More Cosmic Random Thoughts

* In our Universe there are two kinds of astronomical objects. There are cosmic faucets like stars and anything else that gives off or reflects electromagnetic (EM) waves. That’s the cosmic “In Tray”. Then there are cosmic sinks and drains that absorb electromagnetic waves – Black Holes, the cosmic “Out Tray”.

It would seem to me that over the course of 13.7 billion years, an awful lot of EM (light, IR, UV, radio, microwave, gamma-ray, etc.) photons, not to mention neutrinos and cosmic rays, would have gobbled up and removed from the Universe’s inventory by being sucked into and forever residing in the insides of Black Holes. Since all astronomical observations, hence conclusions about the state of the Universe, rely on the detection of that which is emitted or reflected by cosmic faucets, then it stands to reason that in order to arrive at valid conclusions, what cosmic sinks and drains remove from the Big EM Picture must be taken into account. But is it? I’ve never read any account where the removal of EM photons from the Universe’s inventory has been considered.   

One example that springs to mind is the minor temperature variations in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) – perhaps those slightly cooler spots are due to a large Black Hole between our measuring device and the CMBR that is sucking up those microwaves before they reach our measuring telescope or space probe or high altitude balloon. I seem to recall cosmologist George Gamow back in the 1940’s making a theoretical prediction that the (then undetected) CMBR would be somewhere between 5 to 7 degrees Kelvin, instead of the roughly 2.7 degrees Kelvin that eventuated. Perhaps, the overall cooler than Gamow expected CMBR is due to Black Holes sucking up lots of those CMBR photons over all those billions of years.

oooooOOOOOooooo

* To be honest, I reject the idea that space itself is expanding. To me distant galaxies are expanding farther and farther apart throughout an already existing space. That makes way more sense. Expanding space appears to me to be a case of getting a free lunch – something from nothing – in violation of standard conservation principles.

Further, I see nothing in Einstein’s relativity equations that turns space into stuff. That is, how do Einstein’s relativity equations give space the property of elastic fabric or of rubber? It’s nonsense. I mean you can move through space without hindrance.

Is there any actual observational evidence that proves conclusively that it is space expanding and not cosmic flotsam and jetsam moving apart through existing space? Not to my knowledge but I can think of a possible test that might conclude the issue. Two objects receding apart, like the Earth and the Moon (due to tidal forces) are going with the expanding space grain and should be separating more rapidly than otherwise would be the case due to tidal forces alone. The experiment, measuring the increasing Earth/Moon separation should be a relatively easy experiment to do. Due to the reflective mirrors left on the lunar surface by the Apollo moonwalkers we know the Earth-Moon distance to extreme precision. It should be straightforward whether the Moon is receding from the Earth faster than tidal forces can account for.  

oooooOOOOOooooo

BINGO! EXPANDING SPACE? NOT!

In an effort to explain about the concept of expanding space, astronomer Philip Plait inadvertently presented the exact opposite argument which is that space can’t be expanding (and therefore the expanding universe must be expanding throughout existing space), a point of view I’ve been advocating seemingly forever. Here’s Plait’s extract.

“Space expands, but this expansion can be countered by gravity. You might expect that, say, two stars orbiting each other will get farther apart as space expands between them. However, that’s not the case. Since the two objects have gravity, and they are bound to each other – that is, their gravity holds them together – space doesn’t expand between them.” [Plait’s emphasis.]* 

*Plait, Philip; Death from the Skies! These Are the Ways the World Will End…; Viking, New York; 2008; p.278: 

So, taken to its logical conclusion, space is not expanding between the Earth and the Moon. Space is not expanding between the Earth and the Sun. Space is not expanding between the Sun’s solar system and the triple star Centauri system. Space is not expanding between the Sun and the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy, space is not expanding between the Milky Way Galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy, space is not expanding between the local group of cluster of galaxies (containing the Milky Way and Andromeda) and the nearby Virgo Cluster of galaxies, etc. Any two bits of matter have mutual gravity and so therefore there can be no expanding space anywhere, since gravity is everywhere.

oooooOOOOOooooo

* If an electron acquired enough mass (say by being accelerated to near light speed), would it become a Black Hole, and if so, would the ‘inside’ still be an electron, which after all, is considered a fundamental particle? 

oooooOOOOOooooo

* Space is not the final frontier. The ultimate challenge is to ‘boldly go’ past the event horizon of a Black Hole and see what’s to be seen. 

oooooOOOOOooooo

* Why is there something rather than nothing? Let’s say there’s a 50-50 probability between a universe that contains nothing and one that contains something. Or even make the ratio 60-40 or 99-1 or even odds of a billion to one, as long as the probability of a something universe isn’t zero. Then, well that’s something to be said for a something universe. Now a nothing universe isn’t bio-friendly and a something universe can be, so since we’re a friendly bio-entity that must mean we live in a something universe. So, as far as we are concerned, that’s what there is something rather than nothing, because if there was nothing we wouldn’t be here to ponder the issue.

A Cosmos Unto Infinity: 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. 

A Cosmos Unto Infinity: 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…

Black Holes & Baby Universes

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.”

