The Multiverse Conundrum

[Nick_A]

TimeSeeker

The circular time hypothesis has one unexplained phenomenon.

If the universe is a closed system (obeys thermodynamics laws) Where does all the energy dissipate to as we head towards maximum entropy?

And one philosophical question: what is energy and where does it come from?

As I understand it, the basic cycle of time is what Buddhists call a kalpa

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/buddhacosmo.html

Time in Buddhist cosmology is measured in kalpas. Originally, a kalpa was considered to be 4,320,000 years. Buddhist scholars expanded it with a metaphor: rub a one-mile cube of rock once every hundred years with a piece of silk, until the rock is worn away -- and a kalpa still hasn’t passed! During a kalpa, the world comes into being, exists, is destroyed, and a period of emptiness ensues. Then it all starts again.

So from this perspective, time is the breath of Brahma and always was. A sustaining universal process would be impossible without the elementary cycles of kalpa.

As I understand it what we call matter is just a measure of vibration. When vibrations slow, energy becomes matter defined by the rate of vibration. Each thing in the universe is composed of a combination of spirit and matter. When matter devolves to its lowest level of entropy. It is diversified into ether as the spiritual element or the basis of consciousness is being “inhaled. If you are not used to the concept of vibration this must sound weird so I’ll post something on it

http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/kyb/kyb11.htm

"Nothing rests; everything moves; everything
vibrates."--The Kybalion.
The great Third Hermetic Principle--the Principle of Vibration--embodies the truth that Motion is manifest in everything in the Universe--that nothing is at rest--that everything moves, vibrates, and circles. This Hermetic Principle was recognized by some of the early Greek philosophers who embodied it in their systems. But, then, for centuries it was lost sight of by the thinkers outside of the Hermetic ranks. But in the Nineteenth Century physical science re-discovered the truth and the Twentieth Century scientific discoveries have added additional proof of the correctness and truth of this centuries-old Hermetic doctrine.

[TimeSeeker]

The concept of infinity doesn’t bode well with the concept of “understanding”.

It blows statistical mechanics (and all science) to hell. In a universe with infinite macro states there are infinite micro states.

So circularity or repetition is not required.

So in that regard the Big Bang and the impending heat death have saved us the trouble of drawing some goal posts. Humans are bounded rationalists. Our brains cannot process infinites.

[Greta]

The Everett MW is a different kind of multiverse, separated by something other than space, where they peel off from this reality into new ones. Don't like it, never have.

Yeah, but isn’t the MWI a prime example of how total nonsense can be inferred from the maths?

In which case (and just out of curiosity), why don’t you like what the maths have to say about multiple worlds from the perspective of Everett’s theory, but seem to have no issue with what the maths have to say about multiple worlds from the perspective of string theory?

It's true that math can create both real and unreal models.

However, it a mischaracterisation to say that the Everrett interpretation came from the math. In truth, it's a way of trying to explain observation effects of the double slit experiment. I think it is fanciful but, reality is so bizarre, I wouldn't even rule that out.

The 10^500 posited other universes are spatially separated - other big bangs, other zones of reality. It is far from preposterous, as you claim.

Let’s get something straight. I do not think that the existence of 10^500 other universes is preposterous (in truth, to me that number is too small).

However, what I do think is preposterous (as I mentioned earlier) is that just to avoid any hint of intelligence being involved in the creation of our universe, some humans are willing to accept theories that are infinitely worse in terms of logic and plausibility.

Yeah, yeah, I know – “...but it’s all there in the maths...”

But like I said, the maths also lend credence to the Everettian codswallop.

The multiverse actually is mathematically based rather than a way of explaining away a counter intuitive problem.

The problem (as I see it) is that we are sitting in the midst of a mystery that not only has us scratching our heads as to where the pre-Bang (“seed-like”) kernel of compressed matter came from...

...but also how it (the “sprouted” seed) managed to self-arrange its constituents into a state of order that defies our comprehension.

Yet the proponents of certain multiverse theories simply want to compound that mystery by applying it to a near infinity of other “seeds” (most of which are duds according to the theories)...

Most of them would be - perhaps. Very early days yet. Don't treat speculative guesses as theories. None of these things we are discussion are theories, just hypotheses.

...none of which, btw, takes into account how the essence of life and consciousness fit into the picture (other than the lame ideas associated with the anthropic principle).

