The phenomenon and the explanation

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

For anyone that wants to do sciency stuff, consider the above in regards to Penrose's CCC. Once you lose scalars, i.e mass, time and space become meaningless. So how can information pass from one aeon to the next? The next aeon would appear to emerge from nothing.

IIRC, Penrose suggested that black holes could leave some effects on the next cycle, but I don't remember the details.

 

[Astrid]

My apologies if I don't communicate clearly. If you're not following and you're interested in what I'm talking about, please ask for clarification or simplification - most things can be simplified or rephrased to make them clearer.

I know I can be a bit wordy, and it's difficult to know what level to pitch an explanation at when the forum readers vary from having no scientific or philosophical background at all to having good knowledge and understanding of both.

I doubt I'm smarter than you or anyone else on the forums - there are several posters that often leave me floundering, but, like them, I have particular interests that I focus on, but having some knowledge or understanding of particular subjects doesn't necessarily mean you're smarter...

I leave people floundering but it is my unconventional
use of English not a surfeit of erudition.

 

[partinobodycular]

I leave people floundering but it is my unconventional
use of English not a surfeit of erudition.

My personal communicative style stems from a complete lack of formal education. Ninth grade, that's it. So I struggle with just about anything beyond that level. But it's taught me that you really have to make an effort to understand where a person is coming from, and not simply dismiss them as a nutjob. And sometimes that's really, really hard to do.

 

[partinobodycular]

IIRC, Penrose suggested that black holes could leave some effects on the next cycle, but I don't remember the details.

That part I get. It's when you try to visualize the period between the two aeons that I begin to scratch my head. Once you lose scale, it would seem as though what you have left should be completely uniform, homogeneous, spaceless, and timeless. Yet somehow information transfers from one aeon to the next. But how, when it seems as if the slate should've been completely wiped clean? There would seem to be no way of differentiating one point from another point. In fact you wouldn't even have points. So how is this interim period maintaining information?

The only way that I can think of is if the transition from one aeon to the next isn't completely uniform across the entire universe, and that black holes, being isolated, somehow survive ever so slightly longer. But that's just pure speculation on my part. I have no idea what the theory says, what the math says, or if this is simply nonsense. It's purely a guess.

I like Penrose's idea, I just don't see how information can survive from one aeon to the next. In fact I like the idea of information not surviving from one aeon to the next, because then I can do things with these universes that I can't do if they're linear.

See, this is an example of my communicative style. It's Nutjub 101. But somewhere in there, my mind is actually attempting to make sense. You're just going to have to work really, really hard to find it.

 

[Tinker Grey]

Don't sell yourself short.

See, this is an example of my communicative style. It's Nutjub 101. But somewhere in there, my mind is actually attempting to make sense. You're just going to have to work really, really hard to find it.

 

[Astrid]

My personal communicative style stems from a complete lack of formal education. Ninth grade, that's it. So I struggle with just about anything beyond that level. But it's taught me that you really have to make an effort to understand where a person is coming from, and not simply dismiss them as a nutjob. And sometimes that's really, really hard to do.

Good for you, too bad more, such as myself are not like you.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I leave people floundering but it is my unconventional
use of English not a surfeit of erudition.

'A surfeit of erudition' - nicely put!

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

My personal communicative style stems from a complete lack of formal education. Ninth grade, that's it. So I struggle with just about anything beyond that level. But it's taught me that you really have to make an effort to understand where a person is coming from, and not simply dismiss them as a nutjob. And sometimes that's really, really hard to do.

My dad used to say that to really understand someone, you need to be able to see things from their point of view - and that's rarely easy...

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

That part I get. It's when you try to visualize the period between the two aeons that I begin to scratch my head. Once you lose scale, it would seem as though what you have left should be completely uniform, homogeneous, spaceless, and timeless. Yet somehow information transfers from one aeon to the next. But how, when it seems as if the slate should've been completely wiped clean? There would seem to be no way of differentiating one point from another point. In fact you wouldn't even have points. So how is this interim period maintaining information?

