Creation / Evolution.

[Theland]

What can you say that you know one thing about evolution?

[Peter Pedant]

// So is there a universal law of cause and effect?
Do we at least agree on that?//

oh um consensus on AB again
no I am afraid not - re read Jimz post until you understand that he is NOT saying there is a universal law.

Jim by the way is a proper certified deep thinker, a theoretical physicist ( Hi Jim!) and not a self proclaimed deep thinker who looks up from a cornflake packet and says deeply quietly and yet portentously: utter nonsense

a sort of pre O level version is
cause and effect is only tied to a physical world and so cannot be metaphysical. hence not universal - the give away is the time element - one precedes the other unlike the ideas of truth - beauty - fairness - which dont have a time element and are metaphys....

simples

Beso and Jim are to be congratulated for persisting - thro gritted teeth at times

[andy-hughes]

You should all read the Bible, all the answers are there if you look.

[Zacs-Master]

In the very weird world of quantum mechanics, which describes action on a subatomic scale, random fluctuations can produce matter and energy out of nothingness. And this can lead to very big things indeed.

[naomi24]

Including heads?

[Zacs-Master]

Indeed. Heads with Ego's the size of a planet.

[naomi24]

:o)

[jim360]

Egos* :P

[Zacs-Master]

the apostrophe was for 'tistical' ;-)

[jim360]

That sounds like a load of balls to be honest :P

[Zacs-Master]

you say testicles I say tisticals, but we all get a looong togetheeeer.

[Zacs-Master]

Anyway, I'm glad we got to the meaning of the life at last.

[Theland]

One subject that comes up time and time again is the idea of the universe creating it self from nothing, as presented from the likes of Laurence Krause.
But it is never ever truly nothing is it?
Any thoughts on this?

[Zacs-Master]

What’s truly nothing?

[Khandro]

Zacs; //What’s truly nothing?//

The answer to that is similar to the deference Dr Watson showed to Sherlock Holmes’s wishes; that he kept the tale of The Giant Rat of Sumatra a secret. However before he died he arranged that the bizarre story of the giant rat should be held in the vaults of a London bank until all the protagonists were dead....

[Zacs-Master]

Erm. Ok.

[Theland]

No mass / energy, space / time.

[Zacs-Master]

It’s impossible for the human mind to imagine nothing.

[Old_Geezer]

Assuming a Big Bang is the start of a universe, it can't ever be nothing. Nothing was the "when", "where", "what", "in which" the Big Bang occurred and which "destroyed" the nothing, in a manner of speaking and for want of a better description. (I'm sure you know the meaning even if my vocabulary seems inadequate for the subject matter.) As soon as any universe starts to exist, it is "something".

[Theland]

OG - That sounds like a leap of blind faith :-)

[Old_Geezer]

Maybe to you, but it's commonly held that the universe had such a start, (known as the Big Bang) due to running the expansion back to when everything was in the same spot, so it follows it had to start somewhere. Even if you think it grew off of an existing universe you still have the issue of a first (original) universe that then had to have come from nothing. The only alternative is to believe that there was no act of creation and the universe has always existed in some form. That opens up a whole barrel of questions about what form is it, and how does it differ over apparent time and apparent space.