A Trilogy of Universes: Part Two

There is a trilogy of possible universes we inhabit – Supernatural, Natural and Simulated. There are also several universal beliefs that nearly all humans, all cultures, over all of history share. Belief in these universals usually extends to the present day. Can the later assist in determining which of the three possible universes we might live in, is the one we do live in?

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Deities

One such universal are deities (or aliens misinterpreted as deities).

*Natural Universe: Deities are almost by definition supernatural since they all have powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men (and women). However, it’s perfectly logical to have a natural universe containing extraterrestrials with advanced technology. Advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, the supernatural, if your level of sophistication is below that level of that advanced technology (what would a Neanderthal make of a jet aircraft flying overhead). To ancient human societies, ‘ancient astronauts’ would be deities, even more so if these extraterrestrials pawned themselves off as deities for various reasons. Because extraterrestrials violate nothing in the Natural Universe, yet the existence of extraterrestrials hasn’t been verified to date, just ½ point can be awarded.

*Simulated Universe: The deity in question here is the software programmer. Though not an actual deity, the end products created by the programmer, if given enough sophistication, might worship as a deity this unknown creator they envision as having to exist in order to account for them. One point awarded.

*Supernatural Universe: Here deities are really real deities, real deities strutting their real deity stuff for all and sundry to see and appreciate. So, it’s only natural that their existence should be acknowledged. One full point awarded.

Free Will

Probably the most universal of the universals is the concept of free will. Very few humans would deny that they are in control of their own fate, destiny, etc. They might be subjected to the laws of the land; to the laws, principles and relationships of physics, chemistry and biology; to the whims of others; but ultimately you yourself pick and choose – or do you. Let’s just say that philosophers and metaphysics professors have been arguing that point for thousands of years.

*Natural Universe: There are two possibilities here. Firstly, at the time of the creation of the universe, all the laws, relationships and principles of, ultimately physics, were set in motion. Everything from that point onwards was fixed. Determination ruled. Causality ruled – absolutely. From first principles, the future, to as many decimal places as you’d care to measure, was fixed – absolutely. As such, you were predetermined as long ago as the Big Bang – 13.7 billion years ago. Therefore, you have no free will. Classical Physics rules, OK? However, part of physics is known as quantum physics, the physics that rules the roost of the microscopic. Apparently, causality doesn’t rule the roost in all things quantum, only probability. Therefore, there’s wriggle room, not certainty, and you can exhibit free will. Score ½ point for an each way bet. .

*Simulated Universe: Unless software is way more sophisticated than I dreamed possible, you dance to someone else’s tune. There’s no free will if you’re a virtual being. There are actually two scenarios here, but one outcome. Either simulation parameters were set at the Alpha Point and the enter “run program” button pushed, or else there’s an active ‘player’ who manipulates events as they unfold, like someone would in a video game or in a pilot training simulator. Either way, it’s zero points being the order of the day if you’re into free will.

*Supernatural Universe: In the monotheistic religions, and for that matter in the polytheistic religions, free will tends to be the order of the day. You are free to believe or not believe; free to sin or not to sin; free to rule your own roost and pay whatever piper needs to be paid accordingly. Score one full point here. 

Afterlife

Another universal concept is an afterlife. Part of your existence in the here and now will survive your clinical death and decay.

*Natural Universe: There’s no evidence that any part of you that was part of you, when you were alive, remains a part of you after you die. You are 100% composed of matter and energy, and all of that matter and energy can be accounted for post death, because of the various laws of conservation (matter/energy can neither be created no destroyed but only changed in form). Unfortunately for you, those changes in form go from the highly complex to the less complex (that’s what decay is), the exact opposite of what is required to form life, even an afterlife. No one has ever witnessed a newly deceased body or the transition from a dying body to a dead body, with any associated phenomena that would suggest that part of that body’s life essence survived. If the living you is 120 pounds of matter and energy; and the dead you is 120 pounds of matter and energy, then there’s nothing left over that survives and goes to La-La-Land. No points can be awarded here.

*Simulated Universe: If your name is Joe Blow, and you’re just software, then there’s a command within that software that you come to that says something like “end subroutine program Joe Blow” – Joe Blow kicks the bucket. But, then there’s another command which says “start subroutine program Joe Blow afterlife” – Joe Blow gets resurrected into another simulated realm. Easy! One full point has to be awarded here for the logical possibility that the Supreme Programmer or Supreme Player likes to subject their simulated characters to perform in various scenarios, sort of like on earth scenario as it is in heaven scenario.

*Supernatural Universe: Any and all texts that have any relationship to verifying a Supernatural Universe, like the Bible, are full of references to everlasting life, life everlasting, eternal life, life eternal, immortality, in fact an afterlife. Somehow after you die a biological death you get resurrected into a supernatural realm, ‘alive’ and kicking and maybe screaming (just depending on location). One full point has to be awarded here.

One general question, what happens to all those artificial body bits in the afterlife – tooth fillings, artificial heart valves or pacemakers, metal hip or knee joints, etc. For that matter, if you’re a ghost, do you retain those artificial bits and pieces?

Afterlife Location

If the afterlife is universal, then an afterlife location is also universal, from Hades to Hel to Hell; the Spirit World, Valhalla, Heaven, etc.

*Natural Universe: If there can be no afterlife in a natural universe, then it makes no sense that a natural universe would contain geographies that house those blessed with a nonexistent afterlife. In any event, no such afterlife location has ever been discovered and pinpointed either up there or down here. No points awarded here either.

*Simulated Universe: If you have a simulated afterlife, then you need to have a simulated location(s) in which to put down your simulated afterlife roots. One full point given.

*Supernatural Universe: The Supernatural literature is full of locations where you get to spend your immortal life everlasting existence. There are no promises on whether or not you’ll be a happy afterlife camper however. Anyway, another full point has to follow-on.

Ghosts

There’s the paranormal phenomena of ghosts, spirits, phantoms, wraiths, spectres, call them what you will, but a rose by any other name… Whatever they’re called, they appear to verify the existence of life after death. Ghosts have been observed and in general an accepted phenomenon by all peoples, all societies, and all cultures since recorded history began and probably even before that that requires an explanation. However, there’s one fly in the ointment. There are observations of non-living ‘ghosts’, things like phantom trains (the Abe Lincoln funeral train), trucks (‘Phantom 309’) and cars, planes and of course ships (like the Flying Dutchman); also structures, even islands that no longer exist (though the latter two are probably best explained as in all probability mirages). They’ve got to be accommodated too.

*Natural Universe: There is no physical, chemical or biological mechanism that can transform a clinically dead flesh-and-blood body, the kind that made you, you, into a physical, chemical and biological ghost. Ghosts have to be made of matter and energy since they are seen, heard and interact with the environment. They have to be biological since they are animated and behave like a living thing. If ghosts are really real, then we do not exist in a natural universe. If ghosts, including phantom trains, do exist in the natural world then they are the sole product of the human mind and all associated evidence (photographs, etc.) are either fraudulent or have prosaic explanations. Because an all-in-the-mind explanation is possible, albeit unlikely IMHO, ½ point is awarded.

*Simulated Universe: In a Simulated Universe, everything has a ghost of a chance! Software can create ghosts, fully clothed ghosts, as well as phantom trains. Or, on the other hand, ghostly images could be just the result of previously deleted software, which was only 99.9% deleted. Residues remain. The ‘delete’ button isn’t 100% efficient. Whatever scenario you choose, its one full point awarded.

