The nature of existence

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NewDArt

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So, there are a few theories about how we've come to exist.

I mean, there's religion and the concept of an omnipotent entity (or entities) having created us. Then there's the scientific theory of the big bang and evolution. The ever popular "Matrix" notion - we're living in a computer simulation - is probably worth mentioning, too.

Which do you subscribe to?

Do you have an alternate theory? Are you aware of an alternate theory?

If so, would you care to share that theory?

I'm currently writing a science fiction novel - and I've come up with an alternate theory that sort of makes sense. I would like to get an idea of whether it's an original concept - or if it's been done before.

I'd rather not reveal what it is, though.

So, I'm curious if you've ever heard another "creation" myth or theory.
 
I personally don't care enough about creation to have formed a good enough opinion on it.

However, as a separate idea, I have always thought the loop theory interesting. I don't know the actual name, but basically it goes something like this:

- Humans exist as they are now
- There is a cataclysmic event (asteroid, war, ice age,...)
- Humans go back to stone age or earlier technological level due to loss of knowledge and ability to transmit information
- Humans learn the same things again
- Humans exist as they are now and repeat cycle

Each cycle take approximately 40-50,000 years giving enough time for old civilizations to completely disappear and remaining as old relics.

I doubt this is true, but I like the thought.
 
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I personally don't care enough about creation to have formed a good enough opinion on it.

However, as a separate idea, I have always thought the loop theory interesting. I don't know the actual name, but basically it goes something like this:

- Humans exist as they are now
- There is a cataclysmic event (asteroid, war, ice age,…)
- Humans go back to stone age or earlier technological level due to loss of knowledge and ability to transmit information
- Humans learn the same things again
- Humans exist as they are now and repeat cycle

Each cycle take approximately 40-50,000 years giving enough time for old civilizations to completely disappear and remaining as old relics.

I doubt this is true, but I like the thought.

An interesting concept - but it doesn't really explain the nature of our existence - or how we were created :)

I think I might have heard of this before - and I'm pretty sure it's part of popular entertainment somewhere.

But I agree, it's a neat idea.
 
water droplets + dust + lightning= proteins
water droplets + proteins + lightning = life

Then slow evolution of living cells to living organisms to humans eventually.

Zeus could have been the dude casting the lightnings, but I think it's just a normal weather phenomenon personally.
 
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water droplets + dust + lighting = proteins
water droplets + proteins + lighting = life

Then slow evolution of living cells to living organisms to humans eventually.

Zeus could have been the dude casting the lightings, but I think it's just a normal weather phenomenon personally.

Where does water droplets + dust + lighting come from in this scenario? :)
 
Where does water droplets + dust + lighting come from in this scenario? :)

Magic ?

No, I know my idea is just a neat idea and nothing else, but I don't think creation makes sense and like you say the scientific creation myths don't account for the before either really as far as I understand them

What was there before the big bang, where did that come from etc. ?

This is why some kind of loopy mechanism makes some sense to me, albeit on a galactic scale rather than a earth/human scale only.
 
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Magic ?

No, I know my idea is just a neat idea and nothing else, but I don't think creation makes sense and like you say the scientific creation myths don't account for the before either really as far as I understand them

What was there before the big bang, where did that come from etc. ?

This is why some kind of loopy mechanism makes some sense to me, albeit on a galactic scale rather than a earth/human scale only.

Big bang makes no sense to me, either :)

But I've personally talked to "serious" scientists who insist that something from nothing makes perfect sense.

I figured if that was ok, then I had some leeway when creating my own theory ;)
 
Big Bang, a god, aliens, I have no idea where we come from, but based on my daily interactions with the human race I often suspect that I come from some place totally different than most everyone else.:-/
 
Big Bang, a god, aliens, I have no idea where we come from, but based on my daily interactions with the human race I often suspect that I come from some place totally different than most everyone else.:-/

I know the feeling :)
 
Where does water droplets + dust + lighting come from in this scenario? :)

Physics.

Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms form water and dust is other type of atoms that joined together. Lightning is just how electrons discharge themselves and part of static electricity built up because of matter interaction (aka friction).

Unless you are wondering where the initial matter (well mass really) in this universe come from and why physics works the way it does. Then yeah, magic is as good as an answer as any for that.
 
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Physics.

Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms form water and dust is other type of atoms that joined together. Lighting is just how electrons discharge themselves and part of static electricity built up because of matter interaction (aka friction).

Unless you are wondering where the initial matter (well mass really) in this universe come from and why physics works the way it does. Then yeah, magic is as good as an answer as any for that.

Lighting or Lightning?
 
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....
However, as a separate idea, I have always thought the loop theory interesting.
....

