The Return of the Hidden Variable

There are many anomalies from the macro-world that can be ‘explained’ by resorting to a Simulated [Virtual Reality] Universe scenario, from statues that walk (on Easter Island according to the natives) to the concepts of an afterlife to those feelings of déjà vu to recollections of previous lives to crop ‘circles’ to ghosts, and so on and so forth. However, most of these anomalies can be classified as belonging to the paranormal or as a pseudoscience and dismissed. Not so easily dismissed are anomalies from hardcore particle (quantum) physics, the most experimentally verified science every known and responsible in gismos and gadgets for over one-third of the world’s economy.

The key to reality in general, including yours in particular, lies in the basics (i.e. – the Standard Model of Particle [Quantum] Physics) and how it builds from the ground up. That reality includes those anomalies and how they can be explained. It’s time to think the unthinkable, so here are a few more reasons why you might wish to consider our Universe to be pre-programmed virtual reality, where heaven knows, anything goes!

Further examples of simulation arguments if any more are necessary.       

* There’s the Pauli Exclusion Principle which notes that no two electrons can occupy the same ‘orbit’ if they have identical quantum numbers or quantum properties. Of course all electrons have the same mass and the same electric charge and the same energy (if they are in the same ‘orbit’) and if in the same ‘orbit’ the same angular momentum and orientation. Pauli came up with another property however that can differentiate between two electrons – ‘spin’. So if there is an electron in ‘orbit’ with one value of ‘spin’ and another electron with the same value of ‘spin’ tries to enter that ‘orbit’ it won’t be able to. If the electron has the opposite ‘spin’ however, then it’s allowed to join in that ‘orbit’. The question is, how does one electron ‘know’ or ‘sense’ what the ‘spin’ of a fellow electron is. That they apparently do is not in question, but it’s damn odd. Take two basketballs and place them close to each other. Spin one clockwise and the other counterclockwise. Neither basketball gives a royal stuff about what the other is doing!  

* Why are all the fundamental particles identical to each of their own kind? Aren’t all up-quarks the same? Aren’t all electron-neutrinos the same? In the macro world no two ‘identical’ products, inanimate or animate, are actually identical down to the Nth detail – not even identical twins. But in the micro world that’s not the case. All photons are identical, even when they have differing energy levels. All heavy hydrogen atoms are identical, ditto so are all those up-quarks or tau neutrinos. Why are all electrons identical? Why this should be so is not readily apparent from first principles on up the line. However, it’s easy to software code any particle, and whenever that code appears, you have an identical particle appear. 

* If something should be but isn’t (say equal amounts of matter and antimatter); or if something is and shouldn’t be (like entanglement’s spooky action at a distance), either is suggestive of artificial manipulation.

* The acceleration of the universe (Dark Energy) and Dark Matter are just the result of the Supreme Programmer not paying enough attention to the finer details when programming the software that serves as the cosmic background wallpaper. It makes sense to skimp on the bits and bytes when it comes to the background wallpaper, but that skimping can backfire.

* If I understand the standard model of cosmology, that Big Bang event, implies that first there was nothing; then there was something. That means the Big Bang event created both matter and energy out of less than thin air. That’s a free lunch. Fortunately, software has a starting point thus explaining the cosmic philosophy of some cosmologists that do indeed claim that first there was nothing; then there was something.

* That Big Bang event also created both time and space out of less than thin air. The day I see a cosmologist replicate that point of view by creating time and space in front of her professional peers (as well as a TV audience), I’ll change my tune. Meantime, IMHO it’s all bovine fertilizer, or software. 

* Apparently the density of Dark Energy remains constant while the volume of the Universe expands. That’s something from nothing. That’s also a free lunch. So how can Dark Energy create more space thus forcing space to expand and the resulting expanding space creating more Dark Energy since Dark Energy is an intrinsic property of space in an endless free lunch loop?

* Apparently, when faced with an energy barrier, particles that lack sufficient energy to surmount the barrier in classical physics, can ‘tunnel’ past the barrier and come out the other side. Now the upshot of that is that this tunneling happens instantaneously. The particle is on the left hand side of the barrier then immediately tunnels and appears on the right hand side of the barrier – instantaneously. Now quantum tunneling implies a velocity faster than the speed of light, which if true would have Einstein spitting chips. Something is screwy somewhere.

* When an electron rises or falls from one energy level to another, when in-between the electron is in limbo, in Never-Never-Land, in The Twilight Zone, in another dimension for all we know. It just can’t be anywhere that’s locatable in-between for if it was – in-between that is – it would possess an in-between energy state that it is not allowed to have. How does an electron vanish from the cosmos or go into a state of non-existence when quantum jumping from one energy state to another?

* Traditional wave-particle duality is according to one interpretation a complementary but either/or phenomenon. Sometimes light/particle experiments show results that prove a pure 100% wave phenomena is responsible; sometimes however other light/particle experiments show results that prove a pure 100% particles phenomena is the only possible interpretation. I’ve also oft seen it described that at point of origin and at the point of detection, you observe a particle. In-between emission and detection it’s a wave. That doesn’t make a great deal of sense unless there is a higher power (a Supreme Programmer) pulling the strings – or programming the program.

* Symmetry holds in 11 out of 12 cases – four forces (electromagnetism, gravity, and the strong and the weak nuclear forces) times three symmetry operations (time, charge and parity) with only the parity of the weak force being the odd one out. There’s something screwy somewhere!

* Entanglement (Spooky action at a distance): Pick and remove a card from a standard deck. Don’t look at it. Bury it in a time capsule. Send the rest of the unobserved deck of 51 cards via rocket ship off to the Andromeda Galaxy. Leave instructions. Generations upon generations later, with the deck of 51 safely in the Great Galaxy of Andromeda, you’re great, great, great (add lots more greats) grand-person can dig up and look at lone card in the time capsule. Say it is the Ace of Diamonds. You do not now need to observe the rest of the original deck in Andromeda to know 1) it contains 51 cards, and 2) that it is missing the Ace of Diamonds! That’s entanglement. And entanglement is something that Einstein called ‘spooky action at a distance’ because you can come by information/knowledge instantaneously – faster than the speed of light. Thus, Einstein was not amused!

* Though bordering on the fringe, some bona-fide astronomers strongly suggest from actual observation that the extreme large-scale structure of the cosmos exhibits a fractal pattern (and there is some extensive literature on the subject). To me however, fractals are primarily a mathematical construction; the product of a mathematical mind, and as such, if there is a fractal cosmos, that’s very strong evidence for a Supreme Programmer. 

It’s just about time here to cite Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law, which notes that “any sufficiently advanced technology (i.e. – a Supreme Programmer, for example) is indistinguishable from [quantum physics] magic”. 



The Simulated Universe Concept

Nearly everyone, if asked, will tell you that there is a really real universe out there and that they are part of that natural universe. However, that might not be the case. The case might be that there is a really real virtual universe out there and that you are a part of that simulated universe. In other words, you are akin to being just a character in what are commonly termed video games, only this video game that you are a character in was created by an unknown – let’s call this creator the Supreme Programmer; maybe a human; maybe not. 

THE SIMULATED UNIVERSE!