*Supernatural Universe: The problems here are several. What’s the rationale for creating phantom trains for example? - None that I can see. Now assuming something supernatural happens and a dead person becomes an animated person that’s not quite all there, a ghost, then you’d expect that ghost to be starkers – absolutely naked as a newborn baby. It’s the biological entity that dies, not their attire. For that matter, if you’re a ghost, do you retain those artificial bits and pieces, those artificial body bits like tooth fillings, artificial heart valves or pacemakers, metal hip or knee joints, etc. That’s part of your attire too. If you see a ghost with a peg leg, something’s fishy. Because of these issues, no points can be awarded. 

To be continued….

A Trilogy of Universes: Part One

There is a trilogy of possible universes we inhabit – Supernatural, Natural and Simulated. There are also several universal beliefs that nearly all humans, all cultures, over all of history share. Belief in these universals usually extends to the present day. Can the later assist in determining which of the three possible universes we might live in, is the one we do live in?

Possible Universes

*Natural Universe: Once upon a time there was this really Big Bang! The Natural Universe was born. The Natural Universe is really real reality. This is the universe of science, the universe where Mother Nature is Queen, the universe that nearly all of us think of when we think of the universe we inhabit. It’s the universe of death and taxes; of cause-and-effect. But it’s not the only option.

*Simulated Universe: In the beginning the Supreme Programmer created Virtual Reality! We’re all familiar with computer/software generated simulations from video games to educational/training simulators. Mother Nature isn’t in charge. It’s the programmer, the software, the player who pulls the strings. Cause and effect still rules, but it’s a universe where anything and everything can happen; the laws, principles and relationships of science that hold firm in the Natural Universe are irrelevant here - Software rules. The upshot is that we are the puppets. We ‘live’ in someone else’s Simulated Universe. Our reality is virtual reality. That’s of course if you accept the possibility of a simulated universe and simulators and appropriated sophisticated software – but if you don’t, well that takes care of that. But, let’s keep an open mind.

*Supernatural Universe: In the beginning, God (or some supernatural facsimile thereof) established Life, the Supernatural Universe and Everything! A Supernatural Universe is a universe that contains one or more supernatural deities. Magic and miracles and other violations of the laws, relationships and principles of science can and do happen. There’s no hard and fast causality. Whims happen. There might be science, but deities can alter the rules anytime and place they choose. That’s why it’s SUPER-natural. That’s of course if you accept the possibility of supernatural deities existing – and billions do – but if you don’t, well that takes care of that. But again, let’s keep an open mind and see where it takes us.

Either we life in a Supernatural Universe filled with one or more deities, or we live in the real Natural Universe (that’s actually a minority worldview since greater than 50% of the human population believe in a god(s) and the supernatural#), or we live in a Simulated Universe which could be wetware (yours or someone else’s) or software (human or alien). If the latter that Simulated Universe, a creation of wetware or software, probably ultimately resides in a really real Natural Universe, one that’s beyond our grasp. It’s quite possible although to have, like a series of Russian dolls, a Simulated Universe within a Simulated Universe within a Simulated Universe, etc. That aside, the question is how to decide between the three possibilities.

Within the sum total of human beliefs, there are certain universals shared by all cultures at all times. Scholars tend to call these beliefs mythology or religion or the supernatural or paranormal. Whatever the label, it’s difficult to totally dismiss these beliefs as superstitious nonsense given the universality of those beliefs. Something is going on – where’s there’s smoke there’s fire, or as I like to phrase it, behind every mountain of mythology lies a molehill of fact. So, accepting that we have some factual molehills, what are these universal beliefs? Well, they tend to centre around creation for starters. But creation, the Alpha, and its counterpart, destruction, the Omega, be it of the cosmos, the Earth, life or human beings, is only one a several universals that are across the board in every human culture from every human era. You have near universal beliefs in the natural order of things, in deities, free will, in an afterlife, in a place to spend an afterlife, and manifestations of those who are living an afterlife – ghosts for want of a better word – reincarnation, as well as shape-shifters, hybrid creatures and the universal flood. With one exception, hybrid creatures, belief in these universals usually extends to the present day, though perhaps with less intensity, or some, like shape-shifting, are now relatively minor compared with that ‘once upon a time’ era.

Now one has to plot those eleven universals against the three possible universes (Natural, Simulated and Supernatural) and see if one kind of universe best supports those human cultural universals or beliefs – creation/destruction; the natural order; deities; free will; afterlife; afterlife location; ghosts; reincarnation; shape-shifters; hybrid creatures and the universal flood.

Creation

We all know about Alpha Creations, even The Creation. “In the beginning…” We all know about Omega Ends too, as in Armageddon, etc. But the interesting bit is that Alpha Creation and Omega Destruction isn’t a one-off with nothingness on either side. Cycles are the norm. Someone is born; someone dies: repeat. Stars and planets are born; stars and planets die: repeat. Even in theory, our Natural Universe, born of the Big Bang, could die in the Big Crunch. But the Big Crunch (end times of a contracting universe) can turn into the next Big Bang (beginnings of a new expanding universe). Big Bang creation; Big Crunch destruction: repeat. Many cultures around the world have echoed this cyclic universe theme of birth, death, rebirth, death, re-rebirth, death: repeat, repeat, repeat. Even in the Christian religion Armageddon gives rise to a new heaven and a new earth. It’s all much the same as going from the 31^st of December to the 1^st of January.

*Natural Universe: So where does creation fit into a natural universe? Well once upon a time, roughly 13.7 billions of years ago, there was this Big Bang, the creation of matter and energy, space and time – maybe. There might have been a before-the-Big-Bang; in fact I’m personally certain of it. In any event, the Big Bang event isn’t an intelligently inspired creation, but if the Big Bang spawned life, the universe and everything – ah, life, and life can begat intelligent life and intelligent life can create, which might then lead to creating concepts of creations, deities, an afterlife, a supernatural and a simulated universe. Because science has no difficulty coming to terms with creation events in the Natural Universe, one full point awarded.

*Simulated Universe: Some might consider a simulated universe/world a supernatural universe/world since it was created by a creator(s) and in it anything goes. If a deity can do anything (i.e. – miracles), so can wetware or software. Still, a Simulated Universe can create the illusions of any and all kinds of creations. One full point awarded.

*Supernatural Universe: Or conversely, some might consider a supernatural deity/creator filled universe/world a simulated universe/world, but that logic doesn’t follow of necessity though it might be so. So maybe it’s best for clarity to keep the supernatural universe/world and the simulated universe/world concepts separate and apart. If there is such an entity as a supernatural deity that likes to mix it up in the kitchen, creating recipes for a universe, and life in that universe, then one has to logically admit that given the premise, the Supernatural Universe can be a party to and create all that’s within, even the Supernatural Universe itself. So, one point awarded here too.

The Natural Order

We all know about the natural order of things, and so did all ancient cultures and societies. The natural order may have been the providence of the gods, but there was a natural order. Birth - death, male - female, rocks fall down – steam rises, fire hot – ice cold, sunrise – sunset, water wet – dust dry, lightning first – then thunder, cause – effect, predictability if not certainty. Or as the introduction to the TV show “Ben Casey” put it: “Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity”. It would not be the natural order of things if each and every night there was a full Moon visible after years of recordkeeping revealed otherwise. You don’t wake up one morning to see a purple Sun with green poke-a-dots imprinted on the surface. Of, and even more interesting, the Sun rises in the North and sets in the South, or half-way around the globe, vice versa! That would be way out of keeping with the natural order.