Can Black Holes Evaporate? Part Two

While there is a constant transfer of matter and radiant electromagnetic energy (photons) between bodies throughout the cosmos, there are sinks, ultimate final resting places where matter/energy can retire to and be removed from the rest of the cosmos. These cosmic sinks are Black Holes. But is that retirement permanent, or can stuff re-enter the cosmic workforce? Can Black Holes evaporate? The theoretical short answer is “yes”; the long answer is “no”.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Now what about a Black Hole? Clearly a Black Hole isn’t isolated from the rest of the cosmos and objects therein. If you were just outside the event horizon you’d ‘see’ photons (of all wavelengths) because you’d see stars and galaxies, etc. just like you can locally. Neutrinos would still pass right through you on their way to their doom once passing through the event horizon. The Universe is full of interstellar and intergalactic atoms and molecules and dust and of course lots of larger stuff a Black Hole can snack on. Black Holes will sweep up stuff just like Earth does, only more so since it has more gravity with which to grab hold of stuff with, and also because once caught there’s no escape for the cosmic fish. Unlike Earth, everything that crosses that event horizon, that hits the Black Hole, won’t be reflected back (like photons). Neutrinos that can pass through light-years worth of solid lead without even ‘breathing hard’ will be imprisoned when they try that trick in a Black Hole’s inner sanctum. And of course atoms, molecules, interstellar dust, the big chunks will also get imprisoned. 

But we can imagine an idealized cosmos where all Black Holes have swallowed up all existing radiated particles (photons), all the atoms,  molecules, the dust and all the bigger stuff – all those stars and planets; asteroids and comets; even all that mysterious ‘dark matter’. So you have a cosmos of just Black Holes and the vacuum energy (well maybe a few bits and pieces escaped, but so few to be of no consequence).  Of course there is one further logical extension. Black Holes can swallow other Black Holes. Black Holes can merge to form bigger Black Holes. The final product is that the cosmos consists of one Black Hole – the Mother of all Black Holes – plus the vacuum energy!  So you end up with one Black Hole left standing with nothing left to eat.

Okay, so the only scenario now possible is that this Mother of all Black Holes evaporates via Hawking radiation. It might take trillions upon trillions upon trillions of years, but evaporate it does. Since matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, once the Mother of Black Holes has finally gone ‘poof’, the Universe is right back where it started from – full of stuff from photons to fundamental particles which them undergo chemistry to form atoms and molecules and stars and planets and perhaps life – and new Black Holes!

Perhaps this is a new and improved version of a cyclic/oscillating universe! - But then again, maybe not. There’s a fly in that ointment (but I had you going for a while back there!). That “idealized cosmos” was only a ‘what if’ thought experiment.

Firstly, it’s actually very, very unlikely all the Black Holes in the Universe will ever merge together as long as the Universe keeps expanding. Since the galaxies are getting farther and farther away from each other due to that expansion, the collection of Black Holes contained within each galaxy keep getting further and further apart from other clusters of Black Holes contained within other galaxies. It’s like the passengers in one car get more and more remote from the passengers in another car when each car is going at different velocities and heading in different directions.

Now the collection of all Black Holes in any one galaxy could well coalesce into one super Black Hole galaxy. You have a galaxy that instead of containing billions and billions of stars and debris and particles now consists of just one Black Hole – the car only has one occupant. You have a pure Black Hole galaxy, or a galactic sized Black Hole. 

One might end up with a Universe composed of just these pure Black Hole galaxies, all spreading farther and farther apart over time. 

But secondly, there’s another fly in the ointment. All the space that separates these pure Black Hole galaxies from each other isn’t a perfect vacuum, quite apart from the vacuum energy. All the radiating stars and stuff may have been gobbled up within each galaxy, but all of interplanetary space, all of interstellar space, and all of intergalactic space, isn’t pure vacuum. There’s still the ‘it’s everywhere, it’s everywhere’ Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR).

So what’s this CMBR?  If you have a massive hot explosion (like the Big Bang event is alleged to have been), and all that heat energy expands and expands, then you’d expect the temperature of the area occupied by that energy to drop, the temperature ever decreasing as the volume that finite amount of energy occupies increases. As the energy expands it gets diluted and thus cools, but can never reach an absolute zero temperature for reasons already noted. And that’s just what we find on a universal scale. There’s a fine microwave energy “hiss” representing a temperature a few degrees above absolute zero that’s absolutely everywhere in the cosmos. That’s the diluted heat energy of the very hot Big Bang – well it has been a long time since the Big Bang event (13.7 billion years worth of time) and that energy is now spread throughout a lot of cosmic volume. That microwave “hiss”, called the CMBR, was predicted way before it was discovered. There’s no doubt that it exists.

Since the CMBR is just photons with very long wavelengths, Black Holes could suck up the CMBR photons as easily as light photons. Removal of CMRB photons, already representing a temperature just slightly about the theoretical minimum – absolute zero – would mean the Universe gets even colder, which it would anyway since the Universe is ever expanding and thus available electromagnetic energy (photons) is ever diluting. Combining the two effects and the Universe is a chilly place indeed and will get even colder.

However, it’s probably not possible for Black Holes collectively to swallow up all of the CMBR since there will come a point of diminishing returns. What happens when the temperature of Black Holes equals the temperature of the Universe at large – the CMBR? The answer is thermal equilibrium like when your hot cup of coffee cools off to room temperature. Input into Black Holes from the CMBR will equal output via Hawking radiation. For every photon emitted via Hawking radiation, a CMBR photon gets sucked in. What does that mean? It means a Black Hole can not evaporate.

What about very tiny (micro) Black Holes that are relatively ‘hot’? Might they go ‘poof’ before thermal equilibrium is achieved? Will the contents of the Black Hole evaporate into the surrounding cosmos before they can equate to the surrounding temperature? The analogy might be like a hot drop of water could evaporate into the cold atmosphere before the liquid water drop can attain the temperature of its surrounding environment.

