How did the universe come into existence?

[Madelaine McMasters]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

One thing (that I find interesting) that occured to me during this thread, and the chat about creating other universes, is something that I won't find easy to explain. It's scale.

Previously, I pictured the location of other universes in the way they they are drawn in books; i.e. one universe spawning another universe that's drawn seperately to the first universe, but with a link between them. I've seen illustrations showing cascading universes like that - some large, some small, all bubbles. To be fair to the illustrations, how else would such a concept be drawn.

Also previously, when considering the spawning of another universe, my visualisation was 'where would it be created?' If we in this universe created a new universe,

where would we put it

?

But during this thread I realised about scale. In a non-universe scenario, that we've called Null, there is no scale. There is no way to determine how long the shortest possible length (Planck length?) can be when a universe comes into being. So the shortest possible length must be arbitrary in a given universe, with no reason in Null for it to be any particular length. Therefore, because there is no scale in Null, a full-size universe could be located at what is a single point of Null, and that could be anywhere within the dimensions of our universe. That single point of dimensionless nothingness (Null) can contain as full a universe as we see.

Our universe could be a single, dimensionless point of Null in another universe, because Null is a single dimensionless point of absolute nothingness and, if a universe comes into being in Null there is no intrinsic scale for it.

I said I'd find it difficult to explain what I mean, and I wasn't wrong

However, I don't think that we will ever be able to create Null, so I don't think that we will ever be able to create a universe.

 

---

Where would we put it? Shove it through another dimension?

If you grasp the concept of higher dimensions and accept that they exist (or at least imagine them for the time being, like the string theorists), then there is plenty of room to create Universes and no need for null, but only things that appear null to anything unable to perceive all the dimensions.

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Charolotte Caxton wrote:

I think that is english, although I understand none of it. I have epaulets? Should I be concerned?

---

Merit badges, Nobel prizes... them's all epaulets. Please watch the long Feynman video all the way through without distractions.

[Charolotte Caxton]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

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Wow. I want more.

[Charolotte Caxton]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

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Charolotte Caxton wrote:

I think that is english, although I understand none of it. I have epaulets? Should I be concerned?

---

Merit badges, Nobel prizes... them's all epaulets. Please watch the long Feynman video all the way through without distractions.

---

but what will happen to me, what will I become?

[Deltango Vale]

"Don't you know there ain't no devil, there's just God when he's drunk." - Tom Waits

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Charolotte Caxton wrote:

but what will happen to me, what will I become?

---

http://vimeo.com/couchmode/user1597379/videos/sort:newest/13913632

[Phil Deakins]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

The double-slit experiment pretty handily lays to rest the idea that particles can be in only one place at a time.

---

Apparently so - but only apparently so. As I suggested in my post, it only means that the right conclusion hasn't yet been drawn - imo.

They catch up eventually. Back when space was believed to consist of nothing at all, from my own non-scientific reasoning I decided that space must a 'something'. They eventually caught up and decided that space is a something after all Now they are looking for that something at Cern - the Higgs ocean/field. They may not find it, and they may be on the wrong track, but I'll continue believe that space must be a 'something'.

The idea that matter warps space and that space is nothing at all, never fit together to my way of thinking. How can nothing at all be warped? was my reasoning.

[Phil Deakins]

---

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

One thing (that I find interesting) that occured to me during this thread, and the chat about creating other universes, is something that I won't find easy to explain. It's scale.

Previously, I pictured the location of other universes in the way they they are drawn in books; i.e. one universe spawning another universe that's drawn seperately to the first universe, but with a link between them. I've seen illustrations showing cascading universes like that - some large, some small, all bubbles. To be fair to the illustrations, how else would such a concept be drawn.

Also previously, when considering the spawning of another universe, my visualisation was 'where would it be created?' If we in this universe created a new universe,

where would we put it

?

But during this thread I realised about scale. In a non-universe scenario, that we've called Null, there is no scale. There is no way to determine how long the shortest possible length (Planck length?) can be when a universe comes into being. So the shortest possible length must be arbitrary in a given universe, with no reason in Null for it to be any particular length. Therefore, because there is no scale in Null, a full-size universe could be located at what is a single point of Null, and that could be anywhere within the dimensions of our universe. That single point of dimensionless nothingness (Null) can contain as full a universe as we see.