*Natural Universe: Almost by definition, the Natural Universe contains the natural order of things. One point is given for the natural order, being the order of the day, in the Natural Universe.

*Simulated Universe: Computer software can easily be created or programmed to say simulate Mars moving slowing through the night sky and doing its once up a time mysterious retrograde loop-the-loop motion. If Mother Nature can do it, a computer can simulate it, and a lot more besides – things not part of what you’d call the natural order. One point has to be given.

*Supernatural Universe: There maybe a natural order to things but that’s because the gods created the master clock and they keep it well oiled and wound and running smoothly, as long as they are happy little gods. But when the natural order starts falling apart, the rain fails to arrive, your local dormant volcano suddenly blows its top, and the herds of migrating food supply (say the buffalo to the Amerindians) fail to show up, then the gods are not happy and so they must be pacified with a sacrifice or two or two hundred. In fact, to keep the gods onside and forestall any wrath, they have to get their proper due, worship, sacrifices, etc. in every way that’s proper, all the time. Again, one point awarded since a Supernatural Universe too can contain the natural order.

To be continued….

Ultimate Purpose, Meaning and Destiny: Part Two

If there is a common theme within religions and associated philosophies, it’s one of trying to position oneself in the broad context of life, the universe and everything as something special. You have somehow been tapped on the shoulder with a special and unique mission or destiny, or a special purpose or meaning that you have to carry during the time of your existence, something that places you uniquely above the rest of life, the universe and everything. Hogwash!

Author’s note: for the sake of brevity, I intend to use the acronym for self-awareness or consciousness as SAC; for the overlapping concepts of destiny, fate, function, meaning, purpose or reason as DFMPR. That should save a bit of space!

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

If something is created, and that something has a DFMPR for being created in the first place, that implies an act of intelligence, though that level of intelligence doesn’t have to be very high. Ants create an anthill out of dirt or sand for a purpose (shelter); some birds will gather up pretty baubles and lay them out to be admired by a prospective mate, an artistic work that has a purpose (sex and reproduction); some primates fashion sticks out of leafy twigs to probe for termites, again for a purpose (food).

Back to you: were you created for a DFMPR – are you a tool as it were, designed with an ultimate DFMPR in mind, and if so who or what created that DFMPR? There are two possibilities, not mutually exclusive.

* You are your own tool. You create your own DFMPR.

* You are someone else’s tool. Parents, teachers, other authority figures help give your life DFMPR, like do the dishes; mow the lawn; do your homework; voting is compulsory (this being written in the rather undemocratic country of Australia); pay your taxes; don’t drink and drive; don’t be late for work; spend, spend, spend; be fruitful and multiply; thou shall have no other gods before me, etc. Of course it doesn’t have to be an authority figure. Maybe a close friend suggests your DFMPR lies in being a musician. Decades later, you’re a rock & roll superstar!

Your mind is perfectly free to accept or reject the demands or your externally imposed DFMPR, like wash the dishes or practice, practice, practice your music, as long as you are willing to accept the consequences if you exert your free will in the negative. Ultimately, you, or your mind is in control and that’s where the buck stops.

In the case of the anthill, the artistic pattern of the baubles, the termite gathering stick, these are someone else’s tools (ants, birds, primates), obviously, since they didn’t create themselves. They are creations from within the mind of their ant, bird, primate creators, but via a hardwired form of intelligence – instinct.

What humans tend to create is more a soft-wired flexible sort of intelligence; true intelligence as it was – creating outside of the instinct box. You don’t fashion atomic bombs, or financial markets, or shoes, or a theory of evolution by hardwired instinct.

But the line between animal hardwired and human soft-wired ‘intelligence/instinct’ isn’t all that neat and tidy. Apart from housing/shelter, many an animal ‘society’ has by definition a social structure, a political system (leaders), a division of labour, and has ‘invented’ agriculture and harvesting and animal husbandry, even slavery, warfare and genocide. I’m thinking primarily, but not exclusively, of the ant or bee/wasp kingdoms.

However, there is a bottom line here. Things with DFMPR, by instinct or by pure intelligent design, stem ultimately from the brain, mind, or wetware, whatever you wish to call it. There is no nebulous other factor behind an anthill or wasps nest; creating a new dance step or meal recipe.

The human mind does differ I suspect in at least one highly significant way – humans, via their minds, envelop themselves in a wider worldview, both in time and in space, vis-à-vis the animals, and ponder the meaning of ‘why’.

Animals, my cats for example, have a sense of who (friend or foe; prey or predator); what (I know what that is, it’s my chair); where (I know where my food dish or litter box or the door is); even when (their biological clocks are damn accurate, but their sense of when doesn’t extend much past ‘right now’), but lack the intellectual ability to ponder why or how. Animals live day-to-day, even moment-to-moment, without a sense of mystery (they have no concept of whodunits), which isn’t to say they don’t have a concept of the unknown – they do have curiosity and like to explore (is there food just over that hill), but DFMPR are foreign ideas to them. Things just are and don’t need to be explained. There is no need to frame questions, far less seek answers.

Humans however have evolved the concepts of how or why. And the human mind can come to terms with concepts like DFMPR; good and evil; mystery and awe; yin and yang; a sense of yesterday and tomorrow; of death and immortality which are all foreign in the animal kingdoms.

Unfortunately, though how and why questions come easily to the human mind, answers do not and being an rather impatient sort of life form, well, what do we want, answers; when do we want them, now!

Any gaps in our minds ability to figure things out, the natural order of things (like life, the universe and everything), could be instantaneously filled in by one very simple invention – storytelling. If you have trouble explaining the natural via the natural, then invent explanatory stories of the supernatural, or mythology, or its synonym religion, since every mythology has both supernatural elements and deities. Easy! Every culture has done it. As author Karen Armstrong says “We created religions because we are meaning-seeking creatures”. A local pastor of a friend of mine wrote that “religion is for making a disparate and confusing world coherent”. Substitute the word ‘science’ for ‘religion’ and I’d agree. That’s what science tries to do – make sense of life, the universe and everything. Later on down the track, people decided the best way to explain the natural was to investigate, experiment and get their hands dirty, and slowly but surely,  supernatural or religious philosophies morphed into natural philosophy, or what we call today science, and science has indeed filled in many gaps where previously only deities feared to tread.

Not all mythology need be 100% tall tales invented from scratch out of whole cloth to explain life, the universe and everything. There could be, and probably are, natural events influencing the authors of these tall tales. One can easily substitute a natural, albeit extraterrestrial Captain Yahweh of the Starship Heaven for the supernatural Almighty for example. 

Religion may have once covered that role but since the Age of Enlightenment religion has become irrelevant in that role. We created science to ultimately explain that who, what, where, when, why and how. Science answers the question ‘what is my DFMPR in life’ by pointing out there isn’t any DFMPR (given to us by a nebulous other or religious deity), any more than what is the DFMPR of a rock’s existence. It just is. There is nothing ultimately different between you and a rock, just the arrangement of the fundamental bits and pieces that make up both you and the rock.

