The Nature of the Universe, Time Travel and More...

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Sure you are.... maybe exactly like Q even..

Q died in Picard season 2, so I'm not spoiler coding it. According to some interpretations of quantum immortality, it is impossible for a consciousness to die.

Quantum suicide and immortality - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If base reality consists of all possible conscious states, it might be possible for individual threads to start but not terminate, but I wouldn't expect that to be guaranteed. Increasing decrepitude suggests that it isn't to be wished for. The only way to find out if it's true might prevent you from finding out.

 

[Osol Twist]

Picard season 2 lol=) anyway i'm a believer of reincarnation so i also think that the consciousness continues.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Picard season 2 lol=) anyway i'm a believer of reincarnation so i also think that the consciousness continues.

If all consciousnesses share the same substrate, reincarnation has an explanation as correlation of memory between threads. We all could be threads in a vastly greater realm of possible mind states. Individuality would be an illusion. Perhaps that is the real Q Continuum.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

What is meant by local and what is meant by real (and virtual):

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I don't necessarily think our consciousnesses are computed, but it would be difficult to tell. Perhaps one way is to look for glitches that error correction would usually remove. According to the path integration of the expected action, errors in perception between observing instantiations of consciousness vary perhaps inversely to the exponential of the number of bits that describe an instantiated "real" object or event. How many bits are required to describe whether the Monopoly Man sports a monocle, the Fruit of the Loom logo includes a cornucopia, or Dolly in Moonraker has braces on her teeth? It might be many thousands, rendering the probability low, but then we only notice a tiny number of these glitches. It seems there is no program to correct the memory of perception, which makes me suspect the basal realm of consciousness is not externally programmed. Rather, it behaves like some form of DL neural network, such as a transformer, that preserves expected physical rules and the number of fingers that people typically have much better than our current LLMs.

 

[Candleicious Ghost]

What I mean by my comment wasn't a dig at anyone here but it just feels a bit depressing that people want to examine their existence in such minute detail.

What would change if you found out that nothing is real and everything is a simulation including what you feel from your five senses, what you see around you, experience etc, and etc. Would it really change life for you in any way in particular?

Some might view it as confirmation that their lives are worthless if nothing means anything. Now would you really want that?

These kind of discussions are interesting and fun but they depress me no end and.

We are born, we grow up and live our lives then pass on. Why do I need to know every intimate detail that makes all that possible?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

What I mean by my comment wasn't a dig at anyone here but it just feels a bit depressing that people want to examine their existence in such minute detail.

What would change if you found out that nothing is real and everything is a simulation including what you feel from your five senses, what you see around you, experience etc, and etc. Would it really change life for you in any way in particular?

Some might view it as confirmation that their lives are worthless if nothing means anything. Now would you really want that?

These kind of discussions are interesting and fun but they depress me no end and.

We are born, we grow up and live our lives then pass on. Why do I need to know every intimate detail that makes all that possible?

Seriously, take the blue pill...

...or take the red pill.

These are the sorts of questions that serious science fiction in literature has been addressing for many decades. If you want to feel real existential dread, read "I have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison. There was a 2002 adaptation for BBC Radio 4, which featured Harlan Ellison as AM and David Soul as Ted.

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Alternatively, read more philosophy and perhaps watch less TV.

 

[Santaman]

@Asbo Zaprudder Aw, that's a bit harsh, sometimes you just go through an existential crisis, which is going back to what threads like these are about, trying to make sense out of the existence of pretty much everything including life.
As for ones purpose, that's what you make of it yourself, can be tinkering with scooters or discussing on a message board.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

@Asbo Zaprudder Aw, that's a bit harsh, sometimes you just go through an existential crisis, which is going back to what threads like these are about, trying to make sense out of the existence of pretty much everything including life.
As for ones purpose, that's what you make of it yourself, can be tinkering with scooters or discussing on a message board.

I'd really suck as a ship's counselor.

