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Because even if there's emptiness outside the universe, it's still infinite. Infinity full of emptiness.
Visualize this: If we travel upwards, we'd exit our atmosphere first. It becomes relatively empty outside there. If we'd travel even further and further we might reach some kind of border of the universe (it's possible we'd have to travel much much faster than light to ever reach it, if it is expanding, but we don't have to actually be able to do so, just visualize). If we could cross this barrier, we'd be in perfect nothingness, right? And maybe this area has a border somewhere too, but what is behind that is even more nothingness. It can't just end, unlike everything we can see on earth.

Hmmm... Well what you're saying makes sense, but I wouldn't say that makes it true because there are things about the universe we just don't and can't understand, so I believe space could still be finite. Don't ask me what's beyond the borders because I don't know! Basically I've never been to the end of the universe so I'm not going to make a strong assertion about what's there.

What Aristotle says (in his work De Anima) is that, when thinking about animals and intelligence, we should think about it in terms of level of intelligence. Plants, animals, and humans all have different levels of awareness (he calls them levels of the soul). There are 3 levels of awareness- the vegitative, appetative, and rational.

I read what I presume was a summary of what Aristotle said, and I certainly believe it. The Bible also says that man was created in God's image and it doesn't say that about any of the other animals so I certainly don't have a problem with humans being a higher life form or having a higher level of intelligence than other animals.

The faith you two were talking about is different. The Faith that you have as a Christian is capital-F Faith. It is roughly equivalent to piety, and is a belief in the Devine, something beyond human rational proof. Faith in oxygen is lowercase-f faith. It is roughly equivalent to confidence in your emperical experience, trusting that the oxygen that was true yesterday will remain true today. It has nothing to do with the Divine.

I think I understand what you're saying but I personally don't see much difference between my faith that God will help me and other people's faith that a chair will hold them up if they sit on it. I suppose it's just different kinds and levels of evidence and experience leading them or me to that faith. I certainly don't want to confuse things though, so sorry if that's what I'm doing.




Edit: I liked what you said about how versus why. It reminded me of an example in 'A Sneaking Suspicion,' by John ****son:
A young boy walks into the kitchen one morning to find a kettle boiling on the stove. Wondering why it is boiling, he asks his dad (who just happens to be a scientist), "Dad, why is the kettle boiling?" His dad promptly replies, "Well son, it's because the combustion of the gas transfers heat to the bottom of the kettle which, being a good conductor, transfers heat to the water. The molecules of water become more and more agitated, give off steam and there is your boiling." A little dissatisfied by his father's reply, the kid asks his mum the same question, "Mum, why is the kettle boiling?" Finally, he gets the answer he as been looking for: "The kettle's boiling because I'm about to make us all a cup of coffee."

Heh, nothing to be sorry about, I just asked because I recognised some expressions and some ways of reasoning.

Hehe, that's interesting - do you know what things I said that made me sound like an American?

Not sure what you mean here, but in science, there is little room for different people to have different views on a piece of evidence as support or falsification for a certain hypothesis, since the hypothesis must state from the beginning what would consist falsification and what would consist support. However, outside of science, it can vary a lot what a certain piece of evidence is seen as.

OK, so possibly the main way in which logic comes into the field of science is that logic is used to determine what results would falsify a hypothesis and what results would support it? Would that be a fair enough statement?

The oldest prokaryote (simple cells that are bacteria or algae) are from 3.5-3.2 billions years ago, so as far as we know now, it seems that the development from non-life to the simplest life form we define as life, took over 1 billion years. Then, it took a further 2 billion years before the eukaryotes developed, ie cells that have a nucleus and organelles, cells like the ones we and most other living things on earth have in our bodies

Interesting.... I personally don't believe it but it's still interesting to see how science believes things can/did/could have come about.

1. neither astrophysics nor biology claims that the universe developed from nothing, or that life developed from nothing
2. it raises the question "where did god come from?"

1: Sorry, in my understanding of the spontaneous Big Bang theory there was nothing to start with (before the Big Bang) and now you say there was a 'singularity' so my understanding was either outdated or never relevant.
2: You're probably as sick of that argument as Xandax is, huh? To tell the truth I've heard that rebuttal many times. I kind of explained it Xandax, you can read that or I can re-explain it if you want to hear my opinion, but if you were just demonstrating what you see as fallacies in the 'something from nothing' argument and don't care then I won't bother.