But science hasn’t yet come to terms with everything life, the universe and everything has thrown up. An obvious example is explaining that eternal question of what is my DFMPR in existing and being present and accounted for in the first place, apart from my asking “how high” when someone says “jump”! “How high” might be your DFMPR for being present and accounted for in the here and now. 

But then you too could jump all on your own accord because you have decided that your DFMPR in life is to jump, or at least one of your DFMPR (there’s probably no such thing as just a singular DFMPR to your life). Now that’s not all that frivolous since there are athletes whose profession is the high jump or the broad jump or race track hurdles, or who ride and jump horses over obstacles – the steeplechase I think that’s called.

So again we see that your DFMPR can be both influenced by others (say your drill sergeant) and by yourself – you volunteered to enlist in the army and serve your country thus giving you DFMPR to your otherwise miserable existence.

The Concept of the Nebulous Other:

Now a question arises, does any DFMPR stem also from a third party, from a sort of nebulous supernatural sort of other drill sergeant type? Only if you believe in the existence of such a deity or the various mythological texts that supposedly endorse such a being. However, I’ve already pointed out that these religious mythologies were the products of the human mind to give instant satisfaction to un-answered and unanswerable (at the time) questions. Therefore there is no competing nebulous supernatural other directing your life, even if you believe otherwise. Any nebulous supernatural other stems from your own mind.

There is one other last option. People who feel that they are being directed or otherwise have a sense of higher calling or DFMPR in their life might be virtual beings in a simulated universe. Software is the string; you (in fact all simulated life, the simulated universe and the simulated everything) is the puppet of some unknown nebulous, but not a supernatural nebulous other, is the puppeteer. In such a simulated universe you’d have a DFMPR, but no free will. In this case the puppeteer wouldn’t be just a mental creation.

Conclusion: All DFMPR; good and evil; mystery and awe; yin and yang; a sense of yesterday and tomorrow; of death and immortality stems 100% from within your own mind, albeit influenced at times by others – like your drill sergeant – natural others, not nebulous supernatural others. If you feel you have an ultimate DFMPR to your existence then that ultimately stems from or is consolidated from within your own mind (brain chemistry rules the roost) even if influenced by the input of others. I have various self-assigned DFMPR, but they all stem from within my own mind – an example of free will? When my mind eventually goes, so too will go the DFMPR. Once you’re brain dead any DFMPR you had can’t be continued or added too, though that doesn’t mean you can’t still serve a DFMPR, like being an inspiration after-the-fact. Still, the bottom line is that all DFMPR ultimately comes from within, probably after much internal mulling things over, and ever evolving as you get older (and wiser). Apart from the simulated universe scenario, your mind is your own. You have, apparently, free will to pick and choose your own DFMPR.

Ultimate Purpose, Meaning and Destiny: Part One

If there is a common theme within religions and associated philosophies, it’s one of trying to position oneself in the broad context of life, the universe and everything as something special. You have somehow been tapped on the shoulder with a special and unique mission or destiny, or a special purpose or meaning that you have to carry during the time of your existence, something that places you uniquely above the rest of life, the universe and everything. Hogwash!

Author’s note: for the sake of brevity, I intend to use the acronym for self-awareness or consciousness as SAC; for the overlapping concepts of destiny, fate, function, meaning, purpose or reason as DFMPR. That should save a bit of space!

A Few Ultimate Questions:

Is there a DFMPR to life, the universe and everything?

What is the DFMPR to life, the universe and everything?

What is my DFMPR within life, the universe and everything?

Does the universe have a SAC?

A SAC universe, well that’s the only way it could assign you a, or influence your, DFMPR. But, looking up at the night sky, do you really think the universe gives a damn about your alleged DFMPR in life? That would indeed imply that the universe has some sort of SAC. But, IMHO, the universe did not assign you a DFMP at birth and does not acknowledge any DFMPR to your existence. You can contemplate the universe; the universe can not contemplate you. Alas, that’s because the universe is not alive, it doesn’t have a mind; it does not have any SAC. To argue otherwise is to invite trouble.

Some readers might recall the controversy of James Lovelock’s Gaia theory which seemed to imply that Earth (Gaia) had a SAC and the planet could somehow intellectually manipulate the various geo-chemical cycles (feedback mechanisms) to optimise the environmental balance between extremes that could otherwise result without those mechanisms. Gaia’s DFMPR was to produce and ensure an optimum Earth; a Goldilocks Earth, an Earth that’s just right for life. Of course those feedback mechanisms were just the result of natural unconscious physical laws, and too many New Agers read too much into Lovelock’s ideas. Planet Earth exhibits no SAC and neither does the universe.

By extension, there is no nebulous supernatural other within the universe that serves as a substitute for a SAC universe. As a jumping off premise, there is no such thing as either a SAC universe, or a supernatural realm that contains any deity or family of deities within that universe.

Speaking of the universe, I should mention here the Anthropic Cosmological Principle which comes in two basic formats, weak and strong. The weak version basically states the bleeding obvious, and that is the universe is bio-friendly. If the universe wasn’t bio-friendly, we wouldn’t be here to make note of that fact. The strong version however implies a DFMPR to the universe. The universe has a DFMPR to be bio-friendly and to produce life forms, like us, that can appreciate the DFMPR of the universe. Of course for the universe to have a DFMPR, it either has to be SAC of have a supernatural creator that is, unless of course the universe and its DFMPR is a simulated universe. See below.  

I guess I should also mention astrology here if for no other reason than readers would expect to find it mentioned. OK, I’ve mentioned it, now it’s time to move forward. Astrology is a 100% human invention and has no cosmic or personal significance in any shape, manner or form. Of course you are perfectly free to adopt astrology as your answer to your DFMPR, but that suggests you are happy to negate any free will others might think you have.

Let’s start at the most elementary basics and work the way upwards, starting with the four forces and associated particles plus the elementary particles (electron and quarks).

There are four fundamental forces in the universe, with associated particles that form the entire bedrock for all of life, the universe and everything. They are gravity, the weak nuclear and strong nuclear forces, and electromagnetism. You know all about gravity; electromagnetism is also a pretty familiar concept from the light that you read by, to the compass that guides you from Point A to Point B. Now do you associate any intelligence or SAC with these four forces? - Probably not.

There are also a few fundamental particles that you have probably heard about, namely electrons and quarks. Quark combinations make up protons and neutrons, and they in turn, in association with electrons make up atoms. Are electrons and quarks SAC? Do they have intellect? Do they have free will? – Probably not.

Atoms combine to form molecules, and molecules can combine to form really complex molecules, and combinations of really complex molecules can form life within all those other non-life bits that comprise the rest of the universe and everything. But if the fundamental building blocks have no SAC, how can combinations of them have SAC? It’s like building a house of red bricks only to have the finished house appear blue!

Still, somewhere along the line, un-SAC bricks can form a SAC house – you, for example. Therefore, the eternal question – the bits and pieces what makes me up has no SAC, yet I have, a SAC that is. Therefore, I’m more than the sum of my parts and I am somehow special (relative to the universe) and no doubt endowed therefore with some special DFMPR, if I can only figure out what.