Even so, I still imagine that in the current matter and radiation dominated Universe, incoming would still exceed outgoing.

Of course if you could take a Black Hole, isolate and shield it from the rest of the cosmos and all that it contains, so all you have is the Black Hole and its internal energy (including the all pervading vacuum energy therein). An isolated Black Hole would be in a setting equivalent to putting it into an absolute zero temperature environment. If that’s the case then outgoing would exceed incoming since there could be no incoming, and therefore that Black Hole would then radiate and slowly evaporate and eventually go ‘poof’. BUT, and there’s always a BUT, I can not envision any scenario where a Black Hole can exist in such a theoretical isolation. So, Professor Hawking is quite correct – in theory. In practice, in the here and now, input exceeds Hawking radiation output, and even in the unimaginably far distant future equilibrium will be established where input equals output. 

A Parallel Analogy Between Supernovae & Cosmology: Part Three

Parts of the current standard model of the origin of our Universe (the Big Bang event) violate nearly every principle of physics there is – from causality to the conservation laws. There’s got to be a better answer. Fortunately there are cosmological alternatives (not detailed here) including perhaps my own variation on the theme (which is detailed here). Supernovae gave me a possible clue to a cyclic Multiverse.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

POINT AND COUNTERPOINT: Now your standard run-of-the-mill, everyday professor of cosmology at your local leading university will tell you if you show her this scenario that it is all total nonsense and I should be consigned to the pseudoscientific rubbish bin. The Big Bang event was a one-off; it was unique; a one-of-a-kind; a fluke; just one of those interesting things that happen for no apparent reason at all. The Big Bang event created time and space, therefore time and space cannot be infinite. 

But – and you’ll read that non-observation (since there was no one around including any lady cosmologists to observe at the Big Bang’s ground zero) in any standard book on the subject – it’s nonsense, a scientific fabrication if you really stop and think about it. You cannot create something, anything, without having the space already available to create it into. That applies to the creation of our Universe as much as it applies to creating widgets in a factory! To claim otherwise is to suggest all of ultimate creation was kick-started in no space at all! How absurd is that! Consider the reverse: how can you cram everything into nothing?  

Now if the Big Bang event did not, could not, create space way back then, then space is not undergoing continuous creation today contrary to the standard spiel. Translated, space is not expanding into some non-space region of non-existence. Expanding space either means that space is getting thinner and thinner (less dense) like an expanding balloon skin stretching (and that’s nonsense – how can space decrease in density?), or new space is being created out of nothing to fill the void as space expands. You can’t create something out of pure nothing; not then (at the Big Bang); not now. That’s a violation of all the basic conservation laws that are the bedrock of physics.

So, the obvious alternative is that what’s expanding is the stuff vomited out by the Big Bang event into pre-existing space and the vomit just keeps thinning out as it expands throughout an ever wider volume of that pre-existing space. Now fortunately for me, and unfortunately for those cosmology professors, there’s no actual observational test or experiment that can be done to distinguish between the two possibilities and settle the matter. If there were such observational evidence that proved that space itself was expanding (and thus being continuously created even as I type this) that evidence would be given in the textbooks. But it’s not there. All you get is just the standard scenario: “the Big Bang created space; space is expanding and therefore space is still being created today”. The unwritten sentence is “just take my word for it” because I can’t back it up with any evidence, far less proof. The only evidence is that something is expanding. That something could equally be Big Bang stuff spewing out into pre-existing space like an exploding firecracker will spew its contents outward bound and ever expanding.

It’s the unanswered question that remains in fact unasked in the standard textbooks – what exactly is our Universe’s expanding space expanding into? What is our expanding space shoving out of the way as it expands, ever expands? It can’t be pre-existing space according to the standard model since the Big Bang event created all of space; the entirety of space in the beginning 13.7 billion years ago. Perhaps space is pushing into a theoretical higher dimension (whatever that really means), but that would be an ad hoc pull of the rabbit out of the proverbial hat where nobody advocating that could provide any evidence that either the rabbit or the hat exists at all. Besides, all those extra dimensions predicted by the purely mathematical and hypothetical string theory (if string theory is to work) are compactified; curled up into super-ultra microscopic foetal positions; they are tiny. They aren’t the sort of higher dimension you can expand a universe of space into. So it’s back to the drawing board for our standard lady (and gentlemen) cosmologists.

The other bit, the creation of time, is equally absurd. The Big Bang was an event. It was an effect. If causality has any meaning at all, and it’s one of the foundations upon which all of science rests on, then an effect has a cause. Causes must precede effects when cause and effect are intimately related (there are of course lots of causes and lots of effects that have no connection). Therefore, whatever caused the Big Bang event (or effect), must of necessity have happened before (preceded) the Big Bang event. Therefore, there must have been an already existing time prior to the Big Bang event and therefore the Big Bang event did not, could not, create time. Since there was a before the Big Bang, since cause always precedes effect, then again time could not have been created – time has always been, is, and always will be.

Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for those professors of cosmology ramming down the standard ‘creation of time and space’ scenario to their students, all equations (that which usually substitutes for lack of ways and means to do actual observations) that try to describe the Big Bang event; ground zero when space allegedly equals zero and time allegedly also equals zero, totally break down. So the standard ‘create time and space’ model is pure extrapolation (running the film backwards from today’s data) and ultimately a best guess. So while I’ve no doubt the Big Bang scenario is correct in the broad-brush generalities, there is a lot of observational evidence that something really big happened 13.7 billion years ago that kick-started our Universe off on its evolutional path, when it comes to some of the nitty-gritty details, like that ‘create time and space’ detail, well I just think that is plain wrong – pure and simple. 

