If the sun blew up...

F

Finsnuffle

Registered Member
If the sun exploded, destroying the Earth, would the universe still exist? I mean, can the physical universe exist without anything to observe it? Must there be an outside observer (ie. "God")? Does time have meaning without anyone to observe?

Possibilities I've thought of:
1. God exists, and would keep directing the universe and probably create life again.
2. God does not exist now, but would come into existence when no other life existed, and disappear after making new life.

-Assume there is no other life in the universe.
-This is a thought experiment. Please do not argue by saying the sun won't explode, or life probably exists elsewhere. Anything else is fine.
 
this is pointless existentialism. I exist, therefore I cannot know if my existence supports the existence of the universe. anyone else can say the same thing. there is no way of testing for the truth of any answers anyone gives.

what if I said "yes, yes, no, yes" to your questions? what does that prove? nothing. like I said, pointless existentialism. this thread should be closed for its uselessness.

(sorry to be so rough on a new member, try and develop the ability to catch these types of pointless topics before you post)
 
well, finsnuffle......
what i think is that the point of view is seriously where the thought should start.
if g-d exists, then yes, the universe goes on.
if other life exists (i know you warned against saying this), then yes the universe goes on.

like i said....where you want to go with it should really be the point of an exercise like this.
 
Oh, the "does a tree make a sound when it falls and nobody is there to hear it" thing. Well yes of course it does. And of course the universe will exist if there are no eyes and ears within it. It existed for billions of years before Earth formed afterall...
 
cato said:
this is pointless existentialism. I exist, therefore I cannot know if my existence supports the existence of the universe. anyone else can say the same thing. there is no way of testing for the truth of any answers anyone gives.

what if I said "yes, yes, no, yes" to your questions? what does that prove? nothing. like I said, pointless existentialism. this thread should be closed for its uselessness.

(sorry to be so rough on a new member, try and develop the ability to catch these types of pointless topics before you post)
Click to expand...

You are correct. However, I wasn't exactly trying to "prove God exists." That's just as impossible as proving that God doesn't exist. I was basically attempting to assert that belief in God is not as completely irrational as many on this forum say. I understand the skeptic attitude of not believeing anything that cannot be proven, but it does not strike me as as completely rational as many believe it is.

I have read many books on this God person and ideas about it/him/whatever, am constantly bedgered by people who seem to think they are the only ones this God-person likes, and are "worried about my soul," both of my parents have claimed to have seen visions, and I have my own ideas (which are, of course, impossible to prove.)

However, I have read far fewer books on the subject of, say, Mongolia. I have never been there, nor met anyone from there.

From my subjective view of the universe, I have more "evidence" for the existence of God than for the existence of Mongolia. However, despite this, I accept that Mongolia almost certainly exists. If I accept the existence of Mongolia without accepting at least the probable existence of God, I am being inconsistent.
If I tell people I don't believe in the probable existence of God, I'm an atheist.
If I tell people I don't believe in the probable existence of Mongolia, I'm an idiot.

However, Cato, your point is still valid. The initial experiment was a bit empty.

KennyJC said:
Oh, the "does a tree make a sound when it falls and nobody is there to hear it" thing. Well yes of course it does. And of course the universe will exist if there are no eyes and ears within it. It existed for billions of years before Earth formed afterall...
Click to expand...

If you think either my question or the old riddle has an exact answer, you completely missed the point...
 
Finsnuffle said:
If the sun exploded, destroying the Earth, would the universe still exist?
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Yes. Contrary to what religion says, the sun is not the center of the universe.
 
finsnuffle said:
From my subjective view of the universe, I have more "evidence" for the existence of God than for the existence of Mongolia. However, despite this, I accept that Mongolia almost certainly exists.
Click to expand...
you would have to, it objectively does
finsnuffle said:
If I accept the existence of Mongolia without accepting at least the probable existence of God, I am being inconsistent.
Click to expand...
how so, Mongolia has objective evidence to it's existence, the other does'nt.
finsnuffle said:
If I tell people I don't believe in the probable existence of God, I'm an atheist.
Click to expand...
correct.
finsnuffle said:
If I tell people I don't believe in the probable existence of Mongolia, I'm an idiot.
Click to expand...
and correct again.
 
c7ityi_ said:
if there is something to observe, there is an observer.
Click to expand...