The only way that I can think of is if the transition from one aeon to the next isn't completely uniform across the entire universe, and that black holes, being isolated, somehow survive ever so slightly longer. But that's just pure speculation on my part. I have no idea what the theory says, what the math says, or if this is simply nonsense. It's purely a guess.

Yes, I have the same issue - I don't think you can lose scale until the black holes have evaporated and everything has equilibrated, in which case there can't be any useful information(?).

I like Penrose's idea, I just don't see how information can survive from one aeon to the next.

Yes, me too; it's a clever idea, and I expect that Penrose has some mathematics behind it, but it does feel just a bit like... cheating.

See, this is an example of my communicative style. It's Nutjub 101. But somewhere in there, my mind is actually attempting to make sense. You're just going to have to work really, really hard to find it.

It makes sense to me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Eloy Craft]

Not if we use your definition of eternal, as unchanging. Which means that anything that doesn't change, doesn't experience the passage of time. So there would be no such thing as "before" it change

I'm using it as it is meant to be used. Where did you find your definition? YOUR use of it is meaningless since you don't accept a realm without duration beginning and end. That's eternity. Not an infinite duration which wouldn't be another realm at all but an extension of this one.

 

[sjastro]

The trouble with Penrose’s CCC is that it is an example of a mathematical universe which he has tried to convert into a physical universe model.
The only mathematical universe which has made this transition is the de Sitter universe which ironically models BB cosmology just after the Big Bang and into the very distant future.

The major issue with CCC is the second law of thermodynamics.
The CCC model postulates the structure of our universe at its birth and in its very distant future is similar with a spacelike structure at both extremes.
In a spacelike region there is no temporal ordering of events.
The “ends” of the universe is like ordinary 3D space at a given instant of time.
They may however have infinite curvatures – a spacelike singularity or alternatively be smooth.
While the scale of the universe at the start and very distant future is vastly different the ‘shape’ or geometry is the same which forms the basis for conformal geometry.

Penrose’s idea is one aeon succeeds another at a spacelike “crossover”, at which both universes’ conformal geometries but not their scales match.
The process can be repeated eternally.

The problem with the second law of thermodynamics is the incredibly smooth conformal geometry at the Big Bang corresponds to very high order and extraordinarily low entropy.
How did this order got there is Penrose’s conundrum.
Another serious difficulty is that it relies heavily on all particle masses, including that of the electron, becoming exactly zero in the very distant future which is not a popular idea amongst particle physicists.
The biggest difficulty is even if the shapes of the aeons match, how does the transition from an infinitely large scale before crossover to an infinitely small scale after crossover occur?
This is has not been resolved.

 

[partinobodycular]

Yes, I have the same issue - I don't think you can lose scale until the black holes have evaporated and everything has equilibrated, in which case there can't be any useful information(?).

That was my first impression, but then I thought about it for a while, and I realized that we're talking about a period immediately after the last remnants of mass, (these supermassive black holes) have collided, and their mass has supposedly had time to evaporate. So what we're left with is the imprint of the gravitational waves from those collisions. What type of time frame we're talking about I don't know. But at this point the universe must be massive, so even traveling at the speed of light those gravitational waves may still be detectable even many trillions of years later, after the masses that created them have evaporated.

So I could imagine that the imprint of those gravitational waves could survive the transition from one aeon to the next.

But I don't really like that idea. Because that would mean that I could align those aeons linearly, one after the other, infinitely into the past. And that's a problem for me. Because no matter how many possible iterations of the universe there are, (and there would be many) each of them would have to occur an infinite number of times.

So I would rather not align them linearly, I would rather stack them.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

... something first gives rise to physical reality, and then that physical reality gives rise to consciousness. A two step process.

But is that initial physical step really necessary? What if consciousness simply emerges on it's own?

Emerges from what?

All the evidence we have suggests that consciousness is the result of a particular mode of brain function, a set of processes, and that it's a result of evolution. IOW it's dependent on and supervenes on the physical brain. What compelling reason do you have to dismiss the evidence we do have in favour of something that contradicts it?