So why is that ‘Big Bang created time and space’ the only accepted scenario? It is beyond me, except it probably has a lot to do, not with science, but the sociology and the office politics of science – peer pressure. Science, like the church and other formal institutions does not approve of mavericks that go against the grain. So if you want a Ph D., a job, research funding, a career with promotions, publications, etc. you don’t rock the boat. Science, and that includes cosmology, for all its self-correcting ways and means and methods and ideals is still, ultimately, a human endeavour. As such, you tow the party line; go with the flow; parrot to your students what your professors parroted to you.

Now there are a few bold cosmologists who do acknowledge that the Big Bang event still has some kinks to be ironed out and that there was a “before the Big Bang”. That’s not to say they would endorse my scenario. They probably wouldn’t in a pink fit! 

Heading back on track, even if my supernovae analogy is wrong, there still had to have been an existence both of time and space prior to the creation of our Universe via the Big Bang event, and that alone suggests that all things are still cyclic or re-cyclic in the cosmos. 

A Parallel Analogy Between Supernovae & Cosmology: Part Two

Parts of the current standard model of the origin of our Universe (the Big Bang event) violate nearly every principle of physics there is – from causality to the conservation laws. There’s got to be a better answer. Fortunately there are cosmological alternatives (not detailed here) including perhaps my own variation on the theme (which is detailed here). Supernovae gave me a possible clue to a cyclic Multiverse.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

THE PARALLEL COSMOLOGY ANALOGY: So what the hell does yesterday’s post have to do with cosmology? There’s lots of stars; only one Universe – or is that really the case?

One set of assumptions has to be made from the get-go. I postulate that the cosmos, all that is and ever will be, is infinite in both space and in time. This assumption is more philosophical than scientific. If you ever postulate a finite cosmos, a cosmos with a boundary, a fixed volume, you must, of necessity, deal with that maverick who asks, “Well, what exists beyond that boundary?” If you postulate a beginning and/or an end, that same maverick will annoy you with, “Well, what happened before that or after that?” It’s just easier to wrap your head around a cosmos that is infinite; a cosmos that had no beginning and will have no end. Unfortunate, the standard model of cosmology postulates a beginning, and a fade-away ending and a finite amount of stuff and space to stuff it into.

We all know the standard scientific spiel to the creation of our Universe – no, not the Biblical Book of Genesis, but the Big Bang event. Well, already we have a parallel analogy – supernovae are mini big bang events.

Now the Big Bang and other associated real time events like an additional oomph of an in the beginning “inflation” have resulted in our Universe expanding, ever expanding. There’s lots of observational evidence for the Big Bang and the expansion. So, lots of stuff has been vomited out into the cosmos from a unique point in time – 13.7 billion years ago. But if there was a finite Big Bang, then there must also have been a finite amount of space to stuff that vomit into. That violates my philosophical ideals of not only no boundary in time, but no bounds in space for our Universe to strut its stuff in.

Anyway, we have expansion of stuff spreading out through space. Well, that’s a parallel analogy with the spewing out of gas and dust via stars going nova and supernovae. Now commonsense might suggest that the original oomph of the Big Bang would eventually run out of puff as the one-way attraction of gravity would slow the expansion down, and down, and down and eventually cause the expansion to come to a grinding halt – then reverse, as gravity would cause everything to contract once again back into the configuration from which the Big Bang arose from. In other words, the expected fate of our Universe was to be born from a Big Bang, live and evolve, and die in a Big Crunch.

Alas, life isn’t that simple – Mother Nature is a baseball pitcher with a wicked curveball or knuckleball. Mother Nature’s a real Hall-of-Fame bitch. A bunch of astronomical party-poopers discovered that the expansion of the Universe isn’t slowing down; it bloody well accelerating! Thus, no Big Crunch is on the horizon in the far future, only a “Heat Death” as entropy ends up ruling the roost. So runs the standard spiel.  So how are you going to eventually generate a second or third or one-hundredth generation universe out of that mess? But that’s the limited view. Let’s climb the cosmic mountain for the grander picture. 

What comes now to the rescue is that there is more than one Big Bang (maxi nova or supernovae) universe; more than one expansion event, because, there’s more than one universe, more than just our Universe, within that infinite (in space and time) cosmos referred to above.

And so, while from our limited point of view there is our Universe, and thus we assume the one-and-only-Universe, in fact there is more – much, much more. If you have a lot of universes in the infinite cosmos, all of which started off with a supernovae-like Big Bang, then, sooner or later, the spew of one (or more) will intersect with the spew of another (or more).

Thus, a lot of expanding regions of individual universes will intersect, eventually. That intersect region will, under combined gravities, start to slow things down. That region will slowly, but surely, start to contract. That contraction will eventually collapse into a Big Crunch. It seems something cyclic has happened. Lots of Big Bangs have generated a Big Crunch – actually a lot of Big Crunches when you look at the total 3-D picture. Big Bang A’s expansion might intersect with Big Bang expansions B, C, and D in one direction, say left. Big Bang A’s expansion might intersect with Big Bang expansions E, F and G in the opposite direction. Big Bang A’s expansion might intersect with Big Bang expansions H, I, J and K in the up direction; Big Bang A’s expansion might intersect with the L, and M Big Bangs in the downward direction, and so on and so forth. The Big Crunches (resulting in the Mother of all Black Holes) will be symmetrical, turning inside out into newly vomiting Big Bangs, or White Holes.