Maybe science will never fill in all the gaps, but the number of gaps are constantly decrasing, and it would be strange indeed if god was sort of shrinking, that his power would be less and less, he had done less and less, and the arguments became fewer and fewer. Personally, I think a sound faith in god must rest on believing god has created the universe, earth and life, and that science is simply discovering how he did this, ie the mechanisms behind it, just as if the artist have painted a fantastic painting, and the art-expert analyses how it was done, what canvas was used, what colours, how they were mixed, what painting-techniques were used, etc.

As far as God's power diminishing, I think there is a difference between science explaining how something could have come about without God, and explaining how something actually works, that is (in my view), how God made it work. I do believe God created the universe, earth and life and I see science as explaining how the universe works, but I don't see science explaining how God created the universe because I personally see that as outside of the sphere of science.
Isaiah 40:28b - "He [God] will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom."
As I see it, if we could understand and explain everything that God understands then either God would not be God any more, or we would be God as well. And I don't see either of those situations as being possible in the farthest reaches of imagination.

Ok, now we both know that spontaneous generation is something completely else and that the very concept of spontaneous generation is not used anymore.

Yet if spontaneous generation basically (and literally) means life coming from non-life... isn't that what you were saying was possible?

What areas do think science are stepping into, where it does not belong? Individual scientists can sometimes draw their conclusions too far, but in general, I don't really see where science enters the realm of religion, so I'd be interested in hearing what you are referring too. Like you, I don't see any reason why the two should be conflicting since one does not exclude the other.

Mainly in trying to explain creation. Throwing billions of years and singularities and things in to try to make it scientifically possible, when with all that (even if science proved it possible) I think it far more likely that God created this ordered universe than that a whole bunch of chemicals and heat managed to xome into existence from a singularity and somehow develop into life. An ordered object implies ordered construction - I don't think it's a wonderful proof but it's a clear concept we can see all around us, and evolution and a spontaneous Big Bang fly right against it.




Re faith, I read an interesting expression in a Readers Digest article on 'Does God answer prayer.' It was talking about how much proof was needed to convince people, and it said "For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is sufficient." I just thought it was an interesting thought.

[QUOTE=Arrylium] Yet if spontaneous generation basically (and literally) means life coming from non-life... isn't that what you were saying was possible?[/QUOTE] Spontaneous generation means life coming from nothing without any evolution or process. It's rats coming from grainsupplies.

As CE mentioned, we are able to reproduce the stages of minerals becoming living cells. So it's life coming from material. We're all 'living' material (a heap of polycarbons and calciumsticks). Living not being some kind of magical gift, but a precious feature that allows us to react and think and experience beautiful things like love, but also not-so-beautiful things like pain and grief etc. etc.

I don't agree that science can't answer the "Why" questions. The example below is an instance were science is perfectly able to answer the question in both ways, depending on what answer you were looking for. Science is also able to answer questions like why did we evolve if you do not, without any evidence whatsoever, assume that there is a god with a purpose. However, if you assume that there is a god with a purpose then you have already defined the answer to the question, and can hardly blame science for the fact that it doesn't answer the question in the same manner your thought up god do.

Edit: I liked what you said about how versus why. It reminded me of an example in 'A Sneaking Suspicion,' by John ****son:
A young boy walks into the kitchen one morning to find a kettle boiling on the stove. Wondering why it is boiling, he asks his dad (who just happens to be a scientist), "Dad, why is the kettle boiling?" His dad promptly replies, "Well son, it's because the combustion of the gas transfers heat to the bottom of the kettle which, being a good conductor, transfers heat to the water. The molecules of water become more and more agitated, give off steam and there is your boiling." A little dissatisfied by his father's reply, the kid asks his mum the same question, "Mum, why is the kettle boiling?" Finally, he gets the answer he as been looking for: "The kettle's boiling because I'm about to make us all a cup of coffee."

