OT: LeatherGryphon's Ponderables
Rashad Carter
Posts: 1,803
This thread is a general fun thread to discuss physics, in particular quantum physics and how they apply to nature. LeatherGryphon has a list of "Ponderables" in his signature that are fun to think on. I have started a new thread to discuss it. Please join in all who have insights. I have determined my personal answers to his questions and offered a few more of my own for your consideration. I have included a list of the original ponderables. Fun fun!!!!!!
Only 1 rule. If you must use math to describe your thoughts, please keep it simple as possible.
Ponderables:
1. Is quantum entanglement our first glimpse at sub-space?
2. Particles without mass can ONLY travel at the speed of light. But do they have direction or do we assign a direction by detecting them?
3. What would happen if you invented a Higgs Field suppressor and turned off the Higgs Field around yourself?
4. From a photon’s point of view, how long does it take to travel from being emitted by a Hydrogen atom in the Sun to being absorbed by a particle of dust around Alpha Centuri
Re: Ponderables
1. Probably so. But entanglement has to do with spin, and while spin is an intrinsic property, it doesnt have any real bearing on its own. Entanglement tells us less about sub-space and more about conservation of momentum
2. They likely have direction even before they are measured. To conserve momentum and energy there must be a vector or moment pointing in some direction. Tachyons are a class of particles who can only travel at speeds Faster than light. obviously these particles cannot have a positive mass, but could they have a negative one?
3. While this question is interesting, there is an even more interesting question to consider. We've been told that the Higgs gives all matter its mass, but what this also indicates is that the Higgs gives all items a certain amount of directional momentum as well since we know that mass and directional energy can be conserved between them. One can create a "heavy electron" by speeding it up in its travels, the result is an increase in its total "mass." The general effect of the Higgs boson field is to provide a momentum that travels in all directions so the net result is a sort of inertial frame, or a resistance to being moved in any one particular direction unless acted upon by some outside force. Resistance to movement would be rest mass in this case. The Higgs gives us our inertia, it keeps a body who's at rest at rest and a body who's in motion in motion. Higgs bosons kind of "push" on things a little bit
But here is the interesting part. Higgs explains why matter has mass in open space but it does not explain gravitational attraction between bodies. For that to occur "gravitons" (not higgs bosons themselves) must be exchanged between the two bodies. But these gravitons are subjected to the same rules and limitations of electromagnetic photons, limited to light speed maximum and even subject to having their paths bent by curves in space around massive bodies. This creates a logical problem, especially at the event horizon of a black hole. Supposedly the mass of a black hole is so great that space is curved in completely on itself such that photons cannot escape even though the star is emitting them...they cannot overcome the curved space to reach our eye outside the horizon. But gravitons one would assume would also be trapped within the curved space of the event horizon, meaning that just as the dead star doesn't radiate visible light it should also fail to mediate gravitons, which means a black hole should not be able to gravitationally affect bodies outside its own event horizon!
The workaround is to relegate gravitons as "virtual" particles. not actually real like normal photons so they can travel at speeds faster than light thus circumventing the event horizon problem. Seems convenient to me, what do you think?
And for me the biggest of the ponderables is about the expansion of the universe and how it relates to gravity. How is it possible for the universe to be gaining expansion speed when gravity should be robbing that expansion of energy all along the way? Ideally the universe should be expanding but at slower and slower rate until a big crunch would begin. But instead we see a universe that is rapidly being torn apart at faster and faster rates almost as if more energy was being added to the system. Red-shifting has proven that distant galaxies are moving away from us at faster rates depending on their distance. Waves get stretched like a Doppler effect. Why hasnt gravity put a stop to this?
And before you get any ideas about "tired light" explaining red shifting as not being due to expansion but due to photons being robbed of energy as they pass by galaxies. Photons indeed are robbed of energy as they move away from a galaxy, but what we often forget is that they gain energy as they approach the galaxy, so in the end this effect cancels itself out and cannot explain the observation of an expanding universe of red-shifted distant light. The simple truth is that the universe really is expanding at the largest scales, but what does that mean? "Dark Energy" is the name given to the force that seems to be working against gravity to expand the universe at the largest scales. It is supposed that eventually this force will begin to tear apart stars, planets, and atoms, but we are long from that.