Our universe could be a single, dimensionless point of Null in another universe, because Null is a single dimensionless point of absolute nothingness and, if a universe comes into being in Null there is no intrinsic scale for it.

I said I'd find it difficult to explain what I mean, and I wasn't wrong

However, I don't think that we will ever be able to create Null, so I don't think that we will ever be able to create a universe.

 

---

Where would we put it? Shove it through another dimension?

If you grasp the concept of higher dimensions and accept that they exist (or at least imagine them for the time being, like the string theorists), then there is plenty of room to create Universes and no need for null, but only things that appear null to anything unable to perceive

all

the dimensions.

---

But the alleged extra dimensions are merely extra dimensions, just like the 3 obvious spacial dimensions. What you said is equivalent to saying, shove it in the height dimension, which isn't really a place to put a universe. Most of the alleged extra dimensions are thought be rolled up so tiny that we can't detect them, so you might think that a whole universe could be hidden in one or three of them, but that would be inside our universe, and subject to the laws of our universe. The minimum possible length, for instance, would mean that precious little could be placed there, and certainly not a whole universe.

From Null's point of view (albeit Null doesn't actually exist it can't have a point of view), our universe wholly exists in a single point of Null, which is the only Null there is (or isn't lol). Again, Null doesn't exist even as a single point, but it's easier to describe it as a single dimensionless point.

[Phil Deakins]

I stumbled into a very interesting programme last night on the National Geographic channel. It's called "Beyond the Cosmos: Space Odyssey", (series 1, episode 2).

It talked about most of the things that have been mentioned in this thread:- dark energey, the Higgs (including comments by Higgs himself), the Large Hadron Collider and the search for the Higgs, why the Higgs boson matters, the discovery that space's expansion is speeding up, the story of the Cosmological Constant, and more. It was even narrated by Brian Greene - the author of the book I mentioned, in which he stated that everything is in motion at the speed of light.

If you (the generic 'you') get the chance to watch it, do so. It's very interesting. The whole programme could have been created for the purpose of this thread, except that it didn't touch on the actual topic of the thread.

[Charolotte Caxton]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

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Charolotte Caxton wrote:

but what will happen to me, what will I become?

---

http://vimeo.com/couchmode/user1597379/videos/sort:newest/13913632

---

Wow, I seem to have had several events, I look forward to the next. 

[Phil Deakins]

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Charolotte Caxton wrote:

Why would we need to create Null if it already exists? Or doesn't, as the case may be

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If Null is real, where is it? How can we put something in it? It doesn't actually exist, hence it is Null, so we can't find it and we can't create a universe in it. Therefore, we are limited to creating a universe within our own, and it will necessarily be subject to the laws of our own universe, which means that it's going to be much too huge for us. Maybe we could create a tiny bit something but not a whole universe.

[Charolotte Caxton]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

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Charolotte Caxton wrote:

Why would we need to create Null if it already exists? Or doesn't, as the case may be

---

If Null is real, where is it? How can we put something in it? It doesn't actually exist, hence it is Null, so we can't find it and we can't create a universe in it. Therefore, we are limited to creating a universe within our own, and it will necessarily be subject to the laws of our own universe, which means that it's going to be much too huge for us. Maybe we could create a tiny bit something but not a whole universe.

---

What about a tiny universe?

[Phil Deakins]

A tiny universe within our own universe must be subject to the constraints of our universe. One of those is what is believed to be the shortest length possible. I think that's the Planck length. So, since or own planet is subject to those constraints, and yet is hardly even a speck in the universe, a tiny universe wouldn't be possible. A tiny something might become possible, but not a tiny universe with stars, planets, things on the planets, atoms and molecules making up the things, etc.

Creating a universe has to mean that it is not within our own.

ETA: If we ever came to the point of creating a universe that is not within our own, we wouldn't even know that we'd done it. We may be unintentionally doing it quite often. We don't know whether or not the collisions of particles in the colliders cause new universes to come into existance. There's infinite 'room' for them in Null.

[Randall Ahren]

Listen: there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go.

