Life, the universe and everything...

Life, the universe and everything......

Ok....
Ok, most of us accept that the universe as we know and perceive it, will eventually, one day, come to an end. This understanding is intrinsically linked to our general belief that the universe must have had a beginning, an unfortunate by-product of causality and the laws of thermodynamics of course. Most, well, all to be truthful, of us will be long gone by the time this cataclysmic event actually takes place, but I find myself constantly intrigued by the question of what will eventually happen, not only to our tiny corner of the small amount of space we can actually see, but to the entire universe itself. When beginning to think of the universe as an entity you immediately come across questions that are not only inconceivable, but impossible to prove. These questions are the questions of boundary, mass, structure, and location, to name a few.

If we accept that the universe "Began" at a given time and location with the explosion of matter from a space/time singularity, we have to first ask ourselves "where did this event take place"? What was this singularity existing within before the event took place? our brains tell us that logically there must have been another universe for this "bubble" universe to have formed in, this is the only explanation that we can naturally come to, because this is the only form of existence that we have experience with, and it is all we can do to apply experience, logic and reason to the formation of our opinions. Again, we are within the realms of imagination and speculation, an all too familiar bed-fellow in this game. So, in order for us to carry on with the argument we must accept that the universe as we know it today was once a "black hole", a tiny point in space/time with zero volume and infinite density, (there's that word, infinite, you'll be hearing more of that believe me), and no mechanics of time. Now, i don't usually like people telling me to believe or accept things that can't be proved to me, but for the sake of this ramble, lets accept that small point. If we do accept this we have to accept that the universe was smaller at some point in time, such as 3 minutes after the big bang for instance. So, again, this would suggest an actual boundary. The actual theory that the universe is expanding, backed up by the discovery that most of the observable galaxies/stars within our vicinity are moving away from us at roughly the same speed, does itself suggest that it must have a centre, and naturally "edges". Some say the universe is donut shaped, now, i find this conceivable given that Einstein suggested, and later proved, as far as he possibly could, that light traveling over extremely large distances is actually refracted minutely by distant and weak gravitational forces, so that it effectively "bends"... if we accept this we must surely accept it is plausible that should you travel far enough in a straight line, at some point in the future, you will end up back where you started, (a feeling anyone that has been through American airport security recently will be all too familiar with).

So, to imagine that the universe has a boundary, an actual "end", is very difficult, for what would exist outside of that boundary? but at the same time its even harder to accept that it may not have one, given the human minds apparent inability to comprehend infinity as a figure, or an idea. So, the answer to that one eludes us, that's a kind of running theme to be honest, but please persevere.....

Ok, the second question is the question of the present. We can tell by observing the "red shift" (a fluctuation in radiation output, and on a visible level, colour) of distant stars and galaxies, that the universe is expanding, a subject much written about and discussed by Mr S. Hawking, my original inspiration for this piece. Not only that, but it happens to be expanding at exactly a rate just below that rate at which it would begin to contract, eventually collapsing back in on itself and re-forming a singularity. So, that's a bit lucky then?..... not only that but the precise values of the many environmental conditions that interact to make the world as we know it possible are intrinsically linked to each other, each needing and relying on all the others for the formation of matter as we know it. Without these exact measurements for density and temperature and matter to anti-matter ratio, electrons would not be able to effectively orbit the nucleus of an atom, meaning that the very building blocks of life and matter itself could not, and would not, form. You would end up with a kind of milky solution of electrons, protons and neutrons all floating around space with not much to do, what a terrible waste.

So, we are left with the insight that the "settings", if you will, at the exact moment of the creation of the universe, had to be precise, some may even say "set", in order for us to see what we see today.... now, Stephen argue's that this suggests the existence of a "higher power" or god like figure, "just messing about and that", however, I find this hard to believe, not because I dis-agree with him, but because to believe this would make a complete breakdown and re-formation of my belief system necessary, an undertaking that I find frightening to be honest. So, I choose to believe that its just a fluke, that this existence is happening, because it just so happens that it can. It exists because it can and does exist. .....

I point you towards Occam's razor for answering some of the harder questions of metaphysics and philosophy.

Occam's razor states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating, those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory theory. In short, when given two equally valid explanations for a phenomenon, you should embrace the less complicated formulation, for its most likely the correct one.

a reply to: PerfectAnomoly

Your pretty close, it making a couple mistakes in how you view the universe...


A) the theories such as "Big Bang" and definitely "M theory" are basically predicated on a multiverse..

The thought being that our universe is one of trillions and our personal one, was one of the "few" where the conditions were just right.

It is the difference between rolling 10 ,6 sided dice one time and getting all 1's..

