Man Created God With The Computer

Actually it does not as the big bag theory is silent on casualty!

No it's because AC god-like
FYI the heat death of the universe does not mean that "everything ends" only that nothing more can happen (at least in it's present state) which believe it or not is not the same thing as what you are saying.

I missed seeing the post you addressed to me, chumly. I will say straight out that I am no scientist. One well versed in those topics could argue rings around me. None of it could negate the fact that when the universe finally ends in its present state, no exceptions can be made, since the invention in the story is of the universe also.

Not necessarily so my friend! Increased dimensionality is a potential even within today's disciplines.

I am not sure what you are basing your contention on that "when the universe finally ends in its present state, no exceptions can be made" but for the sake of argument I'll assume you are correct, if so then you are dismissing the argument for the cyclic nature of the big bang.

Not really. Just questioning the ability of humans to create a situation in which they (including the spawn of their invention) are the cause of the bang that creates a new universe with life.

And a valid questioning it is! Too bad we can't stick around to find out.

BTW it's not so much the cause of the big bang that is suggested by Asimov (at least as my feeble mind interprets it) it is the trigger of the big bang.

Well I gotta go, it's been fun, and yes I know it's just a story

Cause, trigger - Choice of more accurate wording, same argument. Don't give up altogether, chum. I have been trying to get other a2k members interested in this topic, mainly because my lack of science hampers my ability to do better.

While Big Bang is supported by data collected such as the background radiation and the fact that galaxies are moving apart at increasing rates of acceleration. There are a number of problems such as the need to create an initial explanation that involved a separate particle in the earliest Bang micro seconds and the fact that the universe appears to be dish shaped rather than an expanding field. Theres no big huge amount of evidence but the newer "Branes" hypotheses say that we are on the edges of a universe that is like a "soap bubble" that interacts enegetically with surrounding soap bubbles. Galxies form and die and presumably so do universes.
I like that brane hypotheses , aside from the fact that its a multidimensinal exercise that we have difficulty envisioning, all the spatial and energetic problems . perhaps reside within each of the members of the multiverses.

I suggest you put a call out to g'day. He seems to be quite interested and knowledgeable of the M theory

Anyone who does not believe in God should have no problem believing that a universe as complex as our own could theoretically be created using any turing computer*.

The reason for this is that in an atheistic view, everything in the universe is explainable by the interaction of fundamental forces and particles.

According to our present scientific conception of the universe, which every scientist knows is highly incomplete inaccurate and incorrect, we assume there to be 3 fundamental forces* (strong, electroweak, and gravity), and a few basic quantum particles (leptons and bosons) which compose and explain everything else in the Universe.

All of the different atoms, with their different properties, are simply different combinations of the fundamental particles being tightly held together by fundamental forces.

All of the different molecules, likewise, are different combinations of the atoms...and all of the different materials are different combinations of those molecules.

Long story short, all of the diversity in the universe is simply created by having a few fundamental particles and forces which merely describe rules of attraction, repulsion, and transmutation.

We believe that all of the phenomena such as life etc that we see are still just higher order results of these same fundamental particles and forces.

There is absolutely nothing important about the specific particles and forces that are required to be the same for a "universe" with life to exist!

All that is required is that the fundamental forces be balanced in such a way that they allow for sufficient variation of composite particles and properties to be formed, without any forces being so overwhelmingly powerful as to prevent anything interesting from happening.

There is nothing preventing humans from carefully designing a set of forces and rules, and fundamental particles, and creating a computer simulation with initial conditions. If everything is carefully thought out enough, it is certainly possible that a "real universe" could be created.

Why not call it virtual? Because, from the perspective of anything inside that universe, it would be as real as our own universe.

Imagine that life forms are able to form in this environment. Allow these life forms to evolve over time. They could evolve the same types of traits that we see in our own universe, such as "sight" -- the ability to utilize the bouncing of smaller particles like our photons to make a mental picture of their environment. And perhaps they could evolve consciousness. To them, their sight and conscisouness would be AS REAL as our sight and consciousness.

In such a simulation, you would need to discretize the universe in order to represent things without infinite number of decimal places. In order to allow accurate collision and mediation of forces, you would also need a maximum speed that particles could travel -- like our speed of light, c.

