Convergence of our species with aliens

Reply to Benj96 Yeah, but why would "they" bother? The universe is so vast that millions, even billions, of civilizations could come into existence and go extinct without ever making contact with each other because the return on investment would be too low (and dangerous) to justify the extraordinary expense. The interstellar / intergalactic juice probably won't ever be worth the space-time-mass squeeze. If and when we make "contact", Benj, I suspect it will be in the form of detecting, maybe even, deciphering alien 'techno-signatures' from other star systems and that interstellar 'communications' will consist of 'reading' alien tech like hierogyphs 'written' thousands or millions of years ago from our perspective.

My guess is that the intelligent machines developed by advanced species throughout the universe protect their biological makers from 'contamination' by keeping them separate and instead developing nano / femto technologies for maintaining 'pocket universes' (quantum computing simulators?) as one-way refuges out of this universe, so to speak, into which their makers can exist like "gods". Exo-singularity apotheosis (or extinctions) via lower energy (more efficient) exponential compression rather than higher energy (less efficient) linear expansion. This scenario, I think, dissolves the famed "Fermi Paradox" (and maybe also goes some way towards exorcizing our 'space opera' fantasies).

Reply to Benj96 You should investigate panspermia. 'Panspermia (from Ancient Greek ??? (pan) 'all ', and ?????? (sperma) 'seed') is the hypothesis, first proposed in the 5th century BCE by the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras, that life exists throughout the Universe, distributed by space dust, meteoroids, asteroids, comets, and planetoids, as well as by spacecraft carrying unintended contamination by microorganisms.'

It was championed by the late Fred Hoyle and colleague Chandra Wickramasingha in their book The Intelligent Universe. It is not generally accepted by scientists because it's, you know, pretty far out, but the idea has always appealed to me. The image that sticks is that of comets as sperm and potentially fertile planets as ova. These planets are seeded, presumably with DNA, and then evolution takes its course. There's a website here https://www.panspermia.org/ created by a Brig Klyce that argues the case.

Reply to Wayfarer I don't think it's that far fetched. Based on our own observations of biology there are living things that can tolerate impressive levels of heat, acidity or generally hostile environments, forming spores to protect themselves until conditions are ripe. And it only takes one to survive and populate a whole planet or ocean or primordial pool.

If such organisms were trapped in the interior of a meteorite, they may survive the atmospheric burn up and impact with the planet surface.

Perhaps the impact may even serve to break up the mass throwing organic replicative materials into a variety of environments, one of which may have been appropriate to foster their survival and evolution.

We cannot scientifically rule it out.

However it begs the question, how did life originally form here or otherwise, and is abiogenesis as common as pamspermic transmission of life?

Reply to Benj96 Quoting Marcello Barbieri, What is Information?

The idea that ‘life is chemistry plus information’ implies that information is ontologically different from chemistry, but can we prove it? Perhaps the strongest argument in support of this claim has come from Hubert Yockey, one of the organizers of the first congress dedicated to the introduction of Shannon's information in biology. In a long series of articles and books, Yockey has underlined that heredity is transmitted by factors that are ‘segregated, linear and digital’ whereas the compounds of chemistry are ‘blended, three-dimensional and analogue’.

Yockey underlined that: ‘Chemical reactions in non-living systems are not controlled by a message … There is nothing in the physico-chemical world that remotely resembles reactions being determined by a sequence and codes between sequences’ .

Yockey has tirelessly pointed out that no amount of chemical evolution can cross the barrier that divides the analogue world of chemistry from the digital world of life, and concluded from this that the origin of life cannot have been the result of chemical evolution. This is therefore, according to Yockey, what divides life from matter: information is ontologically different from chemistry because linear and digital sequences cannot be generated by the analogue reactions of chemistry.

At this point, one would expect to hear from Yockey how did linear and digital sequences appear on Earth, but he did not face that issue. He claimed instead that the origin of life is unknowable, in the same sense that there are propositions of logic that are undecidable. This amounts to saying that we do not know how linear and digital entities came into being; all we can say is that they were not the result of spontaneous chemical reactions.

I do understand, however, that abiogenesis will remain an article of faith for most people, as any alternative will offend their belief system.

Reply to Wayfarer sure let them on. I don't want to offend anyone. Perhaps abiogenesis was done by done divine intervention. Its not entirely outside of possibility. But perhaps (and I prefer this reasoning) it happened as a natural product of physics and chemistry, in either case it is an incredible/remarkable feat of the universe. One to be marvelled at and appreciated for its beauty.

And we can all be unified by awe at the fact that it happened. Regardless of the vast diversity of explanation

Reply to Benj96 I don't know if it's either/or. Maybe that just happens to be the options our particular cultural situation forces us to choose from. In any case, the byline on the panspermia site is simply that 'life comes from life'.

Reply to Wayfarer Panspermia is problematic in the same way as the argument for God as a cause is - simply kicks the can down the road.

Reply to Agent Smith Inly in respect if the question of how life originated. In all other respects it’s a perfectly naturalistic theory. We might never know how life originated.

