Poll: Everything Exists.

[Costia]

if everything is possible, then it would be impossible for something to be impossible to exist.

 

[The Lugz]

According to Metaphysics if it exists in ones mind then yes it exists.
And since practically anything can exist in your head I would have to say, yes. Anything is possible.

what goes on in your head is an idealized, simplified version of physics that connects all the ideas you have with what you believe are their logical outcomes

if you 'believe' something happens, your brain can paint you a picture of it
but last time i checked, having a picture of something did not make it fact

and if a mathematician said this, hes bloody stupid.
stand back from the equations once in a while and smell the roses.

Space is infinite, therefore everything you can think of is out their somewhere.

It like the infinate amount of monkeys typing on an infinate amount of keyboards will at some point get you a complete library of all the books ever written.

Do you agree with this?

actually 'infinite monkeys' don't really work someone tested how random a monkey was capable of being, and it mostly just tapped all the keys that were easy to reach by laying it's hands on the keyboard and ignored some near the edges
which is rather amusing, considering all force in the universe follows the easiest route, it happens to be a microcosm for the entire universe

anything very different from us would likely be extremely rare
( unless we're the rarity, you always have to count that possibility )

personally in a universe where everything decays, everything looses energy i would say intelligent life with the ability to generate order from chaos would be the most rare thing there is

i would say we are the /*/*/*/*..66`¬
combination from the keyboard, amidst the qwidvoksdvdv,ca/'[kcjscjmma 's that prevail amidst the chaos of the stars and planets
if you want to equate the comparisons

of-course, i could be wrong but it fits nicely for now

 

[Doclector]

Anything is possible because the bounds of possibility have not been set by a cosmic deity, or written in stone and handed down from the ruler of reality, they were set by us humans. As much as we like to think so, we don't know everything, and there's always the possibility that we're wrong, no matter how slight. Things can be unlikely, but never impossible, as even the word itself was invented by imperfect beings.

 

[sinterklaas]

We don't know whether space is infinite or not. But yes, if space were infinite everything within the physical laws of our universe has happened, is happening or will happen.

We can ever further extend the concept to an infinite amount of universes, all with different physical laws. Every videogame you ever played has it's own universe. Every movie does, every cartoon does. Every bit of fantasy that ever crossed your mind does. With an infinite amount of universes, everything exists.

To the naysayers out there:
Our bubble of matter (usually called the universe) is expanding out into space, and there doesn't seem to be any boundaries to this space. Thus infinite space. Infinite space. And we know that our bubble originated from a big bang (probably). What are the odds, that this is the ONLY big bang in this infinite space? I would say.... 0.
So, with infinite space, and a (possible) infinite amount of "universes"(or big bangs) then anything and everything is possible .


Short comment: there are many big bangs out there. so anything is possible.

No. The universe doesn't need to be expanding into empty space.

 

[Ledan]

I don't think that everything exists, especially in terms of evolution/animals etc. I mean sure I can think of a rhino with wings and rainbow-coloured skin. But in terms of evolution, that's completely impractical and so probably won't exist.

Ah yes... the elusive flying rainbow rhino. Natively called the Kumwait, only found in the savannah mountains of Mian'gan, orbiting the blue sun Jedoah. The Kumwait evolved into having rainbow colored skin, due to the coloring of the native rocks of the rainbow mountains. It flies from it's nest in the mountains down to the very nearby savannahs, where it grasses. This grass is not rainbow coloured, but the rainbow stripes of the Kumwait which causes a natural camouflage effect.
To fly, the Kumwait uses a buoyancy bladder. This bladder is filled when it naturally breaks down a rock commonly found in these moutains, and causes great bouyancy due to the sulphur rich air of Mian'gan. Thus, the Kumwait can remain a large animal with wings, which is normally not found on other planets.
Unfortunately, poachers have started hunting the Kumwait, for it's dazzling Rainbow colored horn, it's fine leather, and the softness of it's feathers.
It's young are hatched from an egg, rainbow coloured of course, and breast feed from the mother. The Kumwait is a semi-herd animal. Preferring to stay together, but pretending like they just happened to come across the same meadow. Their young thus grow up together, and in relative safety. They will only join the herd when their wings are ready, before that they must rely on their mother for sustenance.
The male kumwait is known for knocking fighting with other males in the sky, to show the female kumwait their superiority. Of course, there are certain bull Kumwait that let the bigger bulls fight, and sneak off to woe the female Kumwait while the bigger bulls are distracted. Much like the Cuddlefish of Earth, although no female disguises are worn.
Further investigation of the humble and majestic Kumwait is required, for we know little else about it.