Conversely, one could take the point of view and argue that gravity has a DFMPR to its existence, ditto a quark and therefore they have a SAC in order to carry out their DFMPR (like keeping Earth in its orbit, or making those neutrons) and therefore a rock has SAC (being made up of bits and pieces of SAC bits and pieces) and therefore you aren’t unique in your SAC vis-à-vis the inanimate world. But you still have to figure it out – either way you have to figure it out what your special DFMPR is. However, I have a hard time thinking that most living things would accept that all non-living things have a SAC, so let’s scratch that option.

Okay, the universe isn’t SAC and has no DFMPR, it just is; you on the other hand are SAC and therefore assume you have a unique DFMPR, whatever. But is that by your choice and alterable (free will) or by the design of the universe and unalterable?

From the moment of the Big Bang, all the laws, principles and relationships of physics became hardwired into the fabric of the universe, fixed and forever unalterable. That implies total causality and that outcomes are fixed. Plug in the numbers into the equation, crunch the numbers, and out will come the answer, fixed and immovable. Everything that happens in the universe is predetermined even unto billions of years into the future, including you and your DFMPR. Your life may have DFMPR except you have no choice, no free will, in what that DFMPR is. Absolute cause-and-effect rules out free will. Let’s move on from there.

Let’s forge ahead instead with the standard model and see where that leads us. The standard model, scientific model, being that the universe has no SAC or DFMPR, causality is iffy (due to quantum physics); you have SAC so there’s a transition between no SAC and SAC as complexity increases. There is no nebulous other (something supernatural) pulling your strings; you have free will.

You exist. You have not always existed and you will not always exist.

You did not create yourself.  Is there a reason you exist apart from the sex act that created you and perhaps the wishes of your parents to have a child (you) – though that may be a good enough reason in itself.

A more interesting question though is, is there really a DFMPR to your existence, and by extension to all that came before you, leading up to you, since if you have a DFMPR your parents had at least one DFMPR – creating you – and so on back on down the line.

Working backwards, if there was a reason for you, therefore there was a reason for your parent’s existence, your parent’s parents, back to the rise of Homo sapiens, the primates, the mammals, life itself, stuff (planets, stars, and galaxies), the creation of matter/energy and the time and space to ultimately produce you. If you exist for a reason, then everything that went before had a reason to exist as well.

To be continued...

Intermission!

Intermission: It’s time for a bit of a break and a holiday, but I shall return at irregular intervals, so check back every now and again if you are so inclined.

Theory vs. Observation: Part Two

There’s many a conflict that rages between observation and theory. What is observed cannot be; what cannot be alas is observed. Sceptics, those supporting theory, dump down on those who contradict theory because they witnessed something to the contrary. “It can’t be therefore it isn’t.” The witness dumps down on the sceptic with the statement, “I know what I saw”. Impasse! Perhaps there is a third option, one where both theory and observation can coexist.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

If you observe something that is impossible, and it really is impossible, and if the observation can’t be faulted, and the impossibility of the theory can’t be faulted, what possible resolution can there be? Well one possibility is that some as yet undiscovered genius marries theory and observation and both live happy ever after. That’s certainly happened before and no doubt will happen again. The other is that there needs be a realm where both theory and observation can illogically both exist, same time; same place. That incompatibly of theory and observation, side-by-side, being ultimately compatible is itself a contradiction. Fortunately, there are such realms apart from Alice’s looking glass wonderland.

Now one such realm is your dreams. Though I haven’t experienced it, apparently dreaming of yourself flying (as in Superman, not as in a aircraft) is a common scenario. You’re not Superman; you can’t fly. Your dreams however provide contrary observational evidence that you did fly. And so something both is (observation), and is not (theoretical logic), at the same time. In your dreams you can accomplish six impossible things before breakfast – that is before you wake up.

Even when wide awake it’s relatively easy to imagine images from within your own wetware (that mind within the brain) that can contradict what you know to be impossible with images of doing just that, like for example pitching a perfect game in the seventh game of the World Series and also hitting the winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning with thousands of female fans rushing onto the field to (well it’s your imagination so fill in the blank)!

Cinema provides another medium. Well there are Superman movies after all, one with a tag line, if I recall correctly along the lines of “you really will believe a man can fly”. Theory: in space no one can hear you scream, yet you hear (that’s a form of observation) the sound of spaceships battling it out with their photon torpedoes and phasers on the big screen.

Closely related, video games or something cut from the same cloth, computer or other simulations. You’re an astronaut simulating a lunar landing. Oops, you slipped up and crashed on the Moon and should have died, but you didn’t really crash and you most certainly didn’t die. You live to simulate another day. Just about any action-oriented video game (observation) will contain so many massive physics anomalies (theoretical impossibilities) as to cause any physics professor to take up the bottle in despair.

And so, if we have mediums that can reconcile theory and observation though both are incompatible, then who’s to say the contradictions we note and log in ‘real’ life may not be really real at all (well we know they can’t be) but perhaps the result of someone else’s dreams or video games and thus we’re not really real at all either! If we exist in a simulated universe, then, as the song title goes, “Heaven knows, anything goes”.

Let’s assume for the moment that the concept of a simulated universe or a virtual reality is actually via computer software, say something akin to a video game or a simulated reality as used for training purposes.

It’s unlikely that your virtual reality can be the product of quasi current day technology, although it’s possible that some human(s) in the 25^th Century have concocted up a 25^th Century equivalent of an ancient history video game titled 21^st Century Planet Earth. That aside, perhaps the programmer is not human at all but an extraterrestrial! Perhaps that extraterrestrial(s) has inserted itself into our virtual reality as our ‘ancient astronauts’ concept, otherwise known as those mythological polytheistic deities part and parcel of nearly all cultures, but could incorporate the more ‘modern’ monotheistic concept as well.

Anyway, one subset of all those thousands of polytheistic deities are those trickster gods known throughout all polytheistic mythologies. As the name suggest, these were deities who weren’t quite always on the up-and-up, but loved to play tricks, sometimes nasty and malevolent tricks. The bottom line is that trickster gods couldn’t be trusted.

But I can imagine that our virtual reality computer programmer fashions itself in the guise of a trickster god. Such a being would delight in creating our virtual reality that contains all of the anomalies we note and log in our seemingly real reality. What better trick than to create dozens of anomalies along the lines of conflicts between theory and observation; that something can both be and not be at the same time, and having ‘his’ created subjects try to figure it all out! What delicious fun enjoying their befuddlement!

Common or well known trickster gods of ancient mythology include Satan (Christianity), Loki (Norse), Maui (Polynesia), Raven & Coyote (North America), and Eros, Prometheus and Hermes (Ancient Greece).

Theory vs. Observation: Part One

There’s many a conflict that rages between observation and theory. What is observed cannot be; what cannot be alas is observed. Sceptics, those supporting theory, dump down on those who contradict theory because they witnessed something to the contrary. “It can’t be therefore it isn’t.” The witness dumps down on the sceptic with the statement, “I know what I saw”. Impasse! Perhaps there is a third option, one where both theory and observation can coexist.

In any sort of legal dispute, if you’re the prosecutor, it’s good to have documents – a paper trail – fingerprints, video camera footage, someone caught red-handed in the act or with the goods, as well as a documented trilogy of available time, substantive motive and ample opportunity against the alleged perpetrator.  But sometimes all you have to base your case on is the observation of a witness or witnesses. That’s often been enough, even more than enough, to either convict someone or provide and substantiate that someone with a legal alibi.  Eyewitness testimony alone, well it’s not perfect but it’s not something inadmissible in court either. 