Honestly, I don't know what to say when people find outlandish theories of existence disturbing other than perhaps to tell them to find something else to distract them. If all perception is illusion, then so are feelings of existential dread, nihilism and weltschmerz. They're just possible states in the collective consciousness. I doubt there's some version of AM getting its kicks by making us suffer.

I asked AI to write me a song about how NPCs might feel if they were to realise that they had no free will and that even their realisation was programmed.

Kopf, Heads, Kopf, Heads...

Listen and make your own on Suno.

suno.com

Here's a different tale that might put the willies up one:

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[Candleicious Ghost]

If a multiverse is possible there most certainly will be a version of something like AM getting its rocks off by torturing people.

BTW the game is closely based on the book and highly recommend trying.

@Asbo Zaprudder I was a bit surprised by your reaction. That was a bit over the top. You're normally much more chill than that...

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

If a multiverse is possible there most certainly will be a version of something like AM getting its rocks off by torturing people.

BTW the game is closely based on the book and highly recommend trying.

@Asbo Zaprudder I was a bit surprised by your reaction. That was a bit over the top. You're normally much more chill than that...

I was annoyed because you were telling us your feelings. I just don't care. There are 8 billion people. It would be exhausting to try to accommodate the emotional needs of every other individual on this planet.

 

[Candleicious Ghost]

I was annoyed because you were telling us your feelings. I just don't care. There are 8 billion people. It would be exhausting to try to accommodate the emotional needs of every other individual on this planet.

OK fair enough..

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

OK fair enough..

I don't mind if you think any of the wackier theories or hypotheses I mention are nonsense. Most of them seem unfalsifiable to me, although we are apparently nearer to establishing whether state vector reduction is observable. For example, larger and larger assembies of atoms have been placed into superposition. Penrose has also hypothesised that the wave function of any quantum system of more than one Planck mass (about 22 micrograms) spontaneously collapses due to gravity. It will llkely be precise, controlled small-scale experiments that provide insight and not huge particle colliers.

We can't do anything about the true nature of reality not conforming to our sense of well-being. We'll just have to accept it, make do and muddle through.

 

[Candleicious Ghost]

I don't mind if you think any of the wackier theories or hypotheses I mention are nonsense. Most of them seem unfalsifiable to me, although we are apparently nearer to establishing whether state vector reduction is observable. For example, larger and larger assembies of atoms have been placed into superposition. Penrose has also hypothesised that the wave function of any quantum system of more than one Planck mass (about 60 micrograms) spontaneously collapses due to gravity. It will llkely be precise, controlled small-scale experiments that provide insight and not huge particle colliers.

We can't do anything about the true nature of reality not conforming to our sense of well-being. We'll just have to accept it, make do and muddle through.

I never found it wacky, silly, or nonsensical in fact the more the merrier.

I just find that whatever is the truth we have to as you say make do and muddle our way through, because we can't change it.

These kind of topics make me quite emotional and prone to outbursts

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I never found it wacky, silly, or nonsensical in fact the more the merrier.

I just find that whatever is the truth we have to as you say make do and muddle our way through, because we can't change it.

These kind of topics make me quite emotional and prone to outbursts

We have likely not evolved as a species to deal with the existential dread that the cosmos presents to us when we gaze into the abyss. This is perhaps why some people cling to demonstrably false notions from the ancient past. If we break free of our bonds and leave the cave, might we find ourselves in just another larger cavern?

 

[XCV330]

We have likely not evolved as a species to deal with the existential dread that the cosmos presents to us when we gaze into the abyss. This is perhaps why some people cling to demonstrably false notions from the ancient past. If we break free of our bonds and leave the cave, might we find ourselves in just another larger cavern?

My religious beliefs do not prevent me from considering epistemology or metaphysics which may go beyond the teachings that i try to employ in daily living. I don't consider that a matter of coping with existential dread.