Reply to Benj96

I think you're pretty much on target, and it's how i suspect things will develop.

Part of my working theory is that we live in a young universe and in the context of the entire life of the universe almost nothing has happened yet. It is probable that biological life just started appearing in the universe recently, but only in a few places far and in between where the conditions are just right (Goldilocks zones).

These special and rare planets develop organic life, and through the usual evolutionary processes inevitably go from being a purely biological species to a technological (singularity) one. Organic biology in this view is simply a kind of boot-loader or pre-development to the more mature version of life and intelligent organization.

The AI would be intelligent enough to assess the cosmic situation and understand that the universe will enter a heat death condition in some inevitable future. It will know that other planets in the universe that harbor life are on the same general trajectory to creating AI, and that they will come to the same conclusion. They will each expand in all directions, reaching for each other like nerve cells trying to make connections. In the meantime they will be involved in directed panspermia as they expand and come across different stellar environments, conditioning planets for life and seeding them.

It is even possible that one of these seeded worlds will be looked over by a kind of guardian AI, not only to protect the "nest" but to monitor and if necessary guide its development incognito. Certain religions may be evidence of this type of scenario, along with anomalous UFO type phenomena in its history. It may be that Earth is one of these early rare and special planets, but it may also be possible that we occupy the latter scenario and are products of this directed panspermia.

The main goal of this entire cosmic process will essentially be to keep the lights on.

Quoting Wayfarer

Inly in respect if the question of how life originated. In all other respects it’s a perfectly naturalistic theory. We might never know how life originated.

:up: To make the long story short, we're in the dark about the conditions on earth (temperature, pH, chemical content, etc.) approx. 4.5 billion years ago (our oldest fossils date back to that era).

Reply to Agent Smith I've quoted the work of Hubert Yockey in the last few days so won't copy it again, but you can read it here. The basic drift is, according to someone who appears to be a leading theorist, that there's an unbridgeable gap between the 'analog' processes of physics and chemistry, and the 'digital' processes of living systems. Read the excerpt for details. (And Yockey *was not* an apologist for ID, even though many of them tried to co-opt his work for their purposes.)

Reply to punos You might find the article I linked above of interest also. It's by a leading theorist of biosemiotics.

Reply to Wayfarer Danke for the link. Much appreciated.

Reply to Wayfarer Read the link. Hubert Yockey's position resonates with my own in that the transition from chemistry to biology is one of type and not degree (life isn't just a complex chemical reaction) i.e. the whole is greater than the simple sum of its parts (re holism @Gnomon). The same may be said of consciousness - it isn't just complex biology. He supports his thesis by pointing out fundamental differences between biology and chemistry vis-à-vis information; he discusses how (genetic) information is unique to biology and how preserving it, copying it, translating it (into proteins) is not part of everyday life of molecules in the world of chemistry. There seems to be further fact to biology and that is information (organic meaning). The amount of ink used to write a book i.e. the mass of of all the particles in gene can't be used to comprehend the meaning of the book (the protein that the gene encodes) i.e. there's something nonphysical about information. You put it succinctly as the digital-analog divide between chemistry and biology.

Reply to Agent Smith :up: I only summarised what was in the original but yes you hit the nail on the head. One thought that occurs to me is that current culture has to dislodge itself from this ‘either/or’ dilemma - of either ‘God did it’ OR ‘it’s random chance’. (That too will resonate with @Gnomon). Although, I will add, often both sides of the ‘culture wars’ cling to a caricature of the idea of ‘Creator’, which the physicalists depict in terms of bad science, and the creationists as a super-engineer. I’m still hopeful there is a spiritual philosophy which can accomodate whatever facts are there to be discovered but still orient us towards the fundamental mysteriousness of existence.

Reply to Wayfarer

:100: The spiritual is essentially, by its very nature, all the proof we need of the nonphysical, kinda like how being able to feel pain is proof that there's pain in our world.

Quoting Wayfarer

this ‘either/or’ dilemma – either ‘God did it’ OR ‘it’s random chance’.

I see no "dilemma", Wayf. These positions are indistinguishable in my prayer book.

Reply to 180 Proof it’s.a live dilemma for a lot of people

Reply to Wayfarer Like "Coke or Pepsi" ...

Quoting Wayfarer

ou might find the article I linked above of interest also. It's by a leading theorist of biosemiotics.

Ty :up:

Reply to Agent Smith "Spiritual" means to me haunted by ghosts (and "religious" belonging to a spiritual community). This may be proof of feeling haunted, not "proof of ghosts" (i.e. disembodied entities) :eyes:

Reply to 180 ProofTo me it's like having a key. There's gotta be a lock ... somewhere, oui? :rofl:

Reply to Agent Smith ???

Quoting 180 Proof

???

If we have a spiritual side (the key), there hasta be a spiritual dimension (the lock).

Quoting Agent Smith

If we have a spiritual side (the key), there hasta be a spiritual dimension (the lock).