 

[Kataskopo]

According to Metaphysics if it exists in ones mind then yes it exists.
And since practically anything can exist in your head I would have to say, yes. Anything is possible.

what goes on in your head is an idealized, simplified version of physics that connects all the ideas you have with what you believe are their logical outcomes

if you 'believe' something happens, your brain can paint you a picture of it
but last time i checked, having a picture of something did not make it fact

and if a mathematician said this, hes bloody stupid.
stand back from the equations once in a while and smell the roses.


...

Dude, don't confuse Physics with Metaphysics!! One is a scientific discipline and the other is a branch of philosophy!

 

[kurokotetsu]

To start with, space is not infinite.

However, let's assume that it is. Let's assume an infinite expanse, and infinite amount of matter, and an infinite amount of energy. Even then, not everything needs to exist. For one there are limitations (because of physics and chemistry and such) that prohibit certain things/combinations from existing anywhere. Even that aside, there is no necessity that in an infinite sample pool, every possible option will be represented. It absolutely possible to have a sample size of, say, 10^1000 integers, randomly selected from the numbers zero through nine. You do not HAVE to have every number represented. It is incredibly unlikely that you will not get at least one of each number, but it is entirely possible. It is also entirely possible to draw only one number for every iteration of picking a number--you could end up with 10^1000 sixes.

It's not a particularly complex idea, but it's not immediately apparent. As you consider more and more arbitrary things, the chance that any one particular thing fall into that pool approached 1, but does not need to reach it if there is no limit to the number of things you can pick from to arbitrarily observe.

So, the monkey and typewriter thought experiment. You can in theory have an infinite number of monkeys typing on infinite typewriters forever. They may never produce any sort of sentence at all. The likelihood that they will produce any arbitrarily chosen string of text does approach 1, though, but it does not ever need to reach that.

A better example. If you have a coin and you flip it, you have a 1/2 chance of getting heads. If you flip it again, you still have a 1/2 chance of getting heads, and so on and so on. It is completely possible to get heads every time for 100 flips, and then for 1000 flips, and then 10000 flips, and so on and so on for any arbitrarily large number of flips. As you approach infinity, your likelihood of getting heads remains at 1/2 on any given flip, so you are no less likely to get heads than before, so you could go on never getting heads forever.

So in short: just because you have an infinite number of things, there is absolutely no way to argue that any given thing HAS to exist within that set of things. Therefore, the assertion that "the universe is infinite, therefore everything has to exist" is fundamentally flawed above and beyond the assumption of an infinite universe.

OK, let's go to the mathematical concept of Almost surely [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almost_surely]. While it is different form "sure" event, by practical results is almost undistiguishable, as the contrary event has a probability of zero. You could have an infinite string of heads, but the probability of that happening is zero, so by most practical standards, they aren't considered. Also the monkeys have a proability of zero of not writing Hamlet in an infinite amount of time. Could it happen? The practical answer is no (alhough the stric mathematical answer is that it almost sure that it would happen): You are trying to counter an argument talking about events with a probability of zero. These events don't have a probability of 0.999999, they have a proabbility of one (with infnite number of tries/monkeys, which is not tha same as a very large amount whcih you sometime seem to use for example when you say 10^1000 is a finite number and therefore the proability of the event you talk about is not zero). There are theorems about these cases that prove that with infinite tries, the proabbility is one. mathematically it isn't that incorrect (for the theorems, see Law of large numbers and infinite mokeny theorem).

