Tim Bates wrote:
> J. Eric Mortensen said to everyone
>
> >Hello everyone, this seems to be a good time to come out of my
> >transhumanist closet:
>
> Sounds more like coming out of the creationist closet to me.
>
> >Will you not agree that some day we *may* discover that
> >the universe was created by some entity and that we in some
> >way might ask it why it did so?
>
> nope. never. Unless you have evidence that time is something other than
> the motion of matter, you must accept that just as it cannot be
> destroyed, it cannot be created.
To accept any limit simply because we don't know of a way around it, entirely circumvents the tranhumanist spirit of inquiry and exploration. I will acknowledge at this time I know of no way to destroy matter other than its transformation into energy (E=mc^2). But to say I currently don't *know* of a way to create matter, is a long way from stating it cannot be done. Since you haven't experimented an infinite number of times and tried an infinite number of variations of experiments in an attempt to create matter, you really can't say it cannot be done. You have no clue whether it can be done or not. Saying otherwise puts you into the same class of absolute TRUTH contingents as any religious fundamentalist.
Defending the spirit of J. Eric Mortensen's post - saying something *may* happen is a far cry from saying something *will* happen. I think anyone who has seriously delved into artificial life experiments, quantum cosmology, black holes, bubbling and basement universes created via traversible wormholes, in a spirit of whimsy perhaps, has entertained the notion that our universe may have been created by entities from a previous ancestral universe. However, I think it's more fun to entertain the notion of myself creating new universes. I don't know about you, but I do planning on being a 'god' myself, not to be worshipped, but to have fun creating new things - even new universes if such a thing were to ever become possible.
"Custom Universes, Inc. at your service. Please have a seat in our hyperspace lounge. One of are agents will be with you shortly. Please fill out this form while you wait. Please be sure to completely specify all of your universal constants to the 30th decimal place - as it does make a difference!"
Paul