This is not cosmology, this is just sophomoric philosophy. — SophistiCat

I feel justified saying what you practice is not philosophy, it's just an evolutionary quirk.

After a couple of near misses I collide head-on with Philosopher's Arrogance. Less than 10 comments in !!! Have no time for such garbage so I'll see you later. I'm out.

Mods: please remove me from member's list. I won't be back

I only see the surface of the same side when I look at the moon, what are you guys looking at? I might as well ask if what's below the surface of the Earth actually exists because I don't look at it. Does my brain exist, heart, lungs, bones, etc? I've never witnessed a thought, even a philosophical one. For all these things I just mentioned, I see no better than the blind, who always seem to be omitted from this type of discussion. It's as if believing something doesn't exist because it can't be observed requires some faith....now there's a switch.

Let's just call the moon a cosmological constant.

They will inevitably come to the wrong conclusion about the universe.

This should serve as a warning to scientists of today. What if we have it wrong? We could also be in a similar situation like those 5 billion years from now. The present state of the universe could be just a ''phase'' in its evolution and our habit retracing the steps to the so-called Big Bang could be faulty. — TheMadFool

I have used this quote to argue with cosmologists over the years. We may live in a special time but how can you know if all the evidence of the universe's creation is still available? All it takes is one key component to be missing, yet you'd never know that it was.

I don't remember saying anything about whether math is empirical or not. I can get pro/con views on that subject just by googling. I realize the quote says nothing about math and my questions again dealt with whether or not an assumption I could make might be valid and what if it is. Hey, thanks for answering.

Being alone is like having a license to kill.

For every day I _____, I must ______.

"Life". Awesome movie. — StreetlightX

The Flying Spaghetti Monster on drugs. :grin:

I'm sure many have seen the Martin Hanczyk TED TALK re proto-cells . He shows how a simple molecular arrangement can produce life like attributes to what is essentially a chemical droplet. Great viewing if you've never seen it.

All the photo-cells in the experiments eventually run out of energy. I sat there wondering if these droplets were actually alive, even if for a few seconds? And do they die when energy is depleted and the chemicals return from the biochemical state to the physiochemical? If there are limits to a lifetime then I see no reason for a few seconds to be excluded from any chronologic scale that records lifespans. If proto-cells were alive then I think their dying played no role in evolution other then ensuring the organism's remains were available for recycling.

Hey my first post..... I think of life as an all encompassing thing, so the death of a life form is not the death knell for life itself.

Makes me think the first organism (life form) had to be adapted to the environment without ever evolving. What an incredible stroke of luck that must have been. I mean how does non living material evolve to produce a life form adapted to the conditions existing at that time? I'm thinking there was an incredible amount of proto-life under construction prior to that first organism (one that could eat, reproduce, store energy, evolve etc) emerging from the primordial ooze. There could have been no death before life. With its environment in a state of flux it appears as if death for the life form did indeed evolve....maybe.