I'm not exactly sure when whole scientific world united and announced that it's impossible to observe interior of Black Hole and noone ever, to the end of time will try to accomplish this task ?
Could you kindly provide me with a citation ?

Is Wiki enough? It has a comprehensive explanation of Event horizon [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_horizon] and even in the black hole article [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hole] "information from that event cannot reach an outside observer, making it impossible to determine if such an event occurred.[43]" (the 43 is the refference to [i}Cosmic Catastrophes[/i] by Craig Wheeler, book published by the respected Cambridge university Press). I guess I could go to other sources, such as (if my memory serves me right) The Universe in a Nuthsell of Stephen Hawkin. Will it never be tried? I don't know, but if relativity stands in the information front (as in no information can travel faster than the speed of light), it seems like it sill be a futile enterprise.

 

[Ledan]

To the naysayers out there:
Our bubble of matter (usually called the universe) is expanding out into space, and there doesn't seem to be any boundaries to this space. Thus infinite space. Infinite space. And we know that our bubble originated from a big bang (probably). What are the odds, that this is the ONLY big bang in this infinite space? I would say.... 0.
So, with infinite space, and a (possible) infinite amount of "universes"(or big bangs) then anything and everything is possible .


Short comment: there are many big bangs out there. so anything is possible.

No no no, the universe is not expanding into anything. It's an intrinsic expansion, relative by the separation of the parts of the universe.

Okay..... but there must still be more than just this one big bang. I refuse to believe that this is the only bubble of matter.

 

[Random berk]

You seem to be under the impression that space is infinite. This is a plausibly false assumption.

Space is probably infinite. Having said that, the amount of matter in that space probably isn't infinite. If you had the means to fly though space forever, then after countless billions of years, eventually you'll probably fly beyond the limits of the material thrown from the big bang. After that, there would probably just be nothing but emptiness.

Unless other big bangs have taken place else where, then you'd eventually fly into another universe, or something. Who knows, really?

Damn, that's the most even poll I've ever seen on the Escapist, 50.2 for yes, 49.8 for no.

 

[Ledan]

We don't know whether space is infinite or not. But yes, if space were infinite everything within the physical laws of our universe has happened, is happening or will happen.

We can ever further extend the concept to an infinite amount of universes, all with different physical laws. Every videogame you ever played has it's own universe. Every movie does, every cartoon does. Every bit of fantasy that ever crossed your mind does. With an infinite amount of universes, everything exists.

To the naysayers out there:
Our bubble of matter (usually called the universe) is expanding out into space, and there doesn't seem to be any boundaries to this space. Thus infinite space. Infinite space. And we know that our bubble originated from a big bang (probably). What are the odds, that this is the ONLY big bang in this infinite space? I would say.... 0.
So, with infinite space, and a (possible) infinite amount of "universes"(or big bangs) then anything and everything is possible .


Short comment: there are many big bangs out there. so anything is possible.

No. The universe doesn't need to be expanding into empty space.

Fine. I have no real proof it does. But there must still be several big bangs out there, several bubbles of matter. So, anything is possible. Pretty much.

 

[crudus]

No, there are still physical laws that dictate the universe. You will not get matter that repels other matter via gravity, you will not get beyond Feynminium, and you cannot travel faster than light in a vacuum, etc. The multi-verse is another matter.

Nope. To the best of our knowledge, there is not an infinity of matter in the universe, and it is all governed by the same physical laws.

Fun fact: There are an estimated 10^80 atoms in the universe.

Spoiler: or...

100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Space is infinite, therefore everything you can think of is out their somewhere.

It like the infinate amount of monkeys typing on an infinate amount of keyboards will at some point get you a complete library of all the books ever written.