Q. What Is The Simulated Universe Hypothesis?

A. The human species, especially since the proliferation of the computer and associated technologies, have created thousands of simulated landscapes and virtual beings, from the humble Microsoft office assistant to pilot training simulators to video games that cater to all types of interests and age groups. Entire movies are now computer generated simulations – no actual on-location travel required; no humans need apply in hopes of earning an eventual Oscar for best actor. In view of the explosion of simulation technologies, and it’s only going to increase and get ever more realistic than it already is, the question has arisen, if we can create virtual worlds, might not we in turn be virtual beings ‘living’ in a simulated landscape programmed for some purpose or other, by other beings which might be futuristic humans recreating their past history, or ET’s video game version of “The Life and Times on the Third Rock in the Sol Planetary System”. It’s a best seller on Krypton! Though once just sci-fi speculation, that profound idea that we don’t really exist as flesh-and-blood is now taken very seriously indeed. However, there are many more questions arising from this scenario.

Q. Who gets prime credit for coming up with the Simulated Universe hypothesis?

A. I wish I could, but I can’t. Prime credit should probably go to Professor Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University as well as the Director of the Future of Humanity Institute. His original paper, “Are you living in a computer simulation” appeared in the Philosophical Quarterly, volume 53, number 211, 2003. 

Q. How Is The Simulated Universe Created?

A. In the exact same way as computer nerds and geeks here on Earth create all the various thousands of instructional and recreational simulations here on Terra Firma. It’s all in the programming.

Q. Who or what is the Supreme Programmer?

A. Obviously those of a religious leaning would call the Supreme Programmer God, except God is identified with creating a really real reality, not virtual reality. I much prefer a flesh-and-blood Supreme Programmer, which offers up one of two possibilities. The Supreme Programmer could be a human(s) with computing and programming skills far in advance of our own, or the Supreme Programmer could be a non-terrestrial, an alien or an extraterrestrial. Hey, if we can create aliens in out video games, well what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

Q. Can software create matter and energy?

A. No. Software can only create virtual or simulated matter and energy.

Q. Is the matter and energy that we experience in our world matter and energy that doesn’t exist?

A. The matter and energy we experience in our world doesn’t really exist because we don’t really exist as a manifestation of matter and energy. Think of those animated cartoons – Bugs Bunny doesn’t exist as matter nor does the carrot he eats, but he still eats the carrot!

Q. How can a mind exist if there is no matter in our world to make our brains?

A. If our mind, and the brain it is housed in, is virtual matter – as it would be if we were simulated – then there’s no need for there to be really real matter in our world. 

Q. There must be really real matter somewhere in order for the Supreme Programmer to exist so he / she / it can create the really real software program.

A. Of course. We may be virtual beings in a simulated universe but that would still require a really real universe and really real reality for the creator of the software to create in – our Supreme Programmer. An analogy is that the characters in our video games or cartoons (like Bugs Bunny) reside in a simulated or cartoon world, but their simulated or cartoon world resides in what we think of as 3-D reality – our universe. 

Q. Does the Supreme Programmer manipulate us in real time as per a terrestrial video game, or has he / she / it just created an initial set of conditions; laws, principles and relationships, and then hit “enter” or “run program” and see how events unfold?

A. The latter. I certainly don’t get the sensation I’m being manipulated by outside forces beyond my everyday comprehension as if I were a character in a video game.

Q. Instead of being the product of computer software, might we be the product of wetware – someone dreaming or daydreaming (or even hallucinating)?

A. Absolutely. We all know how vivid, real, lifelike, and detailed dreams can be. The mind is capable of painting incredibly realistic imagery. The mind is more than capable of constructing virtual reality. Each day billions of virtual reality landscapes are created and dissolved – dreamland landscapes.

Q. What’s in it for me if the Simulated Universe scenario is correct?

A. Well, the Supreme Programmer isn’t much help when it comes to you paying your dues, bills, taxes, or in assisting you when dealing with those day-to-day issues we all have. But, it just might be a key element to your afterlife. End sub-programme routine “Life: Jane Doe”; run sub-programme routine “Afterlife: Jane Doe”. 

Q. Is there anyway we can know that we are just virtual beings in a Simulated Universe?

A. If the Supreme Programmer really knows his (or her or its) stuff, no. You’re programmed not to know.

Q. Is there anyway we can suspect that something’s screwy somewhere, that we are just virtual beings in a Simulated Universe?

A. Computer software often needs tweaking – so look for anomalous tweaks around us. Computer software is often overridden, though usually never 100% completely – so look for the residue of overridden software, like ghostly images. Computer software programming will vary in the detail required – so look to areas that have been given the broad brush treatment where detail is lacking or so glossed over as to present anomalies. Computer programming might contain contradictions, backgrounds not thought through properly – so look around for enigmas – things that can’t be yet are. Look in general for all those ‘oops’ bits. Look in general for anything and everything than can best be explained by software programming or technology, as opposed to any natural forces at work.

Q. I gather therefore that the Simulated Universe hypothesis is like God-of-the-gaps arguments. Anything and everything is explainable.

A. Yes. Unfortunately there’s no getting around this. Religion explains all since “God works in mysterious ways” – that’s a copout. Anything God can explain away software programming can explain away too. 

Q. What is the best argument against the Simulated Universe scenario?

A. Crunch power! The sheer amount of bits and bytes that could be required to simulate to the detail required our existence, life, the Universe and everything, would be massive. Now that’s not to say lots of shortcuts wouldn’t be taken. You could skimp on a lot of the micro details and a lot of the cosmic details, but even taking into account quantum computing it would be a massive set of software programmes. However, if it is a really advanced technological society, human or extraterrestrial, creating our virtual world, well who’s to say what might or might not be possible.

Discussion

When it comes to the Simulated Universe concept, there’s probably a time differential in operation. Just as in some of our simulations we speed up the unfolding action, compressing say a million years of galactic evolution into a few minutes, so too might our Supreme Programmer unravel our virtual reality such that a week, month or year to us might occupy the Supreme Programmer for a few of their seconds or minutes. Presumably it is the broad-brush evolving big picture of interest, not the nitty-gritty second-by-second details of your boring life. 

Then too there are some people to whom the idea of a Simulated Universe and a Supreme Programmer is deeply disturbing. As one person wrote to me, “If I felt I was a puppet on a string, I might just give up and fall in a heap.” Of course the puppet-on-a-string hands-on character in a video game analogy is just one possibility. It’s also quite possible that you are left to your own evolutionary fate with no direct interference or manipulation by the Supreme Programmer other than he / she / it set the initial parameters and then just stood aside as an interested but non-interfering observer.

Actually I find it disturbing and quite incredible that some people might be upset by the Simulated Universe proposal (or any other state of the cosmos for that matter). As one person put it to me, “I can cope with an indifferent universe but not with a malicious one”, the idea being that a Supreme Programmer must of necessity be malicious. The more positive view might be that the Supreme Programmer, the puppeteer pulling the strings, might be pulling your strings in a nice way; in a beneficial way, so that you can and do enjoy “the beauty of the natural world, friendship, music, and the taste of good food, wine and beer!”  Apart from the Supreme Programmer, there actually really is a puppeteer (of sorts) that you dance to – that puppeteer is called society and society pulls your strings! Your days, weeks, months, and years are full of society telling you to do this and don’t do that, from formal legalities to conventional mores. When society says “jump”, you ask, “how high?” 