--e.e. cummings

[Charolotte Caxton]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

A tiny universe within our own universe must be subject to the constraints of our universe. One of those is what is believed to be the shortest length possible. I think that's the Planck length. So, since or own planet is subject to those constraints, and yet is hardly even a speck in the universe, a tiny universe wouldn't be possible. A tiny something might become possible, but not a tiny universe with stars, planets, things on the planets, atoms and molecules making up the things, etc.

Creating a universe has to mean that it is not within our own.

ETA: If we ever came to the point of creating a universe that is not within our own, we wouldn't even know that we'd done it. We may be unintentionally doing it quite often. We don't know whether or not the collisions of particles in the colliders cause new universes to come into existance. There's infinite 'room' for them in Null.

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Oh, wow.

[Phil Deakins]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

If you have the time...

---

 

When you posted that, I hadn't got my headphones sorted out with the new computer but I just finished watching it - both programmes. They were *very* interesting - especially the first one - and I thank you for posting it.

All I knew about Richard Feynman was that he kept getting mentioned in some of the books I have, and the impression I got was that he was a top physicist, if not *the* top physicist at the time.

[Ann Otoole]

The universe came into existence when the sun god ra pulled forth mankind from the triangular shaped stone of man which i own and wear daily since discovering it at a location later made into an archeological dig said to be the oldest evidence of man in the north american continent.

 

so there.

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

---

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

One thing (that I find interesting) that occured to me during this thread, and the chat about creating other universes, is something that I won't find easy to explain. It's scale.

Previously, I pictured the location of other universes in the way they they are drawn in books; i.e. one universe spawning another universe that's drawn seperately to the first universe, but with a link between them. I've seen illustrations showing cascading universes like that - some large, some small, all bubbles. To be fair to the illustrations, how else would such a concept be drawn.

Also previously, when considering the spawning of another universe, my visualisation was 'where would it be created?' If we in this universe created a new universe,

where would we put it

?

But during this thread I realised about scale. In a non-universe scenario, that we've called Null, there is no scale. There is no way to determine how long the shortest possible length (Planck length?) can be when a universe comes into being. So the shortest possible length must be arbitrary in a given universe, with no reason in Null for it to be any particular length. Therefore, because there is no scale in Null, a full-size universe could be located at what is a single point of Null, and that could be anywhere within the dimensions of our universe. That single point of dimensionless nothingness (Null) can contain as full a universe as we see.

Our universe could be a single, dimensionless point of Null in another universe, because Null is a single dimensionless point of absolute nothingness and, if a universe comes into being in Null there is no intrinsic scale for it.

I said I'd find it difficult to explain what I mean, and I wasn't wrong

However, I don't think that we will ever be able to create Null, so I don't think that we will ever be able to create a universe.

 

---

Where would we put it? Shove it through another dimension?

If you grasp the concept of higher dimensions and accept that they exist (or at least imagine them for the time being, like the string theorists), then there is plenty of room to create Universes and no need for null, but only things that appear null to anything unable to perceive

all

the dimensions.

---

But the alleged extra dimensions are

merely

extra dimensions, just like the 3 obvious spacial dimesnions. What you said is equivalent to saying, shove it in the height dimension and only the height dimesnion, which isn't really a place to put a universe. Most of the alleged extra dimesnions are thought be rolled up so tiny that we can't detect them, so you might think that a whole universe could be hidden in one or three of them, but that would be

inside our universe

,

and subject to the laws of our universe. The minimum possible length, for instance, would mean that precious little could be placed there, and certainly not a whole universe.

From Null's point of view (albeit Null doesn't actually exist it can't have a point of view), our universe wholly exists in a single point of Null, which is the

only

Null there is (or isn't lol). Again, Null doesn't exist even as a single point, but it's easier to describe it that way.

---

"Merely" hardly does those extra dimensions justice. Imagine for a moment that a race of creatures lived in a 2D universe, like a sheet of paper. They would percieve only left/right and forward/back. Also imagine that their theoretical physicists have proposed a string theory involving extra dimensions that are too small for them to see. Unknown to them, one of those extra dimensions is something called "height", which we, living in a 3D world, can observe. Now, imagine that within the height dimension, there are stacked more flat universes, like a ream of paper. Each flat universe could argue that there's simply no room for more universes, because their theory says that the extra dimensions are inside their sheet and are too small. Further, they might declare that, because those dimensions are "inside" their own, they are subject to their physical laws.

