Universal Call, I haven't read your text yet (I will though), but I'd like to make some comments:
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Universal Call  Zach, you also speak of the beauty of life, the complexity which is found all around us. Given my earlier arguments (which are not to degrade your belief, trust me) let's continue them in the same direction. What is beauty? What is complexity? |
I had the very same thought when I read it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Universal Call Change perspective for a second - can you say that life is complex and beautiful just because (your) human senses say so? To a martian your sense of complexity might just be their sense of simplicity, to a zarachnoid your sense of beauty might just be their sense of ugliness. This isn't proving my case much, "it is in the eyes of the beholder", right? |
I know this will go a little off topic here - and maybe we should have a separate topic for this, but here's a quick thought: not only beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but also our sense of beauty and what we perceive as beautiful can (and probably is) a result of evolutionary processes. Interestingly enough, just earlier today I read an article on a blog (the owner of the blog is a member of this forum) making reference to a study that found that "
Handsome men have better semen". I have heard an infinite number of times in my life people explaining or justifying their belief in the existence of God by using this argument: "Look around us, so much beauty and perfection, there must have been a God that created all of this". While this explanation in enough for many people, and I do respect that, it is not even close to enough for me. I think that complexity, beauty, perfection can all be explained by theories of evolution. Survival of the fittest.
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I'm glad someone created this topic about the Origin of the universe. It drives me crazy to think about this, I can't wait to read other opinions. It's true, we simply can't grasp the concept of infinity. Both the time and space perspectives get me thinking (what and when - what was the point of origin and what was there before that). And that's where I agree with what Niko says: "I think this is one of the points where religion offers relief, because it can give us answers to our infinite infinity questions so that we don't go crazy wondering.." No matter how much we think about it, we'll always end up asking "what was the source of the point or origin and what was there before that?" - at least until someone can come up with another paradigm. Everything we know in our physical experience has a physical limit (objects, our bodies, the earth, etc...), so like someone said, we have nothing that offers basis for comparison. And this is very frustrating.
Sorry I didn't provide much useful information or opinions about the origin of the universe here, like most people I have more questions than answers.