Is space being stretched, or are more "units" of space being created at the planck scale? Indications are that space itself is not stretched since atoms, planets, stars, and other matter doesnt seem to be stretched....yet. Or to put it another way, if space itself is stretched for photons then it should be so for other matter sitting on the fabric as well cancelling out the effect of the stretching. The proportional distance between bodies would remain the same. The only possible solution is that more units of space are actually being created as more time passes causing light waves to appear stretched out as they travel to our eyes.
One would beg to wonder, if the universe is expanding what is it expanding into? Well, the universe isnt really expanding into anything, it is more inflating itself, putting more distance between objects within itself moreso than leaving one location and entering another. Space is somehow foamy at the smallest scales, and the result of that foam is that new space is often created increasing the size of the universe while lowering its temperature density.. This new space is endowed with higgs properties which is why we can still measure the same mass effects no matter where or when in space we make measurements. Even though there is more space now than there was at the time of the big bang, the density of the Higgs particles hasn't changed, masses are not dropping as the universe expands indicating that new Higgs are being created just as new space is being created.
Sooooo, why hasn't gravity slowed the expansion of the universe? Maybe because there is no gravity at all, and Einstein described something he observed but gave it the wrong name. If the thread survives, I will go further into this idea. I have found an odd similarity between the expansion of the universe at the largest scales and a clumping of matter at the smallest scales. To me they are two sides of the same coin and are actually probably caused by the same force. Yes, I just said that I think the force of gravity and the force that expands the universe at large scales (dark energy) are the same force just that it looks different when viewed at certain scales. But again, that is highly theoretical and I will only share it if people are interested in knowing what i think.
4. It takes no time whatsoever from the viewpoint of the photon. Photons are "frozen" by their incredible momentum into a single state that doesn't vary. Just like you or I if we were to travel at light speed our personal experience of passing time or observable change would come to a complete halt. We'd be frozen and wouldn't even know it. Billions of years could pass and we might travel quadrillions of miles but it will feel to the photon like he was only just now emitted and hasn't traveled any distance from his initial position. The photon would be very much in the wrong. Time dilation is evil, but luckily highly predictable.
However in real time it will take about one million plus 2 years. Reason is that it takes about a million years for a photon released at the center of the sun to make its way to the surface of the sun to be released into space. They call this process the "random walk" as the photon is absorbed and re-emitted by countless atoms on its way to the surface. Once emitted I am told it will take about 2 light years to arrive at the nearest star to Earth.
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Comments
I'm only a frustrated amateur so please excuse (or politely correct) perceived misinterpretations, but my take on these ponderables are:
1) Some recent experiments have been indicating that properties other than spin are also subject to entanglement. Assuming that these properties can be modulated, it might be possible that we could communicate through "sub-space" soon! But I don't yet envision travelling that way.
2) When performing the double slit experiment with only a single photon, interference is still observed. The single photon acting as a wave goes through both slits and interferes with itself. If you detect the photon at one of the off-center positions you imply a direction that the photon is travelling. If you detect it at another off-center position you imply a different direction. The difficulty with this is that you cannot detect a half photon (no such animal). You either detect the single photon at one spot or another. Only by sending multiple photons sequentially can you notice that the interference pattern exists despite photons only being emitted one at a time. So, the "direction" of a single photon is not determined until you detect it and work backwards to imply a direction. Of course this is because we would like to think of the detected photon as a particle but it ain't.
You might think that the direction is limited because of coming through the slits. But if considered as a wave, an individual undisturbed photon has a spherical wavefront and could possibly be detected from any direction. However, once disturbed(going through the slits), certain directions are more probable than others. But once detected, all the other possibilities collapse. So the "direction" of the photon is indeterminate until detected but it could have been detected anywhere. A single photon radiating from a supernova ten billion lightyears away shows us the way back to that explosion but that's only because we detected that photon wave instead of some aliens detecting the same wave in a different galaxy off to our left.