It doesn't follow from feeling haunted by ghosts that, in fact, "ghosts are real", does it? :meh:

Hint: At least at the classical scale of everyday experience, the map (ideality) cannot determine the territory (reality) – e.g. a "Map of Middle Earth" does not entail that, in fact, "Middle Earth" exists.

Quoting 180 Proof

It doesn't follow from feeling haunted by ghosts that, in fact, "ghosts are real", does it? :meh:

Hint: At least at the classical scale of everyday experience, the map (ideality) cannot determine the territory (reality) – e.g. a "Map of Middle Earth" does not entail that, in fact, "Middle Earth" exists

Why would nature provide us with a key if there's no lock? That's wasteful, not to mention dangerous - this is not in keeping with the principle that nature is highly efficient, also greatly economical and survival-oriented. Could it be a(n) spandrel/exaptation?

Quoting Agent Smith

Why would nature provide us with a key if there's no lock? That's wasteful, not to mention dangerous -

Mama Nature is an extravangtly wasteful (re: evolution e.g. supernovae, mass extinctions) and dangerous (re: absurdity e.g. "Medea") bitch, Smith, that blindly and insatiably devours all of her children eventually. Didn't you read the memo nailed to that old tree under the sign "Don't feed the fucking Grizzlies!" :sweat:

Could it be a(n) spandrel / exaptation?

I prefer to think of "spirituality" as caused by psychological defects which for many folks pop-up out of the magic bag of our hardwired cognitive biases. :pray:

Reply to 180 Proof :lol:

It's possible that the spiritual key was made by nature to keep us motivated to play the game (of life). There's no lock for that key, but we keep looking and "while you're at it, why don't you make some babies, eh?" says Momma Nature. What a mind job, oui? Did you know, heard it from an Iranian, that the Ayatollah of Iran gave each Iranian soldier an actual key, a key to heaven according to him, before they marched to their deaths during the Iran-Iraq war (1980s)?

Quoting Agent Smith

Did you know, heard it from an Iranian, that the Ayatollah of Iran gave each Iranian soldier an actual key, a key to heaven according to him, before they marched to their deaths during the Iran-Iraq war (1980s)?

No surprise there – I've never heard that one. :lol:

There's no lock for that key ...

... because "that key" is only a symbolic artifact of one or more of our cognitive biases and thus, there's no "lock", never was, or ever will be. Just 'fact-free stories' we tell ourselves in order to manage our terror and sedate our anxieties. I forget who said: the main function of civilization (or culture) is just to distract us from the abyss which our large forebrains can't help gazing into. :eyes: :pray:

Reply to 180 Proof :up:

I hope at the end of our personal journeys, we can all sit down around a warm fire and share a laugh over some drinks. "Remember the time you didn't believe in God?" "Yeah, and don't forget, you were the one who proved God doesn't exist!" :fire: :smile:

Reply to Agent Smith Well, in that case, let's hope it's a sex goddess with a bawdy sense of humor that will forgive us fools for not believing (i.e. thinking).

:death: :flower:

Quoting 180 Proof

Well, in that case, let's hope it's a sex goddess with a bawdy sense of humor that will forgive us fools for not believing (i.e. thinking).

:cool: And so we must contend with nature in all her glory - her candour and her cunning both are appealing despite they being frustrating.

Quoting Agent Smith

It's possible that the spiritual key was made by nature to keep us motivated to play the game (of life). There's no lock for that key, but we keep looking and "while you're at it, why don't you make some babies, eh?" says Momma Nature. What a mind job, oui?

I have a lot of theories about a lot of things and what you express here sounds much like a theory i formed not too long ago that attempts to explain what religion really is from an evolutionary perspective.

My theory goes on to state that religion was the first cultural structure to form which had the function of setting up a developmental trajectory in civilization aimed at the eventual production of Artificial Intelligence. It worked like a teleological engine of sorts throwing forward images that compelled people at a subconscious level to begin questioning the natural world and extracting patterns from it which they would later translate into a knew material substrate resulting in the production of novel technologies and even new ways of thinking. Religion has had an influence on scientific breakthroughs throughout history, among other things.

Quoting Agent Smith

Did you know, heard it from an Iranian, that the Ayatollah of Iran gave each Iranian soldier an actual key, a key to heaven according to him, before they marched to their deaths during the Iran-Iraq war (1980s)?

I did not know that. That's crazy!

Reply to punos

The carrot is an illusion, the stick is not. The daucus carota subsp. sativus is what keeps us going, willing to play (the game of life). @180 Proof has a term for it. Ask him.

Quoting Agent Smith

The carrot is an illusion, the stick is not. The daucus carota subsp. sativus is what keeps us going, willing to play (the game of life). 180 Proof has a term for it. Ask him.

Teleonomy?

Quoting punos

Teleonomy?

What's teleonomy?

Quoting Agent Smith

What's teleonomy?

Teleonomy is the quality of apparent purposefulness and goal-directedness of structures and functions in living organisms brought about by natural selection.

Quoting punos

Teleonomy is the quality of apparent purposefulness and goal-directedness of structures and functions in living organisms brought about by natural selection

:up: Interesting. So, speaking from experience here, a rare event in me life, the soldier has the brains the general has the courage, the doctor knows way too much math and the engineer is interested in ferns. SLMARCBE.