I would question the idea that they conflict, because I would maintain that the rules that govern an internally created reality must be identical to the rules that govern an externally created reality.

It's true that the rules that govern the mechanism that creates our internal reality (i.e. the brain) are those of external reality, but the result of that creative process are rules we devise to govern the internally created reality itself; i.e. attempts to describe how the external reality behaves. The history of ideas shows that the rules we create are constantly being refined or replaced by more accurate descriptions.

Conflicts generally arise when people get the misconception that consciousness "creates" reality. It doesn't, it's simply an effect that's simultaneously manifested as physical reality.

Yes; there are generally two ways 'consciousness creates reality' is meant. One is 'consciousness creates our internal reality', the other is 'consciousness creates external reality'. Both are wrong; the first is better put as 'consciousness experiences our internal reality' (which is created by unconscious processes); the second is typically based on a misunderstanding of measurement in quantum mechanics.

So the question is, which is easier to create, physical reality, i.e actual physical stuff, or simply the illusion of actual physical stuff? Both follow the exact same rules, and would look exactly the same, but which is easier to create?

That's a question we can't answer without evidence. The evidence we have is roughly as I described above.

So your scenario appears to be that consciousness arises from unknown non-physical origins and produces two different realities, an initially unknown 'external' reality, full of surprises and of seemingly unlimited scope, and a limited 'internal' reality that is a clumsy approximation of the other as we reveal it to ourselves. Also, this external reality is constructed to give the impression of a developing universe in which consciousness evolved in the most sophisticated creatures...

Alternatively, external reality is independent of consciousness and consciousness did evolve and create its own internal reality based on interpreting what it observed of external reality.

The criteria for arguing to the best explanation would suggest, all else being equal, that we prefer the simplest explanation and the one that raises the fewest questions, particularly unanswerable questions. I suggest that is the second explanation.

One tricky question the first explanation raises is, why, if consciousness created or creates external reality, does it so often come as a complete surprise? How could we create something consistent and coherent without knowing we were doing it? - and wouldn't that mean we were unconscious of doing so?

 

[Eloy Craft]

So yes, there could be an unchanging God, but is such a God necessary, or even logical? I don't think so, and until I see some sort of argument to the contrary, that would seem to be the most reasonable conclusion.

Is there any thing that exists that didn't exist as potential in the first cause? What potential can be in the first cause? Isn't change potential converted to act?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

That was my first impression, but then I thought about it for a while, and I realized that we're talking about a period immediately after the last remnants of mass, (these supermassive black holes) have collided, and their mass has supposedly had time to evaporate. So what we're left with is the imprint of the gravitational waves from those collisions. What type of time frame we're talking about I don't know. But at this point the universe must be massive, so even traveling at the speed of light those gravitational waves may still be detectable even many trillions of years later, after the masses that created them have evaporated.

So I could imagine that the imprint of those gravitational waves could survive the transition from one aeon to the next.

But those gravitational waves have energy and scale, and they gravitate in their own right, so while they're around, the universe isn't scale-free or in equilibrium.

But I don't really like that idea. Because that would mean that I could align those aeons linearly, one after the other, infinitely into the past. And that's a problem for me. Because no matter how many possible iterations of the universe there are, (and there would be many) each of them would have to occur an infinite number of times.

Why is that a problem?

So I would rather not align them linearly, I would rather stack them.

How would that work? the process Penrose describes is sequential.

If by 'stacking', you mean a multiverse, that's fine, but it's not what Penrose's idea is about.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I'm using it as it is meant to be used. Where did you find your definition? YOUR use of it is meaningless since you don't accept a realm without duration beginning and end. That's eternity. Not an infinite duration which wouldn't be another realm at all but an extension of this one.

There are two meanings for eternity, one is the common definition you'll find in most dictionaries, involving time without end, infinite time, or infinite duration. The other is a philosophical religious definition (a special pleading for God) that involves timelessness, atemporality, and/or being 'outside' time, whatever that means. It's open to various criticisms of inconsistency or incoherence.

