I read about it the other day in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/science/15brain.html
But what is real in these discussions is the math that connects them to the observed patterms of behavior of particles in the Universe. The wonderful thing about science is that if all - truly all - of the most basic theories are wrong, Nature still is as it is and we have answered Her eternal question with the ONE, ETERNAL, TRUE ANSWER:
"I don't know."
God is the denial of the OETA.
On Jan 15, 2008 8:54 PM, John Thornton <jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> > I think the question, Why does the Universe exist? (Why is there
> > anything instead of nothing?) seems like a perfectly legitimate one to
> > many people, even if they're being told sternly, "You can't ask that
> > question! The universe just is!"
> >
> > When Darwin asked himself why animal species existed as they did, his
> > critics (often ecclesiastics, alas) told him sternly, "You can't ask
> > that question! Animals just are!"
> >
> > But he kept right on. --CGE
> >
>
> People can certainly ask such a question but that isn't what you write.
> You claim that god is the unknown answer to the question that the
> universe by its existence poses.
> That is not the same as writing that people ask the question about why
> the universe exists. The universe by its existence poses no questions.
> Humans ask questions.
> It is however a nonsense question since there is no reason to believe a
> "why" exists. It is anthropomorphizing in the extreme to ask why the
> universe exists.
> It is at heart a childish question in that children cannot conceive of
> anything happening without human agency since they haven't yet grasped
> the concept of unthinking deterministic processes.
>
> John Thornton
>
>
> >
> > John Thornton wrote:
> >
> >> C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> >>
> >>> [God] is the unknown answer to the question that the universe
> >>> by its existence poses. To say that God is the reason/cause that the
> >>> universe exists is to say nothing about how the universe exists, which
> >>> science investigates.
> >>>
> >>>
> >> This is just meaningless. This is what passes for metaphysics and
> >> sophisticated theology today. It can mean whatever the writer wishes it
> >> to mean so it is irrefutable.
> >> The universe does not by its existence pose any questions. Questions are
> >> the product of human inquiry, human minds. Questions do not exist
> >> divorced from human minds.
> >>
> >> John Thornton
> >> ___________________________________
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> >>
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