Random Thoughts

Resha Caner · Jan 26, 2019

Any random musings about science you want to share? I have some from time to time - stuff I know will never gain widespread acceptance - never be seriously investigated, but it's fun to speculate nevertheless.

My latest: Why is the universe structured as it is? Some believers ask this question with the hope it will lead unbelievers to God. That's not where my thoughts went this time. Rather, what if the answer is: there is no reason. There is no justification for the physical structure of our universe.

If so, then what if reality is a universe where every possible structure exists. What happens, however, is that material with random laws never coalesces and material with differing laws never interacts ... or interacts destructively, or on rare occasions interacts randomly. We have coalesced here under these laws. Some other collection of material coalesced there under a different set of laws, and yet another collection of material never coalesced at all.

If that's the case, what are the implications? Maybe the idea has already been covered somewhere by someone, but it was a new thought to me.

What are your random, useless thoughts about science?

Monna · Jan 26, 2019

Resha Caner said:
there is no reason. There is no justification for the physical structure of our universe.

Here's a not so random thought...

Colossians 1:15-17 (RSV)

He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

When John wrote 'in the beginning was the Logos ...' he wasn't only referring to the communication (the means and the content) of God, but to the rationale, the purpose, the goal, the reasoning. The creator may have designed a system that to us seems "random" but at both the macro and micro levels, the system is working as He intended it to, and with the purpose that He has. Since His thoughts are farther beyond me than east is from west, I haven't a clue what those purposes are ... but according to Paul, Jesus Christ is central to them.

durangodawood · Jan 26, 2019

Random musing:

What does "nothing" really mean or imply?

No stuff. Not even empty space. No space at all. Nothing

Chesterton · Jan 26, 2019

I think scientists should be thrown in jail. Hear me out.

Think of the amazing ingenuity of prisoners, how they make tattoo instruments out of soap and radios out of coconuts like on Gilligan's Island. Imagine if you could take well-educated high-IQ scientists, lock them up, and tell them "you're not getting out until you do _____". They'd face the same terror, desperation, boredom and nothing-but-time-on-my-hands that prisoners face. I'll bet if we'd been doing that we'd have a colony on Pluto and a cure for everything by now.

Resha Caner · Jan 26, 2019

Monna said:
Here's a not so random thought...

Colossians 1:15-17 (RSV)

He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

When John wrote 'in the beginning was the Logos ...' he wasn't only referring to the communication (the means and the content) of God, but to the rationale, the purpose, the goal, the reasoning. The creator may have designed a system that to us seems "random" but at both the macro and micro levels, the system is working as He intended it to, and with the purpose that He has. Since His thoughts are farther beyond me than east is from west, I haven't a clue what those purposes are ... but according to Paul, Jesus Christ is central to them.

I agree. My purpose was not to deny Christ, but just some fun, random, wandering thoughts. I could extrapolate further from what I posted and pretend to give those random thoughts meaning, but that would be more a travesty than admitting what they were - random.

I don't think this is the case with you, but I know for certain that my bizarre thought processes make some people in my life uncomfortable. If such things shake you loose from your moorings, they are best left alone. For those who remain grounded, it can be fun.

Resha Caner · Jan 26, 2019

durangodawood said:
Random musing:

What does "nothing" really mean or imply?

No stuff. Not even empty space. No space at all. Nothing

Keep going. I for one, don't buy the "nothing means even a lack of empty space" thing. IMO that stretches the meaning of language too close to jaberwocky. But I am one who doesn't think space is a "thing" in the first place, but (when used in a scientific context) is merely a mathematical convenience. Space IS nothing.

But, hey, do your own thing ... or your own nothing.

Resha Caner · Jan 26, 2019

Chesterton said:
I think scientists should be thrown in jail. Hear me out.

Think of the amazing ingenuity of prisoners, how they make tattoo instruments out of soap and radios out of coconuts like on Gilligan's Island. Imagine if you could take well-educated high-IQ scientists, lock them up, and tell them "you're not getting out until you do _____". They'd face the same terror, desperation, boredom and nothing-but-time-on-my-hands that prisoners face. I'll bet if we'd been doing that we'd have a colony on Pluto and a cure for everything by now.

And it would please those who think all scientists promote atheism ... but, you mean scientists only, right? Not engineers. Right?

Chesterton · Jan 26, 2019

Resha Caner said:
And it would please those who think all scientists promote atheism ... but, you mean scientists only, right? Not engineers. Right?

Just today I lost $1.50 to a vending machine that didn't work right. Sorry, engineers are first in line.

Monna · Jan 26, 2019

Resha Caner said:
Rather, what if the answer is: there is no reason. There is no justification for the physical structure of our universe.

If so, then what if reality is a universe where every possible structure exists. What happens, however, is that material with random laws never coalesces and material with differing laws never interacts ... or interacts destructively, or on rare occasions interacts randomly. We have coalesced here under these laws. Some other collection of material coalesced there under a different set of laws, and yet another collection of material never coalesced at all.

If that's the case, what are the implications?

There are two possibilities that I can envisage:
1. There can be no interactions, because the various fundamental laws don't provide for such interactions.
2. All interactions are unpredictable. And then, unless the fundamental laws are spatially bound, areas would definitely/ultimately interact, and for all species and matter in all varieties of structured parts, there would be no predictability.

And the implication of "and yet another collection of material never coalesced at all" is that there is no matter in such a space.

Petros2015 · Jan 26, 2019

The universe is structured pretty strangely at subatomic levels. I'm not sure what's going on there.

I'm really not sure where I am any more.

Monna · Jan 26, 2019

Petros2015 said:
The universe is structured pretty strangely at subatomic levels. I'm not sure what's going on there.

