By this logic, the universe was actually created sometime in May, between playing beer pong at a fraternity house and the next morning when I woke up on a table at my own fraternity house. Also, it took longer than seven hours.
As for Last-Thursdayism, or even some-time-in-May-ism, I suppose it can’t be ruled out, but I figure if God did that sort of thing, He must have wanted us to think that we existed beforehand, and there’s really no point in us believing that we didn’t. We could just as easily wonder if we really exist, or are just part of God’s imagination.
Well…I already thought about the idea you’re advancing. But it seems to me that something doesn’t make sense. If there is no universe, there’s no time, either. So where does your “long enough timespan” come from?
Also (but it’s very blurry in my mind) : we have some understanding of the universe laws. But why these laws (including quantum physics) should be valid outside our universe…well…“outside” isn’t an appropriate word…let’s say when our universe doesn’t exist?
Finally, the “lastthursdayism” could be true. But the point is that even if it’s true, its incidence is nil. Since everything does appear as if the universe came into existence some billions years ago, nothing changes, and we have no reason to wonder about it.
It’s the same with any similar ideas : the earth has been created 6000 years ago but appears in every detail to be much older or I’m the only being who actually exist and I’m dreaming the rest of the universe. True or false, it has no incidence on my life.
What we think of as “the” universe is only a brief (but very very complex) quantum fluctuation out of vacuum. The vacuum is the universe; our universe is just a scattered handful of blips within it that we perceive as continuous and unbroken. Spacetime still exists within the vacuum, being meaningless for what we can measure, but not meaningless for the quantum fluctuations within the vacuum itself.
No need for them to; thus the proviso for other universe-configurations to pop briefly out of the vacuum, which could have other laws entirely. Perhaps when in the pure vacuum state, the laws are different such that extremely complex fluctuations are very common things. Or, er, are more common in the etheric footprints of the IPU.
Just so. Angels on the head and points of pins. It’s a neat concept in any form, fun to play with as a mental toy, just like any non-falsifiable theory.
If God created it to appear millions of years old then it is really unimportant when he actually created it. Since from the moment he created it time goes inboth directions from that point as he created it that way whether he created it last Thursdayor at the beginning of time. It doesn’t reallymatter, for all intents and purposes he wanted YOU to believe that it was millions of years old, and if god is infallible then it IS, as a day in the past is just as far in the past as a million years.
Correction, I should have said beginning of pre-history instead of beginning of time as the beginning of time was last Thursday.
However, people who espouse science usually go from a similar level of presupposition that they claim is the problem with elegant logical discourse. Really, whether or not we evolve is no more relevant to our life than whether or not we were created. Either way we can still edit our own genetic makeup or are very close to it, so it is really unimportant whether great to the 32nd power grandpa was a chimp.
I gape with awe. You are truly a great and wise philosopher.
But seriously, folks. When I was a callow youth, I used to put much thought into Descartes’ philosophy: Cogito ergo sum; All I can know is my own mind; I have no proof that the universe exists outside my own skull, blah blah blah…
Fortunately, I came to realize that it just doesn’t matter. You can never prove it, so you might as well forget it and just assume the universe is real, and get on with life.
The universe is indeed infinitly aged, but like Sam in Quantum Leap we swap bodies, if only for a day, and we remember past images and events, but the next day (tomorrow) I will wake up as someone else with their memories, and no recollection of my life in this body.
Tomorrow you may be the Buddha Dog and I could be Cecil!
[li] A different body[/li][li] Absolutely no memories of my current life[/li][li] The complete memory relevant to the new body[/li][li] None of my current personality traits[/li]
then in what sense will it be ‘me’ in the new body?
Mangetout…it depends. Remember your bringing up reincarnation at one point? What if all that you say is true…but a karmic debt does link the Mangetout-of-yore and the Mangetout-of-today? Does this justify seeing some form of continuity? Alternatively, what if memory of the past existence is potentially present but not triggered?