That is because they don't know. We have one example of life that, so far, has had only a trifling influence on the solar system, let alone the galaxy or the universe. The potentials are huge but the actuality - that which we can be certain about - is tiny, and there would need to be evidence of tangible effects of life on cosmology and on the very nature of physics before life can be plugged into such equations.

In other words, the maths are thoroughly blinkered when it comes to factoring-in the most important aspect of reality (again, the essence of life) – an aspect that would render all of reality completely meaningless if it were missing.

However, no one lives their lives by the math. Because science has caused complications for theistic thought over centuries, believers tend to see this as religion v science. However, physics is not competing. It's not at all about the meaning of life, but its results are suggestive of likelihoods and possibilities. Physics is a study of how physical systems work with an attempt to achieve predictive capacities.

IMO if you seek a deeper understanding of reality, you need to range well beyond physics and the other natural sciences, but you ignore physics, biochemistry, biology, geology and cosmology at your peril. Each is a different texture in the fabric of reality.

You wonder how universes without "stars, planets, and life" can qualify to be called a "universe''. No true Scotsman wears a chastity belt under his kilt. No true universe exists without stars, planets and life?

However, "stars, planets and life" make up approximate 5% of the universe.There most certainly could be universes consisting only of the majority "dark stuff" that's in our universe, with molecular clouds in conditions that don't allow atoms or other emergent phenomena to form. Also note that for about 300,000 years our universe had no celestial bodies or, obviously, life, but it was still a universe.

Just to highlight the problem of your downplaying of life’s role in the context of reality...

...imagine a situation where all of the universes, and all of the stars and planets, and all of the “dark stuff,” and all of the molecular clouds, etc., are all gathered together into one location, and then give me a single visualizable scenario where any of it would have any reason or purpose whatsoever for existing if life and consciousness did not exist to confer meaning on it.

I cannot speak for others but, as far as I know, I never had a reason for existing. However, the conditions were right that an entity such as me could exist, as opposed to your example of a collapsed universe.

Just as atoms played no part in the first 300,000 years of the universe until they emerged, life seems to have played precious little part in the subsequent period (unless there are some thrilling discoveries awaiting us).

[Atla]

The concept of infinity doesn’t bode well with the concept of “understanding”.

It blows statistical mechanics (and all science) to hell. In a universe with infinite macro states there are infinite micro states.

So circularity or repetition is not required.

So in that regard the Big Bang and the impending heat death have saved us the trouble of drawing some goal posts. Humans are bounded rationalists. Our brains cannot process infinites.

If you are satisfied with the idea of a universe with a beginning but no end.

[TimeSeeker]

The concept of infinity doesn’t bode well with the concept of “understanding”.

It blows statistical mechanics (and all science) to hell. In a universe with infinite macro states there are infinite micro states.

So circularity or repetition is not required.

So in that regard the Big Bang and the impending heat death have saved us the trouble of drawing some goal posts. Humans are bounded rationalists. Our brains cannot process infinites.

If you are satisfied with the idea of a universe with a beginning but no end.

There is a clear end though. Time (change) itself ends at maximum entropy.

[Atla]

The concept of infinity doesn’t bode well with the concept of “understanding”.

It blows statistical mechanics (and all science) to hell. In a universe with infinite macro states there are infinite micro states.

So circularity or repetition is not required.

So in that regard the Big Bang and the impending heat death have saved us the trouble of drawing some goal posts. Humans are bounded rationalists. Our brains cannot process infinites.

If you are satisfied with the idea of a universe with a beginning but no end.

There is a clear end though. Time (change) itself ends at maximum entropy.

Yeah, that's another thing that doesn't make sense.

[TimeSeeker]

If you are satisfied with the idea of a universe with a beginning but no end.

There is a clear end though. Time (change) itself ends at maximum entropy.

Yeah, that's another thing that doesn't make sense.

None of it makes sense. That is why this whole notion of explaining/understanding so as to mean “consistency with axiomatic pre-suppositions” always leads to a paradox.

It is because I want consistency is why I NEED teleology.

There is none in ontology.

[Atla]

None of it makes sense. That is why this whole notion of explaining/understanding so as to mean “consistency with axiomatic pre-suppositions” always leads to a paradox.

It is because I want consistency is why I NEED teleology.

There is none in ontology.

Not attempting to make any sense of anything is your choice, but you can't really make others do the same.

