Let's talk about the universe for a change

[JackRiddler]

Amazing place.

Maybe we could have a general thread to talk wild stuff about the nature of the world and this reality we think we're in. If I could make a rule, I'd say not to overdo the copy-paste but you know, link to stuff and comment on it. Let's just talk.

This occurred to me after discovering this amusing bit, apparently the first paragraph from Science: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness by Zach Weinersmith:

Aristotle said a bunch of stuff that was wrong. Galileo and Newton fixed things up. Then Einstein broke everything again. Now, we've basically got it all worked out, except for small stuff, big stuff, hot stuff, cold stuff, fast stuff, heavy stuff, dark stuff, turbulence, and the concept of time.

[Elvis]

And gravity? WTF is that?

[Belligerent Savant]

.

Argument for inherent design -- or simulation -- of the universe.

Excerpt from God & The New Physics, by Paul Davies [initially published in 1983] --

Although the entropy of a general gravitating system is not known, work by Jacob Bekenstein and Stephen Hawking, in which the quantum theory is applied to black holes, has yielded a formula for the entropy of these objects. As expected, it is enormously greater than the entropy of, for instance, a star of the same mass. Assuming that the relationship between entropy and probability extends to the gravitating case, this result may be expressed in an interesting way. Given a random distribution of (gravitating) matter, it is overwhelmingly
more probable that it will form a black hole than a star or a cloud of
dispersed gas. These considerations give a new slant, therefore, to the question of whether the universe was created in an ordered or disordered state. If the initial state were chosen at random, it seems exceedingly probable that the big bang would have coughed out black holes rather than dispersed gases. The present arrangement of matter and energy, with matter spread thinly at relatively low density, in the form of stars and gas clouds would, apparently, only result from a very special choice of initial conditions. Roger Penrose has computed the odds against the observed universe appearing by accident, given that a
black-hole cosmos is so much more likely on a priori grounds. He
estimates a figure of 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 30 to one.

The absence (or at least lack of predominance) of black holes is not the only issue. The large scale structure and motion of the universe is equally remarkable. The accumulated gravity of the universe operates to restrain the expansion, causing it to decelerate with time. In the primeval phase the expansion was much faster than it is today. The universe IS thus the product of a competition between the explosive vigour of the big bang, and the force of gravity which tries to pull the pieces back together again. In recent years, astrophysicists have come to realize just how delicately this competition has been balanced. Had
the big bang been weaker, the cosmos would have soon fallen back on itself in a big crunch. On the other hand, had it been stronger, the cosmic material would have dispersed so rapidly that galaxies would not have formed. Either way, the observed structure of the universe seems to depend very sensitively on the precise matching of explosive vigour to gravitating power.

Just how sensitively is revealed by calculation. At the so-called
Planck time (10 to the power of -43 seconds) (which is the earliest moment at which the concept of space and time has meaning) the matching was accurate to a staggering one part in 10 to the power of 60. That is to say, had the explosion differed in strength at the outset by only one part in 10 to the power of 60,
the universe we now perceive would not exist. To give some meaning to these numbers, suppose you wanted to fire a bullet at a one-inch target on the other side of the observable universe, twenty billion light years away. Your aim would have to be accurate to that same part in 10 to the power of 60.

Quite apart from the accuracy of this overall matching, there is the
mystery of why the universe is so extraordinarily uniform, both in the distribution of matter, and the rate of expansion. Most explosions are chaotic affairs, and one might expect the big bang to have varied in its degree of vigour from place to place. This was not so. The expansion of the universe in our own cosmic neighbourhood is indistinguishable in rate from that on the far side of the universe.

This coherence of behaviour over the whole cosmos seems all the
more remarkable when account is taken of what are known as light
horizons. When light spreads out across the universe it has to chase the retreating galaxies which are being swept apart by the expansion. The rate of recession of a galaxy depends on its distance from the observer. Distant galaxies recede faster. Imagine a flash of light emitted from a particular place at the instant of the creation.. The light will have travelled about twenty billion light years across space by now.


