141–150 of 248 posts
Either we're in a simulation or the universe is infinite and has always existed. Eventually the science will catch up. Eternal Inflation is a similar idea, but suggests greater spacing between universes allowing for independent physics to develop. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_inflation
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I guess an easy idea to escape this is that it's a cycle of events that repeat forever. For example, imagine the sequence of events `A, B, C`. After `C`, imagine that the cycle repeats with the beginning of `A` again, ad infinitum.
But what got the cycle going in the first place?
IANAP - why are these ideas so controversial? The article seems to suggest he has some (potentially) supporting evidence, and I don't have an intuition for how damning the counter-argument is ("This would necessitate making all particles lose mass as the universe gets old." Again, IANAP and physics can get weird).
Since I haven’t seen anyone else mention this bit of context elsewhere in the thread: Penrose gets a bit of side-eye in the physics community because of his metaphysical beliefs on consciousness. (Specifically, that quantum effects in tubule proteins of the brain produce special nondeterministic effects that constitute our conscious essence, and true consciousness is impossible without this nondeterministic fount of…
Isn't this what most of science was built upon - Is he right or wrong? Sometimes a need for minds who can push ideas into scientific thinking.
If that wasn't the case, then we might not even have Quantum Physics as it is today...
Unlike medical cranks out there, Penrose has (far as I've seen) never said anything of this is definitive - only that there is the potential in his theory that Orch-OR is the likely seat of conciousness.
Shouldn't the real question be " if we can reverse entropy somehow, shouldn't it be testable and what would that test look like?"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another user in this thread mentioned it and it's described in the wikipedia article about crazy nobel laureates linked elsewhere here. Basically, Pauling believed high doses of vitamin C could prolong the lives of cancer patients and cure schizophrenia, despite being out of his field of expertise and lack of evidence.
But Penrose's field of expertise is Cosmology. So I don't think I get the analogy? I understand that this is a speculation because it is very hard to collect evidence for that claim but it is still within the wide umbrella of what Penrose devoted his career.
Then how did the first one came about? What was there before it, pls don’t tell me nothing because it was nothing for a long time and then something must have triggered the first one. Or was there no first one because of infinity?
That it understands any part of it at all is already more than can be expected from mere matter.
And that something does not make sense to the human mind doesn't mean that it can not be.
IANAP - why are these ideas so controversial? The article seems to suggest he has some (potentially) supporting evidence, and I don't have an intuition for how damning the counter-argument is ("This would necessitate making all particles lose mass as the universe gets old." Again, IANAP and physics can get weird).
Since I haven’t seen anyone else mention this bit of context elsewhere in the thread: Penrose gets a bit of side-eye in the physics community because of his metaphysical beliefs on consciousness. (Specifically, that quantum effects in tubule proteins of the brain produce special nondeterministic effects that constitute our conscious essence, and true consciousness is impossible without this nondeterministic fount of…
Sapolski's take on determinism was really a low blow for me, and I've since seen several other intellectuals I respect very highly espouse similar views, and there was a point where I would have agreed in my adolescence, but I've since then developed away from that course of thinking. I often wonder if it's a rationalization which is necessary for the framework of the theory of everything to be coherent.
I think the tone of the article is a bit too judgmental. He himself called it a 'crazy theory'. I took it to be a pet theory he thinks is interesting, personally would like to believe in, but knows he can't prove. We've all got some of those, there's room to talk about them without being called a crank.
I've always liked the theory that every black hole has a white hole on the other "side" that spews out a universe from the information it collects. And the original black/white hole? Well, something something quantum fluctuation something out of nothing.
But that's my own imagination
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the problem is epistemology, not aesthetics. why are you comfortable believing in things that are nonfalsifiable? that you find them comforting is not much of an argument.
- humans have value - life is worth living - doing the right thing matters All are unfalsifiable. I am deeply skeptical of anyone who claims to not believe unfalsifiable things.
I do think society works better if we assume these things to be rules (to a degree) and as a member of society I act (and benefit) accordingly, but objectively it doesn't matter at all. The beliefs you mention are a lot like belief in 'free will' in that regard, a convenient fiction.