The Universe simulated or otherwise just is. The Universe is what it is. The Universe is whatever it is. There’s nothing you can do about the state of the Universe. Therefore, cross it off your “I’m concerned about this” list. There’s no point in fretting over what you have no control over.

If the Universe really might be malicious, if someone or something is yanking your chain, and that possibility disturbs you, then it is in your interest to show it otherwise, or if it is, you owe it to yourself to come to terms with that and then move on to newer and better concepts to occupy your mind.

An Infinite Cosmos: Part Two

The nature of, the size, the shape and the duration of our Universe has been speculated and debated upon ever since humans gazed in wonder at the night sky. Though ideas have waxed and waned, and though modern cosmology is more focused than ever on actual observations, speculations, well that’s still the case today. My take, albeit slightly more philosophically inclined, is that our Universe is just part of an overall infinite in space and infinite in duration cosmos. 

Continued from Part One.

As we noted in the example of the fridge and your body, it takes energy to reverse entropy or at least hold it at bay. A reversal of entropy is sort of like that closed box with Maxwell’s Demon (representing energy) that controls a slot that the Demon can either open or close that’s in the middle of that closed box that’s of a uniform temperature.  The Demon opens the slot whenever a rapidly moving (hot) molecule heads toward the left side or when a slower moving (cold) molecule heads toward the right side. After a while, the left side of the box will be containing just hot stuff (rapidly moving molecules) and the right side cold stuff (slowly moving molecules). Maxwell’s Demon is like a kid expending energy sorting a bag of 1000 various coloured marbles (maximum disorder) into piles of reds and greens and blues and yellows (maximum order).  Of course our infinite cosmos contains no demons, and marble-sorting kids need not apply if there’s ever a job ad for restoring order to an infinite cosmos.

Okay, without demons (or entropy reversing kids), our infinite cosmos heads towards a state of maximum entropy or maximum disorder or maximum uniformity. The cosmic temperature will be the same everywhere; matter will be evenly distributed. But, can an infinite cosmos ever reach such a state? It could or should take an infinite amount of time, but that’s also assumed. 

Yet alas, what even an infinite cosmos needs is a Maxwell’s Demon. The cosmos, if it is to retain a state of vitality for an infinite duration, needs something that recycles stuff that’s at maximum entropy (maximum disorder) back to the basics of minimum entropy (or minimum disorder) where useful things can continue to happen.

* The Role of Gravity

Gravity seems to be a Maxwell Demon’s kind of force that keeps on keeping on. As long as you have two bits of matter, even just two electrons, you have gravity. Radiation (electromagnetism) could be dispersed evenly in infinite space over infinite time, but it is hard to imagine that situation with gravity. The only real way gravity could be rendered inert and useless as an energy source would be if it was 100% concentrated in just one place – like a super ultra mother of all cosmic Black Holes. The only other way gravity could be nullified would be in matter were distributed so absolutely evenly such that every bit of matter were being gravitationally pulled on absolutely evenly in each and every direction. But the slightest nudge or deviation from this ideal theoretical state (inevitable given quantum fluctuations) would throw everything out of equilibrium. But because matter is energy and energy is matter, if gravity can disrupt the distribution of matter from a state of near perfect uniformity, then energy will follow the short and curly material bits. Light (photons) reacts to gravity as much as electrons do. Further, the one extra nice property that gravity has is that it can’t be blocked. You can block out light or shield yourself from electromagnetic effects, but nothing will shield you from gravity.

* The Recycling Role of Radioactivity

Fortunately, there are several basic ways of recycling complex cosmic stuff back into the cosmos in the form of simple stuff. The first of these however has issues. Gravity can contract and pull together interstellar gas and dust into a proto-star which will ignite under pressure via thermonuclear fusion to form a radiant star. Stars however fuse lighter elements into heavier elements, and when a star goes nova, or becomes a supernovae, those heavier elements increasingly form the next generation of interstellar gas and dust. Eventually, after many generations of enrichment, interstellar gas and dust is lacking in those lighter elements (mainly hydrogen and helium) which easily undergoes fusion. Heavy elements, like iron, just won’t fuse any more and so the continued formation of radiant stellar stuff grinds to a halt. But, there is an escape clause.

Among the heavy elements; elements that stars manufacture, are radioactive elements with unstable atomic nuclei. Radioactive decay re-releases back into the cosmos those fundamental bits and pieces that can reform into those lighter elements that are the basic building blocks for forming radiant stellar objects. There is cosmic recycling from the simple to the complex and back to the simple again.

* The Recycling Role of Cosmic Black Holes

The second way of cosmic recycling is, believe it or not, via cosmic Black Holes. Astronomical Black Holes, via the vacuum energy (quantum foam or fluctuations) and quantum tunnelling, can release elementary particles back into the cosmos. As mentioned earlier, this is known as Hawking Radiation, after theoretical cosmologist/astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. Complex stuff can go into a Black Hole, but just very simple stuff ultimately comes back out again.

* The Recycling Role of Life

Life can be an entropy buster as in the case of Maxwell’s Demon, the kid who sorts the marbles, the mum who does the housework, the bird or beaver who gathers up forest debris to make a nest. But, it takes outside energy to accomplish these things and at the end you haven’t decreased complexity – the marbles are still marbles; twigs are still twigs. But microbes like bacteria, etc. can break down complex stuff (like twigs) and turn it into less complex stuff which can be recycled into hundreds of new and different complex things. So, when our home planet eventually meets its Waterloo, and gets scattered back into the cosmic winds, thanks to bacteria, there will be more simple stuff floating around than would otherwise be the case

So complex stuff gets recycled back into simple stuff, all brought together again by gravity to ultimately form complex stuff again. The cosmos receives recycled stuff back, from which it can keep on keeping on!    

* A Fly in the Ointment

In a cosmos that’s both infinite in space and infinite in duration, here’s an interesting ‘angels on the head of a pin’ question. There are two forces which in theory can extend their influence indefinitely, that is, unto infinity. They are electromagnetism (of which light is a prime example) and gravity. So, can the influence of a force cross an infinite space if it has an infinite amount of time to do it in?

Perhaps Maxwell Demon’s ‘closed box’ isn’t really an appropriate ‘container’ for an infinite cosmos. If the cosmos is infinite, can it be described as a closed system? 

The Multiple You

And so finally, consider and reconsider the quantum mantra: “Anything that isn’t forbidden is compulsory; anything that can happen will happen”. That’s even more the case when you have infinite time and space to play around with! So, I add to that mantra “and will happen again and again and again, an infinite number of times”. That actually means, or at least very strongly suggests that every possible scenario, every possible history, and every possible variation on each and every scenario or on any theme that you care to think of or think up will happen again and again and again. That, by the way, includes you. You are a scenario, and you, and every possible variation of you and your history will transpire numerous times; actually an infinite number of times. If that isn’t spooky, I don’t know what is, but it’s a logical consequence of having an infinite cosmos. 

An Infinite Cosmos: Part One

The nature of, the size, the shape and the duration of our Universe has been speculated and debated upon ever since humans gazed in wonder at the night sky. Though ideas have waxed and waned, and though modern cosmology is more focused than ever on actual observations, speculations, well that’s still the case today. My take, albeit slightly more philosophically inclined, is that our Universe is just part of an overall infinite in space and infinite in duration cosmos. 