And so the endlessly cycling of stellar nova/supernova (expansion) to intersecting clouds of interstellar gas/dust (contractions) thus forming new stellar objects, some of which will in turn vomit up their quota of interstellar gas/dust has a parallel though many orders of magnitude on up the line. Endlessly cycling Big Bang expansions intersect to form high gravity regions which contract (in Big Crunches) to form new regions where conditions are ripe for a new Big Bang event. And so we have an overall cyclic cosmos or Multiverse (because there is more than one universe). There’s not just one expanding universe slowing down and contracting to ultimate reform that one expanding universe again, but a whole potpourri of universes that are all just expanding, intersecting and contracting, comings and goings at different times and places – night and day; Full Moon to New Moon; evaporation to rainfall; etc. 

In fact, if you think about it, the idea that there are many expanding and contracting universes is but the next logical step in what was already proven to be a natural progression. Once upon a time Terra Firma (Earth) was the centre of the Universe. Now we know better. Then the Sun and solar system were elevated to that centre. Now we know better because there are lots of suns and planets that have eliminated our uniqueness. Once upon a time our galaxy was considered to be the be-all-and-end-all of the Universe. Today we know better. There are billions and billions of other galaxies out there and our galaxy occupies no special place in space or time and has no special appearance. So, I suggest that our Universe is now not the centre of the universe (or cosmos to avoid confusion). We have a Multiverse! And we have a cyclic Multiverse that should satisfy that philosophical idealistic need referred to at the start.  

Now it could already be the case that part of our expanding Universe has recently (even as in multi-millions of years ago) intersected part of another expanding universe. However, we wouldn’t be aware of that because it’s going to take billions of years for the visuals and the gravitational effects to reach us from such vast distances.

There is at least one interesting consequence inherent in this cyclic Multiverse. Even if there is only a finite amount of mass and energy in this infinite volume (and that doesn’t have to be the case since you can fit an infinite amount of mass and energy into an infinite volume), that finite mass and energy has been recycled an infinite number of times in the unending past and will be recycled an infinite number of times in the unending future. The upshot of that is that anything and everything that can happen, everything that is not forbidden by the laws, principles and relationships inherent in nature, has happened an infinite number of times and will happen again an infinite number of times. Translated, you have and will exist again, and again, and again in all possible permutations. Although the ‘you’ that is reading this in the ‘now’ will fade away (that sounds nicer than kicking-the-bucket), take comfort in that another ‘you’, somewhere and somewhen else, will carry on carrying on the ‘you’ tradition. 

.

JOHN’S COSMOLOGY-SUPERNOVAE ANALOGY IN SUMMARY FORM

1) Contraction of a universe                               1) Contraction of interstellar gas/dust

2) Big Crunch   (Black Hole)                             2) Massive star forms

3) Transition to                                                  3) Stellar life span

4) Big Bang (White Hole)                                  4) Supernovae

5) Expanding Universe                                      5) Expulsion of gas/dust

6) Intersection with another expanding universe 6) Interaction with other gas/dust

7) Gravity rules                                                 7) Gravity rules

8) Contraction of new universe                          8) Contraction of interstellar gas/dust

To be continued...

Pick a Verse, Any Uni-Verse: Part Two

VERSES: Well, there’s Adverse; Averse; Diverse; Inverse; Perverse; Reverse; and Universe. That’s the one we want – Universe.

PICK A UNIVERSE, ANY UNIVERSE: Well, they seem to come in a number of possible flavours.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

SUPERNATURAL UNIVERSES: These also come is a number of flavours – assuming they exist at all – like the spirit world universe where ghosts go bump in the night, the eternal afterlife in Heaven where you spend eternity plucking a harp, or the Hell universe where you don’t have to worry about the heating bills. Then there is Asgard and Valhalla too where true Norse heroes go and drink mead and prepare for Ragnarok. Then there’s the New Age and related concept of ‘higher planes of existence/reality’ theme, whatever that actually means – it’s pretty nebulous. There’s probably plenty of potential others depending on whom you ask and what mythologies you research, but you get the general gist of possibilities. I personally consign these potential supernatural universes to the rubbish bin. However, many intellects equal to and greater than mine don’t. One possible can of worms here is that a simulated universe (be it a software/computer or wetware/brain/mind variety) might use might use a supernatural universe as a role model. You might dream of Valhalla; a video game might simulate Armageddon with you caught in the middle perhaps. Therefore, a simulated universe and a supernatural universe are not mutually exclusive, since you can have a simulated supernatural universe. 

DIMENSIONALITY: Unless we actually work and play; live, breathe and eventually snuff-it in the ever so obvious 3-D Universe that we all think we do, then all bets are off. If reality is the holographic universe, then you’re 2-D and the third dimension is illusionary, no more solid than wisps of smoke, dust and gas (which actually are ‘solid’ but you know what I mean). Likewise, that third dimension is an illusion if you’re a mental construct or if you star in your very own computer game. If all there is is your mind, then I guess ‘reality’ outside of that is dimensionless! And if you reside in a supernatural universe, then it’s a case of God, or gods, only knows – you may have no reality or geometry as we know it at all.

FREE WILL: Presumably if you live in any sort of 3-D universe, even the 2-D holographic universe, including any and all manner of parallel universes, then you apparently have free will. I say apparently as you can’t actually distinguish real free will from illusionary free will. You just might be following that 100% deterministic clockwork Universe that was set into motion at the time and point of origin; you wouldn’t know. In any sort of simulated reality, if you’re an entity in same, then someone (something) else is dictating the terms, so no free will there. Presumably in a supernatural universe you’d have forfeited your free will. I mean, could you of your own free will commit a sin in heaven?

