The problem with the mathematical calculations of odds is that they don't take into account "beginner's luck." That is, they don't say anything about the sequence of tests that make up the probabilities. For instance in this case...

If you draw a card from a deck of cards once, the odds of getting an ace of spades is one in 52. The odds of drawing an ace of spades twice in a row back-to-back is one in 2,704 (1/52 x 1/52). The odds of doing it four times in a row is one in 7,311,616.

... it won't necessarily take 7,311,616 attempts to draw the ace of spades four times in a row from a randomized deck. It may only take four attempts! Understand? In fact, it could happen at any four sequential picks from the 7,311,616. On the other hand, it might take 14,623,232 attempts, and then it might happen twice in a row. The odds would be the same.

And this doesn't even address the notion of the assumption of temporalinear causality (that time only flows in one direction in this case). There's some evidence to suggest that consciousness is not limited to strict cause and effect actions as we understand them, and that our own consciousness may be "creating" the universe both backwards and forwards in time as a result of our observations. You can see where this would eliminate the need for a creator God.

You gotta watch your hidden assumptions in arguments like these.

[edit on 18-10-2007 by Nohup]

Well, since there was a beginning of time/space (the universe) back 13.7 billion years ago, something we yet don't know or understand made it.

I've never read the Bible, and don't happen to read it any time soon, but I still think that before the physical world, there might of been a world of just Thought, or One consciousness being, timeless, space less, and full of infinite potential. it might sound crazy to some, but I believe truth to be stranger than fiction.

Could the universe's birth be a mere coincidence: Yes, but such 'beginners luck' coincidence just seems highly unlikely and something outside of time and space created the known universe we see today IS a possibility.

Double post.

[edit on 10/18/2007 by gravytrain]

Originally posted by Monsterenergy791
Well, since there was a beginning of time/space (the universe) back 13.7 billion years ago, something we yet don't know or understand made it.

What makes you think that spacetime had some kind of beginning? The Big Bang is an interesting theory with some good data to support it, but that doesn't mean it's right. I mean, I find it interesting that you would embrace this particular scientific theory because it goes along with what you believe, but also do something very un-scientific and make an assumption not implied by any of the data -- that something "created" it. It's an interesting bit of picking and choosing.

That "13.7 billion years" figure is interesting, too. I remember not too long ago when it used to be 7 billion years. Did the age of the universe somehow nearly double in the last few decades? No, we got better data, and we're interpreting it differently. I will go out on a limb and say that over the next 100 years or so, the age of the universe will double again.

Again, I think it's easy to get the mistaken notion that somehow the universe had to have a "beginning." We're animals that are used to looking very hard for cause and effect, because that's how we learned to stay alive all these years as we evolved. A twig snaps behind us, we know it's caused by a tiger ready to pounce, cause-effect, we run away.

But when we're talking about the universe, a place where time is related to speed, and space loops back on itself in such a way that the farther OUT you go, the closer to the CENTER you get, there may never have been (or will be) a "beginning," as we understand it in our little monkey minds. And if you don't have a beginning, the whole notion of something beginning the beginning makes even less logical sense. It's so hard for us to comprehend and discuss, because even our language has a built-in bias toward that cause-effect way of perceiving the world.


[edit on 19-10-2007 by Nohup]

Originally posted by seraph07
But, a system of any sort must have a beginning!

Why is that? Can you elaborate? There's no evidence to suggest that the universe ever had a beginning or will have an end, particularly because time and distance are different ways of looking at the same thing.

Personally, I think the existence of the universe has something to do with all the living things in it observing it and imagining it. Without an observer, we can't be sure a quantum wave function will collapse out of virtuality. So we've kind of bootstrapped ourselves into the middle of time, and we're in the process of creating it both "forwards" and "backwards" into infinity.

Sort of like this, except in many more intertwining dimensions too complicated to be illustrated here:




[edit on 19-10-2007 by Nohup]

I think that the physical universe itself to have a beginning, thus an age, but at the highest dimension, there is no time so everything is happening at the present, there is no past or future, but an eternal 'now'.

addressing the issue for probability for life to arise in a universe..
having the right strength in the the strong, weak, gravity and electromagnetic forces seems astronomically unlikely. god must of chose these strengths and thats why we are here right? the way i see it is that if there is infinite amount of universes (multi-verse theory) this can be overcome. if there is infinite amount of universes each will the different values of these strength there will be universes which can support life.

thats the way ive always seen this probability overcome.