This gives me existential dread
6% of galaxies ought to be enough for anybody. :)
so there's an estimated 200 billion galaxies...still leaves us 12 billion.... I mean how greedy are we?
94% of the universe’s galaxies are permanently beyond our reach
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Re: 94% of the universe’s galaxies are permanently beyond our reach
#32If it's possible for the galaxy to expand faster than light it's likely possible that we can also go faster than light eventually.
Re: 94% of the universe’s galaxies are permanently beyond our reach
#33Re: 94% of the universe’s galaxies are permanently beyond our reach
#34This gives me existential dread
If we phrase it "we're permanently beyond the reach of 94% of potentially malicious alien cultures," does that help?
I wonder if this is one aspect of The Great Filter that keeps aliens from contacting each other. 6% is still a lot to work with but shaving off 19 out of 20 galaxies sure helps explain a lot.
Re: 94% of the universe’s galaxies are permanently beyond our reach
#35if the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light why can't we harness that power and travel that fast?
Re: 94% of the universe’s galaxies are permanently beyond our reach
#36If this fact makes you uneasy just know that 100% of the universe's galaxies, except the one we are currently in, are already unreachable within your lifetime.
If this fact makes you uneasy just know that (nearly) 100% of the galaxy's solar systems except the one we're currently in are (likely) unreachable within your lifetime. Though to be fair, I think the original title can't possibly know this, for instance if we live in a simulation, what's to say that some sort of algorithm (assuming we learn to meta-code our own existence) could put us in any galaxy we choose... Or w…
> except the one we're currently in
You keep repeating that part as if it made any visible difference to the number...
Re: 94% of the universe’s galaxies are permanently beyond our reach
#37Since we can't ever reach most of the universe, that means we'll probably have to simulate it to ever explore it. Which means we're probably being simulated right now. Hm. Let's hope they left `sv_cheats` available.
If we're in a simulation...couldn't we learn to reprogram/hack the sim, and just put our spaceships in another galaxy?
This assumes that we're "truly" sentient, and on top of that, that we have actual free will. Both seem unlikely if things are actually simulated.
Re: 94% of the universe’s galaxies are permanently beyond our reach
#38This gives me existential dread
My point is, the physics also apply to a smaller scale.
According to this image: https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/In-enough-Ti...
When you stand next to somebody and you look at this person, through the expansion of the universe and the amount of time the light needs to travel from the surface of that person, to your eyes; means that when you see this person in the original distance, you do not see that person at the actual distance. It's not possible to share a contemporary timeline with other persons, everything is a few nano seconds delayed, you are existing in everybody else's past.
Of course practically this doesn't matter.
Re: 94% of the universe’s galaxies are permanently beyond our reach
#39If this fact makes you uneasy just know that 100% of the universe's galaxies, except the one we are currently in, are already unreachable within your lifetime.
If this fact makes you uneasy just know that (nearly) 100% of the galaxy's solar systems except the one we're currently in are (likely) unreachable within your lifetime. Though to be fair, I think the original title can't possibly know this, for instance if we live in a simulation, what's to say that some sort of algorithm (assuming we learn to meta-code our own existence) could put us in any galaxy we choose... Or w…
We don’t love in a simulation. Get off the dumb rich guy juice.
Re: 94% of the universe’s galaxies are permanently beyond our reach
#40It's mind blowing to imagine that the observable universe is bigger than 90 billion light years, space-time expanding at multiple times the speed of light. If expansion keeps accelerating, then at some point gravity won't be able to keep the local cluster together and even those galaxies will drift away, then star systems, then planets, then matter itself will be torn apart until atoms and particles and quarks are de…
> Something in my mind tells me that there must be more to it, the careful balance of universal constants that allow for matter and stars and life to exist surely would not allow it all to be destroyed forever in the end...
Keep in mind that we don't really understand this stuff.
"Dark matter" isn't a weird phase of matter, it's the name of the Keleven inserted because our observations of the universe don't match up with the theory. Ditto "dark energy."
The expansion of the universe is accelerating and we don't know why. If we don't know why, we don't know it isn't going to stop tomorrow, or reverse, or happen differently based on where you are in the universe. The things we've already observed about relativity and quantum mechanics are very counter-intuitive.
But at the same time, "I don't want it to" doesn't mean it's not going to happen. The arrow of time goes in one direction. We don't know how it ends until we get there.