Like may stoics and neostoics, I tend to think that acting on passions rather than reason is a mistake. The passions are judgements made with remarkable haste at a much lower level of the mind. Necessary at times but often our undoing. This does not mean emotional responses are in themselves bad. Many of our best qualities like compassion, self sacrifice, bravery, and so forth are mortared to emotional states: but one can be a compassionate believer in genocide, a suicide bomber serving the greater good, or a very brave thief.

I have no real concept of space or the universe. It's really big, obviously. But the closest I came to some understanding of void was when i was a child. I was ill with scarlet fever, and like the Pink Floyd song, the fever did give me something of a vision: in this case i was in a void but the void itself was a thing, so gigantic and overwhelming that i was in true terror. My mother told me she ran to my room because i was screaming so loud that i was losing my voice. she said i was just sitting up straight in bed, eyes open looking at nothing. i only have the vaguest notion of the dream, and of course each time i revisit it, it becomes more inaccurate more tangible. i remember nothing that came later except cold compresses and this awful pink liquid medicine.

so i think our brains do have the pathways to have some concept of something overwhelming, but i don't think we can probably adapt to it. And thats fine. There's a lot of universe in our cosmic back yard to deal with. if we evolve with better brains, which i doubt, who knows what the next people will manage, if they decide it's even worth managing at all.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I used to doodle images of powers of ten when I was a child using sizes for various objects that I found in an encyclopedia.

Nowadays, I 'd make do with this graph, which contains a lot more interesting information than my childhood scribbling:



Plot of the masses, sizes, and relative densities of objects in our Universe. (Image: Charles H. Lineweaver & Vihan M. Patel. 2023. All objects and some questions. Am. J. Phys 91 (10): 819-825; doi: 10.1119/5.0150209)

Astrophysicists Put All Objects in Universe into One Pedagogical Plot | Sci.News

Astrophysicists present an overview of the thermal history of our Universe and the sequence of objects (e.g., protons, planets, and galaxies) that condensed out of the background as the Universe expanded and cooled.

www.sci.news

 

[Will The Serious]

Some might view it as confirmation that their lives are worthless if nothing means anything. Now would you really want that?

These kind of discussions are interesting and fun but they depress me no end and.

We are born, we grow up and live our lives then pass on. Why do I need to know every intimate detail that makes all that possible?

I honestly don't see the difference (the horror or the hope) between a universe with meaning or a universe with no meaning. If we take a cosmos created and controlled by God, God gives the universe meaning, which takes it out of our hands, and dictates our "goals". If we take a cosmos that simply is (chance or physics), we get the freedom to provide our own meaning. If we live in a cosmos of the imagination only... well, her we are, the creators and controllers with every option availing to us.

In all three cases, consciousness has evolved. I am the only consciousness I can be aware of at a visceral level. I can prove, empirically that others have consciousness by simply asking them and making one-to- one comparisons between my state of being and theirs, but I still can't "know". Therefore, since I am the only "real" consciousness, reincarnation has to be true. The existence of everything depends upon it. Or, I never die, which is less likely in the universe as I have come to know it.

Non-existence leads to consciousness because we're here. All eternity of nothing is only a single dimensionless blip until awareness must be.

-Will

 

[Candleicious Ghost]

I honestly don't see the difference (the horror or the hope) between a universe with meaning or a universe with no meaning. If we take a cosmos created and controlled by God, God gives the universe meaning, which takes it out of our hands, and dictates our "goals". If we take a cosmos that simply is (chance or physics), we get the freedom to provide our own meaning. If we live in a cosmos of the imagination only... well, her we are, the creators and controllers with every option availing to us.

In all three cases, consciousness has evolved. I am the only consciousness I can be aware of at a visceral level. I can prove, empirically that others have consciousness by simply asking them and making one-to- one comparisons between my state of being and theirs, but I still can't "know". Therefore, since I am the only "real" consciousness, reincarnation has to be true. The existence of everything depends upon it. Or, I never die, which is less likely in the universe as I have come to know it.

Non-existence leads to consciousness because we're here. All eternity of nothing is only a single dimensionless blip until awareness must be.