BIRTH: In any standard universe, you (the ‘I think, therefore I am’ you) were born or hatched or some such. In any simulated universe, if you exist in that simulated universe, then you must have been born into it, although that birth does not have to of necessity reflect a standard biological baby birth. In a simulation, the creator could just snap fingers, and, well there you are, fully grown, developed and functional. Of course you could be born again and again and again – and yet again. In a supernatural universe, well, assuming causality that birth must precede death, and that a supernatural universe contains only dead entities, then it’s unlikely in the extreme that you could be born into a supernatural universe!

DEATH: In any standard universe, you are born; you will die. In any simulated universe, if you are in it, then you may or may not die. There’s nothing preventing you having simulated immortality! But, assuming you die, in your dreams, in someone else’s dreams, in a computer game, then of course you can be resurrected! Or not, depending on who is doing the simulation and what their motives are. In a supernatural universe, assuming you are in one and it’s accepted that so being is akin to an afterlife, then it’s taken as given that you have passed on or passed away. However, it’s possible to be in a supernatural universe but not the afterlife part, as in that Armageddon video game referenced above.

INTERACTIONS: Interactions are the name of your game in your reality – whatever that might turn out to be. You interact with your partner, your family, your relatives, your neighbours, your pets; all manner of other people from all manner of walks of life. You in fact interact with yourself, not to mention your environment. Life, the Universe and everything interacts with you; you interact with life, the Universe and everything. Well, nearly everything. Truth be told, there are lots of things that are passive in your reality, or translated, things you don’t normally interact with. There are things that don’t affect you; things you don’t affect. In terms of this essay, you don’t interact with a painting or sculpture or a play on stage or theme park ride or film or TV episode or for that matter 99.999999% of the cosmos. Your interaction with the Andromeda Galaxy is negligible and vice versa. If you don’t interact with something, then it’s pretty irrelevant to your reality. It may as well not exist – perhaps it doesn’t. Apart from those bits and pieces I’ve noted that you do interact with, and vice versa, everything else is of no concern. For all the impact they have on your existence, they may as well not exist.

There are however some other things I’ve noted that you do interact with, or perhaps interact with you. There are those pesky wetware dreams – you interact with the characters in your dreams (and in your ‘I’m awake’ imaginations). You can interact with the characters in software generated scenarios. The question then arises, is someone (something) interacting with you in turn, you being a character in their wetware dream simulation? Is someone (something) interacting with you, you being a character in their software simulation? What ultimately is the reality of your Universe, or the Universe of your reality? Perhaps it is something not yet envisioned, thought of, or dreamt of in anyone’s philosophy or cosmology.

STAKE YOUR REALITY ODDS:  Your reality might well be existence in one universe – our Universe. Even if there is a Multiverse, or parallel universes, there still only one of you, more likely as not, in any single one of them. So, one Universe contains one you. Now that one Universe contains one Planet Earth – your home reality. Unfortunately, one Earth has generated one technological intelligence which has created thousands, even tens of thousands (or more) software simulations. So, is your reality one Universe, one Earth, or one of the thousands-plus video (software simulation) games?  Unfortunately, one Earth has also spawned all those intelligent beings, each of which dream multi-dreams per sleep interval, all of which amounts to trillions upon trillions of dream scenarios, each one of which is a simulated ‘reality’ in its own right. Even if you are one of the billions of intelligent beings, the odds are pretty good that you have also featured as a character in not only your own dreams, but in those of other people as well. Someone doesn’t of necessity have to dream of someone they know of. They can invent in their dream(s) a total stranger – that stranger could just be you! Given trillions upon trillions of dreaming ‘realities’ you can’t really be sure whether or not you are the dreamer or the dreamed (or maybe both). Similarly, are you the video game creator/player or the character within (again, maybe both)?

Now there are probably lots of terrestrial-like planets, some of which are abodes to other technologically advanced (alien) intelligences, which presumably also have given rise to their versions of wetware and software simulations.

The bottom line is that while there is one Universe, lots of civilizations, and uncountable numbers of individuals, the sum total of software simulations are probably uncountable squared; the wetware simulations uncountable cubed! Therefore, the odds favour your reality being contained within one Universe, on one abode, but ultimately therein being but a simulated entity in wetware or software.   

THE ANSWER TO YOUR REALITY & YOUR UNIVERSE: The answer is, does it ultimately really matter? Does it matter in your day-to-day existence whether you are just a simulated character in someone else’s dream fantasy universe or a simulated character in someone’s video game universe or a physical character in a really real 3-D Big Bang-Expanding-Heat Death Universe? Firstly, there’s nothing you can do about it regardless of the ultimate answer. Even if you knew for an absolute fact that you were just a character in someone’s dream, how would that change you and what you are? Secondly, regardless of the answer, it doesn’t reduce your cost of living and tax burden or having to struggle out of bed in the morning! Perhaps all possible universes are equally real and co-exist in some sort of harmony. Perhaps you should just be thankful that you have any kind of existence at all – that existence was never some absolute before-the-fact inevitability (parallel universes aside where your existence probably is inevitable in at least on of them). And as long as you firmly believe you have free will, what does it ultimately matter if, in the bigger picture of things, you don’t? It’s a case of what you don’t know won’t hurt you. Unfortunately, its human nature to want to know THE ANSWER even if it doesn’t matter or you can’t alter your fate. So, you’ve got to think the matter through for and on behalf of yourself and come up with your own ANSWER.