While documents, including pictographs, rock carvings/paintings, hieroglyphs and related archaeological relics, including human remains; films and photographs too, are all excellent means to document history, an awful lot of what we accept as historical gospel comes from what someone or a group of people have witnessed, especially in the days before sound recordings and film. Then too many a document is nothing more than the recorded word of an eyewitness; an observer(s). 

Lastly, you couldn’t last or survive a day without your powers of observation being accurate and reliable. If your vision was unreliable or faulty, could you drive to work? You’d better know a red light when you see one, and exercise superb judgment based of your observations if thinking about overtaking and passing another vehicle. Ditto if you cross a busy street. You’d better be spot-on in your observation if approaching a down staircase. You’d better be able to observe and tell the difference when meeting up with a bear or a deer in the woods if you intend to pet it. Your ability to observe and report accurately (if only to yourself) those observations are absolutely critical to your survival.

You probably tell lots of people every week events that you observed and many people no doubt relate to you things they have witnessed. Nobody bats an eyebrow – nobody questions anyone’s bona fides. Expect of course when its something that expert authorities, professional sceptics included, say cannot be. Then eyebrows get raised. 

Issue number one: If 99.99% of what you observe is accurate, believable, a no-brainer in terms of  credibility, then why are you all of a sudden an unreliable witness if you observe something others, so-called expert others, dismiss as an impossible anomaly?

Issue number two: So-called, and really-real experts can indeed dismiss an impossible anomaly, witnesses be damned, if it is indeed an impossibility by the science of the day.

Issue number three: We have a contradiction between theory (what the experts say) and observation (what the witness sees)

On the one hand, throughout history, there’s been many an observation of something anomalous and considered downright impossible, according to the sceptics, that’s now part and parcel of the standard norm, like meteorites – stone that fall from the sky. Score points for the observer.

On the other hand, how many observations have been credited as legit though later found to be less than credible. Score points for the sceptic.

Now if someone has a track record of telling tall tales or taking substances that are known to hinder accurate observations and judgments, that’s one thing, but if not, are you prepared to call someone into doubt just because their observation are anomalous according to the state of the world?

For the purposes of this essay, I’ll ignore the philosophical concept inherent in quantum physics that the observer actually creates what is being observed; or in other words, nothing exists or has reality unless it is being observed. Let’s go with the more down to earth philosophy that something has, or has not, a reality regardless of whether it is being scrutinized or not.

Let’s examine a quintuplet listing of those it-can’t-be-therefore-it-isn’t anomalies contradicted by observations of just that, which could easily be expanded by two orders of magnitude, but then this is an essay and not a book-length encyclopaedia.

The realm of the once animate: Ghosts – Even if you haven’t seen a ghost, you probably know of someone who has or lacking that, you can go to your nearest library or the Internet and find ultimately hundreds of thousands of reported observations of ghostly manifestations. Are you prepared to call all these witnesses deluded or liars or under the influence? Now, try to come up with a viable explanation that’s compatible with physics, chemistry and biology that explains the relationship between a dead body and its post-death yet animated counterpart. Good luck!

Apart from the gap between observation and there being no theoretical way for ghosts or phantoms or spirits or wraiths, call them what you will, those remnants of the dead of people recently, or even not so recently, deceased, to exist, there is also the question, why aren’t sighted ghosts, or phantom hitchhikers, etc. naked? I mean it’s the person who died, not what they were wearing, so if a ghost is the essence of a former living person, and clothing doesn’t contribute to the nature of that essence, then ghosts should be seen naked! They’re not, so that’s anomaly number two between theory (should be undressed) and observation (ghosts are decently attired).

The realm of the animate: Botany: Crop Circles – This time there is absolutely no doubting the observational bona fides of the anomaly.  Thousands of witness and thousands of photographs and more measurements than you can shake a stick at have been made of (mainly British) crop circles. Sceptics counter that since natural complex geometric crop circles cannot be; and aliens obviously didn’t make them since there are no aliens on or near Planet Earth, then, since not even sceptics can explain away the reality of the circles, it has to be all a human hoax. Sceptics of the sceptics point out that the sheer logistics of human involvement, in total darkness, without mistakes, without leaving traces, without ever being caught, are also as close to theoretically impossible as makes no odds. Observations can’t be disputed; no theory can adequately explain them.

The realm of the animate: Zoology: Loch Ness – Let’s take at face value that numerous witnesses have sighted, some have photographed even filmed some sort of relatively biologically large ‘sea monster’ in Scotland’s Loch Ness. No matter how good the testimony or reliable the witness, no matter the quality of the photograph or the film, can it be so? Unfortunately for us romantic naturalists, the odds that ‘can it be so’ are so low that no sane person would bet a sawbuck on the positive. And so it’s Biology 101 to the fore for a theoretical reality check. You cannot have just a one-off ‘monster’. At the very least you need a male ‘monster’ and a female ’monster’. In fact you need a viable breeding herd of ‘monsters’ in order to keep the lake population of ‘monsters’ an ongoing proposition, since if you had just the one male or the one female and either one was infertile or somehow both failed to get their act together, well it’s by-by birdie or rather Nessie. Unfortunately, if Loch Ness contained a breeding herd of ‘monsters’ then snags would have to rear their ugly head that would argue the contrary. One would be that sightings would be vastly more frequent. Two, sooner or later one of the herd has gotta die, then another, then another. Sooner or later a corpse, fresh or decayed, has got to get washed ashore. If that happens, mystery solved. Thirdly, well there’s the issue of an adequate food supply. Loch Ness could probably feed one ‘monster’, but not a herd of them. Loch Ness is large, but still quite finite in volume. Fish in the open ocean can roam the wide open spaces for a meal; not so in a relatively small fish tank like Loch Ness. So we have another unresolved conflict between observation and theory. 

The realm of the inanimate: The Vacuum Energy - This is probably the Mother of All Anomalies! A temperature of absolute zero, that is a state in which there is no available energy, is impossible. That’s because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle which is one of those rock solid foundations of quantum physics. So there is always a minimum amount of energy available that pervades the Universe. It’s called the ‘vacuum energy’. Theoretically the vacuum energy should exist with such-and-such a value. The vacuum energy indeed exists (is has been observed and it has been experimentally confirmed) with such-and-such a value. However, you have a 120 order-of-magnitude (that’s one followed by 120 zeros) discrepancy between the observed vacuum energy and the theoretical value of the vacuum energy. This discrepancy is the most embarrassing ‘oops’ in all of modern physics and nobody can figure out how to resolve the discrepancy. Oops indeed!  

The realm of the cosmos: Quasars - Quasars are ‘quasi-stellar objects’. They are ‘stellar’ because they aren’t all that large (unlike a galaxy). They are ‘quasi’ because they give off energy way, way, way more times greater than any star known in any astronomical catalogue. They seem to be primordial objects – they formed long ago and are now far away.  Quasars, like stars or galaxies, are their own entities and if two or more show very close and special causality relationships then they should show identical recessional velocities (since the Universe is expanding and they are part of the Universe and that expansion). Recessional velocities are measured by an object’s red-shift. Theory identifies red-shift with velocity. However, you apparently have observations of causality connected quasar pairs with vastly differing red-shifts (measurements of their recessional velocities). The anomaly, in an analogy, is that you can not have a runner running at 15 miles per hour holding hands with another runner running at 3 miles per hour!