*************
M*W: My, my, we've been testy lately, haven't we? What does it actually mean "if the sun blew up?"

It would mean that Jesus would explode into bits and pieces. It would mean his guts would develop an enormous amount of methane gas and would ignite. It would mean that he no longer existed as a human being (but isn't that what sciforums is all about anyway?).

It could mean that you and everybody else who believes in a deity would also ignite and blow up. But, being methane gas which it is, you would simply go out as one big fart.

You can than your creator for that.
 
like the physical sun gives light to the physical world, the spiritual sun gives light to the spiritual world.
 
:eek: :confused:

First things first.

I did not state my personal belief on what a god-not god-or f"cking whatever was. I said I believe in God. I did not say my idea of God was the same thing as any F"cked up organized religion that says everyone who doesn't agree is going straight to some kind of Hell. I did not say the sun is the center of the universe. I used the sun exploding as an example because it would kill all life on eath. Anything else that killed all life would work just as well. I did not post this to proselytize, because I don't support any specific organized religion. I posted because it was a question that interested me. I was not trying to imply that any specific group is smarter or stupider than any other group. I never said I had all the answers.

OK, now that that is out of the way.

c7ity1 said:
if there is something to observe, there is an observer.
Click to expand...

This is basically my arguement. I can't prove it. Thus, it is a point of faith.

It is possible I am wrong, and the universe would continue working just fine if life ceased to exist. However, there is, by definition, no way to prove this. By the same arguement as above, that makes it a point of faith.

Are there any hard objective facts that make one point more likely or less likely than the other? To my knowledge, there aren't. If anyone has an arguement, please present it.
 
Finsnuffle said:
It is possible I am wrong, and the universe would continue working just fine if life ceased to exist. However, there is, by definition, no way to prove this. By the same arguement as above, that makes it a point of faith.
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There is no way to prove anything if there are no observations.

However, we know from observation that the Universe currently exists.
We can also observe light that existed prior to life on this planet - and thus can deduce that the universe existed prior to life.

The rational scientific conclusion is thus to assume that the Universe will continue on without other observers.
We can not categorically prove this - but it is certainly the most rational scientific conclusion.

This differs from the concept of God - where there is no evidence at all of its existence, either currently or in the past.

Finsnuffle said:
Are there any hard objective facts that make one point more likely or less likely than the other? To my knowledge, there aren't. If anyone has an arguement, please present it.
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Yes - the evidence.

There are of course other explanations - all entirely logical....
Such as God having created the Universe with everything already in place. He could have done this 6000 years ago - he could have done it 6 seconds ago. There is no evidence that this is so. There is no evidence that this is not so. And nor can either situation be proven or disproven. It is thus not a valid scientific theory. And to believe this would be a matter of faith (i.e. zero evidence).
 
I once heard a weird calculation/theory, it went something like this;

If/when the sun blows up, every-single planet will be destroyed, that is all except Mars!

Somehow some crazy scientist has calculated, with complete and utter guess work, that mars will somehow survive this devestating explosion, one which destroys all the other planets in the solar system!

Has anyone else heard of this rather 'dodgy' theory?

:m:
 
Don't worry about the sun blowing up someday.
If you do your homework you'll find that man has already blown up one entire planet - i.e. (the asteriod belt), http://www.metaresearch.org/solar system/eph/eph2000.asp
devastated the surface of another - i.e. (Mars), and is about to annihilate the better part of that which currently draws breath on earth.

Don't they say....."third times a charm"
 
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There is a belief system (I forget what it's called) that the person is convinced that there nothing exists outside of their own mind. I have proof they are wrong as I exist.

This notion that nothing exists if no life is around is BS as the universe quite clearly existed before it was possible for life to get going. Now there is a lot of proof for that, but if you want to ignore it in order to make yourself feel more important, go ahead.
 
I don't have a clue what you are talking about....

Back to the topic though; here is a link to some data.
http://www.metaresearch.org/solar system/eph/eph2000.asp

This shows an "signature" of explosion from a planetary source for the asteriod belt......and as for Mars, it's surface seems to be covered with a highly radioactive substance called Xe129, a fission product.

The most common compounds of iodine are the iodides of sodium and potassium (KI) and the iodates (KIO3).

129I has a (half-life 15.7 million years) is a product of 129Xe spallation in the atmosphere and uranium and plutonium fission, both in subsurface rocks and nuclear reactors. Nuclear processes, in particular nuclear fuel reprocessing and atmospheric nuclear weapons tests have now swamped the natural signal for this isotope.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodides
 
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