In the infinite beginning there was something rather than pure nothing – a finite amount of something in an infinite void of nothingness. This scenario eliminates the philosophical quandary of what’s beyond the boundary - that only other alternative. This eliminates the philosophical quandary of how much stuff there is. An infinite amount of stuff doesn’t leave you much elbow room.

In the infinite beginning, well there was no beginning; there can ever be an end. No Alpha – no Omega. This eliminates the philosophical quandary of what comes before the ‘beginning’ and what comes after ‘the end’. 

Okay, having postulated an infinite cosmos in space and in duration, well, other certain and not so philosophical issues come to the fore. If they can be addressed, well that’s all to the good. If not, well it’s back to the drawing board.

I’ll start with…

Olber’s Paradox

The night sky should be as bright as the daytime sky since in whatever direction you look, sooner or later you should see a star or galaxy that’s in your line of sight. That’s Olber’s Paradox because the night-time sky isn’t as bright as the daytime sky. One resolution is that our observable Universe is finite and there are only a finite number of stars and galaxies and thus, there will be lines of sight that do not intersect with an object that’s emitting light.

But what if the cosmos is infinite in size and has existed for an infinite amount of time? Does that resurrect or reinstate the validity or viability of Olber’s Paradox? Not necessarily.

Why is there something rather than nothing? That’s been a prime philosophical question that has raged for eons. But, on reflection, overall, there is a great deal more of nothing than of something. If everything was something, it would be rather difficult to move. There would be no elbow room. In other words, just because the cosmos is infinite in duration and in volume doesn’t mean that there has to be an infinite amount of something within.

Let’s say that pure nothing is a perfect vacuum. Then something within that nothing makes for an imperfect vacuum. One could image a cosmos so dilute that there could literally be gaps of pure nothingness between the bits and pieces of something. Or, one could imagine a universe that contained just one final cosmic Black Hole that had over all the infinite eons gobbled up everything else that had been a something within the cosmos, and thus 99.99999% of that cosmos would contain absolutely nothing. 

That aside…

Stars, like people, are born, and thus their light may not have yet reached us.

Stars, like people, die, and thus their light has ceased to reach us. It has all now passed by.

In an infinite space, stars maybe so far distant that by the time their light reaches us, it’s so diluted or spread out that only one photon per hour hits the eye and that threshold is too low to stimulate the optic nerve and thus register.  

Ever present cosmic Black Holes have gobbled up a lot of the radiation that is emitted and reflected. In fact, in a cosmos that’s infinite, why haven’t those astronomical Black Holes sucked up everything that can be sucked up thus terminating any and all evolving universes within that cosmos? Well the answer is Hawking radiation which theoretically predicts, on pretty substantial grounds, that eventually Black Holes will radiate away their mass. Once input is less than Hawking radiation output, the Black Hole will slowly, ever so slowly, radiate away, giving back to the cosmos what it once took away. There will be more on the significance of that shortly.

Entropy and Cosmic Recycling

Another concept that needs addressing is entropy or the Second Law of Thermodynamics, otherwise known as the ‘arrow of time’ or sometimes as ‘time’s arrow’. If one considers an infinite universe to be a closed box or closed system, then over time, and we have an infinite amount of it, that closed box should reach absolute equilibrium and no further cosmic evolution would be possible. There would be a maximum amount of disorder, and there would be no further energy available to reverse that level of disorder.

It should be noted from the outset that in any closed box or closed system, entropy rules. Things will go from a state of order to a state of disorder without outside interference, that being an external source of energy to reverse the natural trend. The commonly cited example is if you have a closed box (the kitchen), and you turn off the fridge, the kitchen and the fridge will eventually reach absolute equilibrium, the same temperature. The kitchen warms up the fridge; the fridge cools down the kitchen, until both are at the same temperature – maximum disorder. It takes an outside energy source – electricity – to keep the fridge colder than the kitchen and thus in a state is disequilibrium or a state where entropy has not been maximalized. Trouble is, once energy is evenly spread out throughout a closed system (like the fridge in the kitchen), no matter how much of it there is, it’s useless in terms of doing useful things – like initiating change.

Another example: Your own body is a closed system. Your body’s energy is in equilibrium. You are at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit from head to toe. Within that state of affairs, your body can not do useful things. Fortunately, there’s a larger closed system that your body is a part of (like the fridge is part of the kitchen) that enables you to disrupt your body’s equilibrium and thus provide the means for your body to initiate change. Your outside energy source is food, which is good since once you invoke that larger closed system that contains you, that larger system absorbs your body heat that gets radiated away into it. So the fridge needs outside energy to replenish its supply of cold; you need energy to replenish your body heat and to provide the ways and means to keep you keeping on. Of course as we all know, that’s just postponing the inevitable. Sooner or later the fridge breaks down with wear; ditto you too. But in the meantime, and for a little while, you can keep your body’s entropy under control.  

Now any attempt to tunnel around various laws, principles and relationships of physics might be in vain, but not a total waste of time. The laws, principles and relationships of physics are constantly being refined, even overturned as in Einstein refined Newton’s gravity; the Sun going around the Earth got overturned by Copernicus. However, anyone attempting to tunnel over, around, or through the Second Law of Thermodynamics should abandon all hope. If you try to butt heads with entropy you’ll just end up with a sore head. You’d have better luck patenting a ‘perpetual motion’ machine, itself a violation of the ways and means of the entropy concept. In fact entropy is why you can’t construct a perpetual motion machine and why any patent officer worthy of the name would refuse you a patent for one.

Still, in an infinite cosmos, a cosmos that keeps on keeping on, there probably needs to be a way to go from a state of disorder (high entropy) back to a state of order (low entropy).

  

To be continued…

Virtual Reality: The Simulated Universe: Part Two

There really is a really real cosmos that has spawned an extraterrestrial intelligent civilization, or is home to our future descendents, or contains a dreamer, any of which has created a simulated universe that includes us as virtual reality occupants. In support of this, I postulate that the following are suggestive signs – evidence, not proof – of this idea. It all evolves around my observations that when it comes to the cosmos and human affairs, something is screwy somewhere.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

THE COSMIC CONNECTION (continued)

* Why are all (spin-up or spin-down) electrons, etc. identical? I mean can you think of many objects that are identical down to the absolute last decimal place? No two of anything apart from elementary force and matter particles are absolutely identical, so why are they the exception to the rule? Even ‘identical’ atoms aren’t of necessity identical (since their electrons can be in different energy states); that’s even more so with molecules (some of which can come in left and right-handed forms). However, you could have a software code of bits and bytes that specifies a spin-up electron so each time and place that code appears, you get an absolutely identical spin-up electron. Simple!

* Why is the vacuum energy, experimentally confirmed, 120 orders of magnitude less than theory predicts? This is in fact the worst discrepancy in all of modern physics. However, software programmers can’t think of everything so when they programmed in the value of the vacuum energy, they neglected to program in the theory that would lead to the observed value. 

* Why in various physical happenings, like radioactivity, is there an abandonment of operational cause-and-effect mechanisms? Causality is the absolute fundamental bedrock of just about anyone’s worldview. You have got to have 100% confidence that if X happens, Y follows. However, there are some areas within physics where that does not apply, like radioactivity. In one case, X happens (or doesn’t happen) and radioactive Y decays; in the other case X happens (or doesn’t happen) and radioactive Y doesn’t decay. It’s like sometimes the Sun rises in the morning and sometimes it doesn’t. Now that’s nuts, and only, IMHO, can a software program create such a scenario.

