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From: Ben C on 22 Feb 2010 04:04 On 2010-02-17, dorayme <doraymeRidThis(a)optusnet.com.au> wrote: > In article <slrnhnm3pl.4eg.spamspam(a)bowser.marioworld>, > Ben C <spamspam(a)spam.eggs> wrote: > >> On 2010-02-15, dorayme <doraymeRidThis(a)optusnet.com.au> wrote: > ... >> > How happy would we be with a notion of a universe that is a part >> > of itself that is smaller than itself? >> >> I'm not very happy with the idea of anything being smaller than itself. >> > > Excellent, it is good to have a solid basis of agreement in any > difficult discussion. > >> > If it was not smaller than itself, there would be no room for the many >> > other possible universes that are smaller than it. >> >> Why? The bigger it is the more room for universes, big and small, there >> is in it. >> > > If a universe is no bigger or smaller than itself, then the only > way for it to be a part of itself is for it to take up all the > room there is *in* itself, leaving none for other universes. If > it left room for other universes, then it would need to be > smaller than itself. Right, but why does it have to be part of itself? OK if it doesn't contain itself then it doesn't contain _everything_. But that's OK: it just contains everything except itself. I see no paradox arising from that definition. > If the other universes were a spatial part of the top order > universe, then they would not be separate universes but merely > different regions of one universe. > > Perhaps it is more complex and you can make sense of a number of > physical universes sharing the same space or space/time? But it > is not anything I have a clear idea about. Well, you could have Big Bangs dotted around the place say about 20bn light years apart. We might come into contact with them at some time in the future, but for all we know at present, there are no others. We actually can't see all of our universe-- some of it is believed to be further away than its age in light-years because of "inflation" in the early universe. Even a distant universe in the same space but that your universe has no intersection with in spacetime is different from a universe in a different spacetime. You could theoretically exchange "quantanglement" with it too. [...] > The idea that some have had about possible universes is that they are > distinct in not having spatial or temporal connections with each > other. The universiness is the having of a self-contained space/time. But a slightly puzzling question is this: is there really any difference at all between multiple possible universes and multiple actual but spatially disconnected universes? People like Richard Dawkins like the latter idea because then they can use the anthropic principle to explain everything. But it seems a bit sophistic.
From: dorayme on 22 Feb 2010 16:44 In article <slrnho4i36.4eb.spamspam(a)bowser.marioworld>, Ben C <spamspam(a)spam.eggs> wrote: > On 2010-02-17, dorayme <doraymeRidThis(a)optusnet.com.au> wrote: > > In article <slrnhnm3pl.4eg.spamspam(a)bowser.marioworld>, > > Ben C <spamspam(a)spam.eggs> wrote: > > > >> On 2010-02-15, dorayme <doraymeRidThis(a)optusnet.com.au> wrote: > > ... > >> > How happy would we be with a notion of a universe that is a part > >> > of itself that is smaller than itself? > >> > >> I'm not very happy with the idea of anything being smaller than itself. > >> > > > > Excellent, it is good to have a solid basis of agreement in any > > difficult discussion. > > > >> > If it was not smaller than itself, there would be no room for the many > >> > other possible universes that are smaller than it. > >> > >> Why? The bigger it is the more room for universes, big and small, there > >> is in it. > >> > > > > If a universe is no bigger or smaller than itself, then the only > > way for it to be a part of itself is for it to take up all the > > room there is *in* itself, leaving none for other universes. If > > it left room for other universes, then it would need to be > > smaller than itself. > > Right, but why does it have to be part of itself? > When you said earlier "In the strict sense of Universe there really can only be one, so it includes all possible "universes"." I was uncomfortable and objected. There is a distinction between 'part of' and is 'a member of'. The latter is a class membership type thing, the former a spatial/temporal type thing. I have this picture that any universe that has things inside it has things that are not wholly independent of each other spatially or temporally. If there are black holes all over our universe, then they are related to each other spatially. Lord knows what goes on inside them. But whatever does go on, it is something that happens in our universe, whether we have access to it or not. > OK if it doesn't contain itself then it doesn't contain _everything_. > But that's OK: it just contains everything except itself. I see no > paradox arising from that definition. > > > If the other universes were a spatial part of the top order > > universe, then they would not be separate universes but merely > > different regions of one universe. > > > > Perhaps it is more complex and you can make sense of a number of > > physical universes sharing the same space or space/time? But it > > is not anything I have a clear idea about. > > Well, you could have Big Bangs dotted around the