3) Supposedly the Higgs Field is omnipresent everywhere in the universe and has non-zero value when in its rest state. This is the only field that has this attribute. All other fields go to zero in rest state. Any particle moving through the Higgs Field reacts with the omnipresent Higgs Field and acquires a behavior that we've come to associate with "mass". Any particle that does not interact with the Higgs Field is massless (example: photons) Any massless particle has only one speed. The speed of light. Any particle that does interact with the Higgs Field cannot reach the speed of light it must always travel less than the speed of light.
Every particle of our body has mass. The mass is caused by the Higgs Field. If we could create a bubble around ourselves in which the Higgs Field were completely "turned off" then every atom in the bubble would have no mass. Massless particles can only travel at the speed of light. Each particle at the moment the Higgs Field is turned off would have a speed in some direction. So all of a sudden they become massless and would be required to travel only at the speed of light until they re-encounter the Higgs Field outside the bubble..
I talk of a "particle" not "atom" because it is the mass of the individual particles (protons, neutrons & electrons) that regulate how they stay collected together as an atom. Without mass the particles would become unglued and perhaps even they would separate into their constituent quarks all flying away in whatever direction they were going when the Higgs Field died.
So now you have bazillions of independent particles (or quarks) travelling at the speed of light in every possible direction. Kind of sounds like a massive explosion to me (i.e. miniature big-bang)! Then after a few meters of travel they run into the Higgs Field outside the bubble, and they all have to slow down instantaneously. Wham, massive transfer of energy. All that mass that "went away" was probably converted to energy to permit acceleration to the speed of light then re-converted back to mass at the boundary of the field bubble.
This is only amateurish conjecture, I'm not sure what would be affected outside the bubble but for the experimenter I don't think it would be a convenient way to travel at the speed of light and might end the trip very quickly and messily for a large chunk of the Earth.
4) From the point of view of the photon it would take no time at all. The photon only travels at the speed of light. If a photon had consciousness it would live forever and take no time at all to do it. From the point of view of the photon it takes zero time to travel 1 inch or to the edge of the universe. So, I'm not surprised that entangled photons can "instantaneously" communicate spin directions. To them there is no distance, no time, no space. Space and time are illusions of us collections of particles with mass. We're swimming in a sea of molasses, its no wonder that it takes time to get anywhere. 8-o
If time and space are irrelevant to a (particle?), then could it be everywhere/everywhen? In that case, could the entire universe be made up of only one discrete unit which combines with itself to produce everything?
1. Lets consider that any quantum event that results in the creation of new particle pairs will lead to entangled properties among those particles. The big bang would have been the mother of all quantum events, and likely there are entangled counterparts all over the universe. We are probably all still connected. This much I can agree with.
2. Lets consider the double slit experiment for another moment but this time we are going to set up multiple double slits around the room. Double slit 1 is at the North, 2 is at South and another at left and at right. Lets say we have 4 different detectors, one at each slit. We then fire up the experiment, which of the four double slits will receive the photon? Likely, it all comes down to the way the emitter is designed. Photons can be refracted and reflected and absorbed so likely the emitter has reflective surfaces within it that will "aim" the photon in the direction of one of the four walls. If however, the emitter was more like a standard light bulb, free to emit in any direction, one would assume any one of the four walls could receive the photon. But most emitters for these experiments are usually sent in beams and not like bulbs at all. The assumption here would then be that the photon has a superposition until it is measured. However seems to me that much of the superposition potential is already limited by the reflections within the emitter. So actually the photon loses much of its superpositioning when it intereacts with the reflective properties of the emitter long before it arrives at the double slits. One could say that by the time they reach the double slits the photons have a general directionality.