But, looking at the ream of paper, we 3D creatures see it's not so. Their universes, all unaware of each other, are packed on top of each other in our 3D space and obey a subset of our physical laws (for example, their motion is confined to two of our dimensions, not our three). You can extend this argument to our 3D world (and beyond) by simply adding more dimensions.

So, it's not that these extra dimensions are too small to see, it's that they are too small to see through.

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

A tiny universe within our own universe must be subject to the constraints of our universe. One of those is what is believed to be the shortest length possible. I think that's the Planck length. So, since or own planet is subject to those constraints, and yet is hardly even a speck in the universe, a tiny universe wouldn't be possible. A tiny something might become possible, but not a tiny universe with stars, planets, things on the planets, atoms and molecules making up the things, etc.

Creating a universe has to mean that it is not within our own.

ETA: If we ever came to the point of creating a universe that is not within our own, we wouldn't even know that we'd done it. We may be unintentionally doing it quite often. We don't know whether or not the collisions of particles in the colliders cause new universes to come into existance. There's infinite 'room' for them in Null.

---

Your use of the term "within" doesn't fully comprehend the concept of dimensions. If we are able to create universes by somehow manipulating these unseen extra dimensions that string theory posits, they would not be "within" or "inside" ours, and we would not be within or inside theirs. All universes, including the ones we create, would perceive whatever dimensions they could within the N-dimensional space that comprises the super-universe that contains everything. So maybe it's helpful to consider a super-universe that encompasses all the dimensions ( from 10 to 26, depending on who you ask). This N-dimensional super-universe would contain countless sub-universes.

I'm no expert on such things, to be sure, but I think "sub-universe" creation could depend on the ability of any other sub-universe to move "information" along one of its potentially (or currently or practically) invisible dimensions, perhaps from another sub-universe. If that can happen, then one sub-universe could create another, but potentially be unable to probe it, or perhaps even know it had been created.

[Phil Deakins]

---

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

"Merely" hardly does those extra dimensions justice. Imagine for a moment that a race of creatures lived in a 2D universe, like a sheet of paper. They would percieve only left/right and forward/back. Also imagine that their theoretical physicists have proposed a string theory involving extra dimensions that are too small for them to see. Unknown to them, one of those extra dimensions is something called "height", which we, living in a 3D world, can observe. Now, imagine that within the height dimension, there are stacked more flat universes, like a ream of paper. Each flat universe could argue that there's simply no room for more universes, because their theory says that the extra dimensions are inside their sheet and are too small. Further, they might declare that, because those dimensions are "inside" their own, they are subject to their physical laws.

But, looking at the ream of paper, we 3D creatures see it's not so. Their universes, all unaware of each other, are packed on top of each other in our 3D space and obey a subset of our physical laws (for example, their motion is confined to two of our dimensions, not our three). You can extend this argument to our 3D world (and beyond) by simply adding more dimensions.

So, it's not that these extra dimensions are too small to see, it's that they are

too small to see through

.

---

I see what you're getting at. To be honest, I don't buy into extra dimensions. The very idea only came about because string theories wouldn't mathematically work without them, and not because there is even the slightest evidence that could indicate more dimensions. (I don't count the imagination that most of gravity's force is in the extra dimensions as evidence. It's just wild imagination). Extra dimensions are solely mathematical - in an attempt to make string theory work - and, as such, I can't accept them.

So, for me, shoving a universe in an extra dimension is a non-starter and the question remains, where would we put it if we could create one?

[Sy Beck]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

A tiny universe within our own universe must be subject to the constraints of our universe. One of those is what is believed to be the shortest length possible. I think that's the Planck length. So, since or own planet is subject to those constraints, and yet is hardly even a speck in the universe, a tiny universe wouldn't be possible. A tiny something might become possible, but not a tiny universe with stars, planets, things on the planets, atoms and molecules making up the things, etc.

Creating a universe has to mean that it is not within our own.

ETA: If we ever came to the point of creating a universe that is not within our own, we wouldn't even know that we'd done it. We may be unintentionally doing it quite often. We don't know whether or not the collisions of particles in the colliders cause new universes to come into existance. There's infinite 'room' for them in Null.