I'm really not sure where I am any more.

You don't have to worry particularly about the universe's subatomic levels ... focus on your own. They are the same as the universe's. And yet you are exactly where you are. Nowhere else.

Or maybe you feel like the stair in A.A.Milne's poem. Halfway up is a stair where I sit ... it isn't at the top and it isn't at the bottom, it's not in the nursery nor in the town. "It isn't really anywhere. It's somewhere else instead."

durangodawood · Jan 26, 2019

Resha Caner said:
Keep going. I for one, don't buy the "nothing means even a lack of empty space" thing. IMO that stretches the meaning of language too close to jaberwocky. But I am one who doesn't think space is a "thing" in the first place, but (when used in a scientific context) is merely a mathematical convenience. Space IS nothing.

But, hey, do your own thing ... or your own nothing.

OK. If space really is nothing but an abstraction we devise, then yeah, nothing is no space too, as that abstraction wouldnt even exist in a mind.

Just.... nothing.

I little weird trying to get your head around "it".

durangodawood · Jan 26, 2019

Chesterton said:
I think scientists should be thrown in jail. Hear me out.

Think of the amazing ingenuity of prisoners, how they make tattoo instruments out of soap and radios out of coconuts like on Gilligan's Island. Imagine if you could take well-educated high-IQ scientists, lock them up, and tell them "you're not getting out until you do _____". They'd face the same terror, desperation, boredom and nothing-but-time-on-my-hands that prisoners face. I'll bet if we'd been doing that we'd have a colony on Pluto and a cure for everything by now.

Yeah prison always gets people excited to work on stuff.

Resha Caner · Jan 26, 2019

Chesterton said:
Just today I lost $1.50 to a vending machine that didn't work right. Sorry, engineers are first in line.

Oh yeah? Then people who use the last names of famous authors for their screen name are second in line. So there! Ha!

Resha Caner · Jan 26, 2019

Monna said:
1. There can be no interactions, because the various fundamental laws don't provide for such interactions.

Yes, that is one possibility.

Monna said:
2. All interactions are unpredictable. And then, unless the fundamental laws are spatially bound, areas would definitely/ultimately interact, and for all species and matter in all varieties of structured parts, there would be no predictability.

This is also a possibility, but only if one considers physical law a characteristic of some container in which the material exists, external to but acting upon the material ... and I think physics has unconsciously adopted this rather Platonist view - though they may deny it.

My idea was more that physical law is a characteristic of each fundamental unit - inherent to itself (whatever that might be). And so, as like fundamental units find each other, they build up into elemental particles, atoms, elements, etc. Those that don't match, don't accumulate. In that way, the random/destructive nature possible in the wide variation of fundamental units would be very rare. Only in a small number of instances would a near-particle be capable of interacting with an elementary particle, causing an atom to disintegrate. And only rarely would that build to an event of any note.

Chesterton · Jan 26, 2019

durangodawood said:
Yeah prison always gets people excited to work on stuff.

Sorry, dude. Didn't mean to trigger you with bad memories.

durangodawood · Jan 27, 2019

Chesterton said:
Sorry, dude. Didn't mean to trigger you with bad memories.

Oh not at all. In prison I wrote a Pulitzer prize winning novel, and figured out cold fusion, and knitted a sweater. But I'm the exception.

FrumiousBandersnatch · Jan 27, 2019

durangodawood said:
Random musing:

What does "nothing" really mean or imply?

No stuff. Not even empty space. No space at all. Nothing

That's an interesting one - there are two subtly different usages of 'nothing', one meaning, 'no thing relevant to this particular context', e.g. "there's nothing in the box...", or "there's nothing to see..."; the other being the concept of negation, meaning the complete absence of anything, e.g. "there's nothing separating two objects that are in contact".

Our tendency to try to reify and visualise nouns to give them 'substance' causes confusion with 'nothing', and our language of existence doesn't help. Consequently, we tend to think of 'nothing' as some kind of spatial void.

So the answer to, "Can there be nothing?" or "Does 'nothing' exist?", can be "Yes" in the contextual sense - there can be 'nothing' (but air) in the box, or "No" in the negatory sense - a box with 'nothing' between its inner sides wouldn't be a box, it would be flattened.

Of course, 'nothing' necessarily exists as a concept.

durangodawood · Jan 27, 2019

FrumiousBandersnatch said:
That's an interesting one - there are two subtly different usages of 'nothing', one meaning, 'no thing relevant to this particular context', e.g. "there's nothing in the box...", or "there's nothing to see..."; the other being the concept of negation, meaning the complete absence of anything, e.g. "there's nothing separating two objects that are in contact".

Our tendency to try to reify and visualise nouns to give them 'substance' causes confusion with 'nothing', and our language of existence doesn't help. Consequently, we tend to think of 'nothing' as some kind of spatial void.

So the answer to, "Can there be nothing?" or "Does 'nothing' exist?", can be "Yes" in the contextual sense - there can be 'nothing' (but air) in the box, or "No" in the negatory sense (a box with nothing between its inner sides wouldn't be a box, it would be flattened).

Of course, 'nothing' necessarily exists as a concept.

Those are good thoughts about the trickiness of the word "nothing". But my musing is about trying to actually imagine the absence of everything, and avoiding making "nothing " into a thing.

FrumiousBandersnatch · Jan 27, 2019

durangodawood said:
Those are good thoughts about the trickiness of the word "nothing". But my musing is about trying to actually imagine the absence of everything, and avoiding making "nothing " into a thing.

I don't think it's possible to imagine the absence of everything because there's nothing to imagine; 'nothing', in that sense, isn't something, isn't anything, it has no existence.

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