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Interesting read, but even if we assume the author is correct, and the cosmos formed as a black hole in a larger universe, the question remains, how did this la
by afarah1 1y ago
Interesting read, but even if we assume the author is correct, and the cosmos formed as a black hole in a larger universe, the question remains, how did this larger universe formed, then? Might just be impossible to know.
- paleotrope 1y agoA larger black hole
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- alkonaut 1y agoIt’s turtles all the way down
- onlyrealcuzzo 1y agoBlack holes all the way up.
- kgwxd 1y agoif we assume the author is correct, it would cease to be a scientific endeavor.
- analog31 1y agoI'd put it a bit differently, that it remains a scientific endeavor, but leaves us in the same predicament as we're in now, which is the difficult work of forming a scientific theory that can only be tested indirectly.
- timewizard 1y agoIt may just be that the physical conditions of our universe just prior to the big bang are indistinguishable from that of the interior of black holes. In that sense black holes are areas where our universe has reverted from it's low entropy state all the way back to the initial nearly infinite entropy state.
- mewpmewp2 1y agoBut who would be as cruel to put us here without giving us those answers? Who? And where did that entity come from?
- mrbungie 1y agoMaybe there was no cruelty, and we were just plain matter that fell into our encapsulating black hole. Like what happenswith our own universes black holes.
- amelius 1y agoThere is no other entity. We're nothing. An algebra of nothing. Combine nothing with nothing in various ways (like S-terms) and it gives you physics, among many other things. From the inside we see a universe, from the outside you would see nothing.
- mewpmewp2 1y agoAs an agnostic I agree, but none the less it is a whole, absurd joke to be here without any answers and I demand someone to answer me.
- largbae 1y agoWe apologize for the inconvenience.
- mewpmewp2 1y agoThis needs to be escalated. Who is your manager?
- mindcrime 1y agoYou are Number 6.
- ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
- johnwheeler 1y agoMy theory: There's no such thing as before and after “it”. It is it.
- ckdot 1y agoBlock Universe. The more you think about it, the more probable it seems. Why should a universe pass time like a movie, if all moments could exist simultaneously? If there is no time, and it’s just a simulation formed in our brain, there doesn’t have to be a beginning nor end.
- ndsipa_pomu 1y agoHowever, a complete lack of time doesn't fit with our observations and we can measure relativistic effects where time gets distorted (e.g. fast moving particles that last much longer than you'd expect due to relativity)
- jiggawatts 1y agoGR is compatible with a block universe. If anything, the relativity of simultaneity strongly suggests that we live in a block universe!
- ttctciyf 1y agoWhat about "bit"? Doesn't that come before "it", Mr Wheeler? :)
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- anal_reactor 1y agoI feel like quantum physics is gently pointing us towards the idea "everything you can imagine is real at once". As in, all possible universes and physics systems and whatnot do exist in some sense of this word, and we happen to inhabit one. Just like Earth is a totally unremarkable planet in a totally unremarkable solar system in a totally unremarkable galaxy, except we popped up here so for a long time we thought there's something deeply special about Earth.
- layer8 1y agoQuantum mechanics doesn't imply at all that everything possible is actual. That is a misconception. I do agree that it makes sense, but not because of what quantum mechanics says.
- anal_reactor 1y agoYes, it doesn't imply, but parallel universes is one of possible interpretations.
- layer8 1y agoIf you are referring to the many-worlds interpretation, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. There is no implication in many-worlds that every conceivable world exists as a branch of the actual wave function. See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44253344 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44253344.
- notfed 1y agoI fail to see how this doesn't lead to "every possible world". Maybe some edge cases are ruled out, but it seems to imply every possible world as far as what that means to the imagination.
- layer8 1y agoIt is constrained by whatever you take as the initial conditions. The quantum state of the universe is a specific and precise thing, as well as how it evolves over time. It can be taken as a vector in Hilbert space that evolves according to the Schrödinger equation. There is no implication that the resulting path will have it visit every point in Hilbert space, or that the slices of the wave function that represent individual “worlds” somehow cover all worlds present in the unvisited points.
- layer8 1y agoMaybe the larger universe is identical to the contained universe, like a fractal. That would solve the question. ;)
- teaearlgraycold 1y agoWould be fun if we find a function f(state, time) such that for f(singularity, 14 billion years) we get our current universe. i.e.: every singularity turns into our exact universe.
- unsupp0rted 1y agoImplying there’s no such thing as randomness, at any level?
- teaearlgraycold 1y agoNo randomness when taking everything into account. I’m not an expert but I still hold out hope that if you know more about the universe than humanity does everything will be known to be deterministic. Also implies that all singularities of the same mass are identical. I think this should be less bold of a statement. Let’s speculate that the more mass in the singularity would correspond to higher iterations in something like the Mandelbrot set. More of a resolution enhancement. More if a scifi prompt than anything else to be fair.
- unsupp0rted 1y agoThat would mean that beings getting to know everything about the universe at some point and realizing it's deterministic was always pre-determined
- tiltowait 1y agoWhile I doubt you’re unique in this, I think this is the first time I’ve seen someone say they hope there’s no such thing as free will. Can you explain why you hope everything is deterministic?
- postalrat 1y agoThat's a very 3D way to think of a universe.
- dboreham 1y agoIt's just recursion in the simulator.
- conradev 1y agoThis theory is in the same space: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_natural_selection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_natural_selection I don’t think it has a hypothesis for the origin, though
- phatskat 1y agoSee also the recent HN discussion about Blowtorch Theory, which has roots in (but doesn’t necessitate) CNS
- conradev 1y agobuilding on ten years of earlier research for a book on cosmological natural selection This is awesome, thank you! I’m interested in the general space I loved this overview on our current approaches to measure the expansion: https://youtu.be/WNyY1ZYSzoU https://youtu.be/WNyY1ZYSzoU
- PUSH_AX 1y agoJust casually adding the biggest question its possible to ask
- randomtoast 1y agoQuestions like what was before the big bang or what is outside of our universe seem to be quite natural. However, we still don't know if these questions are well defined and have a proper meaning. For instance, a few hundred years ago, one might have asked, what happens if I go to the edge of the (flat) earth? Or one might ask: What is north of the north pole?
- timonofathens 1y ago> What is north of the north pole? I really like this analogy for "what is outside of our universe", thank you
- aurareturn 1y agoNot really. It’s not what’s outside of our universe. It’s why is there something instead of nothing. It’d be like asking why is there a North Pole? Why is there an Earth to give meaning to a North Pole? Why is there a universe for the Earth to exist? And so on until you inevitably reach why is there something instead of nothing?
- helsinki 1y agoThanks, GPT 4.1. It told me the same thing twelve hours ago when I asked it what was at the top. “what’s north of the North Pole”?
- randomtoast 1y agoIt is well possible that GPT-4.1 references Sean Carroll, either directly or by regurgitation. > One sometimes hears the claim that the Big Bang was the beginning of both time and space; that to ask about spacetime “before the Big Bang” is like asking about land “north of the North Pole.” Source: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/writings/dtung/ https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/writings/dtung/ I'm a regular listener of his Mindscape podcast, and that's where I got this phrase. I can highly recommend his podcast: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/ https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/
- jama211 1y agoIf we wait until we understand everything perfectly before publishing, we’d never publish anything. That question may remain, but so do many others, this paper can’t address them all.