There are many Big Questions in science, many of which go back to the ancients, even back into prehistory in all probability. One of the best modern set I’ve found recently were sidebars in a book by Emeritus Professor of Physics at the Open University, Russell Stannard. These are my answers, thoughts and commentary to those Big Questions. Many readers might have ‘fun’ trying to come to terms with these in their own way based on their own worldview.
The following questions (Q) are taken verbatim from those poised by Russell Stannard in his 2010 book The End of Discovery [are we approaching the boundaries of the knowable?]; Oxford University Press, Oxford
My answers are based mainly with the thought of our being in a Simulated (Virtual Reality) Universe that has been constructed by one or more Supreme Programmers. However, some of the answers apply regardless of what the nature of our ultimate reality is.
Q. How are we to understand the true nature of space?
A. Space is a not-thing. You cannot see, hear, touch, taste or smell space. Space is a concept, actually a mathematical concept called volume. Volume is the third dimension, and dimensions are also a concept – a not-thing. Space is the container that holds within real things, like you and me. So the true nature of space is the exact same as the true nature of Wednesday.
Q. Is space infinitesimally divisible?
A. Since space is a not-thing, that is just a concept invented and used by the human mind (as well as within the minds of numerous non-human life forms) to measure the mathematical concept of volume and to assist with navigation, then space is infinitesimally divisible since it has no physical properties that are so fundamental that they can’t be divided one more time.
Q. How many dimensions are there? And why are some curled up, and others extended?
A. There are no dimensions at all. Dimensionality is a human invention, attributing magical meaning to right angles, which do have a practical value in navigating around the world and the universe. Dimensions are a useful construct, just like addition; subtraction; algebra; trigonometry and the calculus are useful constructs. Since dimensions are mathematical constructs, and therefore not-things (you cannot detect points, length, area or volume – even the so-called fourth dimension of time - with any of your five senses) then how many dimensions there are is a pretty meaningless question.
Q. What is time?
A. Time is a not-thing. Time is a concept that resides in the mind and cannot be detected with any of your senses. Time has no physical properties. Time is mathematics (a human invention), a way of measuring a particular thing. That thing is change, or rate-of-change. If there is no change, it is meaningless to talk about time. Time does not exist independently of change.
Q. Is time infinitesimally divisible?
A. Since time is a not-thing, that is just a concept invented and used by the human mind (as well as within the minds of numerous non-human life forms) to measure and deal with change, then time is infinitesimally divisible since it has no physical properties that are so fundamental that they can’t be divided one more time.
Q. Does the loss of simultaneity for events separated by a distance invalidate the notion that only the presence exists?
A. This is one of those ‘paradoxes’ of those Theories of Relativity whereby, since things are relative, to one observer A happens before B; to another observer A and B are simultaneous happenings; and to yet a third observer, B happens before A. Since all observers are correct according to their specific frame of reference, the concept of ‘now’ is flexible. There is no absolute ‘now’. Another example is that whatever you observe, you observe ‘now’ yet what you observe actually happened in the past. The sunlight you see ‘now’ is now eight minutes old. However, it’s quite conceivable that you could instigate a universal ‘now’ and freeze the universe by snapping your fingers “STOP NOW”. That “STOP NOW” message would propagate instantaneously throughout the entirety of the universe. You, being immune from that “STOP NOW” command, would be free to navigate and explore the cosmos and see the universe as it appeared at that one ‘now’ instant – ‘now’ being of course the present. Only the present, the universal snapping your fingers ‘now’ exists. The interesting thing is that ‘now’ is such a short interval that your definition of the length of ‘now’ is vastly longer than what ‘now’ exists in in reality.
Q. Does the perceived flow of time require there to be two types of time?
A. The two types of time in question are physical time (the tick-tock of a clock; the cycle of the lunar phases) and mental time (where an hour can seem like a minute; a minute can seemly last for an hour). So there is real time, and subjective time. But time in any guise is a not-thing; an illusion; a concept. Only change is real and the rate of change, real or perceived, is what we call time – physical or mental. One could, if one wanted make a variable rate of change into a constant. Normally we hold physical time as a constant – tick-tick-tick-tick – at a rate of one-second-per-second (or one-day-per-day, etc.). We can count the number of ticks between say two red cars passing by on the road in front of our house. But you could say the interval between any two red vehicles is a constant. It is one unit or one tick per interval of red car time. That means that everything you associate as being regular like one-second-per-second or a 24-hour-day would become irregular. One ‘day’ might equate to 100 red car interval ticks. The next ‘day’ it might be 200 red car interval ticks long (since there happen to be double the number of red cars passing by on ‘day’ two as compared to ‘day’ one). If you define a ‘day’ as say 100 red car interval ticks, then ‘day’ two above would really be ‘day’ two plus ‘day’ three. Well, you can see how that sort of reckoning would screw up your biological clock! You’d have a ‘day’ off work between 1000 and 1100 red car interval ticks; the next ‘day’ off work between 2000 and 2100 red car interval ticks, etc. In the case of the 1000-1100 interval, that might be a long and restful ‘day’ but the 2000-2100 interval could be extremely short! You could do the above time experiment, at least as a silent and private intellectual exercise. Otherwise people would carry you off to the funny farm! However, if time were really real, then time couldn’t be manipulated as per the red car interval example. But time isn’t real so you can twist it around your little finger. Thus, the flow if time is indeed perceived, but that doesn’t make it something of substance. So, one kind of time, two kinds of time – it’s irrelevant.
Q. Does four-dimensional spacetime imply that the future is, in some sense, fixed?
A. If causality rules like I think it does, then yes.
Q. Does this in turn compromise our sense of free will?
A. Free will? What’s that? We think we have free will but that’s an illusion. No doubt a character in a video game believes she has free will, but we know better, don’t we!
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