To be continued…

The Physics and Philosophy of Time: Part Two

“What is time?” That is a question that has been pondered and debated for probably thousands of years by some of the finest philosophical and scientific minds ever produced, without any definitive resolution. So, I’m NOT going to pretend that this is THE ANSWER – the be all and end all to the question. It’s some of my thoughts, which hopefully are as valid as anyone else’s!

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

How Old Are You? Well that’s obviously an easy question. You were born on such-an-such a date; today’s date is such-an-such; therefore you are such-an-such old.  Well ‘yes’, and well, ‘no’. The late astronomer Carl Sagan noted that we are all made of ‘star stuff’. That is, with the exception of hydrogen, all the higher chemical elements, which ultimately comprise us (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, etc), were cooked up in the heart of stellar interiors, at extreme temperatures and pressures. When stars explode (nova and supernova) those elements get spewed out into the cosmos, ultimately to clump together as the stuff from which new solar systems, planets, and life are formed.

However, we can go one step beyond that since, on the other hand, you are ultimately comprised of  fundamental particles like electrons and quarks which in turn make up those chemical elements (atoms) which can combine to form molecules, even the complex biochemical molecules which make you, you. 100% of you ultimately consist of these elementary particles, all of which were created or spewed out when the Universe was created. That’s currently estimated at 13.7 billion years ago, in the cosmological event called the “Big Bang’. In other words, you, being formed out of the elementary particles that collectively make up ‘you’, are the same age as the Universe, some 13.7 billion years old!  So, get in contact with your inner self, meditate with your inner electrons, quarks, hadrons, fermions, leptons, bosons and baryons, and discover the history of the universe, for they were there!

“Play It Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By’”:  We’ve all heard of the ‘arrow of time’ which points in one direction – from past to present and present to future. It’s related obviously to the concept of entropy, that this left to themselves, things go from an orderly state to a disorderly state – a clean desk gathers dust! A teenager’s bedroom loses neatness as time goes by. One way of dramatically illustrating this concept is to look at a film of some event which runs from past to present to future, and thus looks normal, and then look at the same film running backward – i.e. from the present to the past. We’ve all seen films of a broken egg and associated mess on the kitchen floor mysteriously reassembling, leaping up into the air, and gently landing on the kitchen table top. We KNOW we’re seeing the wrong arrow of time; we know we’re seeing entropy as it isn’t – going from a disordered state to an ordered state. Nature doesn’t happen that way. Or does it?

We’ve all seen paint dry. We can film paint drying. We can tell if that film is running backwards because we know dry paint doesn’t turn into wet paint.

We’ve seen films of a thunderstorm. The lightning flashes, the thunder rumbles, and wind howls, and the rain pelts down. That film in reverse would be obvious, because the thunder rumbles, then the lightning flashes, and though the wind still howls, the rain is pelting upwards!

What if you had a lump of coal? It obviously has some amount of radioactive carbon-14 in it, which slowly but surely decays. If a film showed the amount of radioactive carbon-14 increasing in the lump of coal, you’d guess that the film was being run backwards.

Take a piece of paper and set it on fire. If you saw a film showing the reverse, ashes burning and turning into paper, you’d be pretty dense not to know something wasn’t quite right.

Take a container with a divider in the middle. In one half, fill it with hot coffee. In the other half, fill it with hot cream. Lift out the divider and start filming. Pretty soon the white cream and the black coffee produce a uniform brownish/grey mix. If you saw that film in reverse, you’d be bewitched, bothered and bewildered, because things don’t happen that way.

Lastly, let’s film your life – birth, childhood, teenager, young adult, adult, mature aged citizen, elderly, [until death was finally on the near horizon]. Again, you’d immediately know someone put the film in backwards of you saw yourself growing ever more visibly younger.

Now, instead of filming the BIG PICTURE – drying paint, a thunderstorm, radioactive carbon-14 in coal, burning paper, that nice cup of coffee with cream, and this is your life, let’s film just one elementary particle or atom or molecule contained within each of those events. If you focused on just that one bit particle / atom / molecule, and then ran the film backwards, would anything seem strange? The answer is ‘NO’.

The molecule of paint is there whether of not the wetting agent is arriving or leaving, and the wetting agent, say an alcohol molecule, can potentially arrive just as readily as leave as a molecule of same.

A water molecule (making up a rain drop) can rise into the atmosphere just as readily as it can descend.

Atomic particles can impact and turn an ordinary non-radioactive carbon atom into a radioactive (carbon-14) one. I mean radioactive carbon was somehow created in the first place, so the reverse process obviously can happen. So, even if a particle decays into other particles, the reverse is not anomalous as particles can merge – think of hydrogen fusing into helium (plus energy) in the Sun for example.

The carbon in a molecule of cellulose (paper) will, when the paper is burned, remain an atom of carbon, either as carbon ash or as carbon dioxide. But then carbon, or carbon dioxide, can be incorporated into cellulose, so filming in reverse breaks no laws of physics or chemistry. In other words, chemical reactions are reversible. Hydrogen and oxygen can combine in a ratio of two to one for form water. Water in turn can be broken down by electrolysis into hydrogen and oxygen.

There’s nothing unusual if a molecule of cream goes to the left and a molecule of coffee right next to it goes to the right (i.e. – cream and coffee components separate).

Lastly, each and every particle, atom or molecule in your body doesn’t age. Film any particle, atom or molecule that’s part and parcel of your body, view it backwards, and you wouldn’t notice anything anomalous from the time it becomes part and parcel of you until it leaves. Viewed forward or backward, particles, atoms or molecules enter your body, do their thing, and ultimately get replaced by other particles, atoms or molecules.

So, if the micro components of these macro systems don’t exhibit any preferred arrow of time, or exhibit entropy, or have some sort of inevitable destiny, then in theory, the macro systems can defy the arrow of time or entropy or their inevitable destiny. Paint can un-dry; rain can pelt upwards; atomic particles can make something non-radioactive, radioactive; carbon atoms can participate in reversible chemical reactions; creamy coffee can separate into coffee and cream; and lastly, you don’t apparently have to age (but you probably will anyway). Or, put another way, an electron is immortal, so even though you will age and die, not that its much of a consolation, but all your component particles, etc. ultimately live on (and on, and on) to strut their stuff again, and again.

In conclusion, it would appear that there is a very fundamental difference between time in the macro-universe and time in the micro-universe. It’s almost as if there were two highly different software packages written in order to run the overall Universe, one with an arrow of time and entropy, and one without!

Further recommended readings about time:

Carroll, Sean; From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time; Dutton, New York; 2010:

Davies, Paul; About Time: Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution; Penguin Books, London; 1995:

Hawking, Stephen & Penrose, Roger; The Nature of Space and Time; Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey; 1996:

Le Poidevin, Robin; Travels in Four Dimensions: The Enigmas of Space and Time; Oxford University Press, Oxford; 2003:

Lockwood, Michael; The Labyrinth of Time: Introducing the Universe; Oxford University Press, Oxford; 2005:

Mahid, Shahn (Editor); On Space and Time; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 2008:

The Physics and Philosophy of Time: Part One

“What is time?” That is a question that has been pondered and debated for probably thousands of years by some of the finest philosophical and scientific minds ever produced, without any definitive resolution. So, I’m NOT going to pretend that this is THE ANSWER – the be all and end all to the question. It’s some of my thoughts, which hopefully are as valid as anyone else’s!