3. Yes, we agree on the Higgs. But what I am getting at is the idea of Omnipresence. The universe is larger today than it was yesterday and going back to the beginning when everything was condensed into one place. One would assume that the concentration of Higgs bosons would have been greatest at times when the universe was smaller. More Higgs per square unit of space, just like there was once more matter and energy per unit of space. As time passes more space seems to be popping into existence and this has the effect of thinning out all other fields. As time passes electromagnetic radiation gets more dissipated as the density of electromagnetic particles continues to fall. But we dont find that the concentration if Higgs bosons per square unit of space to be changing, items are not losing their "mass" as the universe continues to thin itself out. This is fascinating.
The expansion of space is by far the most important question we can seek to answer right about now. If you really concentrate on what the universe's expansion means you realize it poses a big problem. When the big bang occurred the only space it created was within itself, not outside itself. There is no space outside of the universe, there are no Higgs outside of the universe. There is no bubble of awaiting empty space already installed to receive the newly expanded universe. On the contrary it seems like the only thing that really does change with time is the amount of free space, it keeps getting to be more and more. I dont take anything for granted, and omnipresence for me can tend to do that as a concept. If there are Higgs bosons everywhere, how did they get there and why are there more of them today than there was yesterday? clearly, Higgs is a part of space itself, or so it seems right now.
I’m not going to get drawn into an interactive discussion of things I’m not sure about.
I posed the questions only as thought provokers. I never expected a thread to break out. When it did I felt obligated to at least give an explanation of where I was coming from, so I’ve given my take on it. My understanding is probably more complete than many but I’m still an amateur. In fact after seeing my thoughts on paper I’m going to back out of one part of it because I can’t explain an inconsistency I noticed.
The explanation about photon “direction” in the double-slit experiment still stands, but my speculation that a single photon from a far distant supernova could be detected by us here or alternatively by an alien a couple of galaxies to our left doesn’t seem correct and I don’t know how to get myself out of the mess. The word “detect” doesn’t necessarily mean being seen by a human, it simply means that the photon interacts with something else. It could have interacted with a planet behind the exploding star. If that were true then it would have been “detected” by the planet or other dust or stars in any direction around the nova long before it got here, and not be available for detection by us or the aliens. If photons didn’t have some inherent vector direction then light bulbs in front of a black wall wouldn’t be visible because all the photons would be “detected” by the atoms in the wall and collapse the wave front long before any of the photons reached our eyes.
So I (*blush*) was wrong. But that’s OK, I was wrong once before. I think it was in 1985. 8-s (*joke son, it was a joke*)
But I do believe that thinking about massless particles( like the photons of light) are the key to grasping the mysteries of time and space. If they truly do not experience time, then omnipresence is not such a mysterious thing. It’s only us poor creatures (and other matter) mired in the molasses of the Higgs Field that see things play out in slow motion. Perhaps without the Higgs Field, time and space wouldn’t exist. I believe that “in the beginning”, quantum fluctuations resulted in a situation in which the Higgs Field took hold. Instantly the zero balance (symmetry) of positive/negative energy was broken. Some of the positive energy crystalized becoming particles, negative energy started crystalizing becoming spacetime. And wham, you had a Universe! Cool! (no, actually very very very hot!).
But to ask what was before this universe? or what comes after it? or how long does it exist? are meaningless questions. Time exists only within the Universe. Its reality is self contained. Current best theories have this Universe being created, then expanding until space becomes stretched so much that atoms themselves become unstable and evaporate back into energy. Without matter, you cannot measure space or time. At that point you have no matter, and you have no spacetime so the balance and symmetry is restored and we’re back to ground zero. The quantum fluctuation that started it all has run its course in a quantum instant, but to us seemed like billions of years. This whole production that we call "The Universe" is like a movie film sitting in the can. It has value only when being seen through projection, otherwise it is just a single potentiality among an infinite library of possibilities sitting on the shelf.
And unless this happened we wouldn’t be here, so it had to happen. No mystery. The universe exists because it does. It is the alpha and omega, the yin and yang. But through it all “where am I?” That’s the question to ponder. 8-o
That's the projected holograph principle - which is quite valid.