* Why when it comes to various physical happenings, like the Big Bang event or Dark Energy, are there postulated the creation of something-from-nothing in violation of standard conservation laws? Well, when it comes to virtual reality, if you’ve observed and/or played human-created or software-programmed video games, you’ll note that violations of standard physical laws, principles and relationships are frequently the norm.

* Why do we have physical constants that aren’t – constant that is? Have you ever known any software program not to be upgraded, upgraded, and upgraded some more. Computer software is not exempt from the standard “new and improved” spiel that marketing and advertising executives spew out as often as possible. Any software tweak (improvement) is bound to result in tweaks to the virtual reality that software is projecting.

* Why do waves behave like particles and particles behave like waves (wave-particle duality)? For WTF readers, look up the double-slit experiment. The standard explanation is that when emitted, an electron is a particle. When an electron is detected, it is a particle. In-between emission and detection, the electron is a wave, or actually a wave of probability or probability wave, where probability refers to the possibilities where the electron actually is while in transit. Since it can be in just about an infinite number of places at the same time, well that’s more characteristic of a wave than a particle – a wave is something that’s smeared or spread out over an area. Computer software can easily morph a particle into a probability wave and back to a particle again.

* Against all the odds, why do we find ourselves in a Goldilocks universe? I mean, if any of several dozens of variables had even slightly different values, physics as we know it; chemistry as we know it; hence biology as we know it wouldn’t; couldn’t, exist. The cosmos would either be too this or too that and not just absolutely right. Well, a computer programmer programming virtual reality entities in a simulated universe have got to mesh the two into some form of mutual compatibility.  There’s got to be some consistent logic in the simulation in order for the programmer to have a realistic scenario in which to interact with. Creating entities that are programmed as complex composites of matter and energy thus cannot logically exist in a programmed universe where nuclear forces, for example, haven’t been considered and hence never been programmed in.

* How can one explain the total incompatibly between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics? Normally General Relativity (gravity) deals in the realm of the macro. Quantum Mechanics deals in the realm of the micro. There’s not usually much overlap. However, there is overlap when it comes to micro volumes with macro gravity – singularities that exist at the heart of Black Holes and at the time of the Big Bang event some 13.7 billion years ago. A definitive theory of quantum gravity, otherwise oft called a Theory of Everything (TOE), has proved elusive to thousands of theoretical physicists over many, many decades (ever since the era where Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity crawled out of the woodwork – the early years of the 20^th Century). Perhaps TOE just wasn’t meant to be. But on the other hand, there could be two separate and independently apart software programs running our programmer’s simulated universe!

* How is it possible that an electron can occupy just this orbit around an atomic nucleus, or just that orbit, but can quantum jump from one to the other (giving off or absorbing energy), yet cannot ever be found in the in-between space between the two? It’s like if you take the orbits of all eight planets (sorry ‘bout that Pluto) and each planet could jump to the orbit of any other (i.e. – Jupiter to Saturn’s orbit; Saturn to the orbit of Venus; Venus to Jupiter’s orbit, etc.) without ever having to cross the interplanetary space in-between. Well, you can imagine a film where the first few frames have Uranus and Neptune in there appropriate orbits, then the next few frames switch the two so that Neptune is in the orbit of Uranus and vice versa, and the next few frames exchange Jupiter’s and Saturn’s positions with that of Neptune and Uranus, and then the next few frames restore everything back to normalcy. The point is, there are no frames showing Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune anywhere except in a standard orbit, never in-between any two standard orbits. Now what a motion picture can show, computer software programming can equally accomplish.

* How can a fundamental electron particle and a composite proton particle have an equal and opposite electric charge? What are the odds that just by chance, the two balance each other out and so you have electrically neutral atoms? Presumably there’s no natural reason why their charge values couldn’t have been vastly different, as for example are their masses (a proton being some 2000 times more massive than an electron). Of course if there was intelligent design behind those values, the intelligence being that of our software programmer, well, that answers that.

* Neutrinos come in three types or a trilogy of generations. There’s the electron-neutrino; the muon-neutrino; and the tau-neutrino. While that’s straightforward enough, apparently as they all wind their way throughout the cosmos they can oscillate or morph or shape-shift from one kind to another. That’s weird! It’s in fact weird enough having three generations of particles without having them constantly exchanging Halloween masks! If the electron, muon and tau exchanged identities here on Earth, it would play havoc with the electric power grid systems (and home appliances). Well, we’ve all seen shape-shifting in the movies or on TV or in video games. Special effects that seemingly violate common sense are standard operating procedures in the entertainment industry.  

* A cyclic universe is more philosophically satisfying than one that just fades away into an eternal cold state where nothing happens and entropy has reached maximum. A simulation can account for a cyclic universe – the software just loops around and around and so again you get another go and another and another and another though in this case not everything that can happen does happen if the software isn’t reprogrammed.

HUMAN AFFAIRS

* Mythologies sharing many, many common themes are absolutely universal throughout all human cultures. Mythologies tend to be interwoven composites of horror, fantasy, and sci-fi featuring all manner of totally implausible entities like human-animal hybrids, animal-animal hybrids, shape-shifters, those with super-human abilities, and populated with other strange humanoids like giants, the Cyclops and the wee people. Then too there’s all manner of otherworldly places from the depths of Hades to the summit of Mount Olympus and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Of course to us modern humans, there’s nothing strange about faraway places with strange sounding names and monsters and superheroes. There’s no doubt a film playing at your local cinema right now that features some of the above. The upshot is that Mother Nature is hard-pressed to account for what’s featured in nearly all mythologies; a Supreme Programmer just sits back, relaxes and says “run program”.

* Why are ghosts clothed even though they shouldn’t be? Well, there are G-rated video games and then there are X-rated video games and no doubt our Supreme Programmer wanted a family-friendly rating for their “Life and Times of Planet Earth” software program. Thus, though ghosts should be starkers, sensitivities took precedence and thus our virtual reality reveals our ghosts to be suitably dressed for the occasion.

* How can those Easter Island statues walk on their own accord to their assigned positions? How can Superman fly? How can Captain Kirk beam down thanks to Mr. Scott? CGI special effects rule, OK?

* How did our uniquely human characteristics (i.e. – bipedal gait) naturally come to pass? The high number of rather highly improbably human characteristics just begs for an explanation, explanation lacking IMHO from within the academic confines of physical anthropology. A high IQ, baldness, relative nakedness (furless-ness), facial features, and racial features being other examples, can be easily accounted for if we’re the product of someone’s (or something’s) software design; not so easily explained by natural selection (though artificial selection is another possibility).

* Why Déjà vu? Is this phenomenon perhaps a case of run computer program; then rerun computer program? 

* Why is there such universe belief in an afterlife? Apart from the fact that most of us are nervous about trading in our life for a non-life, and therefore we eagerly clutch at any straw that trades in our life for a life-after-death, there’s no rational or logical reason why you should get another go-round following your allotted (roughly) three score and ten. Near death experiences are not convincing evidence of an afterlife since there never seems to be independent witnesses and alterative biochemical explanations are plausible. In other words, nobody who was a normal mortal has ever made an appearance after they kicked-the-bucket to confirm an afterlife. While the clutching-at-straws explanation is probably satisfactory as a be-all-and-end-all that-explains-that, computer software, if it’s responsible for your life, can also be responsible for your afterlife. So, if a universal belief in an afterlife suggests such a concept, then that concept can be accounted for by computer software. 