[QUOTE=Arrylium]Throwing billions of years and singularities and things in to try to make it scientifically possible, when with all that (even if science proved it possible) I think it far more likely that God created this ordered universe than that a whole bunch of chemicals and heat managed to xome into existence from a singularity and somehow develop into life. An ordered object implies ordered construction - I don't think it's a wonderful proof but it's a clear concept we can see all around us, and evolution and a spontaneous Big Bang fly right against it.[/QUOTE]
I think that you are letting your faith lead you to conclusions that aren't necessarily true. I would say that there is no way to know if God created the universe of if it came together over time. If you are more comfortable believing that God created the universe (or if you find more evidence) then that is fine, but there is no way you can say that one is more probable than the other. In fact, it is impossible to establish the probability that God created the universe. You can at least create an experiment to simulate random probability.

Are you fimiliar with the "infinite number of monkeys & typewriters" expression? Once upon a time, someone (I don't know who) proposed the following:
[QUOTE=MonkeyMan]If you have enough monkeys, banging randomly on typewriters, they will eventually type the works of William Shakespeare[/QUOTE]
The idea is that, if you have an infinite timeline, it is possible (even probable) that any given outcome will occur. This makes intuitive sense, and when I googled "monkey typewriters" I found not one, but two different sites, including a web-based simulator.

Now, I realize that none of this is a convincing "scientific" proof. However, saying that it is more probable that God created the universe is simply reaffirming your own beliefs through rhetoric that is unsound. As you said, there is no way to know the motivations of God. Likewise, there is no way to know if the universe did come about randimly: just because it could have come about randomly doesn't mean it did actually come about randomly.

So, here we are at the same impasse. Science can't out-prove Religion, and Religion can't convincingly counter Science. IMO, the important thing to remember is that neither of them should try. They both have their place- science tells us about the world we live in and makes lives better. Religion give people meaning and fills an existential need.

I'm not attacking your faith, but rather your assertion about probability. It is beyond the ability of science (at least right now) to know the probability of the universe coming to be randomly, and it will always be beyond the ability of human reason to know the nature of God... so one can't be more likely than the other.

Re: Faith vs. faith

Please, don't apologize- it isn't necessary. I'm not offended. If you still aren't 100% clear about what I am saying, try exchanging "faith" for a synonym in any given instance. You would say that "Religion requires piety" but you'd never say that "You have piety in the oxygen around you." Do you see what I mean? The same word can mean something different, and that can be confusing. There is a whole academic division created just to examine language use (philology) and many well known academics (ie: Umberto Eco and Noam Chomsky) have devoted their careers to it. I didn't mean this to be a big deal, but it is one of those little things that can lead to bigger problems- when having a friendly discussion, it is best for all friends to keep terms straight.

[QUOTE=Dottie]I don't agree that sience can't answer the "Why" questions. The example below is an instance were sience is perfectly able to answer the question in both ways, depending on what answer you were looking for.[/QUOTE]
I disagree with your example. The mother boiling water to make coffee isn't a scientific answer. The only thing that science (in today's terminology) can explain is the physical reactions that caused the water to change state. The motivations of the person who actually put the kettle on the stove are beyond the realm of what science can explain.

[QUOTE=Cuchulain82]I disagree with your example. The mother boiling water to make coffee isn't a scientific answer. The only thing that science (in today's terminology) can explain is the physical reactions that caused the water to change state. The motivations of the person who actually put the kettle on the stove are beyond the realm of what science can explain.[/QUOTE]

What about the field of psycology? You can make the following observations: The boiling water results in coffee every morning. If you confiscate the mothers coffee beans, and prevent her from buying new beans, she will cease to boil water.

Provided there is no tee of course, but lets keep our example simple.

Obviously this is not very thorough examination, but I think you understand the principle.

[QUOTE=Dottie]What about the field of psycology? You can make the following observations: The boiling water results in coffee every morning. If you confiscate the mothers coffee beans, and prevent her from buying new beans, she will cease to boil water.

Provided there is no tee of course, but lets keep our example simple.

Obviously this is not very thorough examination, but I think you understand the principle.[/QUOTE]
I do understand the example, and I don't mean to nitpick, but the psychology you talk about isn't "science", at least not in the way we've been discussing it so far. It is a science in the way that political science or anthropology are sciences- in an inductive (rather than deductive) way. It observes trends and presents possible answers, but it isn't really in the same category as physics.