Re creation, I've often wondered about something similar to this but on a more cosmic scale. Big bang happens > the universe expands for a loooong time > reaches a sort of high water mark then contracts until.... > big bang happens again. We see this kind of cyclic thing around us all the time... Well I choose to believe we do

As to the nature of existence, I think I'm a bit of a nihilist. Beyond keeping the species going there's no other point to it, it just is. The events that have led to me typing in the post are all randomly connected going back into time immemorial. The universe is so vast and so old that any set of randomly interconnected events that could happen does end up happening, eventually, somewhere. This thought and the sheer enormity of the uncaring universe sometimes depresses me but I can't bring myself to subscribe to any sort of higher being with a hand on the tiller kind of idea. At least not yet.
 
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I sometimes wonder if part of the problem is more how our brain works. Meaning the human mind likes to find patterns. It can imagine things. It wants to make sense out of chaos.

So you get down to the big bang and say where did that come from? Something from nothing? What was before that?

I am not saying there isn't an answer or anything. Just stating that sometimes I wonder if our brains make us ask certain things that perhaps have an answer we can't accept because we can't understand it or because we are looking for more than there is.

Not saying religion either, nothing to do with that. Just that our brains are limited and we try to fit reality and the universe into it because it is the only option we have.

So I think about this a lot but don't fret too much over it.

I have my own illusions to get through life like many though. I think we came from Chaos originally - random luck just worked out right. I also think it is possible the big bang is a cycle or that there are many universes besides our own way beyond our ability to sense. Multiple big bangs occurring over space and time for eternity. Often with no life to experience it but giving infinity I would expect there would be any number of other forms of existence - perhaps so alien we wouldn't even be able to detect it.

As for purpose - well if from chaos there isn't really any purpose. I have thought that our purpose is to learn and to experience - that we are like little bots for the Universe that go out and live and experience things and then return that to the Universe itself (how and why remains open). Just existing is an experience that adds to the greater whole. Self-awareness for the mere sake of awareness - we exist so we can be aware of the Universe. That was an answer I read in a series of books by Alan Dean Foster (Adventures of Pip & Flinx).

And when you die you return to star-dust.

EDIT: Perhaps a more succint way of putting part of this is that we expect to have a start and an end; a before and an after. But perhaps those human constructs simply don't apply to the true nature of reality.
 
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Something from nothing is the scientific answer.

Not sure which version requires more faith.. science or God option. I know its cool to accept science and dump religion right now, but all things considered objectively both require great amounts of faith.
 
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Science definitely requires MUCH more faith than a belief in God!! :D Perhaps I'm just a little biased though!!!! :)
 
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Science definitely requires MUCH more faith than a belief in God!! :D Perhaps I'm just a little biased though!!!! :)
Unless you've personally replicated the experiments read from scientific bibles I suppose most the science floating around in peoples heads is a form of faith.

What isn't faith, really? Everything you hear gets your judgement and then your faith. If I head out the door I do everything in faith that others do as they should. But I can't have faith that God will do anything.

I don't believe you need to have faith in God. Faith, trust, what have you, is the result of a judgement and really only applicable to your fellow man. God would be above that in the same way a programmer is beyond the faith of the people in his game. If I make a god sim I know full well if they have faith because they're designed to. They don't do things they're not programmed for. I can make them react to things but while they may look up at me and cheer for helping them carry wood to the stockpile they can never really see me and I can't teach them how.

Edit: Remember that Star Trek movie, number 5, I think? Where they go looking for God and find him and he asks for a Starship?
"What does God want with a starship?" :)
 
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It is to do with the nature of existence. God didn't just design man with choice; he designed all the "gameplay" for the choice. Whether you pick good or evil in life the content is there for both by design. Whether you feel good or bad is a feeling which has been written and just as functional and amazing a piece of code.

So, what to do when someone or something is suffering? Is the gift of experiencing this "bad" part of reality worth more than just death and exiting the program? Well, I guess that depends on your faith in an afterlife.

But we know your body and its senses which perceive reality in your brain remains on earth.

As a programmer of a God-sim I can't help my followers leave their reality and leap out of the screen into heaven where I apparently must be.

I would have to make them a whole new game to be imported to and that sounds unlikely considering the scope of the project. There can be no good without evil to compare it to so I'm not sure what the Heaven game would do to be a "good" experience. It seems more likely, based off RPG games, that reincarnation is a better option than exporting to a new game that doesn't really work because of the lack of conflict.

Better start building up those karma points! Next time you go to kill a spider remember the game and put him outside instead because next life you might be controlling a spider! :D
 
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Physics.

Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms form water and dust is other type of atoms that joined together. Lightning is just how electrons discharge themselves and part of static electricity built up because of matter interaction (aka friction).

Unless you are wondering where the initial matter (well mass really) in this universe come from and why physics works the way it does. Then yeah, magic is as good as an answer as any for that.

Yeah, it's the very origin of existence I'm talking about.

I mean, I can come up with hundreds of theories about how things have come into being IF I ignore the source and the origin.

But I've come up with something that, while not entirely wholesome, should suffice as an explanation in most ways.

I found that a bit hard, so I'm just wondering if there are other explanations out there.
 
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