If I’m in near total control of my own destiny, as one having an existence in a 3-D Universe that contains a liberal dose of free will, then to be honest, tomorrow is boring! Tomorrow is pretty predictable. So as far as I’m concerned, there’s a far greater element of the unexpected if I’m being controlled by the mind set of others, since I have no idea what their game plan is – which of course they might not know themselves. That’s exciting. Who knows then what tomorrow might bring! To be, or not to be, a puppet - that is the question! The answer – well actually belief - to whether or not that’s true is up to you.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Regardless of what universe you believe to be the correct one, the one that represents actual reality, do you really have the smarts to actually analyse what Mother Nature is telling you and wrap your mind around that analysis to come to that belief? I mean, intellectually we’re good; we’re very, very, very good. But are we good enough? I further mean, we are but one species of currently multi-millions of species on Planet earth. Further, some 99% of all species that have ever existed have gone kaput! So, ultimately we (human beings; Homo sapiens) are but one of a massive number of living and extinct species. The question is, since none of the other non-human species can, or has, come to terms with ultimate questions about life, the universe and everything, what makes us think we are any the more able? I mean, could a virus or bacteria figure out what type of universe they live in and what sorts of physics dictates their existence? What about an earthworm, ant, starfish, goldfish, frog, snake, or owl? My companion feline animals haven’t a clue; ditto I’m sure their canine counterparts. Whales and dolphins ditto. Ditto likewise our closest biological relatives – apes and monkeys. What universe, and the operating forces and principles behind it, is ultimately THE universe, just might yet be beyond our comprehension. Perhaps we’ve some evolution yet to achieve before we really figure things out.

Further reading:

Woolley, Benjamin; Virtual Worlds: A Journey in Hype and Hyperreality; Penguin Books, London; 1993:

Pick a Verse, Any Uni-Verse: Part One

VERSES: Well, there’s Adverse; Averse; Diverse; Inverse; Perverse; Reverse; and Universe. That’s the one we want – Universe.

PICK A UNIVERSE, ANY UNIVERSE: Well, they seem to come in a number of possible flavours.

STANDARD UNIVERSES: These come in three flavours. There’s the standard physical 3-D Universe and maybe a 3-D Multiverse of which it is a part of; there’s also the possibility of a physical 2-D universe disguised as 3-D illusionary universe – we call that a holographic universe. Finally, there’s that old sci-fi favourite, the parallel universe.

1) The 3-D physical Universe is the one we all know and love and are convinced represents the one true reality. It might however be part of a larger collection of universes that are connected either in a straight forward linear fashion or via wormholes or Black Holes. The key point is that there is a physical connection/relationship between our Universe and possible other universes that collectively make up a Multiverse.

2) A 2-D physical universe masquerading as a 3-D holographic universe.

3) There’s the parallel / shadow / alternate / mirror / many worlds universe – these are all pretty much variations on the same theme and that theme is grounded in physics’ (quantum and cosmological) theoretical musings. Basically, while they might exist, the key point here is that there is no real physical connection between parallel universes. There’s no ways and means of travel between them. There’s apparently no way we can detect them with our five senses (or instruments that are surrogates for those) so it’s fairly meaningless to talk specifics. The generality though is that collectively they represent the ‘anything that is not forbidden is compulsory’ mantra. That is, within that (probably infinite) set of parallel universes, all possible histories have, are, and will be enacted in all possible combinations coupled with as many variations to boot in the laws, relationships and principles of physics that can be allowed for (i.e. – the speed of light might be different in other parallel universes).

While existence in these sorts of purely physical realities is interesting, there are other possibilities even more interesting. Perhaps we exist in some form of simulation – in a simulated universe. Since that’s a way more interesting (albeit far out) proposal, I’ll spend the bulk of this essay discussing this possibility.

SIMULATED UNIVERSES: These come in two flavours too, but before we start, it’s worth noting that before you can have simulated universes, in all probability you had better have a real Universe that evolves and is bio-friendly and produces an intelligent entity with a mind that can at least dream and imagine and ideally evolves to produce a technology that can create software simulations.

1) Externally created simulated universes come in several varieties like theme park rides, video games and works of fiction like “The Wizard of Oz”, “Alice in Wonderland”, “Through the Looking Glass”, “Flatland” as well as a host of others. In fact just about every science fiction, science fantasy and dark fantasy (horror) story ever created – well in fact, every work of fiction, every novel and short story and poem and play, every tall tale, is really an imagined and externally created simulated universe. Clearly while the characters on a page aren’t a real simulation, the act of creating them and the plot via the author’s mind was clearly a simulation, albeit mental. Apart from that, in nearly all cases the translation from print (or for that matter from an oral story) to the reader’s mind’s imagination generates that individual’s lone interpretation of that universe contained within that work of fiction. However, when the scenario is made a bit more explicit, as in a video game, then the characters might be construed as leading quite a separate and more individualistic existence. In a video game featuring Alice of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ fame, might not Alice feel she has a real identity in what’s to us a simulated universe, but which to her is a really, real wonderland world? The key element here is being able to interact with the characters, like an interactive video game, or play mental gyrations with the literary characters within your mind. They dance to your tune. In that sense, a theme park ride, while a simulation of sorts, isn’t very interesting since the scenario never changes – just like a film or a TV episode, there’s just no variations in the interactions possible. In fact there are no interactions.

Video games (or mental scenarios) are quite unlike a TV episode or film or theme park ride where you can’t interact with the characters, though, as in the case with literary works, you can translate the characters from the screen (as with the page) into mental images within your mind which you can then manipulate. In that sense James Bond and Captain Kirk have an existence. Of course, as with literary ‘universes’, celluloid features can be translated into interactive game playing features, so again, James Bond and Captain Kirk might ‘exist’ in their respective video game universes (or maybe you could create a video game where both characters exist simultaneously) - which leads to the next flavour! 