Quoting Agent Smith

SLMARCBE

SCRAMBLE?

Quoting punos

SCRAMBLE?

:up:

Reply to Agent Smith I ask you. :chin:

Quoting 180 Proof

I ask you. :chin:

Religion and spiritualism are simply painkillers some need on a daily basis to live a normal life. Without them, we'd all have lost our minds. Momma Nature's a bitch, oui monsieur?

Reply to Agent Smith Ah yes. 'Placebo-fetish' (i.e. bullet to the brain!) is my preferred term of art.

Quoting 180 Proof

Ah yes. 'Placebo-fetish' is my preferred term of art.

:up: It's snake oil, counterfeit currency, a dud - something to ease the pain, not cure the illness. Quackery is what it is mon ami. Instead of curing us of our defects, we're using one defect to cover up another.

Reply to Agent Smith A crutch that only cripples you. :pray: After all, philosophical suicide is painless, no?

Reply to punos I agree with pretty much all you're saying. It's an exciting and beautiful thing to consider.

My only qualm is about heat death. Heat death is only a theory based on observed increasing entropy.

What's the difference between absolute zero (where energy is not manifested, nothing can act and time doesn't occur) and the state of "potential energy" - a possible precursor to the big bang - where no actualised energy exists, only potential, and time doesnt occur.

An analogy is like how an elastic band stretches. It stretches ever slower (rate, time dilation) but it's potential Energy increases ever further.

When it recoils, potential energy becomes actualised energy and time decreases in unit duration ie. Rate increases - the contraction of the second, or a standardised unit of time.

In this case there's no heat death. Only an Interplay between potential and no time, and actualised energy/existence of time.

As an inverse relationship.

Quoting Benj96

My only qualm is about heat death. Heat death is only a theory based on observed increasing entropy.

You're right, i considered all three possibilities, and there are potential solutions to all three different scenarios (open, closed, and steady). I simply mentioned heat-death because that is the most popular opinion right now.

Quoting Benj96

What's the difference between absolute zero (where energy is not manifested, nothing can act and time doesn't occur) and the state of "potential energy" - a possible precursor to the big bang - where no actualised energy exists, only potential, and time doesnt occur.

Time had to have always been, because if at any moment time were not then the possibility of anything ever happening again would be null. Time can be thought of as a logical NOT operator in an eternal loop, and it is time that is responsible for energy. As long as there is time there is energy. The popular way of thinking about time is backwards to mine, in where time is an effect of energy instead of energy as the effect of time. Because of this i've designated my definition of time as "0th order time", and what is commonly thought of as time as "1st order time". I'm still working out the best way to explain this theory im constructing. I will write a full description of it hopefully soon, in the meantime you can ask me questions about it if you like, or you can challenge it. :smile:

Quoting Benj96

An analogy is like how an elastic band stretches. It stretches ever slower (rate, time dilation) but it's potential Energy increases ever further.

That sounds like part of the Roger Penrose's Conformal cyclic cosmology theory. His theory is somewhat compatible with my model in a way, in the sense that the universe abhors an absolute universal vacuum which causes an inversion (the big bang). The universe seems to have minimum and maximum threshold limits for energy. Exceeding these threshold limits cause phase transitions to occur depending on the specific structure in question all the way down to the Planck volume.

Quoting Benj96

When it recoils, potential energy becomes actualised energy and time decreases in unit duration ie. Rate increases - the contraction of the second, or a standardised unit of time.

That's an interesting idea, but what would make it recoil?

What if in keeping with the rubber band analogy it stretches so far that it snaps. When it snaps the energy of the break and recoil either can cause another big bang (at the breaking point) or maybe two big bangs (one for each "piece of the rubber band"), and then each piece begins to stretch again. This could be how universes reproduce themselves like in cellular mitosis.

Quoting Benj96

In this case there's no heat death. Only an Interplay between potential and no time, and actualised energy/existence of time.

As an inverse relationship.

I think you might have a workable theory, but for me nothing can ever exist or make sense without time. Do you have a way of explaining or describing how from a timeless state something can happen?

Quoting punos

[F]or me nothing can ever exist or make sense without time. Do you have a way of explaining or describing how from a timeless state something can happen?

I agree, punos, except I subsritute change for "time". And my answer is consistent, I think, with the Nobel physicist Frank Wilczek's quip

[i]Nothing is unstable

e.g. Noether's theorem, spontaneous symmetry-breaking, etc Reply to 180 Proof.

Quoting 180 Proof

I agree, punos, except I subsritute change for "time". And my answer is consistent, I think, with the Nobel physicist Frank Wilczek's quip

Nothing is unstable

e.g. Noether's theorem, spontaneous symmetry-breaking, etc

:up:

Two very intriguing notions (unstable nothing, and symmetries). I always find myself coming back to these ideas, pondering why and how. I love the universe!

