. The pond is thier reality thier only known existance.

But there is so much more outside that pond.

Peace

Eh, your eigth years old? You sure you don't mean yourself. ;)

Anyways, I would leave the lie card, the God, out of the answer.

@ Blitzer --...Please tell me that wasn't aimed at me...

@ Hugo -- You have been forgiven XD heh

Nah, just vvant a cookie :P Altho, technically it could have been aimed at anyone vvho read it. Just depends hovv you look a each other's comments.

@ Vash, thanks for the reply.
I can't fully agree with some of your statements, but I appreciate your input.

@Triv,
I have always been curious about the answers to these questions. Since I don't believe there is an overlord that gives a hoot about us, I like to imagine what is going on outside of our "pond".
Lately though, it has been my eight year old who has surprised me with some startlingly adult observations about our existence.

I have said this before, and I will probably say it again....
Isn't it interesting that you can look through a telescope into outer space, then look through a (ridiculously powerful) microscope, and you see a lot of the same things happening? Of course, they look fundamentally different because of where we exist in the scale of things, but whether looking through a telescope or a microscope, it sure does look like a lot of planets circling a lot of suns in a lot of galaxies.

For a colorful reference point, see the Atom image at http://www.howstuffworks.com/atom.htm

Last edited: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 at 8:29:05 AM

Np tg,

I kinda wounder that myself...

Apparently so have scientist, they have been working on
(for the past hundred yrs or so) a unified theory.

To unite the quantum world with our own.

So far we have the Super String Theory, which allow us
to understand or have a concept of how all matter is
created. It also combines generl relativity and quantum
mechanics into one theory, before would be impossible.

This is still just a theory, but if true, we can start answering
some of our timeless quetions.

Peace

Last edited: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 at 10:48:40 AM

This must be the stoner thread, too bad I gave up weed...

^who let in the DEE, DEE???

Geez I hope we dont suddenly die.....

Don't worry, if we all suddenly die, you'll never know. ;)