What Is Time? It has been said that time is just Nature’s way of preventing everything from happening at once! But the word ‘happening’ is significant because if something happens, something changes. To my way of thinking, time is synonymous with change; time is a measurement of change; change gives the concept of time tangible meaning. If nothing ever changed, if nothing ever happened, it would be meaningless to talk about time. Time is just our informal perception or more formal measurement of rate-of-change. Rates-of-change vary depending on how fast you travel relative to some other frame of reference (the General Theory of Relativity) so the time intervals that measure that rate-of-change vary accordingly. I also can’t help but wonder whether, speaking of things relative, whether one could insist on a constant rate-of-change that’s made constant because your rate-of-time varies, or the more common view from day-to-day experience that rate-of-time is constant but rate-of-change varies.

It’s not difficult to understand why you are not aware of time passing when you sleep. It’s because you’re not aware or cognoscente of anything changing while you’re asleep. In fact, sleep is a way of achieving time travel. You go to sleep at 11 pm. Next thing you know its 7 am and you’ve traveled eight hours into the future seemingly instantly!

Thusly, I conclude that time doesn’t have a separate reality. I mean you can’t weigh time, it has no mass, it has no charge or energy, it isn’t a force and has no particle associated with it, you can’t put time to any physical use, nor can you manipulate time. You certainly can’t bottle and sell it! It’s about as intangible a something as the Universe allows.

Did time exist before there was anyone around to put a label to it? I mean in a pre-life era, change certainly took place – rocks eroded, the tides ebbed and flowed. But was there time? I suggest the answer is ‘no’ in that it takes a certain level of intellect to recognize change or rate-of-change. A rock doesn’t perceive time, nor does the beach upon which the tides act. The changes are physically real enough, but it takes something as complex as a living organism (not of necessity just a human organism) to perceive and understand change, and rate-of-change, which – human beings – for lack of a better word, we call it all happening (i.e. rate-of-change) as a concept called ‘time’.

By analogy, there is the oft quoted puzzle of there being this tree in a forest which falls. Does the falling/fallen tree produce any sound if no one (meaning humans) is around to hear it? (Of course there would be animals like bears, deer, possums, birds, etc. that would hear the sound, but let’s suppose that the forest contains just plants which I assume we can agree on, can’t hear. Now regardless of whether any animals are around or not, the falling tree will produce vibrations in the air (usually air, but vibrations can be equally transmitted in a liquid or solid medium). But vibrating air isn’t by itself sound. Sound is the perception (and possible interpretation) of those vibrations, and that takes a detection device and software (ears and a brain). So, there is no sound without ears and a brain, although the vibrating air is quite real regardless.

Time too, by way of my analogy, is akin to sound; change or rate-of-change is akin to the vibrating air. The former two (time and sound) are perceptions of physical events; the latter two (change and vibrating air) are the real physical events.

You’d think that therefore time wouldn’t exist in a vacuum or at a temperature of absolute zero, as how could anything change in a vacuum which contains nothing or at absolute zero when all motion ceases? Ah, enter the weird and wonderful world of quantum physics and discover that quantum activity, happenings, change, motion, etc. exists even in an apparent perfect vacuum and even at as close to absolute zero as makes no odds. In quantum physics, there’s no possibility of a perfect vacuum; absolute zero is only abstract and can’t ever be actually achieved. Therefore, time always exists as well. There seems to be no way to ever shut down quantum activity and achieving a perfect vacuum and/or absolute zero, so we’re in no danger of ever having our perception of time cease.

The shortest (quantum) unit of time possible is just that interval below which no possible change can happen. In other words, even the quickest ever possible change one can imagine takes an absolute minimum amount of time.

Change also implies there must be causality – there must be a cause that produces an effect, or in other words, something is affected by something else that occurred previously. Going from cause to effect implies a change and a time interval must have taken place into which that change fits. This introduces the commonly used phrase ‘arrow of time’. If time is our perception of change, then what is the ‘arrow of time’? Methinks it’s the reality that on the macro scale at least change happens only in one direction – cause precedes effect; effect follows cause, and that’s change. Examples of such one way cause and effect change include dropping the china cup and it breaks. A broken cup does assemble itself and then leap off the floor into your hand. Humans tend to be conceived, get born, grow up and age. Hair turns gray (or falls out), you get wrinkles and liver spots, and you die. You don’t rise from the grave, re-animate, and age backwards towards childhood and pop back into the womb! A hot cup of coffee cools off to room temperature. A cold cup of coffee doesn’t heat up by itself; even if there’s potential energy enough in the environment (air molecules flying around) to theoretically heat it up.  In other words, you can’t unscramble (or un-boil) an egg. 

Present Time: The Concept of ‘Now’: Does the present actually exist? We speak of it was if it does. But does it? Now I’m sure there’s no debating that there is a past, and that there will be a future. I’m sure there’s no debating that what we’d call five years ago exists in the past; five years on from when you read this is clearly the future. What about five months ago, or ahead?  What about five days or five hours or five seconds? Is half a second ago the past? Is half a second hence the future? Of course it is. In fact, I suggest you can split units of time ever shorter and shorter, but still admit that ‘ago’ means past; hence means future, even if 0.000005 of a second ago really is past, and 0.000005 of a second hence is the future. So where comes the ‘now’ or the present?

While there is a past, and will be a future, there really does exist a present. There apparently is such a thing as the shortest interval of time and nothing shorter can exist in reality. That shortest interval of time is known as Planck-Wheeler time, below which time as we know it ceases to exist. It’s about 10 to the minus 43^rd of a second. That’s how long your present lasts for! One Planck-Wheeler time unit behind you is now forever locked in as part of your unalterable past. One Planck-Wheeler time unit ahead, is still part of your malleable (free will?) future.

Even without resorting to quite such a tiny present, physics logic suggests that you really are an isolated individual that cannot share the present with the rest of the world. Lets imagine this couple, say we call them Clive and Jane, sitting down for their evening meal. Clive says to Jane, “pass the salt please darling”. Now Clive utters that phrase in his present and Jane hears it in her present. But both presents aren’t simultaneous. When Jane hears it in her present, it’s simultaneously Clive’s past because it takes time for sound to travel from voice to ear (and light from mouth to eye). Actually, when Jane hears the word “salt”, “pass the” is already in her past while “please darling” is still in her future. In other words, Clive and Jane can’t ever share the same present even though both pass through identical simultaneously now’s.

Here’s a form of time travel. When Jane looks in a mirror, the image she sees in her present is actually of herself from her past – an ever so slightly younger version of herself because it takes an interval of time for the light to be reflected off Jane, onto the mirror, reflected off that, and back to Jane’s eyes.

In summary, nothing you see or hear has the exact same reality that you perceive in your present because there has been a time lag and things change over time – even incredibly short intervals of time. A common example is looking at a distant star. The star you see in you’re here and now isn’t the same star that exists in that same here and now. You’re looking at a star, which, for all you know, just may no longer exist!

Of course you do live your entire life in the actual ‘now’ – you certainly don’t literally live in any part of your past, nor your future. Your life, your lifetime of ‘now’, is a string of Planck-Wheeler time units.