[Robert]

Our next topic-driven chat session will be held on Saturday, September 17th, at 1:00pm Central Standard Time (CST) or GMT-6. Saturday is the current winner in the poll and seems to be a reasonable time for most folks. Be sure and vote in this thread's poll so I can know who will be there. If we don't have enough interest I'll need to cancel again.

Current Topic
The topic of the chat will be the Anthropic Principle as applied to Cosmology. I think there is a lot of confusion regarding this principle and I'd like to have some reasoned, rational discussion based on scientific principles regarding the merits of this principle. I'll update this post with a summary later today.

References:

1. Wikipedia - Always a good reference. Be sure to explore the links to related topics and the external links referenced.
2. Anthropic-principle.com - Be sure and read the primer

Statistics
This will be chat session #12 (last chat was cancelled). Since our last chat (four weeks ago) we have grown from 667 to 734 members representing 88 countries (up from 80). Also we've had 159 members active over the preceding 30 days which is up from 145; another indicator that we may have a good turnout.

The Usual Timezone Stuff
Ok, the usual stuff... As I already said, the chat session will be held this Saturday at 3:00pm (CST). You can use the timezone converter to convert to your local time. Once there, enter the day and time as specified above, then select US/Central in the "From Time Zone" column and your own location in the "To Time Zone" column, then click Convert. Be sure and unclick the "Use Current Date/Time" option. This will give you the time of the chat meeting in your own local time.

Some other areas:

Texas, U.S. - Saturday, 1:00pm
California, U.S. - Saturday, 11:00am
India - Saturday, 11:30pm
London - Saturday, 7:00pm
Madrid, Spain - Saturday, 8:00pm
Melbourne, Australia - Sunday, 4:00am
New Zealand - Sunday, 6:00am
Sweden - Saturday, 8:00pm
Canada, Eastern - Saturday, 2:00pm
Pakistan - Saturday, 11:00pm (new)

Future Chat
The topic-driven chat sessions will continue on every other Saturday at 3pm (CST). These will be moderated and a transcript of the chat will be recorded and available for later review. I hope to start a weekly un-moderated and open-discussion chat in the near future, based on traffic patterns on the website.

New for this Chat
You may have seen the new "Time till Next Chat" block on the ToeQuest home page. Currently, this is only accurate if you are in the CST timezone. I'll have this working shortly and it will display the topic, specific date, time, and time remaining until the next chat. Plus, the time and date will be localized to your timezone. This should help draw attention to our chats and eliminate the time translation confusion for our many members in different timezones.

I'll also update the chatroom software to the latest revision. No major changes this time, but I like to stay current. Also, Carly has been sneaking out of the chat room occasionally to read messages in the forum, and I think she even introduced herself to the community. I've talked to her about this and told her she needs to stay in the chatroom and talk to people there. I don't think she was really listening to me. Anyway, I apologize for that and hope it doesn't happen again.

We'll meet in Flash Chat. I'm assuming everyone is happy with the new flash-based chatroom. Please let me know if you are having any problems getting into the chat room. Hope to see you there!

Regards,
--Robert

ATTENTION: An online chat transcript can be found here.

[Guille]

I'll be there for mega-super-ultra-hyper sure.

I hope many other come. Good theme, I'll get as much info as possible, and then develop what I think about it.

[David Maes]

Humans always thought the universe is about them; but I think this is a little naive...

I rather believe that the existence of life in the universe is purely a coincidence...

But I also believe there is more than just earth containing life in the universe...

(Of course to create life, their need to be scientific laws, which are able to create it.)
Concerning the antropic principle (sorry I hadn't read it thoroughly enough to understand it...) I rather think the REAL problem here is we need a new definition of 'time', 'space' and 'matter'.

[Robert]

If there are no strong objections, I'd like to move the chat 2 hours earlier. I have a family event at 3:30pm and, to keep the peace at home, I need to reschedule the chat so I can be with my family. Otherwise, Carly will have to moderate and she gets to be irritating after a while, especially if many people are in the chat room. I've modified the times in the initial post.

Regarding the anthropic-principle, there are several issues to discuss. First one is weather there is such a thing as chaotic inflation where the big bang occurs repeatedly. So we have one universe that expands, then collapses in on itself, then expands, and so on infinitum. Or, within the "void", or within an existing universe, at random locations, a new Universe comes will spring into existence. Do I have that right? In any case we have the creation of universes over and over again.

Second issue is, when a new universe comes into existence, why must the fundamental physical properties or constants of nature be different. For this principle to be valid, these constants of nature, and there are 19 of them I believe, must be different in each Universe. If this is true then I guess the thinking is that there is a Creator who set these constants so that life would come about. Or, assuming the chaotic inflation to be true, and assuming that an very large number of universes are created, eventually these random constants of nature will be set just right so that life comes about.

Then you could say, what are the chances that out of all of those billions upon billions of universes, I happen to exist in the one that supports life. Well, hopefully you don't ask such a question because it is a silly question to ask if you think about it.

Hope that gets some debate started. I'll try and through out some more meat later. I gotta read up on this thing a bit more now.

--Robert

[Guille]

ok, it's ok.


But, when is the chat then for me, here in Spain?

[David Maes]

Originally Posted by David Maes Humans always thought the universe is about them; but I think this is a little naive... I rather believe that the existence of life in the universe is purely a coincidence... But I also believe there is more than just earth containing life in the universe... (Of course to create life, their need to be scientific laws, which are able to create it.) Concerning the antropic principle (sorry I hadn't read it thoroughly enough to understand it...) I rather think the REAL problem here is we need a new definition of 'time', 'space' and 'matter'.

**********

[Robert]

I updated all the times in the first post to reflect the new time. So, in Madrid it should be 8pm instead of 10pm. Does the "Time till Next Chat" show 8pm for you? I think there is still a problem with its calculation, but I'll fix it in the next day or two. Once I'm sure it's working properly I will rely more on it to provide the correct localized time for everyone.

[god's big toe]

Hi Robert, I'll try my best to be there for the chat on ther Anthropic Principle.
The only possible problem may occur as previously when I became locked out of the chat just as I was about to contribute to it.

Regarding Void Theory, Although the research seems to go on forever I have sent four summaries plus an introduction to three members directly.

I am now endeavouring to produce a better summary, which should be more comprehensive, from a "soup" of all four originals. This will then be posted as an attachment in my own forum.

I trust that everyon will exhibit patience. Being 69 and not in the best of health it now becomes vitally important that somehow I publish Void Theory before either my heart gives out or something else happens to truncate my project.

Why was I convinced that there was a 6 hour difference between London and the originating zone? However, probably my memory. I'll join at 1900 to see.

Best wishes: God's Big Toe.

[Guille]

Robert, this is what it says:


sábado, 17 de septiembre de 2005 13:00:00

Which means saturday, 17 of september of 2005 13:00:00. This is clearly not 8pm, but 1pm. when is it?

[Robert]

Is it really in Spanish? Ok, I have a new algorithm I'm going to use. I'm hoping to get around to it sometime tomorrow.

And, God's Big Toe, I'll install the latest chat room by chat time Saturday so maybe the code is better somehow and you wont see the same problem as last time.