I need to know if you would create the universe

[andrewducker]

Assume for a moment that you are a being with the power to create universes. However, once you have created them you can't tamper with them, you can only set up the initial conditions and then watch them play out.

You've created many universes, but none have ever developed life.

And then you come across (in the celestial equivalent of a library) the initial seed conditions to create a universe which will contain life. Along with a detailed record of one tiny fragment of it - the planet Earth, as it is up until the year that (many of) the inhabitants call "2017".

Considering what you know of life, the universe and everything...

Poll #18917

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 44

View Respondents

Would you create our universe?

View Answers

YES
31 (70.5%)

NO
9 (20.5%)

Something else which I will explain in comments
4 (9.1%)

Comments

[lilysea]

I mean, can you imagine how utterly appalled

David Attenborough
Jane Goodall
Birutė Galdikas
Dian Fossey

would be if you said to them

"I think rather than have the pain and suffering that we've had over the course of history and have now, it would be better if every single plant, fungi, fish, reptile, and mammal species had never even existed" ?

[andrewducker]

Depends on how they feel about suffering, and whether they'd condemn people to suffering in order to gain a sense of awe at the existence of wildlife.

[lilysea]

I didn't mean the sense of awe - I meant that they (and I) would argue that the wildlife has a right to exist, just as people have a right to exist.