[TimeSeeker]

None of it makes sense. That is why this whole notion of explaining/understanding so as to mean “consistency with axiomatic pre-suppositions” always leads to a paradox.

It is because I want consistency is why I NEED teleology.

There is none in ontology.

Not attempting to make any sense of anything is your choice, but you can't really make others do the same.

Well then “trying to make sense” is your teleology.

The moment you claim that you have “made sense of it” you are necessarily ignoring the logical paradoxes in your world view.

What Rorty calls “final vocabulary”.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_vocabulary

And it just begs a question? What does “sense” feel like when you finally get there? Internal consistency? No such “objective” world-view exists.

Although I would argue that the teleology of “human survival” is internally consistent and as objective as “intersubjective consensus” gets us to.

[Atla]

None of it makes sense. That is why this whole notion of explaining/understanding so as to mean “consistency with axiomatic pre-suppositions” always leads to a paradox.

It is because I want consistency is why I NEED teleology.

There is none in ontology.

Not attempting to make any sense of anything is your choice, but you can't really make others do the same.

Well then “trying to make sense” is your teleology.

The moment you claim that you have “made sense of it” you are necessarily ignoring the logical paradoxes in your world view.

What Rorty calls “final vocabulary”.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_vocabulary

And it just begs a question? What does “sense” feel like when you finally get there? Internal consistency? No such “objective” world-view exists.

Although I would argue that the teleology of “human survival” is internally consistent and as objective as “intersubjective consensus” gets us to.

You are throwing strawmen at me as usual.

I noted the limits of human understanding several times and my world-view is internally consistent.

"human survival" is not a worldview.

[TimeSeeker]

Not attempting to make any sense of anything is your choice, but you can't really make others do the same.

Well then “trying to make sense” is your teleology.

The moment you claim that you have “made sense of it” you are necessarily ignoring the logical paradoxes in your world view.

What Rorty calls “final vocabulary”.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_vocabulary

And it just begs a question? What does “sense” feel like when you finally get there? Internal consistency? No such “objective” world-view exists.

Although I would argue that the teleology of “human survival” is internally consistent and as objective as “intersubjective consensus” gets us to.

You are throwing strawmen at me as usual.

I noted the limits of human understanding several times and my world-view is internally consistent.

"human survival" is not a worldview.

I pointed out your inconsistency. Infinities break statistical mechanics, and all of science/epistemology and make circular time unnecessary.

But, if that is your final vocabulary, just brush them under the carpet and carry on That is what everybody does anyway. It is very pragmatic

The principle of parsimony (occam’s razor) is precisely there because we are stupid and the universe is too complex. So a working predictive model is better than a “perfect” (internally consistent model).

Occam’s razor is a bias. Ask why.

[Atla]

I pointed out your inconsistency. Infinities break statistical mechanics, and all of science/epistemology and make circular time unnecessary.

But, if that is your final vocabulary, just brush them under the carpet and carry on That is what everybody does anyway. It is very pragmatic

The principle of parsimony (occam’s razor) is precisely there because we are stupid and the universe is too complex. So a working predictive model is better than a “perfect” (internally consistent model).

Occam’s razor is a bias. Ask why.

Except that's your idea, I didn't write that our universe is infinite.

[TimeSeeker]

I pointed out your inconsistency. Infinities break statistical mechanics, and all of science/epistemology and make circular time unnecessary.

But, if that is your final vocabulary, just brush them under the carpet and carry on That is what everybody does anyway. It is very pragmatic

The principle of parsimony (occam’s razor) is precisely there because we are stupid and the universe is too complex. So a working predictive model is better than a “perfect” (internally consistent model).

Occam’s razor is a bias. Ask why.

Except that's your idea, I didn't write that our universe is infinite.

You said time loops infinitely.

Then you must necessarily accept finite energy/entropy, or your world-view is far disconnected from physics.

Infinities are gods.

[Atla]

You said time loops infinitely.

Infinities are gods.

Actually I wrote this.

"... might be that time is also a circular, boundless but finite dimension of our part of the universe."

[TimeSeeker]

You said time loops infinitely.

Infinities are gods.

Actually I wrote this.

"... might be that time is also a circular, boundless but finite dimension of our part of the universe."

So the entire universe is unbounded e.g infinite? e.g energy is infinite? Cool story

Observe how you are trying to invent a bounded (e.g finite) context...