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Subject: A somewhat philosophical question ( 1 of 5 )
Posted by SG


Hello Mr. Adams. I had the good fortune to catch you on the Space Network a while back. The program had an absolutely dull announcer, but fortunately he let you talk without interupting with "helpful" commentaries. One thing that caught my attention was your ideas on complexity and simplicity. You said that using God as an explanation for the universe solved nothing; such an explanation depends upon something complex (the universe) coming from something more complex (God), but that begs the question: what more complex entity created God? Simplicity, you say, produces complexity. This is what I find curious, because as far as I can tell, complexity from simplicity presents an equal problem. If we take the universe as an example, and move several links down the simplicity chain, we arrive at atoms. Moving further, we get subatomic particles. Eventually, tehre can only be two possibilities: either there is a limit to how simple something may be before it becomes nothing, or the chain of simplicity may be infinite. If the former is true, we have to accept that somehow, something emerged from nothing, and this holds no explanatory power. Should the latter be correct, we have to accept that something has always existed. Why would it be less problematic to accept an infinite chain of simplicity over an infinite chain of complexity? Or even a single, infinitely complex entity?

Sorry if this isn't the sort of thing to post here. I realize that you're a busy man, but I did want to ask.
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