GoghGoner wrote:I would guess that nothing created our universe, it just happens, and that time as we know doesn't exist without our universe. It is interesting that time, which we base our entire lives on, is completely illusory.
Well, our best current understanding is that the universe is a cycle. Last I heard, the theory was that after the big bang the universe kept expanding, and will keep expanding, until at some point it will begin contracting right on down to the finite point again (the singularity) and then you have another big bang and the whole show starts all over again.
But then I seem to remember reading something more recent that suggests the universe will just keep expanding, eventually tearing itself to shreds. The cyclical theory makes more sense to me, seeing as how nature is really all about cycles. But if it is a cycle, I keep wondering what started it and then even if you find a "creator" then who created the creator and on it goes to infinity -- so no matter how you slice it, everything must be a cycle with no beginning and no end, as hard as that is for us to comprehend.
As for time, it's not so much that our individual lives are an illusion, it's more like we just experience one possible life among countless lives we're living simultaneously (but are unaware of). According to quantum theory, every possible outcome exists simultaneously. So if in this universe a person dies, there is another universe where they continue to live. Every time you make a decision, you in effect create another parallel universe.
It's intriguing that so much of quantum theory meshes perfectly with buddhist teachings (which predate Christ by 500 years). Quantum entanglement is very familiar to Buddhists. As the old koan goes, does a dog have Buddha-nature? According to Buddhism, the answer is yes since all things are connected. And according to quantum entanglement theory, all particles were entangled at the moment of the Big Bang, and they remain entangled no matter how far apart they may be.
But I'm getting pretty far off track here as far as the original post goes. There's so much that's fascinating about just our solar system.. assuming no peak oil collapse, within our lifetime we'll find out whether there are oceans on some of those gas giant moons (I forget which ones they suspect has water under the ice, is Europa one of them or is it Titan?). And where there's water, our experience on Earth tells us there will be life so who knows what we'll find.