Want to start by saying thanks for your time Leather....
Only hot at first, much cooler for most of the rest of the time. The big bang went in stages. First there was the bang itself followed by a period of superluminal expansion called Inflation. There was a leptogenesis before there was a baryogenesis. Before the Higgs there is no reason why there was any speed limit at all. That is unless there is more than one type of higgs, but that is a different discussion. At the point when the Higgs came into existence the speed of light was established and all items with mass were made to move more slowly than light. I agree 100% with your description of time being a distortion we from the inside experience, the big bang from the outside if it could be viewed would appear to come and go in an instant. We agree totally even on this point. Problem is, the ideal of ominpresence fails when you consider that at the first instant after the big bang there were no Higg bosons or mass, and obviously no ominpresence. Higgs has certain conditions it needs to exist within and no others. One could potentially heat up an area of space enough to reach temperatures that are higher than the Higgs can withstand, at which point one could argue that Higgs had momentarily disappeared in this area, no longer omnipresent. I think it unsafe to assume omnipresence without some reasoning other than conceptual convenience. Remind me of that statement later!!!!!!!!
I never made any mention to what came before or after the big bang. These are not my postulates. I agree, those two questions are more or less pointless. I am asking about the accelerating expansion of the universe, a very different issue, and not pointless at all. How long does the universe exist, is the ultimate question, not at all pointless. At least to my particular logic.
Positive energy as particles, interesting. You mentioned that spacetime is like crystals as well. I like this idea, I will revisit this ideal later because it seems to indicate that space is quantized. The only issue is that the big bang was a quantum event, meaning that there was a certain amount of energy created and there has not been any additional energy created or destroyed since that moment. This makes the expansion of space even more puzzling. because the amount of space should have been quantized just like the amount of energy in the universe. This is not the case based on observation. There is no "conservation of space." This is essential for the discussion I am trying to have about the expanding crystals of space. Are the crystals getting bigger, or are there more and more crystals as time passes? Which one is it and how can we prove it?
Put it another way. Obviously, you are not troubled by the accelerating expansion of the universe, this seems like a non-question to you, so probably you feel you understand it. Can you please help me with that then? Might you help explain to me how space "stretches" as it does? Can you offer any ideas on the mechanism that expands the universe? To simply say it expands is not good enough , just like assuming photons have direction, it has to be tested so the question is still valid. Because to me this is a huge mystery and one that we cannot overlook. There is the same amount of energy in the universe today as there was always, the only difference is the spacial distribution of that energy. The only thing that has changed since the big bang is the amount of free space between things. All of the fields, higg, gluon, all only came about because eventually there was enough space to cool the universe to the point that higgs particles and the like could come into existence. Without space, we'd still be curled up into our pre-big bang point object.
Where is all this space coming from? I am asking you to please consider my silly question for a moment, because I am stumped.
Thanks for your time Leather
I'm trying not to debate my views but simply present them. I don't know where the new space is coming from but I do believe in it. Perhaps all the zillions of black holes are sucking in matter and pumping out space? I don't know. That's up the professionals with the math to debate. It's true that many professionals are so invested in their particular train of thought that they find it impossible to change and some go to their deathbed believing that the Earth is flat but if that works for them, so be it. I simply read what I can fathom and try to find the logic that helps me.
Science is filled with observations that declare that energy is conserved, momentum is conserved, etc. The sum of everything in a closed system has to remain constant. Evidence of these rules is seen at all scales. There's no reason to expect that in totality for all of reality that that observation fails.
Which is easier to accept? That there was a finite amount of something that is and has been in existence forever? Or that there is and always has been an infinite Nothing? The Void.
By accepting the idea of "The Void" then anything is possible as long as the total sum of all deviations is zero. Within this Nothing an infinite sea of possibilities can appear and disappear just as long as there is always balance between positive and negative.
Quantum fluctuations create a riotous sea of self-eliminating positive/negative purturbations that are their own temporary realities affecting The Void not at all.
