Is this a good argument for the Big Bang?
Offline I always had this one argument for the Big Bang, proving it happened. I always compare it to the creation of Hawaii, and all islands. Look at how beautiful and complex Hawaii is. It has great beaches, waterfalls, rainforests, etc. Surely something with purpose and intelligence created it right?
Well we all know that is false, and that it was actually created by an absolutely random unintelligent process.
Valcanoes, wind, ocean currents, waves, animals migrating, etc. Completely random. Thus creating Hawaii.
Is this a good argument? Anyway to make it better? Thanks!
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What?
Firstly:
a) How does the validity of BB cosmology even remotely have anything to do with the theory that the BB had an intelligent origin?
b) What on Earth does the formation of the Hawaiian archipelago have to do with BB cosmology?
c) What is the infatuation with the use of the word random to describe the oceanography, geophysics, swarm intelligence, biogenetic evolution, and all the other processes pertaining to the development of the biosphere of the Hawaiian islands? You aren't making any sense.
d) Why propose an analogous situation which has nothing to do with BB to argue for the validity of BB? There is plenty of real evidence! WMAP probe, the pictures from COBE and the Planck Satellite, HUbble's constant, Olber's paradox, Guth's inflation etc ad infinitum.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
Sorry, not a scientist here.
The point of my argument is the creation part. Random events = beautiful livable place.
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Do I understand the analogy right?
The theist question is: How can the complexity of the universe come by natural processes from the Big Bang?
Your answer: The same way natural processes made the complexity of Hawaii the same way natural processes made the complexity of the universe starting from the Big Bang.
I think the analogy is good, but won't convice a creationist anyhow, not event the simpler analogy: Snowflakes - complex crystal structures naturally occuring from less structured water molecules.
The essential part you miss in your argument is that natural processes are not random. Unpredictable, complex and unguided, but not random. If they would be random, then the theist position would be correct.
The simplest example is in biology. Random mutation cannot lead to biodiversity unless you have natural selection (survival of the fittest).
In the case of the snowflake. Heat is lost from the water and the molecules tend to arrange in the least energy position. But because not all posible arrangements are equivalent (same energy) the arrangement is not random, but in a complex crystal shape.
I hope that helps.
Cheers.
A mystic is someone who wants to understand the universe, but is too lazy to study physics.
Just argue that Slartibartfast did it. He did afterall do all the wrinkly bits around Norway so a small island would have been a mere afternoons work.
You could also argue that a giant rhesus monkey did it after smoking a joint the size of Manhattan. It just lobbed its poo into the Pacific, did some magic, and turned it into a tropical (volcano-laden) paradise.
Good night, funny man, and thanks for the laughter.