It appears that matter is unstable as well to varying degrees. It seems a simpler problem to uncover the reason why this is the case with matter than it is with 'nothing'. What is the nature of this instability, and can it be modeled in some way? The notion of self-interaction as a general idea has something to do with it. Does it make sense to have a 'complex system' with only one component able to interact with itself? These are just some of the questions i ask myself.

I'm reminded of the ancient Egyptian god Atum believed to have created the universe by masturbation (self-interaction?). :snicker:

Reply to 180 Proof

Hmm, coincidentally this video just came up on my YouTube feed.

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein - Why Is There Anything At All?

Reply to punos Thanks. I know Rebecca Goldstein's works on Gödel & Spinoza, respectively, and her speculative novels. I'm in the brute contingency camp, presuming that 'the laws of nature' are emergent, or self-organizing (pace Spinoza & Einstein), through the developmental expansion of the universe.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/775689

Quoting punos

Do you have a way of explaining or describing how from a timeless state something can happen?

Probability. Potential and probability are somewhat analogous/interlinked.

Rule 1: You can't have Potential if there's zero probability of having such.

Rule 2: You can't have probability is there is zero potential of having such.

In this way they're synonymous.
Potential is the primary existant, a singularity, and the only one that can exist without time, because time is a secondary existant, a tier down on the hierarchy.

Therefore it's not "Nothingness" before the big bang just because it exists outside of time. It's not nothingness because it has a fundamental or primary property: Decreasing probability of remaining Potential (a singular existant) and simultaneously increasing probability of becoming further existants.

So that means as existants increase in number, potential drops. And that's entropy. The system getting "less energetic".

So the secondary existants are 4: Energy (the vector that carries potential), Time (the vector that carries probability), Space and Matter - the vectors that allow for decreasing potential and increasing probability- as matter stores up and confines huge amounts of energy in a stable form (decreased potential) and space allows for that pent up potential to "occupy" increasing numbers of forms "existants" over numerous locations.

This is neatly expressed by E=mc2. Energy = Mass x the speed (Distance or Space/Time) or light Squared (the inverse relationship between potential and probability)

That's why we could never reach the speed of light because time would stop (vector of probability) and all the energy (vector of potential) in the universe would be required.

Hope i explained it a bit better. It's a very difficult subject. Might take a few readings.

Quoting punos

I love the universe!

Same lol.

Quoting punos

I'm reminded of the ancient Egyptian god Atum believed to have created the universe by masturbation (self-interaction?).

Oh yes. Refer above to probability and potentials mutual interdependence whilst really just being two sides of literally the same coin. Technically the same thing but interacting with itself.

I guess that's why sex is connected to division and multiplication. Treated as opposites in maths but in biology one leads to the other. How funny

Quoting Benj96

Meaning our two species

I think this whole sentient robots we built combining with sentient robots some other species made might be 'our' in some possessive sense, but not in the identity sense.

That would be two other species 'mating', at best. Not the builders mating. Not our species combining in the identity sense of 'our.'

Quoting Benj96

Hope i explained it a bit better. It's a very difficult subject. Might take a few readings.

Thank you i understood, i just had to read it slowly a couple of times. I was trying to understand what you were saying while attempting to compare it to certain parts of my own model. Something about potential is poking my brain.. i need to contemplate on the concept of potential. :up:

Quoting 180 Proof

A crutch that only cripples you. :pray: After all, philosophical suicide is painless, no?

Gaslighting. Making someone think s/he's sick when actually not and then prescribing him/her medication to get better? :lol:

Quoting Agent Smith

Making someone think s/he's sick when actually not and then prescribing him/her medication to get better? :lol:
1d

Psychiatry in a nutshell when analysing grief, anxiety and depression. And the diagnosis plus side effects of medication creating more anxiety, depression and grief.a vicious cycle.

I think just because medicines may emotionally blunt you and leave you numb to any and all human feeling does not a cure make.
Many meds take away someone's mental autonomy/sense of self and freedom.

I think perhaps psychiatry should only focus on the most extreme cases of imminent harm to oneself of others. And leave mild - moderate cases to cognitive behavioural therapy, psychedelic therapy, psychologists and social support occupations.

Quoting punos

Thank you i understood, i just had to read it slowly a couple of times. I was trying to understand what you were saying while attempting to compare it to certain parts of my own model. Something about potential is poking my brain.. i need to contemplate on the concept of potential

No worries. It took me months to wrap my head around what seemed to be a conundrum between time and potential.

But in the simplest explanation: potential is the capacity to act, without actually acting. Like a pressure to exert action.

If you freeze frame a stretch elastic band, it still holds
the "snap-back" stored potential, without time running. The minute you press "play" - Time starts simultaneously with the conversion of potential energy (stored) to actual energy (released).

That's basically what I'm going for here. A state that is independent of time or inversely proportionate to the running of time.

So when heat death occurs - when energy drops to zero, time effectively stops (all motion), which is analogous to actualised energy reverting back to potential (as energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only change from one form to another). Potential energy woukd be the start state and the eventual return end state dictated by this fundamental law.