(I hate being so contradictory all the time... sorry )

[QUOTE=Cuchulain82]I do understand the example, and I don't mean to nitpick, but the psychology you talk about isn't "science", at least not in the way we've been discussing it so far. It is a science in the way that political science or anthropology are sciences- in an inductive (rather than deductive) way. It observes trends and presents possible answers, but it isn't really in the same category as physics.[/QUOTE]

Physics are also inductive.

Both physics and psychology presents models to interpret reality based on empirical testing. The fact that the models dosn't look exactly the same dosn't mean that one isn't based on evidence.

My example is like I said not a very thorough examination, but I was only trying to explain in general how you could do to investigate what motivates a behaviour.

[QUOTE=Dottie]Physics are also inductive.

Both physics and psychology presents models to interpret reality based on empirical testing. The fact that the models dosn't look exactly the same dosn't mean that one isn't based on evidence.

My example is like I said not a very thorough examination, but I was only trying to explain in general how you could do to investigate what motivates a behaviour.[/QUOTE]
Physics is rarely inductive, and I don't think that psychology is often deductive. While I still think that "hard" sciences (physics, chemestry, lots of math) are different from "soft" (psychology, anthropology, social sciences), I see what you mean. Even though we disagree, I still have another question: do you really think that science, hard or soft, can present with near-perfect accuracy? The accuracy that is similar to how well physics predicts the motion of stars or the trajectory of rockets?

Cuchulain82 wrote:Physics is rarely inductive, and I don't think that psychology is often deductive. While I still think that "hard" sciences (physics, chemestry, lots of math) are different from "soft" (psychology, anthropology, social sciences), I see what you mean.

I thought science in this thread were defined as: Systematical search for knowledge by formulating an hypothesis wich makes a prediction, and then test whether the prediction is correct or not.

If this is not inductive then I'm sorry for the confusion, but regardless of words it is true for both physics and psycology.

Even though we disagree, I still have another question: do you really think that science, hard or soft, can present with near-perfect accuracy? The accuracy that is similar to how well physics predicts the motion of stars or the trajectory of rockets?

I think that the brain is more complex than the movements of a pices of rock in a set enviroment. The variables that determine our behaviour in a specific situation are more numerous than those witch determine the movements of a rock. Therefor I think it is far to go before psycology can make similarly accurate statements about a specific persons behaviour in a given situation. On the other hand I think there are other question witch psycology can answer with accuracy, for example: What causes the mother to boil water, or: What were the psycological processes at work when Hitler took the power in Germany?

Re: Dottie

Well, I guess that I just think of things in a different way than you do, huh? There's no shame in that. I don't want to keep debating minutae (if you want to keep going, we can- I just don't want to be "that guy" who won't let an online argument go)

So... back to topic... I guess we are waiting on Arrylium

I really don't have time for this, I'm at work, why can't you discuss something uninteresting like the latest fashion or TV shows or something?

[QUOTE=Cuchulain82]Physics is rarely inductive, and I don't think that psychology is often deductive. While I still think that "hard" sciences (physics, chemestry, lots of math) are different from "soft" (psychology, anthropology, social sciences), I see what you mean. [/QUOTE]

Just a note @Cuchulain & Dottie: Deductive/inductive is more often used today to describe different time points in the scientific process rather than to split fields in different cathegories. Hypothesis generation is inductive, whereas hypothesis testing is deductive. "Soft/hard" science are also concepts that are starting to get outdated: originally "hard science" meant replication and quantification whereas soft science meant field studies and inductive conclusions, but the traditional classification does not work anymore due to vast overlaps between the two. Biology was traditionally classified as a hard science, but today in the post-genomic era of Proteomics, we know that Biology is "soft" in the sense that with current level of knowledge nothing can ever be exactly replicated, certainly not a clone anyway

Psychology and physics have striking similiarites, the problem is that both are large areas with many subspecialisation. Let me take them as an example since I have also studied both.