* How can one explain miracles? Miracles are basically violations of the known laws, principles and relationships that have been established by the scientific method over the past several centuries. In general, miracles are attributed to supernatural beings and their associated powers. However, there’s no problem showing miracles in film, TV and video games. Violations of the known laws, principles and relationships that have been established by the scientific method over the past several centuries are absolutely commonplace in nearly all sci-fi, fantasy or horror productions, from Saturday morning cartoons to epic Hollywood blockbusters. It would be difficult for you to go down to the seaside and part the waters. It would not be difficult for you to create a CGI film of you heading seaside and parting the waters enabling you to walk from New York City to London without getting your feet wet!

* How can one account for cryptozoology where there are sightings of unknown animals yet we have forever and a day an inability to ever catch them?

Now, if all of these anomalies were trivial ones, they could be easily dismissed, but most aren’t. Some, like miracles and the concept of an afterlife are taken very seriously by a significant proportion of the world’s population although there’s no rational explanation for them. A simulated universe can provide a plausible explanation, even more plausible than that other copout, “God works in mysterious ways”.

Virtual Reality: The Simulated Universe: Part One

There really is a really real cosmos that has spawned an extraterrestrial intelligent civilization, or is home to our future descendents, or contains a dreamer, any of which has created a simulated universe that includes us as virtual reality occupants. In support of this, I postulate that the following are suggestive signs – evidence, not proof – of this idea. It all evolves around my observations that when it comes to the cosmos and human affairs, something is screwy somewhere.

THE COSMIC CONNECTION

* If someone (or something) were to create a simulated ‘universe’ called something like “The Life and Times of the Third Rock Outbound from Sol”, in of course incredibly realistic detail, one could probably skimp on the software programming that give rise to the details for the rest of that simulated cosmos – the Universe perceived by the virtual beings of that Third Rock. Why spend unnecessary bits and bytes creating a super realistic Andromeda Galaxy all those ‘light years’ away?

Modern cosmology seems to be at a stage now that the Solar System went through in terms of coming to terms with its construction. Way back then, to explain the motions of all the planets that (obviously) went around the Earth (being the centre of all things), epicycles, and epicycles within epicycles, and epicycles within epicycles within epicycles had to be postulated until the who concept became so unwieldy that it collapsed in a heap. Copernicus picked up the bits and pieces and put the Sun in the centre and put the Earth going around the Sun with all the other (known) planets and then things simplified vastly and all fell into place without the need for any epicycles at all (though Einstein still had some final tweaking to do, but that was minor).

Modern cosmology seems to be full of ad hoc epicycles. We have the observation of an expanding Universe that requires explanation. Epicycle number one, the original explanation – a Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago kick-started things off, though the energy source isn’t explained. That left some anomalies unexplained so ad hoc epicycle number two – a violent super-burst of explosive inflation immediately post Big Bang which apparently can come, like Heinz, in some 57 varieties. Okay, inflation started up and shut down just as quickly but it covers the anomalies that the Big Bang doesn’t. But then comes another anomaly, the expansion rate of the Universe is accelerating, and the collective oomph from the Big Bang and inflation isn’t enough oomph. The Universe should in fact be decelerating under the influence of gravity. So, ad hoc epicycle number three – Dark Energy. Dark Energy provides that keep-on-keeping-on additional oomph and keeps the Universe’s pedal to the metal. Unfortunately, nobody has the foggiest idea what Dark Energy actually is which is strange since Dark Energy should be everywhere, even inside your living room, so it shouldn’t be that hard to gather some up and put it on the lab’s slab and figure it out! 

The Big Bang has a couple of other epicycles attached as baggage. The first one imposed on the Big Bang is entropy, which is a measure of order vs. disorder. Low entropy is orderly; high entropy is disorderly. There are vastly more ways of something being in a state of disorder than order, as any parent knows when it comes to the state of their child’s bedroom. Left to natural forces (including the kid), a neat and tidy bedroom will ‘decay’ into a chaotic mess. That’s also an illustration of the arrow of time. Eggs do not unscramble. Unless you deliberately thwart entropy locally (tidy up the messy bedroom), but at the cost of increasing entropy elsewhere, time goes from neat past to messy future. Like the bedroom, the Universe too has an arrow of time and the Universe too is getting more, more and ever messier as it slides into increasing disorder. That means ‘in the beginning’ (the Big Bang), the Universe started off neat as a pin. But, that doesn’t follow of necessity. Which is more likely – any number of possible disordered piles of bricks and timber, or an orderly constructed house? There are vastly more ways of having an ‘in the beginning’ that was messy than one that was neat and tidy. Yet against all probability, ‘in the beginning’ was pristine. That’s so unlikely that cosmologists have to postulate and accept that ad hoc epicycle of low entropy ‘in the beginning’. 

The Big Bang also requires a epicycle called quantum gravity because existing equations trying to describe the structure and substance of the creation event, crumble into dust when faced with a realm that is (allegedly) tiny (that’s the quantum bit) and yet has immense gravity (a Universe worth of gravity). Unfortunately, to get a theory of quantum gravity requires the marriage between quantum physics and general relativity. The potential bride and bridegroom however are not, and never have been, on speaking terms. So, quantum gravity (that epicycle required for the Big Bang to bang), has remained elusive despite generations of scientific effort trying to figure it out. However, that highly theoretical mathematical concept called string theory can come to terms with quantum gravity, but it has its own ad hoc epicycle burden to bear. String theory requires an additional six spatial dimensions, which IMHO is utter bovine fertilizer. So round and round we go with no actual tail being pinned on the donkey.

But that’s not the end of the ad hoc epicycles. Apparently the galaxies are rotating too fast for the amount of gravity belonging to objects that astronomer’s can see, like stars. The galaxies should have long since flown apart, their stars, planets, dust and gas scattered throughout space. So, ad hoc epicycle number four – Dark Matter. Dark Matter is postulated to have gravity, enough gravity to hold the galaxies together and prevent them from flying apart. Okay, but Dark Matter doesn’t interact with the electromagnetic force (nor apparently the strong nuclear force), so it doesn’t emit or reflect light (or photons of any wavelength) so we can’t see it. Dark Matter is actually invisible matter. Unfortunately, no matter that we can deal with has those sorts of properties. Now like Dark Energy, Dark Matter has go to be present in your living room too so it too shouldn’t be that hard to gather some up and put it on the lab’s slab and figure it out! Now all of that wouldn’t be that serious were it not for calculations that suggest that Dark Energy plus Dark Matter make up 95% of the Universe, and we haven’t a clue what that 95% is.

Resolution: Perhaps all the anomalies that the (standard model) Big Bang, inflation, Dark Energy and Dark Matter have been postulated to explain, are merely examples of lax software programming in filling in the nitty-gritty details of the Universe associated with “The Life and Times of the Third Rock Outbound from Sol”.         