Regions of the universe farther away than this will not yet have
received the light. Observers there would not be able to see the light source. Conversely, observers near the light source would not be able to see those regions. It follows that no observer in the universe can see beyond twenty billion light years at this time. There is a sort of horizon in space, which conceals everything that lies beyond. And because no signal or influence can travel faster than light, it follows that no physical connection at all can exist between regions of the universe that lie beyond each other's horizon.
When telescopes are turned on the outer limits of the observable
universe, they probe regions that have apparently never been in causal contact with each other. The reason is that distant regions which lie on opposite sides of the sky as viewed from Earth are so far apart from each other that they are beyond each other's horizon. The situation is closely analogous to ordinary horizons. A lookout on a ship at sea may just be able to discern two other ships - one ahead, one astern - near his horizon, but these other ships will be invisible from each other because of their greater separation. Similarly, the remote galaxies
which lie on opposite sides of the sky are located beyond each other's light horizon. Because all physical influences or communications are limited by the speed of light, it is not possible that these galaxies can have coordinated their behaviour.

The mystery is, why are those regions of the universe that are
causally disconnected so similar in structure and behaviour? Why do they contain galaxies of the same average size and form, retreating from each other at the same rate? The mystery becomes all the more profound when we realize that this behaviour is a remnant of long ago when the galaxies first formed. But in the past light had travelled less far since the creation, so the horizons were closer. At one million years they were a million light years across, at one hundred years a hundred light years, and so on. If we go back to the Planck time again, the horizons were a mere 10 to the power of -33 cm in size. Even allowing for the expansion of the universe, regions as small as this would not, according
to the standard theory, have swelled to a visible size by now. It seems that the entire observable universe was, at that time, separated into at least 10 to the power of 80 causally disconnected regions. How is it possible to explain this cooperation without communication?

A related problem is the extreme degree of cosmic isotropy: uniformity with orientation. Looking outwards from Earth, the universe presents the same aspect on the large scale in whichever direction we choose to look. Careful measurements of the relic cosmic background heat radiation show that the incoming flux is accurately matched from all sides to better than one
part in a thousand. Had the big bang been a random event, such exceptional uniformity would be almost impossibly unlikely.

And:

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=22439&hilit=Holographic

"Our World May be a Giant Hologram"

(Among other related threads of similar interest)

The OP is indeed a great topic for re/exploration.

[Harvey]

For change, then.

All of our influential ideas once took shape in light of the physical reality of our local neighbourhood, just one galaxy, it's scale and form the splendour of the heavens. In this celestial dark Scarab Beetles navigate by polarised light from the central body of our galaxy. The ancients described the nightly journey of the scarab, Khep, pushing the sun through the body of our galaxy, Nut, to emerge again with each dawn. Poetic but nevertheless a natural philosophy, one encompassing relationships such as that of our star to it's parent galaxy and a Scarab beetle to the light from that galaxy, without a microscope or even a telescope, just time and the stars.

What do we intuit today? Our most influential ideas take shape in cities where the night sky is all but invisible. It's scale is a reference point in a book or perhaps a full moon. Are the strange insularities of our relationship to each other and to the dying world somewhere prefigured in this diminishing cosmic relationship?

On gravity (whatever it is) why is it such a relatively weak force? Some argue this is direct evidence of interaction between universes (as if one wasn't enough.) If so, does matter attract between universes? Would that mean matter tends toward a similar distribution between universes, each echoing each in a grand and ghostly dance?

And if matter is a fundamental building block of consciousness in some way (pan-psychicism) then we are looking at our most fundamental self when we look across the universe or observe field lines, or a standing wave on the skein of a moving liquid. As small as we may be, the least among us (microbes, bacteria, mould) are also the most numerous and perhaps even vital. Is Bacchus a yeast mould on the skin of a grape? Is the least among the stars (us) a fundamental component of evolving consciousness throughout that awesome scale? Wouldn't it be sad and mildly humorous to embody such a role and to extinguish ourselves without ever really knowing.

[MacCruiskeen]

I see your ol' universe and raise you one an infinite number of multiverses.

[Grizzly]

[JackRiddler]

I see your ol' universe and raise you one an infinite number of multiverses.

I redefine all possible (and probably imaginary) alt-universes, virtual universes and multiverses as parts of one universe that has not yet been (and probably never will be) seen in its totality. Not by the Earth humans, at any rate.

[BenDhyan]

Whatever the extent of the universe, we each are an expression of IT (along with everything else), IT is the source of our being and if it is conscious, It may be trying to convey to each of us that we are " 'temples' of the living God"...or some such. Perhaps even there is a possibility of the personal self to realize union with IT, in which case the avatar would convey to others that "I and the father are one".

