Quantcast
  • Register
PhysicsOverflow is a next-generation academic platform for physicists and astronomers, including a community peer review system and a postgraduate-level discussion forum analogous to MathOverflow.

Welcome to PhysicsOverflow! PhysicsOverflow is an open platform for community peer review and graduate-level Physics discussion.

Please help promote PhysicsOverflow ads elsewhere if you like it.

News

PO is now at the Physics Department of Bielefeld University!

New printer friendly PO pages!

Migration to Bielefeld University was successful!

Please vote for this year's PhysicsOverflow ads!

Please do help out in categorising submissions. Submit a paper to PhysicsOverflow!

... see more

Tools for paper authors

Submit paper
Claim Paper Authorship

Tools for SE users

Search User
Reclaim SE Account
Request Account Merger
Nativise imported posts
Claim post (deleted users)
Import SE post

Users whose questions have been imported from Physics Stack Exchange, Theoretical Physics Stack Exchange, or any other Stack Exchange site are kindly requested to reclaim their account and not to register as a new user.

Public \(\beta\) tools

Report a bug with a feature
Request a new functionality
404 page design
Send feedback

Attributions

(propose a free ad)

Site Statistics

206 submissions , 164 unreviewed
5,103 questions , 2,249 unanswered
5,355 answers , 22,800 comments
1,470 users with positive rep
820 active unimported users
More ...

  An Atheist who doubts that the Universe had no guidance

+ 0 like - 0 dislike
200 views

First off, let me say that I do not believe in worldly or astral supernatural beings and don't believe in life-after-death, I am a non-scientist that is pro-science. 

But, I find it hard to believe that the universe just happened to contained

1. just the right number/type of quantum fields (that once the universe expanded and cooled) was able to produce working building blocks (atoms) that can attach to each other and conveniently is neutral (normally), but has the components (electrons) to give us electricity and other things.

2. Has gravity that allows things to come together and form planets and most importantly stars that create the heavier particles and some, later exploding, seeding the universe with these other elements.

3. That these atoms can have multiple phases (liquid, gas, solid, plasma, etc.)

4. Force carriers can stack

5. I could also go on and on and name many more (which allows humans to make unlimited things for our convenience).

6. I also don't believe that if you wait 13.8 Billion years and add water, you get a human being from 16? quantum fields .  Even a single cell is an extremely complex entity. Note that no one has created a working proto-cell in the lab yet.  The Miller-Urey simply confirms that chemistry happens (duh!).  Again, I am pro-science.

If the universe simply created a bunch of hair balls that has no properties, I could at least accept that (but would still want to know where they came from ).

The suggested solutions to this paradox do not impress me:

1. multiple universes exist and we just happen to be in the one that had it right, and thus we are here.

2. There is a god (proof?)

3. Sheer luck.

4. We live in a simulation (always a possibility.  If the fidelity is high enough, I don't see how we could tell), but then where did those programmers come from?

Anyone else kept up at night pondering this?

asked Nov 3 in Chat by Sleepless in Ohio [ revision history ]
recategorized Dec 20 by Arnold Neumaier

1 Answer

+ 2 like - 0 dislike

Are you familiar with John Conway's Game of Life? It may be the outstanding example of a simple "physics" in which lifelike structures can arise. It doesn't rule out any other questions or hypotheses, but it does show that the step from "physics" to "biology" is not necessarily so miraculous. 

answered Dec 14 by Mitchell Porter (1,950 points) [ no revision ]

Your answer

Please use answers only to (at least partly) answer questions. To comment, discuss, or ask for clarification, leave a comment instead.
To mask links under text, please type your text, highlight it, and click the "link" button. You can then enter your link URL.
Please consult the FAQ for as to how to format your post.
This is the answer box; if you want to write a comment instead, please use the 'add comment' button.
Live preview (may slow down editor)   Preview
Your name to display (optional):
Privacy: Your email address will only be used for sending these notifications.
Anti-spam verification:
If you are a human please identify the position of the character covered by the symbol $\varnothing$ in the following word:
p$\hbar$ysicsOverfl$\varnothing$w
Then drag the red bullet below over the corresponding character of our banner. When you drop it there, the bullet changes to green (on slow internet connections after a few seconds).
Please complete the anti-spam verification




user contributions licensed under cc by-sa 3.0 with attribution required

Your rights
...