Psychology as a scientific field left Freud and stuff over 70 years ago even if some shrinks who work with therapy or write columns in the newspapers does not realise this. Experimental psychology grew really strong during the 1950's when learning paradigms and conditioning was studied extensively in labs. Experimental psychology does not differ from other experimental sciences: you directly observe empirical data in a lab set up to minimise confounding factors, and you replicate experiments many, many times. You are however often limited to indirect studies, since you can't pick living people's bodies apart, and dead people don't behave a lot. Thus, much of psychology is in the same boat as the part of physics that include astrophysics and cosmology. Especially cosmology is often a matter of studying phenomena indirectly and often it is even worse off than psychology since you can't even set up experiments, you are limited to field studies, ie you have to study what nature offers you and draw conclusions from that data.

In my opinion, it is more useful to categorise scientific disciplines in terms of experimental/non experimental and life science, earth science, social science, physical science. These terms are also the most commonly used by scientists today.

[QUOTE=Cuchulain82]Re: Dottie
Well, I guess that I just think of things in a different way than you do, huh? There's no shame in that. I don't want to keep debating minutae (if you want to keep going, we can- I just don't want to be "that guy" who won't let an online argument go)[/QUOTE]

Well, I'm certainly interested in the topic, so I would be happy to continue, but its of course up to you if you don't.

@C Elegans: Sorry for the missuse of the terms then, I guess I meant that both are experimental sciences.

Okay... let's keep going

The terms "hard" and "soft" are best left to describing the condition of fruit, not sciences That said, I wasn't aware of better terminology.

The point of my posts was to counter Dottie's statement that science can accurately determine the answers to why something happens. As you and I both, CE, have said earlier in this post, "science" today is a discipline that describes how something happened. So, if one wants to know about boiling water, physics can explain conductivity, state changes, and exothermic reactions with near-perfect precision.

Is there an experiment, any experiment, that any scientist could create to discover why the mother boiled the water? We know that she did so to make coffee, but that is an exercise in inductive reasoning, not science- one sees the beans, the hot water.... and eureka! She's making coffee!

But then you could ask if the making of coffee is an end or a means to an end? Does she always make coffee, or is this a unique situation? Is she addicted to caffiene or does she just like the taste of coffee? This enters into infinite regression territory, but you see where I'm going- you can't ever really know why unless she tells you. You can only know how and make guesses (some better than others) as to why.

Now, a disclaimer- if you push any example or metaphor too far, it will eventually break down. The coffee analogy is by no means perfect, so I don't want to press it too much further.

When I mentioned hard and soft sciences, I wanted to elicit the point that the "hard" sciences offer a great degree of reliability in terms of describing how something works- ie: we have an excellent understanding of concepts like fluiddynamics, projectile physics, and other such phenomena.

"Soft" sciences (like biology, I guess) don't offer that same level of predictability, for the reasons that CE mentioned above. Psychology and anthropology often attempt to answer "why" but, historically speaking, seem to have produced wrong answers as often as right answers.

Futhermore, the type of why questions that psychology and anthropology answer aren't the "big idea" questions that religion and philosophy thrive on- a psychologist may try to figure out why a patient acts in a certain way, but trying to figure out the answers to questions like the nature of the human condition or the existence of the a priori- it is beyond the realm of science---- and this is how it should be.

I guess my big point is still that science and religion remain in different realms because people inherantly interpret the world in different ways. My understanding of clinical psychology is that it relies heavily on understanding a given patient, the implication being that every patient percieves sense data in a different way. Science today relies on uniform realities and objective resolutions that will be effective no matter what the given value of any variable. This is, in my mind, the root of the problem- as far as I can tell, it is impossible to create an objective discipline that can accurately capture the inherantly subjective nature of the why question.

I deliberatley kept talking about physics because Aristotle's Physics deals with the why questions (as I mentioned before, he called it final causality). Today's physics (the physics of Newton, Einstein, Descartes, etc.) is a mathematical, descripitive tool that only functions in terms of radical doubt (radical doubt is the premise that anything that cannot be proven is not a reliable fact- Descartes first started this practice and he used it in creating the Scientific Method and his famous Cogito). The contrast between Aristotle's Physics and Cartesian/Newtonian/Modern physics illustrates my point.