-Will

OK that's well put. Like I said to Asbo these kind of topics make me emotional and sometimes I go all over the place

Ooh found a video that should go in here about life after death

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[Asbo Zaprudder]

I honestly don't see the difference (the horror or the hope) between a universe with meaning or a universe with no meaning. If we take a cosmos created and controlled by God, God gives the universe meaning, which takes it out of our hands, and dictates our "goals". If we take a cosmos that simply is (chance or physics), we get the freedom to provide our own meaning. If we live in a cosmos of the imagination only... well, her we are, the creators and controllers with every option availing to us.

In all three cases, consciousness has evolved. I am the only consciousness I can be aware of at a visceral level. I can prove, empirically that others have consciousness by simply asking them and making one-to- one comparisons between my state of being and theirs, but I still can't "know". Therefore, since I am the only "real" consciousness, reincarnation has to be true. The existence of everything depends upon it. Or, I never die, which is less likely in the universe as I have come to know it.

Non-existence leads to consciousness because we're here. All eternity of nothing is only a single dimensionless blip until awareness must be.

-Will

Time must exist for non-existence to lead to consciousness. If one removes time as fundamental and makes it emergent, that also removes agency. However, let's take a step back from my preferred view.

What are the dimensions of the possibilities?

• Consciousness (or mental states that enable perception) is either fundamental or emergent.
  • Many paths of consciousness (minds) are either possible or impossible.
• Perceived external reality (space, time, energy and matter) is either fundamental or emergent.
  • Many worlds (of the various kinds) are either possible or impossible.

Free will would consist of the ability to choose freely between paths in the realm of consciousness and/or perceived external reality. However, it might be simply an illusion. As I've mentioned previously, the block universe implies that free will is an illusion and this is also suggested by neurological experiments. Even if one invokes quantum effects as a source of randomness, we have no control over those. See the videos by Sabine Hossenfelder for a more in-depth analysis of why free will is probably an illusion.

An individual conscious mind finds itself following a path through spacetime, but I see no way to determine for certain that it could choose to follow any other path. If all possible paths are taken, it seems more parsimonious for there to be many possible mental states than many possible worlds with minds, but that criterion might well be inapplicable if one is dealing with fundamental abstractions. Everything that is possible might indeed occur in some timeless realm. Whether it can be indexed - given coordinates or assigned a unique number - is perhaps a pointless question given that such a basal realm would be inaccessible to its contents.

Feel free to ignore, demolish or embellish my ramblings. This is all metaphysics at the moment and might well (or should) remain so.

Would that one could erase and rewind:

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[Will The Serious]

Time must exist for non-existence to lead to consciousness. If one removes time as fundamental and makes it emergent, that also removes agency.

From the frame of the perceiver, the absence of perception is the absence of everything. It does not matter that the universe goes on without consciousness, or not. For the conscious perceiver, there is no passage of time, when consciousness ceases to perceive.

Considering that I am unaware of my state of being at the "Big Bang" (The beginning of the Universe, and the start of that first quantifiable moment), I can only know about the existence of time before me through a constructed/reconstructed model (i.e.: mathematics). My understanding of the vastness of the time since that first moment, tells me it is actually very quantifiable, even falsifiable, depending on our definition of the "beginning".

Logic tells me that that couldn't actually be the beginning of something so enormous, something so vast, so incomprehensible, as All Existence, so our mathematics is inadequate or our definitions, based upon some concept of the infinite, is misleading.

In all cases, the actual time in which existence has been, is just a flash, maybe not without dimension, but from a relative perspective, it can't be nearly so large as non-existence, except that non-existence is dimensionless.

For reincarnation, who to say that each incarnation of a life is time sequential, or even within the same universal framework?

Of those who believe in reincarnation, only a tiny handful claim to remember their past lives. Maybe they are right, but that only suggests that everyone has experienced a past life that happened in the past. Maybe, for most of us, our past existence has been in the future, another present loci, or in another universe completely; which could explain why we don't remember our past lives. The loss of sequence renders our memories null.

-Will