Do you agree with this?

Fun fact: that "sometime" will be almost immediately.

Also, no I don't.

 

[anihilato]

The thought that everything exists is silly. I'm pretty sure that my own personal battle-cruiser made of fudge isn't waiting for me somewhere. Space is most likely finite, ergo the things in it must be as well.

 

[Versuvius]

The multiverse consists of an infinite amount of alternate universe (theoretically) and due to the nature of infinity anything can and will happen or has happened, because these alternate universes don't actually HAVE to follow our laws of physics. Our's is very finite and only certain thing's can happen, but that is still a very large number of things.

 

[Kataskopo]

To the naysayers out there:
Our bubble of matter (usually called the universe) is expanding out into space, and there doesn't seem to be any boundaries to this space. Thus infinite space. Infinite space. And we know that our bubble originated from a big bang (probably). What are the odds, that this is the ONLY big bang in this infinite space? I would say.... 0.
So, with infinite space, and a (possible) infinite amount of "universes"(or big bangs) then anything and everything is possible .


Short comment: there are many big bangs out there. so anything is possible.

No no no, the universe is not expanding into anything. It's an intrinsic expansion, relative by the separation of the parts of the universe.

Okay..... but there must still be more than just this one big bang. I refuse to believe that this is the only bubble of matter.

Well, I refuse to be broke and not-having-an-audi-R8-Spider, but that doesn't make it any more real

 

[Russian_Assassin]

I tend not to think about this sort of thing when I am not high from smoking weed, as my cognitive skills are not sufficient in a sober state, but anyway.

I say yes. We can not say with certainty that something is impossible when we do not know 99,9999999~% of our universe and the laws that exist in it.

 

[Robert Sanders]

You seem to be under the impression that space is infinite. This is a plausibly false assumption.

You're thinking of the universe, which encompasses stars, planets, cosmic dust, etc. There is a finite amount of that, but the actual empty space around and in between everything would appear to be infinite.

Not really. There's no real reason to believe that empty space can't be quantized at a small enough length scale.

Yes, but the question is, if space is finite, what's containing it?

 

[Utrechet]

If Everything is Possible, then that means Nothing has to exist for everything to be possible.
You just got yourself into a paradox.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Despite everything being possible, probability is the thing that'll keep those hoards of space dragons and, pocket-sized Cthulhus from being too abundant. Of course, the depressing thing is that certain things may only exist in the universe we created for them. For example, it could be that The Fantastic Four and Batman do co-exist in this universe but possibly only as comic/ movie/ video game/ TV show characters. Getting into a universe/ plane of existence shared by dragons or, Spawn could be impossible at this point but they could be actual, living things in their own respective planes of reality.

 

[Dfskelleton]

Why of course. Of course it is.
Sorry, couldn't resist. I suppose that anything is possible, but that means it's possible that everything is impossible... hmm...

 

[Versuvius]

To the naysayers out there:
Our bubble of matter (usually called the universe) is expanding out into space, and there doesn't seem to be any boundaries to this space. Thus infinite space. Infinite space. And we know that our bubble originated from a big bang (probably). What are the odds, that this is the ONLY big bang in this infinite space? I would say.... 0.
So, with infinite space, and a (possible) infinite amount of "universes"(or big bangs) then anything and everything is possible .


Short comment: there are many big bangs out there. so anything is possible.

No no no, the universe is not expanding into anything. It's an intrinsic expansion, relative by the separation of the parts of the universe.

Okay..... but there must still be more than just this one big bang. I refuse to believe that this is the only bubble of matter.

Well, I refuse to be broke and not-having-an-audi-R8-Spider, but that doesn't make it any more real

The empty space outside our space will without a doubt have more big bangs going on due to the nature of how we occured. Energy in a total vacuum with briefly condense into forms of matter, in the infinite of everything outside of what we know, our bubble, this is going to be happening without a doubt.