place say about 20bn > light years apart. We might come into contact with them at some time in > the future, but for all we know at present, there are no others. > > We actually can't see all of our universe-- some of it is believed to be > further away than its age in light-years because of "inflation" in the > early universe. > > Even a distant universe in the same space but that your universe has no > intersection with in spacetime is different from a universe in a > different spacetime. You could theoretically exchange "quantanglement" > with it too. > > [...] > > The idea that some have had about possible universes is that they are > > distinct in not having spatial or temporal connections with each > > other. The universiness is the having of a self-contained space/time. > > But a slightly puzzling question is this: is there really any difference > at all between multiple possible universes and multiple actual but > spatially disconnected universes? > As I am seeing it, all the difference in the world. Or perhaps I should say that I am unclear what "multiple actual but spatially disconnected universes" really means. If you merely mean big distances between them, then that is not spatially independent. In the case of possible universes (if they exist) one idea is that they are truly space/time independent of each other. > People like Richard Dawkins like the latter idea because then they can > use the anthropic principle to explain everything. But it seems a bit > sophistic. I will have to come back to this. When a scientist gets philosophical I always take a deep and suspicious breath. This is an interesting further topic though. -- dorayme
From: Ben C on 22 Feb 2010 17:47 On 2010-02-22, dorayme <doraymeRidThis(a)optusnet.com.au> wrote: > In article <slrnho4i36.4eb.spamspam(a)bowser.marioworld>, > Ben C <spamspam(a)spam.eggs> wrote: [...] >> But a slightly puzzling question is this: is there really any difference >> at all between multiple possible universes and multiple actual but >> spatially disconnected universes? >> > > As I am seeing it, all the difference in the world. Or perhaps I > should say that I am unclear what "multiple actual but > spatially disconnected universes" really means. If you merely > mean big distances between them, then that is not spatially > independent. In the case of possible universes (if they exist) > one idea is that they are truly space/time independent of each > other. I mean truly independent, disconnected, no way between them.
From: Molly Mockford on 22 Feb 2010 18:46 At 08:44:07 on Tue, 23 Feb 2010, dorayme <doraymeRidThis(a)optusnet.com.au> wrote in <doraymeRidThis-0635D8.08440623022010(a)news.albasani.net>: >In article <slrnho4i36.4eb.spamspam(a)bowser.marioworld>, > Ben C <spamspam(a)spam.eggs> wrote: >> But a slightly puzzling question is this: is there really any difference >> at all between multiple possible universes and multiple actual but >> spatially disconnected universes? > >As I am seeing it, all the difference in the world. :-) -- Molly Mockford Nature loves variety. Unfortunately, society hates it. (Milton Diamond Ph.D.) (My Reply-To address *is* valid, though may not remain so for ever.)
From: dorayme on 22 Feb 2010 19:34
In article <slrnho629d.4eb.spamspam(a)bowser.marioworld>, Ben C <spamspam(a)spam.eggs> wrote: > On 2010-02-22, dorayme <doraymeRidThis(a)optusnet.com.au> wrote: > > In article <slrnho4i36.4eb.spamspam(a)bowser.marioworld>, > > Ben C <spamspam(a)spam.eggs> wrote: > [...] > >> But a slightly puzzling question is this: is there really any difference > >> at all between multiple possible universes and multiple actual but > >> spatially disconnected universes? > >> > > > > As I am seeing it, all the difference in the world. Or perhaps I > > should say that I am unclear what "multiple actual but > > spatially disconnected universes" really means. If you merely > > mean big distances between them, then that is not spatially > > independent. In the case of possible universes (if they exist) > > one idea is that they are truly space/time independent of each > > other. > > I mean truly independent, disconnected, no way between them. Very well then. Consider 'multiple possible universes'. There are at least two ways to go on how to understand this. Each understanding will give a different answer to your question. One way is to suppose that when we say something like "It is possible that X and it is possible that not-x, the "is" is not really an existential "is". It is a way of talking and that every logical possibility does not really deserve housing in anything so grandly existential sounding as a universe. Sure, there is logical space. But this is a fiction of some kind, a geographic metaphor. We can draw maps (evolutionary biologists do) of logical spaces. But the logical space itself and the things depicted in it do not all *really* exist. The other way is to bite the bullet and say that every different possibility is a feature of a separate universe. When I say it is possible that there is an elephant in my study, and add that it is possible that there is no elephant in my study, I am making two perfectly true existential claims. What makes them both true is that there are such worlds or universes. It is a separate question whether our own world is either of these. That is a question of contingent identity. -- dorayme |