One more step to Explaining the Origin of the Universe

posted on June 29th, 2012, 11:18 am

That's my understanding too. Black Holes are just centers of extreme density and - if they are large enough - extreme mass. Sometimes high enough that nothing escapes their grasp, not even light. Therefore we can't really tell what's inside them (note that they still have a causal link to our universe - said gravity). Yet, we know many examples of black holes, like smaller ones that just dissipate in radiation or dying stars that don't make it into black holes because they were to light and up being being neutron stars... I don't see why there should suddenly be new universes spawning inside them. Well, we can't tell. Except their gravity (and the popular gamma flashes caused when matter drops in them) we don't get much information of them.

Could still be nests of spaghetti monsters.

posted on June 29th, 2012, 1:06 pm

There is only one black hole that is the fate of the spaghetti monster. And inside of it the universe consists of acidic space with a pH of 1. It also expands when the black hole sucks in the matter of bolognese and spaghetti. There's also another black hole inside that black hole..but..naaa.. we don't want to know where that hole leads to. Interestingly at the end of this there's a white hole... I'm so disgusting and should stop right away.

And btw. you evaded my question! Where does the universe expand into? What are the theories about this one among the unlimited scientists? Oh sorry. The scientists.

posted on June 29th, 2012, 1:36 pm

the distance between spots gets larger, it doesn't expand in diameter, as there is no diameter...

yea, its a bit confusing. but think of it as higher dimensional space... its similar... hm..

consider a balloon. The surface of the balloon has no borders (yea yea, in reality it has a border where you blow the air in, but lets consider a "ideal balloon" ). As you blow air into the balloon, the surface area in cm² gets larger, two points on the surface are farer away from each other. Yet the surface still has no borders and therefore did not increase in diameter. In the "surface space", the distance between spots got larger without the space itself expanding...

There are also similar examples if you consider deformations of a 3d body in a 4d space or - stuff you can do at home - 2d bodies in 3d space. As far as I know that's similar to what happens to space time, although not completely.

Yea yea, my field of research is Artificial Intelligence and not Astro Physics (I'm just an interested person), so I don't know a better fitting picture I hope you got what i wanted to say. Astro Physics out there! Where are you! There must be a better image to illustrate the expansion besides the ideal balloon with a surface space!

posted on June 29th, 2012, 2:44 pm

actually, I think the balloon example is the preferred example.

that was the one given to me as an explanation, and I've seen it used in many interviews.

One of my main areas of interest is philosophy of mind, although overlapping with a couple other spots.

Would AI lead you into that or have it included all along, or are you more involved in the application?

I wonder how similar or different dealing with AI research is and theories about nature of AI and consciousness in general are.

Unfortunately a lot of the terms can tend to be misleading so easy to get lost in semantics.

posted on June 29th, 2012, 5:31 pm

hm, i dont know what precisely "philosophy of mind" is, but in AI you also deal with cognitive models, not just the pure "hardware" like neurons. Ok well, depends on the actual field. AI itself is a pretty vast area, ranging from machine learning algorithms over sensor stuff down to cognitive AI.
I'm researching in the last field, which is about algorithms and models for artificial "thinking" like strategy planing, decision making. Stuff like that. Stuff an RTS AI would have to do, for example

posted on June 29th, 2012, 6:13 pm

And btw. you evaded my question! Where does the universe expand into? What are the theories about this one among the unlimited scientists? Oh sorry. The scientists.

The universe is expanding. It isn't expanding into something . Something is what we define our dimensional universe as, with these laws of physics. We can make assumptions and hypotheses based on quantum mechanics and string theory on what would lead to this universe forming, but we cannot observe out of the universe, as there is no out. It's a frustrating concept to grasp.

As Optec began to delve into, space itself is expanding. The distance between all points without large mass accumulations expands. This is because space itself - the vacuum - spontaneously forms particles (dark energy, virtual particles etc) responsible for accelerating the speed of expansion. I usually prefer a loaf of bread analogy, with raisins, because as the loaf rises, it expands in all directions, without a center. The raisins, as mass accumulations, do not expand.

posted on June 30th, 2012, 1:15 am

Philosophy of Mind is stuff like mind-body problem. Dualism/Monism. Is the universe two things, mental and physical (doesn't make sense, if they are two distinct things, how would they interact), so that leads to monism it's either all physical, or all mental. or neutral monism its not physical or mental, but some third other thing that everything can be reduced too. How is mental causation and physical causation connected. etc. Also deals with consciousness and other stuff, where it originates.