Yet they create temporary universes ad-infinitum each containing their own positive & negative energies manifesting as space/time and matter/energy but always with sum total zero. When by chance a rogue wave of these purturbations creates a temporary reality with just the right conditions then in one quantum fluctuation the system inflates by turning the negative energy into spacetime. Leaving the positive energy to radiate into the space and begin to crystalize into matter. With the advent of space then time comes with it and the play of forces unfolds within the rules of the newly born universe according the schedule dictated by the presence of time.
Neither time nor space exists in The Void, only within the universes. This entirety of multi-verses in The Void is truly a system that is eternal, infinite and complete within itself. There was no requirement for its existence because, in the big picture, it does not exist. However in totality it is an omnipresent and omnipotent system in which anything not forbidden is possible.
The philosophical cliche' that "reality is an illusion" makes a lot of sense if one believes in The Void. It's not that reality is not real, but that what we perceive as reality is just a lopsided slice of The Void that looks different from different points of view.
And I believe that the most profitable question to ask is "where am I?" In this whole scheme of things where does consciousness exist? And where does it go? As I look into myself what do I find? In the old DAZ forum my "Location" tag used to say "Here and Now, but sometimes in your face, or out of my mind." All of that is still true. Here am I. :-)
Thanks for getting back to me, Leather. I was beginning to think you had forgotten about me. I assure you that you will not need to argue any points, mere presentation is all I ask and thanks for doing so. This thread is highly speculative from the start. If there was ever a physics thread for the un-argumentative, this one is it.
It is safe to say that this thread is now about Rashad's Ponderables. Hopefully people will enjoy my madness.
It is so refreshing to hear you describe a Void, as my own imagination has taken me to a similar place. Very refreshing indeed!!!!
Its interesting that somehow we do indeed find ourselves imagining about what's outside the universe. But anyhow...
A Void for me is a realm of higher dimensions, as real physically as any other set of dimensions, and fair game for basing postulates upon.
I got to thinking about the boundary line "separating" the distinct universes from the Void of multiverses surrounding them and I realized that the "edges" of the universes might be fuzzy and not distinct at all. I got to asking myself, what if by some chance the Void was to spring a leak? What would that look like from inside of a Universe?
If the Void was to "leak" into a Universe by some yet not understood quantum mechanism, I assume the universe would have to respond by expanding physically...placing more space and time between the individual quanta, pushing cosmological time forward. Letting the Void "in."
The result of letting the Void in is that Time receives an arrow seemingly pointing toward the future as we would call it. It relates very much to the question of whether photons have direction before interacting with other matter...likely so due to the arrow of time which is why I want to think on the arrow itself for a moment. Photons merely follow the arrow, Why the arrow is my issue. What is it that drives the effect of time?
I came to this conclusion of a possible leak because I realized that a Void would have to always be expanding to make room for all the infinite new universes that pop up every time a decision or observation is made by a particle in any universe. In one universe I typed this response, in another I didnt type anything. The Void has to make room for each of these distinct universes and countless others every time a new timeline splinters off. The Void quite necessarily, is always growing.
I was re-reading about the Planck length and the important thing for me is that the Planck length is said to be the quanta of space and the Planck time is the quanta of time itself...action. I came to realize that when they say "space is expanding," what they really mean is that there are more "Planck times" between points than there used to be, thus creating the appearance of stretched space requiring more time for a signal to travel from one point to another. Photons are merely respecting the quanta of action as they travel through space. If more space gets created (by a leaky Void) a photon cannot skip over it and must take the necessary time to travel through it. This confirms for me that space itself isnt really stretching, instead more space is appearing, a very different solution in my mind to the analogy of a rubber sheet or something. The rubber sheet analogy always stretched everything, even the "particles" drawn onto the sheet with a pen. This analogy never worked for me. The raisin bread analogy works much better, but still gives the wrong impression about some things but thats a different topic.
Anyhow, what do you think of my leaky Void idea as a possible root to the expanding universe and arrow of time problems?
I should state one more thing before you answer.