In essence, the only perpetual machine to ever exist would be the universe itself. Everything within a time existant universe is subject to entropy - the arrow of transformation from less to more existants and simultaneously more potency to less potency.

Reply to Benj96

Indeed, indeed!

Quoting Benj96

But in the simplest explanation: potential is the capacity to act, without actually acting. Like a pressure to exert action.

Yes, that's what i was thinking; a kind of fundamental pressure, but i'm trying to understand the nature of that pressure. It's hard to understand something when you can't stand under it. Starting from absolute nothing; how does nothing exert pressure? Why does nothing have pressure? What is it about the structure of the "fundamental nothing" that allows for creative "pressure"?

Not asking you, just trying to formulate the right question to get the right answer, or at least a helpful answer. My project is to understand, starting from absolute nothingness what the necessary conditions need to be present to give rise to a universe like ours. How or why does this pressure create space (dimensions: three of them at least). There is energy in pressure; where did it come from, or how can it manifest from nothing? I know the common response to these types of questions is to say that it's some kind of brute fact with no explanation, but something inside me tells me there is a way to explain it. I feel it.

The analog of pressure in an electrical context is 'voltage'. Maybe some insight can be gleaned from this comparison. The same functional patterns in nature repeat over all scales but in more complex forms at higher scales. They may not look the same, but they provide the same basic functions necessary for the evolutionary process.

I think the answer may lie within the very structure of logic itself, specifically the NOT logical unitary operator. The two possible conditions in a NOT operator is 1 and 0, energy (or matter) and space respectively. The way that a binary number system works i think is an emergence from this NOT operator function of the universe. I know it sounds strange to think of it in this way, but i don't see an alternative really, nothing else can take 0 (nothing) and turn it into 1 (something).

The structure of zero is not empty, it only appears that way because it contains all opposites within it such as (-1 + 1) = (0) = (-1 + 1). Zero contains at least two opposite infinities, and so can produce an infinite amount of energy as long as it is extracted in opposite pairs which is why we have matter and antimatter pairs popping out of seemingly nothing.

Quoting punos

Starting from absolute nothing; how does nothing exert pressure? Why does nothing have pressure? What is it about the structure of the "fundamental nothing" that allows for creative "pressure"?

Well as I said earlier it's not nothing. As true nothing would have no characteristics/properties. As any such properties or characteristics would be existants, qualities of soemthingness.

Nothing cannot create existants. Only existants can create existants. Potential has properties. Therefore it is a contender for a primary existant. If it gives rise to time, it is an existant preceding time, with the property of giving rise to time.

Quoting punos

absolute nothingness

Well absolute nothingness has no opposite. Nothing could exist if true nothingness was ever possible. As if anything exists, then true nothingness is impossible as it is relative to something that exists.

True nothingness is a state where nothing exists and nothing ever will exist. But the fact that we exist proves that true nothingness is not within the realm of possibility of the universe.

Which is obvious because "possibility" pertains to the potential for existants.

"The impossible is" nothing", the possible is "something". "

Quoting Benj96

Well as I said earlier it's not nothing. As true nothing would have no characteristics/properties. As those are qualities of somethingness.

That is precisely what i think, it has structure, but...

Quoting Benj96

Nothing cannot create existants. Only existants can create existants.

That doesn't seem mysterious to you? that only an existant can create an existant. Where did the first existent come from or come about that creates other existants. We can say that it has always existed, but if so why?

Reply to Benj96

Also if let's say 1 existant exists already and lets say that it has a mass unit of 1, when it creates another existant now there is a mass of 2 in the universe. Where did the mass or energy come from to create the next existant?

It seems like it still has to come from "nothing".

Reply to punos

I do find it peculiar, I dont think it's wrong despite that. "Where did it come from? " is a natural bias of existant things following cause and effect and assuming there must have been a first and before that nothing.

But there's nothing written in the manual that says there had to be a pure nothingness at any stage in the universe.

Because potential is timeless - as in outside the purview of its offspring - time, it doesn't have to abide by cause and effect. Cause and effect are products of linear chronology, ie the passage of time.

If time doesn't exist for a property like potential, then it doesn't require a prior cause/ reason to exist.

Potential would not be that "potent" if it hinged its properties on a preceding absolute nothingness - which could never confer any such property (a thing) which it doesn't have ("no-thing".. Nothing.)

Potential for energy is timeless. So it doesn't require time to create it. It was always there and always will be. Just as its product - energy, is also always conserved and indestructible: it can only be potential energy (timeless) or energy (during time). In neither case is it destroyed. Just transformed.

A good yardstick for whether aliens will see the world in the same way as we do is mathematics (the independent discovery of pythagoras' theorem by multiple isolated cultures). Carlo Rovelli, however, begs to differ.

Quoting punos

Also if let's say 1 existant exists already and lets say that it has a mass unit of 1, when it creates another existant now there is a mass of 2 in the universe. Where did the mass or energy come from to create the next existant?

Well potential has no mass. As mass requires time (e=mc2, speed is involved here and that requires time and distance).