2) Internally (mentally) simulated universes also come in several varieties. I’ve already suggested that literary and celluloid characters can be given a form of simulated reality within your own mind.

There’s the normal brain chemistry that self-creates universes like the standard I’m dreaming universe and there’s the standard I’m-awake-and-conscious-and-engaging-in-an-active-imagination-thought-experiment universe/daydreaming universe. The upshot of this is that you (as a representative of the Universe) might in turn be the product of someone/something else’s dream or someone/something else’s imagination. The division between illusion and reality might not be entirely trustworthy. You know your dream universes and characters are illusionary, but if you are the product of someone else’s dream, as far as you are concerned, that’s your reality, though it’s not the reality you think it is.

Another variation on the theme – if you dream you are X, can you be sure it’s not really X who is dreaming of you dreaming of X!

Also, if you simulate a universe via a dream, that simulation doesn’t of necessity end when you wake up. Sometimes when you awake you recall the dream you were dreaming that was happening immediately before waking up. You can then take that dream scenario and carry it forward in your now awake mode imagination. So, invented mental images – dreams while asleep and the active imagination while awake aren’t all that different – if different at all. The saying ‘I think, therefore I am’ could equally be ‘I dream, therefore I am’, or maybe that should be ‘someone (something) is dreaming (thinking) of me, therefore I am’!

Then there’s the abnormal brain chemistry self-created universes – universes created within a mind that has been affected by drugs, from the legal to the illegal, the mild to the powerful; lack of food or oxygen, disease, injury, etc. One variation on this theme is the brain that’s stimulated by electrodes which can produce all sorts of apparently very real hallucinogenic images. A slightly futuristic version of this might be a computer-brain/mind interface, an advanced form of virtual reality. The upshot here is that I expect those with abnormal brain chemistry probably have atypical (weirder) dream scenarios that differ from those with normal brain functionality.

If there can be a simulated universe; and if it’s possible for there to be a holographic universe, then let’s go to extremes and say we’re in a simulated holographic universe! One would have to combine the probability of one with the probability for the other to arrive at some sort of likelihood of that possibility. But that possibility, of necessity, means that the hologram in this case is artificially generated – wetware or software - by an intelligent being. The entire holographic universe aside, we can downscale in the meantime to the best known software example in ‘fiction’ of simulated holographic scenarios. The example that comes to mind is the “Star Trek” holodeck or holosuite.

However, the best known wetware example in actual ‘reality’ is dreaming. Dreams are obviously simulations, the product of an intelligent mind (the wetware) but since a dream is but a 3-D illusionary image, that’s a hologram in all but name. That’s currently our best example of a simulated holographic ‘universe’. Dreaming, to use the analogy, is nothing more than your mind turning on its holodeck and acting out a simulated scenario.

But such wetware holographic simulations aren’t confined to just the human mind. Here the intelligent mind extends to other biological entities, although just how far down the evolutionary ladder isn’t clear. But higher animals (at least mammals and birds, maybe reptiles and amphibians, perhaps some invertebrates) dream too. Anyone who has observed their sleeping pet dog or cat can testify to that. Exactly what they dream no one knows, but probably of things most central to their mind set and world view and what matters most to their survival.

There’s also the question surrounding the possibility of near infinite regressions – a dream within a dream within a dream; a video game within a video game within a video game. To be honest, I’m not about to buy into that can of worms even if it is a possibility, but just because it just plain makes my head hurt! You can get into some weird shit here. I mean, let’s talk about our favourite couple, Clive and Jane. Say Clive dreams of Jane dreaming of Clive dreaming of Jane, ad infinitum.

Finally, there’s the mind as the universe. This is an interesting variation on the theme which says that the be-all-and-end-all of reality is your mind and only your mind, which has created for its amusement the everlasting illusion of life, the Universe and everything. The technical philosophical name for this is ‘solipsism’.

I have been assuming up to this point that the originator of a simulated universe was ultimately a biological being, even if said biological being programmed a computer to run a simulation. Now, what if a computer itself – the product of a highly advanced race of intelligent and technologically savvy life forms - was a self aware entity? What if instead of a CHON (carbon / hydrogen / oxygen / nitrogen) life form being the creator of a simulation, it was an iron and silicon artificial intelligence that’s behind that simulation? ‘Do androids dream of electric sheep?’ I believe is the title of a popular sci-fi novel. Does it ultimately matter what chemical elements the composer of a simulation is made of?

Before leaving simulated universes, somewhere between a realistically normal simulation (dream or video game) where ‘normal’ is taken to represent our day-to-day 21^st Century environment and existence, and a supernatural universe (see immediately below) is a subcategory of mythological/fantasy universes (which admittedly have a fair share of representation in the video game market). In real life however, we tend to associate a mythological oriented world with our terrestrial ancient times through to the Age of Enlightenment. It was a lengthy era where unicorns and elves and dragons and witches and all other manner of things now consigned to mythological literature and texts devoted to the mythology of various past cultures were very real to the then inhabitants of those times. Now the question is, if all our history has been but a simulation, might there have been a time when unicorns, elves, dragons and witches were as actually real to our ancestors many times removed now, as real as horses and dwarfs and iguanas and old hags are to us? The simulation software might have morphed one into the other over time. Mythology might not be so mythical after all if that’s the case.

To be continued...