A teacher once explained quantized energy as a keyhole. He said
"Imagine there is a prisoner trapped inside a room with a locked door. The prisoner is starving to death and calling out for someone to help him. You arrive on the scene. You do not have a key appropriate to open the door, but you do have a loaf of warm toasty bread in your satchel. The problem now is getting that entire loaf of bread to fit inside of that tiny keyhole. The solution, is the break the loaf of bread up into much smaller keyhole sized bits and feed the bits to the prisoner one at a time."
If the Void in this case is the entire loaf of bread, you and I are the prisoners inside, and the edges of the universe (which is everywhere) represents the keyhole, then the flow of time makes sense. The Void has no choice but to leak its way into our universe in quantized Planck space/time chunks, and because it cannot send all chunks through at once the sending of individual chunks creates a flow of time as distances increase,,,forcing an arrow where there wouldn't have been one otherwise.
I bet you probably think I'm loosing it about now, right?
I think so. I tend to think of it as sort of like a super-speed 3d cursor, whizzing around the universe so fast in a blur that the blurs themselves appear as solidified forms of particles. Without a speed limit there is no reason why a single particle couldn't be everywhere at once.
Knowing that photons self interact certainly gives the impression that the photon has already been to this location at some previous time before. The speeding cursor idea makes me think of TRON.
Fascinating.
Sorry I'm not answering promptly. I'm not at home. I"m travelling and am currently in Florida. My step-mother is terminal and I'm trying to be of some help to her sons and cousin and the hospice people. I'm not sure how long I'll be down here but while here I don't have access to my normal computer facilities.
Regarding the cosmology questions at hand, Its hard for me to comment on ideas without appearing to be critical, or at the other end of the scale, be spouting plattitudes. So I tread lightly. Everybody is entitled to their own interpretation of their view of reality. Explaining the unexplainable is inherently flawed. I can't even explain to you what the color "red" looks like to me and be sure you see what I see. So all of these ideas in this thread are only glimpses of a tiny insect flying in a pitch dark room with only a constantly moving narrow shaft of light passing through. And with everybody in the room looking in different directions we see the insect for the briefest of moments and then we don't, and nobody agrees about exactly where it is or what it is at the same time.
You've commented on my lack of concern for how space is expanding. I perhaps have the same observation regarding your lack of concern for a void that seems to require dimensions and has a size. I don't envision the universes competing for space. To me they are all outside of space and time.
The idea of a boundary works though. I see the boundary as the place between form and formlessness. The boundary being the quantum foam, that since it is omnipresent, exists for creating universes but also exists within the universes.
The line in the Moody Blues song "In The Beginning" from their "On The Threshold of a Dream" album goes something like "I think...I think I am. Therefore I am! I think..." and in that spirit I view the seat of consciousness as being that boundary between form and formlessness. Consciousness being the quantum foam itself. Consciousness being the ultimate creator of all realities. Our individual poor connections with the pure consciousness is only glimpses of the power and grandeur of Utimate Being. And "Life", all life everywhere, is the process of Ultimate Being discovering Self.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTHoKEd-Gjo (first minute is very quiet)
To add to the idea that describing the indescribable is inherently flawed, is this little idea. Ideas themselves appear to be rooted in neural systems. Neural systems are products of matter, energy, time and space. I don't envision consciousness as having ideas. Pure Consciousness is just Being. Ideas only arise witihin a universe. Whereas Being is omnipresent in all universes that spring from The Void. Hanging on to any idea as a description of ultimate reality is futile. Ideas anchor you to the world of form. We are not ideas, I believe that Consciousness sits behind the idea. A free consciousness watches the ideas flow but does not become anchored to them. I like the idea that Consciousness is the boundary between form and formlessness. But in hanging on to that idea and trying to describe it I trap myself in it.
However, I gravitated to this idea by learning bits and pieces of it from many sources over many decades. Desire to understand myself and the Universe led me to these ideas, they make me calm. Perhaps someday I'll finally be able to let go of the desire, and be free.