I guess the main thing I would imagine in your case, for AI, and how that would connect with something like philosophy of mind, is how would you know when you've succeeded? How would you ever know to say you have actually created artificial intelligence.

But yeah, it isn't really necessarily connected with what your doing. I'm imagining your involved with all the actual implementations of AI, whereas philosophy of mind wouldn't do any of that, it would just consider the nature of mental events, and how to determine if something like AI could be figured out. Even if we got a really smart computer, what makes 'AI'. Sure, the turing tests.... but it's not just whether a computer can convince us of seeming to have intelligence, how would you know AI actually exists?

I dunno, its not really the application, just the inquiry and theory and such. Separate yet overlaps I imagine. Everything comes together at some point.

edit: so, in AI have you actually created consciousness somewhere in the machine, to which there would than be something causing physical events from mental cause, or is it all always reducible to physical causes to physical events, and is there, if any, mental intelligence involved, or just hardware software. type things. i dunno if i wrote this right. if its all just complex programming, and its all physically determined, can you ever truly ascribe the term AI, or is it just advanced computer. sort of...

and again, let's say there was success, and AI did appear and we communicated with it, and were convinced of actual intelligence, how did that come about if you started with just physical programming. What does that say about the nature of physical world that mental events arise... subjectivity.

I'd point out reading up on something like panpsychism, where subjectivity is inherent to the universe. Depending on the source though, its real easy to get a vague or inaccurate description. But essentially for every level of matter there is a corresponding level of mind present. Or just idealism. Universe is innately subjective, and objective existence is left to be explained. Not consciousness as an epiphenomenon, but objective nature... what is that?

posted on July 4th, 2012, 4:52 am

The whole philosophy is just a mental masturbation cycle where people accept premises where something sound logical and then it always comes down to. Ok i agree with you on it... so what is the proof we have? and then it all breaks down

posted on July 4th, 2012, 6:28 pm

Not sure if anyone will understand that.

What are you saying?

And I would disagree about logic. Logic has a role, but I don't think it is the most advanced form of philosophy at all.

Logic is good in a closed system where you have limited number of possibilities. Yes/No. But right there, I think you've made huge restrictions in the reality you are allowing yourself to perceive. If the most advanced thing you allow yourself to believe in is what is logically proven or possible, I think you've just shot yourself in the foot from what reality might really be all about.

If you believe in free will, and I ask you to choose between 1 000 different activities, pretty sure no one will be able to say 'logically he will do this' (as almost by definition, that would be self-defeating). There wouldn't be any premises to base things on. We might say, well he's afraid of those 100 things, and he likes those 100 things, and bla bla bla, but it would be hard pressed to find 1 answer.

There will always be a premise for everything someone believes in, whether logic plays a strong role or a weak one, or even if people try to say, I'm going to live life without a premise... basically your underlying premise is that there is no premise.

I think what you might be alluding to is when philosophy gets to disconnected from the times, reality, people etc. They get into conversations that have no real direct relation to daily life. Academics that just go where they please and it seems like they have nothing meaningful to return to society with.

While in some cases I believe that to be the case (hard materialists, physicalism, certain approaches with science, government, manners of life etc), it is a pretty hollow statement when it comes to things that really do make a difference. I mean, just off the top of my head let's say a really good therapist. True, we might all think up a silly stereotype of what are therapists really good for? do they work? isn't it overpriced? I mean so many possible objections right? But you only need one good therapist, and one individual who is having a really hard go at life who sees the therapist, therapist offers some advice, some good philosophy for how to live better etc, and on that subjective scale, when a person sees their life transformed when they change to accommodate different beliefs that help them, there are very few problems with philosophy then, done right.

Again, private and public, on a more subjective one-to-one scale, we might come up with stories of individuals who change, (being private) but the task becomes that much harder on a public scale. If a philosophy needs to be created so that not only to a handful of people get assistance, but that an entire population of millions change their life, that is quite the task. I mean, let's just go with government elections. On private and public level, what narrative is being given, and what issues are being addressed to what degree? Is the government able to give really solutions that the entire public understands, or do they have to really water down policies so that they can get public votes? etc etc.

In general, I don't know if I understood what you said, but it isn't something meaningless, it might be more intricate, involved or complex at times, but still, has its uses for sure.