[yor_on]

It's cool FM, what I mean is that there are some pretty knowledgeable guys writing what's called 'hard core' SF, even some physicists. And you could indeed make this into a hardcore SF, as you could use strings and branes for it, together with fermions bosons and 'anti particles'. A lot of it depending on what you yourself find plausible, or would like to see. It can be very hard to differ between science and what one would like, even for those knowledgeable. There are no set truths in science, the best we can do is to explore and set up good experiments. We've come to a point where our direct experiments only becomes a stepping stone for inferring, which actually means that we're trying to explore what we can't measure, except indirectly, then inferring and fishing out truths from it. It's a very difficult universe, but I believe we're all doing our best to define it.

The danger is one where one decide it only can have one explanation, namely mine
Or yours.

[dlorde]

... the question I pose is whether gravitational forces outside our observable universe may have an influence on our universe.

Almost certainly the observable universe is smaller than the whole universe, so almost certainly gravitational forces sourced beyond the observable universe will affect the observable universe. This isn't to say this influence is from another universe, unless you define our universe to be the observable universe only.

[Pmb]

Surely not, as he/she did not create the false vacuum, but simply caused the universe to develop from pre-existing material.

In the first place this is not a good place to discuss religion. I only pointed to that page because it has a diagram that I wanted to use.

In the second place I strongly disagree with your argument. In my opinion that's analogous to saying that Leonardo Da Vinci never created a work of art because all he did was to arrange pigment on a canvas. For the same reason its also analogous to saying that no human being ever created anything. That's according to your use of the term "create." So it's concievable, in your opinion, that an intelligent designer could not have created this or any other universe if he used a false vacuum? Thus the god of Abrahamic religions, if he exists, may not be a god at all.

That which causes a universe to be created using existing material is one way to define an intelligent designer and one way to define the term "god." Did you notice the use of lower case "g"?

Did you actually read the entire paragraph that was contained it? Because following that question I explicitly stated the following

Can it be said that the scientist from our universe is the god (lower case is used to respect the God of my religion) of the child universe he created? This question is asked so as to stimulate the mind as to what it really means when we use the term God. Do we mean the intelligent designer/creator of this universe or to we mean an omnipotent omniscient being who created the universe. An interesting question to ask of science now is if it is actually possible for an advanced race to obtain the minimal requirements to do the job. Perhaps God will not allow this to happen so perhaps He made it impossible. There's the fun of physics and religion. We can ask these cool questions. We don't really need an answer because it is usually the question that leads us to new and interesting things.

In the sense of an intelligent designer then I hold that the answe is yes, i.e. we can say that a "god" designed the universe and caused it to come into existance.

Note: I won't discuss religion in a physis discussion board beyond what I've said in this thread up to and including this post. If you want to continue then I suggest you start a thread in the appropriate forum.

[majorminor]

How would a parallel line affect another parallel line. When I think of multi-verses , I imagine them to exist because of directional splits in a time line.  Major decisions being made , fractures in what was deterministic becoming   quantum  -both things happen making for  time lines like in the SF movies.  I know this thinking is simplistic but  if it was the case, I imagine that the other universe is in perfect balance with ours(if any contact was possible) and  would only be physically available by faster than speed of light travel. This I imagine because when the split happens I think of it as a function of distance.  How many splits happen ? Does every possible thing occur or human observation has it's say.
I know FM  that you are looking to see if there is mathematics or a theory that suggests there is such another universe having any affect on  'ours' but for me, these multi-verses are lost in time.

[Bill S]

I won't discuss religion in a physis discussion board beyond what I've said in this thread up to and including this post. If you want to continue then I suggest you start a thread in the appropriate forum.

I have recently left a discussion forum because science threads were constantly being derailed by religion, philosophy and general acrimony; so I totally agree with you.  Your comments about Da Vinci demonstrate the sort of misunderstanding that can arise out of the non-precision of a living language and its usage. Of course he created works of art.  That is simply a case of producing something that is greater than the sum of its parts, and that something is difficult to define outside the realm of subjective opinion.   

The "rules" of English usage permit the use of "create" both in the case of works of art and the production of universes from pre-existing false vacuums, but my own feeling is that greater precision would be achieved by using a term such as "manufacture" and reserving "create" for creation from nothing. 

Just an opinion.

[yor_on]

It's a hard one isn't it ? I recently stated that most of the new patents in gene techniques are no more than us copying what nature already present us with. Physics is also building on what nature present us with, so are we inventing anything here, or are we just copying? To find new things, and ways to use them, involving lots of testing and clever experiments, to use your mind to unravel new things about the universe? I think I still would call it inventing, but to really 'invent' something, in a pure sense, we might need to be able to 'create', as Bill points out here.

And that is indeed a cool question.
Will we 'create'?

although, it is in the philosophy domain that one

[majorminor]

I think u created a cool question or thought of a question not often asked created many years ago with a big bang that forced all possibilities that we are slowly only recognizing small parts  one question at at time.  Wine for me, I am usually a beer drinker but I am being creative tonight.

keep on creating , evolving etc

[dlorde]

... my own feeling is that greater precision would be achieved by using a term such as "manufacture" and reserving "create" for creation from nothing.

But creation from nothing surely isn't a scientific concept (and would seem to contradict the laws of thermodynamics) - unless you mean creation from the quantum vacuum, which isn't really 'nothing'...