Humans have tried to explain the universe for thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years. The language that we use to describe our vision of Being changes through time and culture. What works for one group at one point in time is just mumbo jumbo for others and in another time. Ultimately it is up to each individual person to come to terms with a description that works for them. But a rose is a rose regardless of how it's described. The danger though, is getting so trapped in different ideas of what the rose is that we fight about it.
Thanks for getting back to me, Leather. I am sorry to hear about your step-mother and I do wish your family strength and courage at this testing time. In light of such events your taking time to wax poetic with me is ever more appreciated. Double thanks.
This post may seem to jump around a bit as I try to describe this idea I've developed.
You and I likely differ in our opinion of where consciousness fits into the equation. I tend to think that space, time, energy, and matter are all quite real and it is "consciousness" that is most likely imagined. Since as you state, any particle of matter can serve as an observer to a traveling photon when released from the surface of a star, how then can we draw any real difference between consciousness and unconsciousness? The planet behind the star isn't conscious, yet it still caused the collapse of the photon's wave function long before it reached our eyes.
The Void, while philosophically difficult to describe with words, is not in the least difficult to describe mathematically. The Void as you describe it is a standard Euclidean Space with operations performed within Cartesian coordinates. The Void is necessarily infinite in physical space, but devoid of the element of time so there is never distortion of the fabric of the Void. Lines remain parallel forever in all directions. In a Euclidean Void all references share the same inertial "time frame." The Void is an unshakably stable place.
Problem is...nothing is 100% stable, even the Void itself. I believe there is overwhelming evidence of this. Which I am trying to explain.
In theory, the Void should be completely empty, it shouldn't even contain Universes if one were to think about it. Or put it another way. The Void exists "around" the universes. So one could in fairness argue that the Void has holes in it which the Universes "fill in."
I do realize I am using quotations a lot and it is not acceptable, I promise to keep it minimal.
I am suggesting that while a static and stable Void seems like a convenient starting place or postulate, perhaps static is not the only possible state the Void might occupy. With a little more imagination, cool things start to happen. What if by some chance the Void was unstable? What would that look like? I for one do not believe that what goes on within the universes is completely unrelated to what goes on within the Void containing the universes, Quite contrary, I theorize that the Void should leave tangible artifacts, hints and clues about itself within the universes created within it. We may not be able to see the Void directly, but that doesn't mean we cant see its shadow. While you might consider our cognitive consciousness as the primary artifact or evidence of the Void (very likely connection to my mind, I agree and always have) I am going further and imagining about how such an artifact might look physically. The Void might not need conscious beings as the only way to seep its way into our universe, it may have other means such as those I described in my last post about expanding space. There was a time before conscious beings, so clearly it cant be all about consciousness. Still I think consciousness plays a vital role.
Lets approach this from the standpoint of where we can agree. We know that in at least 3 dimensions our own universe is expanding in size. The Void surrounding the Universe must already be large enough to encompass our own universe no matter how large it were to get. Fine.
In my imagination there are different types of Voids to consider. In one version of the Void there is only 1 universe and the Void simply surrounds it...end of story. Such a Void satisfies expectations as a fully static and stable realm. This is the Void you describe In my opinion. This was also my original visualization of the Void.
But then there is the other more dynamic type of Void that is full of universes popping into existence based on statistics and probabilities. The second type of Void while similar looking from within the universes, would look very different from within the Void itself especially when you keep in mind that the element of time has been taken out of the equation. In a multiverse filled Void one has to ask "when" are the multiverses created? Are the new universes created at the point in "time" when particles within the universes interact, or are all potential universes already created? This has a big implication on the ideal of "free will" for the inhabitants if a universe.
If the Void doesnt contain a ready made version of the universe where you and I never met, then we were in a sense forced to meet and had no choice in the matter at all because the only universes the Void contains are those in which you and I have met. If however, the Void is empty until new universes are forced into creation by interactions between matter and energy, then you and I actually did have a choice either way and we chose to meet such that the current universe was created at the point we made our decision.