[DrEvil]

Just to cheer everyone up:

We are sacks of meat and bone pretending to be in charge of our lives while bumbling through and pretending that our culture is something more than an ant hive with a few more specialized roles. We're worms with funny shapes: food goes in one end, waste comes out the other. On the sides we have a handful of appendages for locomotion and exploitation, and up top we have a sensor pod and a lump of matter that pulls our strings and pats us on the back and lets us pretend we're special while quietly running the show.

Consciousness is an illusion: we feel special, ergo we have to be special is nothing but an expression of our inability to acknowledge our insignificance and the series of random events and dumb luck that got us here. There is no soul, only grey goo running the software of us. When the brain dies the mind dies.

There is no guiding hand but blind evolution, and our image is a result of physics and endless mutations. We're not perfect, merely good enough to breed and survive to do it again.

The universe couldn't care less about us. We could go extinct tomorrow and no one would notice, and not a tear would be shed.

[Sounder]

The OP is a useful reminder that the smartest people in the world do not know what is going on.

Collectively, we are unnecessarily insecure with a result that we use our categories and the correspondences between categories to validate existing understanding, rather than using the shortcomings of the correspondences, stuff that connects the categories, to better shape and define new categories.

The universe is about evolving consciousness on a very grand scale. Hardly the dead universe that some pessimists, oh sorry, realists, want to sell.

[DrEvil]

^^I'm sure you didn't mean for it to come across like that, but first you say that the smartest people in the world don't know what's going on, and then you proceed to explain what's going on.

I'm fine with "pessimist" btw. I do not hold a high opinion of our place in the universe. I don't think we're special, or even capable of understanding what it is we're really living inside, and I think that's great. Knowing everything is boring. I wouldn't mind knowing more (just enough for an FTL drive would be perfect), but I doubt we'll ever have the full picture.

That said, I'm partial to the multiverse hypothesis, if only because that would mean there's a universe out there where Trump isn't president. It would also explain a lot of the "fine tuning" * that allows us to exist in the first place. Our universe is just one of an infinite number and just happened to have the right variables to support us, so here we are.

* I think the fine tuning argument is nonsense. The universe isn't fine tuned to support us, we're fine tuned (as in: evolved) to exist within it.

[Sounder]

Harvey wrote...

Is the least among the stars (us) a fundamental component of evolving consciousness throughout that awesome scale?

It is the only component that I know that is able to change the conditions of it's existence and expressions. So I will go with, yes it is a fundamental component.

Wouldn't it be sad and mildly humorous to embody such a role and to extinguish ourselves without ever really knowing.

Yes indeed, but it's good to both laugh and cry, every day. Kidding, we live under a rubric of cause and effect. If we remain blind to the effects that some poorly chosen causes will surely result in, then too bad, so sad, the universe is large enough for other components to carry on the project elsewhere.


Dr Evil wrote...

^^I'm sure you didn't mean for it to come across like that, but first you say that the smartest people in the world don't know what's going on, and then you proceed to explain what's going on.

OR, being smart is not the ideal vantage point to see what is going on. Smart people are generally well conditioned by our dominant narrative because their success and credibility is measured by their understanding of existing categories and their correspondences. Smart people are often brilliant in their treatment of particulars but when assumptions that drive and define the whole community apply those particulars the result is still more 'saving the phenomena' and treating knowledge as being truth.

Anyway, I love smart people and probably live in a spot that has one of the highest percent representation of smart people in the world. Great place, with wonderful opportunities to show smart people that they are not as smart as they think. I am not trolling, I simply think that we need buy in from intellectuals if a new narrative is to be adopted, yet the intellectuals seem quite committed to this current death and manipulation oriented expression of culture.

Still nice and good people mind you, only too stubborn to realize that Plato was asshole.

[DrEvil]

I disagree. Smart people are the reason we can have this discussion in the first place. They're also better equipped to challenge the current narrative, simply because it's easier for them to grasp the narrative and its underlying rules and poke holes in it.

Tbh, what you just wrote sounds an awful lot like the current anti-intellectual trend that's propping up right wing regimes all over the place, relying on people's base feelings rather than facts. It's a downward spiral and one of the main reasons the world is as fucked as it is today.

[Sounder]

Dr. Evil wrote...

I disagree.

With what; that smart people are too stubborn to admit that Plato was an asshole?