And rolling 10, 6 sided dice a billion times..

If it happens in one try it is a miracke.. if it happens one out of a thousand. Not nearly as cool...

B) if I'm right it is also based on a hyper space, where the original energy for the universe originates..

It's the glass of beer analogy, where every bubble is a universe and the beer is the hyperspace..

What made it all make sense to me personally was the realization that it wasn't an explosion of "mainly" one element (hydrogen)..

It was an explosion of protons and electrons, which was so intense it caused those particular to merge, creating what we call hydrogen..

Hydrogen is 1 proton and one electron.. so in this crazy intense explosion some of those bonded into hydrogen, and a very small amount merged "twice" into helium..

From there we can just look farther away and look back in time and watch the universes evolution.

originally posted by: PerfectAnomoly
So, to imagine that the universe has a boundary, an actual "end", is very difficult, for what would exist outside of that boundary?

What do you mean "end" ? There is no such thing as non-existence. You are making that up in your imagination. You have no evidence non-existence has ever occurred or will ever occur. The Universe has and always will exist forever.

Well, maybe the Big Bang was just Big for us. In the universe scale it could be just an very small part of the Infinite exploding.

Maybe a black hole created it or something...

Anyway, as the Big Bang, it's just a theory.

originally posted by: JoshuaCox

What made it all make sense to me personally was the realization that it wasn't an explosion of "mainly" one element (hydrogen)..

It was an explosion of protons and electrons, which was so intense it caused those particular to merge, creating what we call hydrogen..

Under the idea of the "Big Bang", there was no explosion of anything. Instead, the Big Bang was a sudden expansion of space itself -- i.e., of the entire universe itself. The Big Bang could be said to still be happening as our universe and the stuff in it continues to expand (as the theory goes).

What I mean by "no explosion of anything" is that the big bang says that there was no universe in which an explosion of stuff could occur, and in fact there was no "stuff" that could explode until there was a universe in which that stuff could exist. The Big Bang provided BOTH the space for that stuff and the stuff that exists in that space.

a reply to: Box of Rain

I'm with you.. I think that's just the easiest way to describe it...

But the point still remains.. along with an "explosion"/expansion of time/space , there was also an explosion of particles (protons/electrons) which at that high of energy caused mainly single protons and electrons to bond creating hydrogen, but in a few spots caused a hair more binding , which created helium.


So from there you have hydrogen,helium and a whole lotta space.. which firm the first proto stars.... which explode providing the material for planets and such..

I don't know why, but understanding that (mainly ) one element, which was just the right element ... exploded ..

Why specificly hydrogen.. why not lead.. or gold.. or oxygen..

But for some reason realizing it wasn't really an expansion of hydrogen as much as base particles , which were given the right conditions to bond into hydrogen..

a reply to: JoshuaCox

But the point still remains.. along with an "explosion"/expansion of time/space , there was also an explosion of particles (protons/electrons) which at that high of energy caused mainly single protons and electrons to bond creating hydrogen, but in a few spots caused a hair more binding , which created helium.

In the resultant cooling of the event, nuclear particles (and electrons) formed. It doesn't take energy to bond an electron to a proton, they just really like to hang out together.

On the other hand, it takes a lot of energy and pressure to turn a hydrogen atom into a helium atom. It takes a concentration of mass to create that energy and pressure. A star. Until there were stars, there was no helium. Or light, come to think of it.

How many grapes in a cluster? When you pick one does the plant die? If left alone how big can the grape get? If the grape reaches it's max, what does it do next?. When you look at Laniakea, there seems to be a flow from one place to another. Though we measure a certain quantity of hydrogen in the universe and estimate a possible burn out of all we can see. We measure the infinitesimal in a vast universe greater then we can see and measure. We compute time and distance through the lens of our understanding while ignoring we are looking at time in an infinite variety and measurement as governed by the individual masses of all heavenly bodies in there own singular influence of the space around them. From dust to black holes (Whos nature I see as something different) the variety of time itself is greater then the number of grains of sand on the beach. Outside that is the nonlinear, which like a bubble holds our universe with its zillions of different flows of time in it's own singular place, yet alongside the zillions of other clustered universes like grapes on a vine. Though we perceive a begging which then denotes an end, we cannot see the natural course of the universe from our single, small lens of perception........it has change...it does not end. Yet pondering, surmising, theorizing is a wonderful practice and good for us..

a reply to: PerfectAnomoly

There is no reason to think the universe will end. There's still no scientific basis for its origin.

We simply do not know.

We can only produce theories that seem to fit what we observe. But our observation is very limited still, as evidenced by the fact that there is "news" every day.