To be continued…

Baby Universes & Black Holes

There are numerous ways of theoretically generating a collection of separate and apart universes, commonly called a Multiverse. One such novel approach uses two accepted entities, a universe and a Black Hole to generate each other in turn in either a linear or a cyclic fashion. While the linear approach runs out of puff, the cyclic version doesn’t, but only if you postulate a form of time travel!

You exist somewhere on Planet Earth, which orbits a rather average star we call the Sun, which in turn orbits around the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy which is but one of billions and billions of galaxies within our observable Universe. That’s what you’d include in any description of your reality.

However, perhaps the observable Universe itself exists within a Black Hole. That’s an alternative reality, or at least an extension of your reality. Just what rationale might lead one to suggest that our observable Universe and a Black Hole could be in parallel?

Since you cannot escape from the prison we call the Universe; and since you could not escape from the inside of a Black Hole – another type prison – perhaps they are one and the same sort of prison. Perhaps not only do Black Holes exist inside our Universe but the Universe itself resides inside a Black Hole with perhaps no end of the inside-the-inside-the-inside in either direction. In a manner of speaking, that’s a Multiverse!

Actually you can in theory escape this Universe by hopping down into a Black Hole, but if, and it’s a very big ‘but if’, you survive, you’ve just traded in one maximum security prison for another.

Let’s explore this concept a little further and see where, if anywhere, it leads us.

Our Universe and Black Holes certainly share some things in common.

A Black Hole can expand and surprisingly contract (due to Hawking radiation; the technicalities need not concern us here). Our Universe is expanding, but in theory could also contract if there was enough stuff, matter, hence gravity to slow down the expansion to an eventual halt hence reverse direction and start to shrink.

A Black Hole has temperature (that Hawking radiation); our Universe has a temperature (the cosmic background microwave radiation).

A Black Hole has mass (hence gravity); our Universe has mass (hence gravity).

A Black Hole could have a net charge; our Universe could have an excess of one kind of charge over another, but to the best of our knowledge our Universe is electrically neutral, and we suspect, so might an average Black Hole be too.

A Black Hole may be spinning; our Universe maybe rotating but the only way of knowing if you are rotating is if something else in your line of sight isn’t rotating or rotating at a different rate. If everything in our Universe is rotating together at the same rate, then there’s no way of telling since there isn’t anything else to relate that rotation to. 

Now the question arises was there a prime cause; a first universe inside a Black Hole  that gave birth to millions more Black Holes each of which generated an interior universe each of which spawned million more Black Holes hence interior universes and so on and so on and so on. It’s all very circular in that Black Holes generate universes which generate more Black Holes which generate more universes, etc. But that is something circular in a very linear sort of way for what you end up with is like an ongoing (maybe infinite) series of funnels. Sooner or later all the stuff that existed in the first cause Black Hole universe will funnel down into the first generation of Black Hole universes and all the stuff there eventually finds its way down into the second generation of Black Hole universes, hence funnelled down to the third, and fourth and down unto infinity. Now the point here is that there was only a finite amount of stuff (matter/energy) in that first cause Black Hole universe. All that stuff is constantly being diluted as one passes from one generation to the next generation. The stuff of the prime cause first Black Hole universe is dispersed unto millions and eventually billions of later universes. Eventually every baby universe in some umpteenth generation of universes would be so dilute no further Black Holes could form and that’s then the end of that.

But, what if things were cyclic or really circular? All of these universes do not exist in separate and apart timeframes, just like great grandpa; grandpa; father and son do not of necessity exist in separate and apart timeframes but can co-exist at the same time. When you talk of Black Holes, you can also go the one yard further and talk wormholes, which I guess is really that passageway from a Black Hole to the baby universe it generated. But if that first Black Hole universe generates say a million Black Holes each generating a baby universe, what’s to say that a Black Hole created in that baby universe might not funnel back stuff, not to a newer next generation, but dump their contents back to the original first cause Black Hole universe. Wormholes can, in theory, under the right conditions, serve as time machines. So it’s almost akin as if the son travelled back in time and fathered what would ultimately become his great grandpa. Cyclic! If cyclic, the amount of stuff (matter/energy) is still fixed (that which existed in the original Black Hole universe), but never gets diluted enough to bring things to a halt. Now about those quasars, gamma ray bursts and related ultra-energetic astronomical enigmas – White Holes perhaps; the exit of the Black Hole entrance – impregnations by those baby universe Black Holes?  

Where actually do these new (and improved?) baby universes reside? I doubt that a Black Hole opens up a portal and creates a never-before-in-existence arena of space-time where stuff pouring into a Black Hole, hence exiting this portal, finds a ready made newly constructed house to live and evolve in. Rather, the baby universe IS the interior of a Black Hole. A Black Hole forms, a new baby universe forms inside that Black Hole, and that universe in turn produces new Black Holes that form new baby universes, etc. But everything takes place, generation after generation, inside that first Black Hole (which just might be our Universe). The baby universes spawned inside say Black Hole generation #3 in turn creates Black Hole generation #4 which also exist within the earlier Black Hole generation #3 as do the generation #4 baby universes. So instead of a series of dolls sitting all-in-a-row on a long shelf, it’s more akin to those Russian dolls, one inside the other inside the other inside the other. But, as suggested above, one of the smaller dolls can ultimately funnel stuff back up into one of the larger dolls. 

Aside #1: Now you may feel that any baby universe inside a Black Hole in our Universe is going to be a pretty small universe indeed. Well I’m not aware that the definition of a universe comes attached with a one size fits all clause. Universes might well come is small, medium, large and extra-large sizes. Maybe a baby universe inside a Black Hole is like Dr. Who’s TARDIS – bigger on the inside than on the outside. Truth is, nobody, and I do mean nobody has a clue what’s inside the event horizon of a Black Hole. Once inside the event horizon all the laws, principles and relationships of physics break down. Nobody and no measuring instrument have ever been inside to have a look at what’s what and report back. It’s akin to those maritime charts of the ancient seafarers – here be dragons! It’s the greatest of the great unknowns. If space is the final frontier, the inside of a Black Hole is the Absolutely Final Frontier. Now there’s no reason of necessity why any of these baby universes need be inhabited. Extraterrestrial intelligence isn’t part of the definition of a universe either. A universe is really a self-contained space where matter and energy interact; where things happen; where there is change from moment to moment. The interior of a Black Hole is self-contained. There’s matter and energy but whether there’s activity or not, well IMHO the answer is affirmative since the Black Hole isn’t static. It’s either expanding as matter and energy enters and passes the event horizon or contracting thanks to the abovementioned Hawking radiation. Actually both incoming and outgoing are going on simultaneously.

Aside #2: Something about this entire concept reminds me of the old sci-fi pulp magazine era. It was a staple plot of shrinking down to the atomic level only to discover a civilization on a ‘planetary’ electron orbiting a ‘stellar’ nucleus.

Aside #3: A Black Hole that might spew out another universe might have that universe stillborn in that that universe may not in turn be able to give rise to internally created Black Holes and thus another generation of baby universes. Not all universes will of necessity have the same physics, physics that allow the creation of Black Holes, and so some universes will be eternal bachelors or spinsters.

Aside #4: Yet another interesting question is what happens to the two baby universes when and if their parent Black Holes merge, as most certainly can happen. That would seem to be a rather nasty scenario for inhabitants of either of the baby universes!