Smart people are the reason we can have this discussion in the first place. They're also better equipped to challenge the current narrative, simply because it's easier for them to grasp the narrative and its underlying rules and poke holes in it.

Ah yes, bingo, as I said I love smart people, because as you say, they are better equipped, however as Upton Sinclair will forever remind us, 'it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not knowing'.

So now, all you mister smarty pants out there, grasp the narrative and poke holes in it.
Oh, silence, great, then leave it to some sweaty asshole construction worker and I will do what you cannot do.

Tbh, what you just wrote sounds an awful lot like the current anti-intellectual trend that's propping up right wing regimes all over the place, relying on people's base feelings rather than facts. It's a downward spiral and one of the main reasons the world is as fucked as it is today.

So umm, have you ever heard of the word facetious Dr. Evil. 'Sounds a lot like...' As I said, I love smart people, --some anti-intellectual. Psssssst, I am an intellectual, of sorts, I'm a guerilla ontologist and I question the fundamental assumptions that drive the interpretations of our perceptions. OK, it was a self guided non-accredited degree (that I paid quite a lot for) but still it's a dirty job, nobody wants to do it, yet it must be done. In relation to the tedious attempted tags of right wing influence, they are hollow and from my perspective represent a subconscious defensiveness carried by the 'left' because they are, (just like right wingers), more allied with power than with the people.


Oh geese, good Doctor, we are social beings and all your so called 'facts' are context dependent and suspect because they are products of a corrupt and corrupting system. Peoples 'feelings' are an accurate recognition that the system serves the system and not the people.

[DrEvil]

Dr. Evil wrote...

I disagree.

With what; that smart people are too stubborn to admit that Plato was an asshole?

With everything you wrote. In what way was Plato an asshole, and why do you think smart people are refusing to admit it? It's hard to engage when there's so little meat on the bone.

Smart people are the reason we can have this discussion in the first place. They're also better equipped to challenge the current narrative, simply because it's easier for them to grasp the narrative and its underlying rules and poke holes in it.

Ah yes, bingo, as I said I love smart people, because as you say, they are better equipped, however as Upton Sinclair will forever remind us, 'it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not knowing'.

This makes the faulty assumption that every smart person is in it for the money, which is obviously false.

So now, all you mister smarty pants out there, grasp the narrative and poke holes in it.
Oh, silence, great, then leave it to some sweaty asshole construction worker and I will do what you cannot do.

Sweaty asshole construction workers are just as dependent on their paychecks as anybody else. When is the last time a construction worker made fundamental contributions to our understanding of things? How often does it happen, compared to, say, research scientists?

What is the current narrative anyway? You keep talking about coercion and split model of reality, but every time I ask for details you ignore me or flat out refuse to explain in more detail. It would be really helpful to get a clear and concise explanation of your worldview.

Tbh, what you just wrote sounds an awful lot like the current anti-intellectual trend that's propping up right wing regimes all over the place, relying on people's base feelings rather than facts. It's a downward spiral and one of the main reasons the world is as fucked as it is today.

So umm, have you ever heard of the word facetious Dr. Evil. 'Sounds a lot like...' As I said, I love smart people, --some anti-intellectual. Psssssst, I am an intellectual, of sorts, I'm a guerilla ontologist and I question the fundamental assumptions that drive the interpretations of our perceptions. OK, it was a self guided non-accredited degree (that I paid quite a lot for) but still it's a dirty job, nobody wants to do it, yet it must be done. In relation to the tedious attempted tags of right wing influence, they are hollow and from my perspective represent a subconscious defensiveness carried by the 'left' because they are, (just like right wingers), more allied with power than with the people.

Ah yes, the good old "the left is just like the right" bullshit. I wasn't trying to tag you as right wing, just making the observation that the current anti-intellectual trend lends itself to right wing leaders, and that you are spouting many of the same talking points.

Oh geese, good Doctor, we are social beings and all your so called 'facts' are context dependent and suspect because they are products of a corrupt and corrupting system. Peoples 'feelings' are an accurate recognition that the system serves the system and not the people.

No, facts are facts. 2+2=4 under every organizing principle humans have. No amount of wishful thinking will change that.
People's feelings are abused by the powerful all the time. How do you think Trump or Bolsanaro got elected? They played on people's feelings (fear, mostly. Fun fact: authoritarian/conservative people are hardwired to be more afraid of change. There are actual, physical differences in their fear centers compared to progressives/liberals), facts be damned.