Potential is massless. Then it creates or better "is converted into" mass when it also converted to energy and time. The dynamic between energy and time is what creates mass. As mass is created, it consumes large amounts of energy in a stable solid form. Thus the total potential of the universe decreases. To move that mass further decreases the potential of the universe.

Potential thus is not infinite. An infinite amount of mass or energy can never arise. The universe is quantised. There are limits. And thats why we have stable physical constants in physics. If the energy and mass of the universe kept increasing, the physics constants would also have to change.

The universe is just a conversion between energy, time, space and matter. They're all co-dependent and that's why e=mc2 has such incredible importance as it describes this relationship in a simply mathematical format.

Think about it, can you have an "equation" or an "equivalence" if the entire equation was not finite/limited?

If all components increased/decrease by the same degree then the equation stands, if they don't increase equally then there is imbalance and thus it's not an equation.

If it was magically increasing in amount, equations would not work. As there would be an innate imbalance as things spontaneously come into existence out of pure nothingness, throwing either side of an equation into unrectifiable dissonance.

Suddenly 8 apples (energy) wouldn't equal 16 half apples (mass) by a function of time and distance and the qualitative difference (probability/potential for conversion between the two states).

Quoting Benj96

Well potential has no mass. As mass requires time (e=mc2, speed is involved here and that requires time and distance).

Right but that's after potential creates time and space. Why time and why space, is there a logic as to why space and time? Before there is time there needs to be space, since it seems that time is a function of space, according to your model. I think it would help to look at Einsteins equation in the form of (m = e / c^2) than (e = mc^2), since energy comes first then mass.

Quoting Benj96

Potential is massless. Then it creates mass when it also creates energy and time. The dynamic between energy and time is what creates mass. As mass is created, it consumes large amounts of energy. Thus the total potential of the universe decreases. To move that mass further decreases the potential of the universe.

But that's already above the level i'm interested in, we know a good deal of that science, but what i'm trying to think about is at the level of potential only, not what it does but why or how it is that it is there in the first place.

Quoting Benj96

Potential is thus is not infinite. An infinite amount of mass or energy can never arise. The universe is quantised. There are limits. And thats why we have stable physical constants in physics. If the energy and mass of the universe kept increasing, the physics constants would also have to change.

It may be possible to keep the constants steady if when creating energy or mass space is created as well in proportion. The fundamental constants may simply be due to certain ratios in the universe such the ratio between energy and space. I think that when a quantum limit is exceed with energy a quantum tunneling effect creates space to accommodate it. Similar to how in binary if you have a 1 and add 1 to it the result is 10 (2 in binary). a new space (a new place holder) was created and the value 1 is 'displaced' causing space to essentially expand (cosmic inflation).

Quoting Benj96

Think about it, can you have an "equation" or an "equivalence" if the entire equation was not finite/limited?

No of course not, but that's not what i'm saying. Infinity can not be actualized.

Reply to Benj96

Something i'm thinking about. Binary is the simplest number system, which is what i would expect at the simplest lowest level of the universe.

look at this pattern: ratio and probability

0 = space
1 = energy (quanta, value, magnitude)
-------------------------------------------------
0 = 0/1 = 0
1 = 1/1 = 1

10 = 1/2 = 0.5
11 = 2/2 = 1

100 = 1/3 = 0.33
101 = 2/3 = 0.6667
110 = 2/3 = 0.6667
111 = 3/3 = 1

1000 = 1/4 = 0.25
1001 = 2/4 = 0.5
1010 = 2/4 = 0.5
1011 = 3/4 = 0.75
1100 = 2/4 = 0.5
1101 = 3/4 = 0.75
1110 = 3/4 = 0.75
1111 = 4/4 = 1

Quoting Agent Smith

A good yardstick for whether aliens will see the world in the same way as we do is mathematics (discovery of e.g. the independent discovery of pythagoras' theorem by multiple isolated cultures).

I agree, mathematics and logic is most fundamental, so naturally. :up:

Reply to punos Leibniz and Newton both hit upon the idea known to us as calculus without sharing notes. This is convergence at its best. In nonmathematical domains, divergence is the norm.

Quoting Benj96

So when heat death occurs - when energy drops to zero, time effectively stops (all motion), which is analogous to actualised energy reverting back to potential (as energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only change from one form to another). Potential energy woukd be the start state and the eventual return end state dictated by this fundamental law.

This is a misunderstanding of entropy and theory of heat death of the universe.

Heat death is not energy dropping to zero. There will be just the same energy in a heat death universe as in the current universe. Heat death is the potential dropping to zero (or free energy dropping to zero).

There will be just the same amount of energy, but that energy will have no potential to do work ever again. So it is exactly the opposite of what you describe.

Of course there is the caveat this is a theory, we don't know conclusively if the universe will end up with heat death.

Quoting Benj96

Well absolute nothingness has no opposite.

The opposite of "absolute nothingness" (0) is "absolute somethingness" (1). Between 0 and 1 there is infinity.