Now clearly this is all speculation, but then speculation, that “what if” scenario, is the bread-and-butter staple of science fiction, and how often has science fiction evolved into science fact? It’s an oft quoted saying, attributed to J. B. S. Haldane (1924) that “The Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.”

Reality: Heads or Tails? Part Two

In science as well as in metaphysics there are often competing ideas about what’s real and what’s not real but might be real – an alternate reality not yet proven. Here are a baker’s dozen of examples of what we believe is a truism today, but could easily be shown to be mistaken tomorrow. In one case, the last, tomorrow is already here!

What was reality yesterday (a Flat Earth orbited by the Sun; Unicorns and Dragons, etc.) isn’t of necessity what is accepted reality today, and what’s reality today may not of necessity be reality tomorrow. Here are a few more possibilities for tomorrow-land.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

6) Black Holes (reality) vs. White Holes (alternate reality): Black Holes are known to exist, though once they were just a theoretical construct of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity (and Einstein himself only thought of them as an abstract concept, not an actual thing). They were originally termed ‘dark stars’ though the later phrase Black Holes was proposed, and being catchy, took on with both the academic and general communities. Now Black Holes are objects with so much mass, and therefore so much gravity, that not even light (at 186,000 miles per second) can escape the clutches of such an object. You can’t see a Black Hole, hence the descriptive ‘black’. That’s the reality part. The alternative reality bit is the opposite of a Black Hole, obviously a White Hole. If a Black Hole sucks in stuff, a White Whole spews stuff out. The turning point is, can a Black Hole become so bloated with incoming stuff that it ultimately has to exit elsewhere?  One of the 64,000 $64,000 questions: Can you pour stuff down a Black Hole indefinitely, or does the Black Hole have a finite capacity and ultimately or eventually will have to spew stuff out the ‘other side’ (i.e. – producing a White Hole) as you keep pouring in more and more and more? I’d wager the conservation relationships and principles of physics and chemistry hold sway here. What goes in ultimately comes out. That doesn’t mean there’s not a temporary holding vessel. Or, in more human terms, you fill what’s empty; you empty what’s full, but in-between those two there’s storage in the stomach and the intestines; the lungs and the bladder.

7) You Exist Within Our Galaxy (reality) vs. The Universe Exists Within A Black Hole (alternate reality): Since you cannot escape from the jail cell within the prison we call the Universe; and since you could not escape from the inside of a Black Hole – another type of a jail cell within a prison – perhaps they are one and the same sort of prison. Perhaps not only do Black Holes exist inside the Universe but the Universe itself resides inside a Black Hole with perhaps no end of the inside-the-inside-the-inside in either direction. In a manner of speaking, that’s a Multiverse! Actually you can in theory escape this Universe by hopping down into a Black Hole, but if, and it’s a very big ‘but if’, you survive, you’ve just traded in one jail cell for another, or one maximum security prison for another.

8) Big Bang (reality) vs. Before the Big Bang (alternate reality): The standard cosmological model postulates based on observable evidence that our Universe began roughly 13.7 billion years ago as a Big Bang event that created all of matter, energy, time and space. The Universe was created out of nothing. There was no ‘before the Big Bang’ since the Big Bang started the universal clock ticking. Fortunately, for those who find such a scenario unsatisfactory, like me, there are alternative proposals that postulate, indeed require a ‘before the Big Bang’. But while the Big Bang rests on solid evidence, all ‘before the Big Bang’ proposals are highly theoretical and remain alternative realities. 

9) There’s Just One You (reality) vs. There’s Many of You (alternate reality): Even if you have an identical twin, that twin is not you. You are unique with a unique set of experiences and memories with individual brain chemistry and a hardwired neural network. Of all the people, who have ever lived, are living now, and who will exist in the future, you are unique – that’s a reality you and the world have to deal with; right? Maybe not; there are legit scenarios that allow for another you, even an infinite number of you. The most oft quoted possibility is if our Universe is infinite in extent and/or duration, another you just isn’t possible or probable, but mandatory. If our Universe is finite but part of an infinite set of universes – a Multiverse - another you just isn’t possible or probable, but mandatory. If the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct, another you just isn’t a possibility or a probability, but mandatory. If one accepts the basic mantra of quantum mechanics which is anything that can happen, does happen then another you just isn’t possible or probable, but mandatory. If we exist in a simulated universe as virtual reality, and there are many copies of this piece of software in existence another you just isn’t possible or probable, but mandatory. At least the saving grace is that you’ll never have to meet yourself – oops, that might not be true either if time travel is ever realized!

10) Really Real Reality (reality) vs. Virtual Reality (alternate reality): You obviously believe that you are part and parcel of Really Real Reality (RRR). The world socks it to you; you do your best to sock it to the world! However, there are two forms of an alternate reality, or virtual reality, that you might be part and parcel of. Firstly, it comes as no surprise that you create versions of alternate/virtual reality all the time. If you stop and think about it, your dreams create virtual worlds and characters. As you dream up an alternate reality landscape, and animate it, perhaps you too and your landscape (what your worldview accepts as RRR) is a dream-world of someone or something else! Secondly, you’d be aware of computer simulations, software programs that also create virtual worlds and characters. You might be an active participant, if not creating same, then engaging with those programs, like playing video games. As you create and/or participate in an alternate reality animated landscape, perhaps you too and your landscape (what your worldview accepts as RRR) is an animated video game or simulated world of someone or something else! 

11) Free Will (reality) vs. No Free Will (alternate reality): You have free will. You absolutely know you have free will. But you can’t prove you have free will. Any action(s) you perform which you state exhibits your free will; well the ‘no free will’ counterargument is that you have no choice but to believe in your own free will. It’s an illusion which you have been pre-programmed to accept as given, just as a pocket calculator has no choice but to calculate that 2 + 3 = 5. But as long as you believe you have free will, well, there’s no harm done.

12) We Are the Proverbial It (reality) vs. ETI [ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence] Is Teeming Throughout the Cosmos (alternate reality): Despite all the decades of active SETI [Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence], including lots of computer crunch power at their command including SETI @ Home; despite over six decades of UFO investigation, both official and private; plus all manner of amateur insights into the possibility of ‘ancient astronauts’; and those thousands of books written on these subjects (plus essays/articles, blogs, TV shows, DVD documentaries, etc.) no ETI smoking gun – proof positive – has surfaced of their existence to the satisfaction of all and sundry. But tomorrow is another day.

13) Your World (reality) vs. Your Cyber-World (alternate reality): You of course exist in a four space-time dimensional reality. You were born into it; you live your life in it; you’ll die in it. However, recent advances in technology have given us the ways and means to disconnect from that reality for lengthy periods of time and voluntarily adopt a cyber-world reality for a large part of our time. Many people and you see them all the time on the bus, in the mall, at the dinner table, at a social gathering, walking the dog, first thing awake, last thing before sleep, ignoring to the best of their ability their real surroundings for their cyber-surroundings. Between their PCs and tablets and smart-phones and emails and Twitter and Facebook and texting, while totally immersed in their tiny little cyber-world, they are near totally oblivious to their immediate surroundings and the real world immediately in front of them, which is one reason you get ‘funny’ videos of people so engrossed in their cyber-world that they totally fail to observe their surroundings and fall down stairs or into ponds of water or walk in front of buses. Reality has a way of biting back!