# Who are we, what are we and why are we? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 20, 2009, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-we-what-are-we-and-why-are-we/514524 "2009-10-20T20:43:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-we-what-are-we-and-why-are-we/514524/21 "2009-10-27T13:28:41Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > Although you can structure sentences that appear to contradict it, I think the old adage says it best: “Science explains _how_. Metaphysics and theology explain _why_.” I think I prefer “Science explains _how_. Metaphysics and theology assumes _why_.” ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-we-what-are-we-and-why-are-we/514524/22 "2009-10-27T14:37:37Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > There is, however, no reason why such fields cannot have existed in some form _forever_ (insofar as _time_ has never not existed - _when exactly_ were these fields not there any more?). Fair enough, but is not such belief that something has existed forever with no beginning pretty much equal to a belief in a Supreme Being? Why are theists mocked for believing in a higher power, yet science can take, on faith, that these fields have just simply existed forever with no beginning? ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-we-what-are-we-and-why-are-we/514524/23 "2009-10-27T14:53:56Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Fair enough, but is not such belief that something has existed forever with no beginning pretty much equal to a belief in a Supreme Being? No, because these fields are not only _physical entities_ but they are scientifically _detectable, testable_ entities. The Higgs field is one of the main reasons the Large Hadron Collider was built in the first place. > [@](#): > > Why are theists mocked for believing in a higher power, yet science can take, on faith, that these fields have just simply existed forever with no beginning? Well, _I_ don’t mock theism itself, I just consider the God hypothesis unnecessary and ridicule only the ridiculous _extra_ beliefs that some people append to their theism. But the word ‘forever’ is a _time_ word, and time is itself an entity which sits squarely within the ambit of physics. Just because modern physics doesn’t conform to your common sense doesn’t make it comparable with superstition. As Einstein said, ‘Common sense is just the collection of prejudices you gain by the age of eighteen.’ ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-we-what-are-we-and-why-are-we/514524/24 "2009-10-27T15:59:31Z")
I don’t know how physicists would get around this, but a potential problem is we have to use technology based on the physical laws of this universe when we explore the universe. If those laws arose out of nothing in the big bang, then how do we use them to explore what existed before that? Radio waves, light waves, microwaves, gravitational waves, etc. work to understand this universe, but can they be used to understand beyond or before it? I don’t know if they’d be able to penetrate beyond this universe to figure out what is beyond or before it, if anything. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2009, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-we-what-are-we-and-why-are-we/514524/25 "2009-10-28T09:06:06Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I don’t know how physicists would get around this, but a potential problem is we have to use technology based on the physical laws of this universe when we explore the universe. If those laws arose out of nothing in the big bang, then how do we use them to explore what existed before that? Radio waves, light waves, microwaves, gravitational waves, etc. work to understand this universe, but can they be used to understand beyond or before it? I don’t know if they’d be able to penetrate beyond this universe to figure out what is beyond or before it, if anything. You’re quite right **Wesley** : if there is a true singularity at one end of ‘our’ universe, that makes _direct_ exploration of ‘before’ it unfeasible, if not impossible, and if inflation stretched out the univese at faster than the speed of light, we’ll never explore those parts which lie beyond out 78 Bn-light-year-wide region directly either. But much of science is arguably not concerned with _direct_ evidence - a scientific Theory (not merely ‘hypothesis’) usually pulls different strands of _indirect_ evidence into a consise and consistent whole. The precise details of the [cosmic microwave background](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_radiation), of the results from the LHC, of [gravitational waves](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_wave) (since, in String Theory at least, gravitons can move ‘between’ dimensions) and of many other possible experiments might at least _tell us something_ about those directly inaccessible epochs or regions, and the laws which govern ‘us’ _and_ ‘them’. ---
**Author:** ![wmdkitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19adc/32.png) [@wmdkitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmdkitty)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2009, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-we-what-are-we-and-why-are-we/514524/26 "2009-10-28T10:09:20Z")
There are stranger things in the multiverse than we can ever imagine, and I do believe that if we were to see or know these things, they would drive us mad. _twitch_ ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2009, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-we-what-are-we-and-why-are-we/514524/27 "2009-10-28T11:29:51Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > Well, that too is a metaphysics – a null-case metaphiscs to be sure, but still one. 🙂 > > And it’s precisely as unprovable as Scholasticism, Shi’a Islam, Pure Land Buddhism, or Rastafarianism. (Or Pastafarianism, devotion to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, for that matter.) I’m not too sure about that – if we found an actually qualitatively unique ‘theory of everything’, i.e. a theory that explains all fundamental interactions and is the only possible self-consistent theory to do so (not quite as inconceivable as it might seem – for instance, [E8 theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E8_Theory) is based on a certain mathematical object, an exceptional Lie group, specifically, the largest one; if it were now shown that there must be such a pattern underlying reality, by for instance showing that some interaction has a certain property not present within other mathematical objects, for which there existed a rigorous proof, and the lesser exceptional Lie groups were not feature-rich enough to construct an analogous theory, then it would seem to me to be either this or bust), it would seem to me that such a ‘null-case’ metaphysics then has all the evidence going for it that is in accordance with this theory, and furthermore becomes falsifiable, since everything that couldn’t be brought into accord with this theory would constitute a genuine gap. This might be a long shot, to be sure, but it seems conceivable enough. > [@Napier](#): > > We won’t explain everything. My cats will never understand the strategies for solving differential equations. Cats can’t understand everything. There’s not the slightest reason to suppose that the complexity and subtlety of the universe gets difficult enough to challenge us but stops just within reach of our smartest. Some things must be as hard for us to grasp as are differential equation strategies for a cat. Some things must be a million times harder than that. And some things must be a million times harder than those. Well, perhaps our intelligence is sufficiently universal at least in some cases – if, for instance, the universe is simulatable (on some conventional, but extraordinarily powerful computer), then we’re not in principle barred from understanding it, since we can perform all computations and execute all algorithms underlying this simulation ourselves. We might, however, conceivably run out of time, or just not have enough workspace available; but these things can be artificially augmented, through the use of computers (or even pen and paper). What I mean by this is that then there should be no phenomena in the universe that are fundamentally mysterious to us, and that we should be able to construct, given enough time and resources, such a simulation of all the fundamental interactions in the universe, which I think is as close to understanding as it gets (I mean, we don’t really understand the weather any better than that – or even differential equations; I certainly need some external augmentation, and be it just a pen and a paper, to work most of them). ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-we-what-are-we-and-why-are-we/514524/28 "2009-11-01T13:02:43Z")
I am satisfied with the answer to it all as, ‘Be’ cause we are! ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-we-what-are-we-and-why-are-we/514524/29 "2009-11-01T16:45:41Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > Metaphysics and theology explain _why_." Hows that going? ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2009, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-we-what-are-we-and-why-are-we/514524/30 "2009-11-02T00:37:34Z")
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