(btw, this isn't so much my point as it is the point of anyone who argues the differences between ancient and modern philosophy and science. It all goes back to the difference between looking at Final and Efficient causality)

Well, that is a long and dense post. I hope it makes sense. I am going to post, reread, and edit.

Oh, and CE- has there been a change in fashion scene for clinical psychologists that we should be discussing? I mean, you aren't still wearing last year's lab coats, are you?

Dottie... CE... where are you guys (gals)?

Don't just leave that last post alone- if you're busy then I understand, but I am always nervous about writing long posts containing philosophical terminology, and your lack of replies is doing nothing to reassure my insecurities in this regard...

(isn't this when CE is supposed to burst in and say something like "Tell me about you mother..." )

[QUOTE=Cuchulain82]Dottie... CE... where are you guys (gals)?[/QUOTE]

Don't worry, I'll answer later. Today I'm busy with ishockey WC though.

@Cuchlain: Hey, I am a working woman, I can't post long posts at SYM every day! Besides, it's the semi-finals in Champions Leauge right now...(since you are American, I might have to tell you that it is like the world cup for club football teams).

Also, I'm not a clinical psychologist...but since I'm doing genetics you can tell me about your mother anyway - do you have any interesting disorders running in the family?

Gee, you go away for a couple of days and everyone starts going nuts over a woman boiling some water for her coffee!
The funny thing is that I don't have much to say about that example and I'm not up on all the hard and soft sciences so I'm not going to pretend I know what I'm talking about by joining that particular conversation!

Science is also able to answer questions like why did we evolve if you do not, without any evidence whatsoever, assume that there is a god with a purpose. However, if you assume that there is a god with a purpose then you have already defined the answer to the question, and can hardly blame science for the fact that it doesn't answer the question in the same manner your thought up god do.

Again, I think science can answer 'how' we evolved (on the assumption that we did evolve, which I don't have) but I fail to see how it can explain 'why.' If you disagree (which I gather you do) then please tell me the scientific 'why.' It can tell us the factors and the causes which it perceives as having caused evolution to take place, but the question 'why' has much deeper connotations than that.




Re: Cuchulain82, probability:
I have heard of the monkeys and the typewriters before. It doesn't convince me personally, but that's mostly because I don't consider spontaneous existence or life to be possible at all, and something that has no chance of happening will not happen, no matter how long you wait. I do understand what you're saying though.
As far as probability goes though, I agree that we certainly can't measure scientifically the probabilities of either origin. This is an example which explains my viewpoint - probably won't convince anyone, but this is just the way I'm thinking.
The probability of the universe forming itself from nothing (or from a 'singularity') has been compared to the probability of a tornado going through a junkyard and whirling the junk together into a fully operational Boeing 747 - you mayor may not have heard this analogy before. Now, if we consider it as being possible (just how possible it is doesn't matter because, as you said, there is plenty of time): If you see a Boeing 747 flying overhead, where do you think it came from? Do you think a tornado ripped through a junkyard billions of times and eventually threw it together? Or do you think Boeing made it?
I do understand that being human and being a Christian (or having any view, for that matter) prevents me from being totally objective in this but I really am trying to think about it logically. If you see a watch lying on the ground, isn't it more logical to conclude it was made by a watchmaker than by a tornado? And if we see this INCREDIBLE ordered world around us, which I hope you will agree is very intricate, exponentially more so than a watch or even a Boeing 747... it just seems far more logical and, dare I say it, probable, to assume it came from an intelligent designer than that it came from a random singularity over billions of years. That's just how it seems to me, and like I said I can't be totally objective because I agree, my faith influences my viewpoint.




Re: Faith vs faith:
I wouldn't say "Religion requires piety" but that's because I don't know what piety is. Give me a second...
OK, piety as I understand it now basically means worshipping God. So I would say religion requires piety, but it's not exactly the same as faith. Faith as I see it (big or little f) is believing something that hasn't been proven completely (ie, everything pretty much except mathematical axioms). I believe in God, who hasn't been proven completely. But doesn't everyone excercise faith? I just honestly don't see the difference. If I'm wrong I'm sorry (oops, now I'm sorry for saying sorry again (oops.... anyway...)) - what are the fundamental differences between faith and Faith?