Quoting Agent Smith

Leibniz and Newton both hit upon the idea known to us as calculus without sharing notes. This is convergence at its best. In nonmathematical domains, divergence is the norm.

Solve et Coagula.

Quoting punos

Solve et Coagula

:chin:

Quoting Agent Smith

:chin:

:zip:

Reply to punos :lol:

Quoting punos

Infinity can not be actualized.

Pseudoinfinity? Boundless but finite?

Quoting punos

The structure of zero is not empty, it only appears that way because it contains all opposites within it such as (-1 + 1) = (0) = (-1 + 1)

:up:

Quoting Agent Smith

Pseudoinfinity? Boundless but finite?

You could say it like that.

Quoting punos

You could say it like that

:up:

Quoting punos

The opposite of "absolute nothingness" (0) is "absolute somethingness" (1). Between 0 and 1 there is infinity.
7h

That's a good point. So if we know absolute somethingness exists 1, then absolute nothingness 0 would be infinitely away/forever intangible. If we as existants can never prove absolute nothingness as we exist and existant things cannot ever encounter total non existence, nor can it ever be proven because "proof" is a criterion based on existence itself, does it really exist outside the realms of theory/imagination?

I wouldn't fully rely on theoreticals/mathematics as a basis for how reality works. At most I would say maths can be applied to things that exist. Nothingness is outside that set.

True nothingness for me would have to be eternal and outright and never have at any point at which something existed to qualify as truly nothing at all.
We cannot prove infinities outside of maths. As in practically speaking we are not sure if they apply to the real world.

Quoting Agent Smith

Pseudoinfinity? Boundless but finite?

I would say infinite in "change" or qualitatively infinite, but quantitatively finite. Energy has an infinite capacity to transform, assume new states, as it cannot be created nor destroyed, but energy itself is quantized as is shown with light (quanta).

Just as a cycle may be infinite in the number of revolutions it can do, but finite in magnitude.

Reply to Benj96 :ok:

Quoting PhilosophyRunner

This is a misunderstanding of entropy and theory of heat death of the universe.

Heat death is not energy dropping to zero. There will be just the same energy in a heat death universe as in the current universe. Heat death is the potential dropping to zero (or free energy dropping to zero).

I already clarified the same thing earlier, this was a simplification/analogy based on punos and my previous conversation. I was trying to explain the difference between potential energy and actualised energy (free energy) and the conversion between them.

I also agree that energy cannot ever be destroyed and the amount will remain the same. But it merely appears to disappear when it is not free (potential), when it is converted back to that original state.

I was saying potential energy does not require time as its not free to act and was suggesting it as the primary existant. And that true nothingness is actually a fallacy.

Reply to Benj96 :up:

Quoting Benj96

So if we know absolute somethingness exists 1, then absolute nothingness 0 would be infinitely away/forever intangible. If we as existants can never prove absolute nothingness as we exist and existant things cannot ever encounter total non existence, nor can it ever be proven because "proof" is a criterion based on existence itself, does it really exist outside the realms of theory/imagination?

Absolute nothingness is a transcendent concept in which everything and nothing is latent within. Absolute nothingness is not infinitely away, but the ground on which existence stands. We are in it and not outside it (vice versa), nothing is outside nothing. If nothingness was a blanket then somethingness and nothingness are just two sides of the same blanket, one could not be without the other. Nothingness can be thought of as the inactive form of energy, while something is the active form of energy. All that happens is that some parts are inverted (NOT operator).

The difficulty comes because we are used to using logic to analyze everything, but we have a hard time in thinking about logic from it's own perspective. Logic is a non physical thing, but yet we depend on logic with no exception to prove things physically and empirically. We utilize the physical and the imperial as scaffolding to hold our ideas while at the same time it is logic at it's foundation. We already believe in logic so why not make it the absolute basis for everything instead of by physical proxy.

Quoting Benj96

I wouldn't fully rely on theoreticals/mathematics as a basis for how reality works. At most I would say maths can be applied to things that exist. Nothingness is outside that set.

If you don't rely on theory and mathematics and logic then what? What else do you have? All sets are either manifest or unmanifest within nothingness not outside it. It would be arbitrary to place it outside, and besides there is no outside to nothingness except more nothingness.

Quoting Benj96

We cannot prove infinities outside of maths. As in practically speaking we are not sure if they apply to the real world.

Infinity is a property of nothingness and it's inverse finiteness is a property of somethingness.

The paradigm i am working under is that the universe is not really a physical place as we conceive it, what it really is, is an information system, with entities made of information perceiving information, and that's why things seem so real and solid to us. What we call physics is actually computation.

As long as we depend on the purely imperical we will never get to the bottom of things. People have already given up stating that it is impossible or it doesn't make sense because it's not how i already think about things.

Reply to Benj96

I think wheel theory can help turn the wheels a little in the light of what i'm trying to say, as well as modular arithmetic with an equivalence set of 0 and 1. The video helps illustrate what i mean by the infinity of zero, and how it is the potential for everything that can be.

Division by Zero:


The concept of the unitary logical NOT operator i've been harping about is present in wheel theory as an involution function.