Now, granted, not any set of fundamental forces would allow it to be possib le for all this to occur...but perhaps by mimicking the forces we observe we would be able to capture enough so that all of the higher order complexitiies of our univese could be at some level represented.

Obviously this would all take extreme computation. On the up side, it would not matter how long computations took or if they were exponentially difficult for each time step -- because even if in the outside universe it took 1 billion years to calculate each nanosecond, to the organisms in this bubble universe time would appear to pass smoothly.

Hey, nothing like this will ever be constructed, but it's hypothetically possible.

* By turing computer, I refer to a computer that has no set memory etc, simply a hypothetical device capable of performing basic arithmetic operations

Thanks, stuh.

I still contend that (1) It would not be necessary for such a thing, since the universe appears to renew itself (2) The task would be beyond the human scope, even with this transcendant computer.

How can you have "earliest" with "microseconds"?

The plural denotes time passing and thus just the second microsecond is not early and the later ones are right laggards.And that is assuming that a micro second is the shortest interval of time conceivable by a logical mind which is definitely not true.Not in scientific circles at least.

Edgar,

1) why do you say that the universe "renews" itself? are you referring to a "cycle" of big bangs whereby one big bang explodes everything, and then gradually things drift back together from gravity only to explode again? because it doesn't appear to work that way.

2) I don't think so, the task of setting it all up would simply consist of arbitrarily picking some fundamental units of matter and then making up a few forces inspired by the forces we observe in physics...then setting some initial conditions. for example, cluster the matter into atoms/molecules and at a larger scale, into planets galaxies, give everything some initial velocity and let the program go. not too difficult at all.

(1) Given that the story has AC's programming as an accident of fate, and not intentional, I would argue that it does not much matter if the big bang would have/could have happened without AC, the fact is it did happen with AC, hence we have the premise that man created god with the computer. (2) There has never been an argument from me that it would not be beyond human scope as of today.

If I may add a couple a points:

We also have the universal constants as well as the three forces, these constants such as atomic weights appear to be wholly arbitrary.

It is postulated that should there be another big bang that the three forces will still be the same, but that the universal constants might be different, and if so they might not fall into a range suitable for life (at least as we know it) or even nuclear or chemical reactions ((at least as we know them)

The red shift is a premier indicator that the celestial bodies are moving apart at increasing rates of acceleration and that the farther they are apart from each other the more this shift is exhibited. It's like Doppler if you are familiar with a train whistle. Before the recognition of the red shift, the steady state universe was a popular theory

Asimov was not so much suggesting a Turing environment but having AC act as a trigger for a new "natural" environment, of which AC would then not have to intervene further.

Google is your friend, but you could have asked me to explain some of the concepts further or direct you to where they may be found.

In any case the juxtaposition of religion, science & philosophy makes for some zippy ruminations and it was a pleasure chatting with you and everyone else.

Chum

Some of the constants like e and Pi are mathematical in nature and could not be any different.

Some other constants, such as the speed of light, or the properties of fundamental particles, appear to be arbitrary.

Other constants only appear to be constants to us, but actually just the maximums, minimums, or averages of possibility given the set of particles and forces.

There is no rational reason to assume that any of these constants could or would be changed by "another" big bang.

Also, since the universe is apparently expanding at an accelerated rate, it does not appear that it will ever collapse and re-explode again.

We don't even really know that it ever did explode...all we know is that stuff is moving apart, and that things used to be a lot hotter...

Well here's an alternative hypothesis, maybe the force of gravity is actually something like a parabola such that the force becomes repulsive proportional to the square of the distance at long ranges, which results in the expansion of the universe.

After googling up some more information, I see where I was wrong in some of my statements. Still, my main point, I don't see humans doing anything so grand, remains intact, for me at least. I have been called opinionated among other things and I agree it's so. Still, I try to be honest.

An obvious false dichotomy, no such bifurcation necessarily must exist.
Being 'without god' or even outright denying the possibility of god is not mutually exclusive to believing in the form of naturalism you describe.

To myself, a god seems totally beyond logic. At the same time, the origin of the big bang remains a puzzle.