---

Your use of the term "within" doesn't fully comprehend the concept of dimensions. If we are able to create universes by somehow manipulating these unseen extra dimensions that string theory posits, they would not be "within" or "inside" ours, and we would not be within or inside theirs. All universes, including the ones we create, would perceive whatever dimensions they could within the N-dimensional space that comprises the super-universe that contains everything. So maybe it's helpful to consider a super-universe that encompasses all the dimensions ( from 10 to 26, depending on who you ask). This N-dimensional super-universe would contain countless sub-universes.

I'm no expert on such things, to be sure, but I think "sub-universe" creation could depend on the ability of any other sub-universe to move "information" along one of its potentially (or currently or practically) invisible dimensions, perhaps from another sub-universe. If that can happen, then one sub-universe could create another, but potentially be unable to probe it, or perhaps even know it had been created.

---

This tangentially hits upon what I mentioned eons back in this thread about how a single consciousness can create/observe a universe and therefore all things are possible within it, including any number of dimensions.

 

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Hamlet Act 1, scene 5, 159-167

 

 

[Phil Deakins]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

Your use of the term "within" doesn't fully comprehend the concept of dimensions. If we are able to create universes by somehow manipulating these unseen extra dimensions that string theory posits, they would not be "within" or "inside" ours, and we would not be within or inside theirs. All universes, including the ones we create, would perceive whatever dimensions they could within the N-dimensional space that comprises the super-universe that contains everything. So maybe it's helpful to consider a super-universe that encompasses all the dimensions ( from 10 to 26, depending on who you ask). This N-dimensional super-universe would contain countless sub-universes.

I'm no expert on such things, to be sure, but I think "sub-universe" creation could depend on the ability of any other sub-universe to move "information" along one of its potentially (or currently or practically) invisible dimensions, perhaps from another sub-universe. If that can happen, then one sub-universe could create another, but potentially be unable to probe it, or perhaps even know it had been created.

---

From what I've read, the theorised extra dimensions are curled up so tight that we can't detect them. That doesn't indicate a super-universe to me, but it does indicate that they are within our universe and, as such, must be confined by the constraints of our universe.

Of course, anything can be imagined, but I prefer to think in terms of things that are. E.g. the universe is finite, so it seems to me that there is 'something' other than the universe, which we've called Null in this thread. And, if Null is correct, then another universe should also be in Null, and not thought of as being somewhere, or in something, that is purely imagination.

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

---

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

Your use of the term "within" doesn't fully comprehend the concept of dimensions. If we are able to create universes by somehow manipulating these unseen extra dimensions that string theory posits, they would not be "within" or "inside" ours, and we would not be within or inside theirs. All universes, including the ones we create, would perceive whatever dimensions they could within the N-dimensional space that comprises the super-universe that contains everything. So maybe it's helpful to consider a super-universe that encompasses all the dimensions ( from 10 to 26, depending on who you ask). This N-dimensional super-universe would contain countless sub-universes.

I'm no expert on such things, to be sure, but I think "sub-universe" creation could depend on the ability of any other sub-universe to move "information" along one of its potentially (or currently or practically) invisible dimensions, perhaps from another sub-universe. If that can happen, then one sub-universe could create another, but potentially be unable to probe it, or perhaps even know it had been created.

---

From what I've read, the theorised extra dimensions are curled up so tight that we can't detect them. That doesn't indicate a super-universe to me, but it does indicate that they are

within

our universe and, as such, must be confined by the constraints of our universe.

---

It appears we've reached an impasse, Phil. I shall move on.

ETA: Some thing that Gravity might be the one thing we can perceive that "reaches" across the dimensions we can't see and that carefully designed experiments might tease out some understanding of "what lies beyond".

[Phil Deakins]

Don't move on, Madelaine! I've gained a lot because you've been in the thread.

You seem to accept the extra dimensions and I certainly don't, but that's just something we don't agree on, that's all. It's no cause for anyone to move on.

[Phil Deakins]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

ETA: Some thing that Gravity might be the one thing we can perceive that "reaches" across the dimensions we can't see and that carefully designed experiments might tease out some understanding of "what lies beyond".

---

They might tease out some evidence but, until they do, I'll stick to thinking that extra dimensions are merely mathematical, in an effort to make string theory work, because it won't work without them