 

[SelfSim]

One tricky question the first explanation raises is, why, if consciousness created or creates external reality, does it so often come as a complete surprise?

The consciousness conceiving the 'external' reality is unaware of its own capacity of conceiving its own models. (Who said 'self aware' is absolute anyway?)
What we have is a conscious mind exploring itself .. nothing more. (Which isn't so 'tricky' after all).
There is no objective test for the existence of some 'external' conscious-mind independent reality.

How could we create something consistent and coherent without knowing we were doing it? - and wouldn't that mean we were unconscious of doing so?

The consistencies we perceive and share amongst ourselves (via language) are consistent with us all sharing a common mind type and thus share in-common meanings within those descriptions for describing reality.

To argue that the noted consistencies of so-called 'external' reality as being evidence for the existence of a conscious-mind independent reality, is tantamount to denying the evidence of different instances of human minds perceiving things differently, and amounts to exclusionism on the basis that those who don't see things the way you'd hoped for, aren't human.

 

[SelfSim]

The other is a philosophical religious definition (a special pleading for God) that involves timelessness, atemporality, and/or being 'outside' time, whatever that means. It's open to various criticisms of inconsistency or incoherence.

How any human could actually function without the human concept of time, (yes .. a scalar), would be 'a first'! Just describing what they mean by timelessness, invariably requires invoking the time concept.

Anyone propagating that notion, is likely either deceiving themselves, or us, or is involved in the creation of sci-fi fantasies, or is in need of serious psychological counselling.

 

[partinobodycular]

Emerges from what?

Now there's the $64,000 question. And unless you're willing to go with the ever popular "God did it", than it's a question I can't answer for ya. I can speculate like crazy though. That I'm good at, but I recommend keeping plenty of salt handy.

All the evidence we have suggests that consciousness is the result of a particular mode of brain function, a set of processes, and that it's a result of evolution.

Yup, perfectly logical. But I could simply attribute this to the anthropic principle. Consciousness will always exist in a reality that's perfectly logical, whether that reality is external or simply an illusion, because consciousness couldn't exist anywhere else. So reality will always be coherent.

What compelling reason do you have to dismiss the evidence we do have in favour of something that contradicts it?

This is a situation in which I don't have a compelling reason. But the question is...is it possible that I'm right? If so, then my next task is to figure out how to prove that I'm right, or just as acceptable, how to prove that I'm wrong.

Any ideas?

The history of ideas shows that the rules we create are constantly being refined or replaced by more accurate descriptions.

But as the above quote points out, these rules are descriptive not prescriptive. I should perhaps reiterate, that I don't think that consciousness can actively create reality. I think that while consciousness and its accompanying illusion are inseparable, the former can't "create" the latter. The latter is simply a self evolvng illusion, governed by the Principle of Sufficient Reason, for everything, there will always be a coherent explanation. The anthropic principle will always guarantee that the illusion will remain coherent.

Again, the illusion of an external reality would be governed by the exact same rules that govern an actual external reality. Thus they will inevitably look the same. (Well maybe)

One tricky question the first explanation raises is, why, if consciousness created or creates external reality, does it so often come as a complete surprise? How could we create something consistent and coherent without knowing we were doing it?

To further repeat myself, consciousness doesn't create reality. Reality is simply a self evolving illusion. But that illusion must adhere to certain rules. Basically, it must remain coherent and consistent, because if it doesn't then it violates the anthropic principle and consciousness couldn't exist. So just as consciousness isn't in charge of creating the illusion, it's not in charge of keeping it coherent either. What consciousness expects to see doesn't matter, because it's not in charge.

It's simply the anthropic principle that guarantees that the illusion will always remain coherent.

 

[SelfSim]

To further repeat myself, consciousness doesn't create reality.

Oh yeah? Whatever you mean by the term 'reality', can be shown, via objective testing, as requiring a conscious mind .. so there .. and no need for mentioning 'creating' reality.

There is no objective test you can cite however, which would demonstrate that 'reality' thing there existing independently of a conscious, healthy, human mind.