What if the forum was a D&D campaign?

[Smitty-48]

How long till the next one?

I can't remember exactly, billions of years though, I wouldn't hold your breath.

So, essentially our entire universe gets destroyed and then slowly reassembled, but into something completely unrecognizable to us over and over again? I may be understanding this wrong.

No, our universe continues to fly apart, until it flies apart into almost nothing, all the atoms just dissipate by the time light slows down, so the next universe just explodes out of the Bulk to replace it. The crunch is higher dimensional, there's nothing left of this universe by the time it happens.

[heydaralon]

No, our universe continues to fly apart, until it flies apart to almost nothing, all the atoms just dissipate by the time light slows down, so the next universe just explodes out of the Bulk to replace it.

But the new universe will be completely different than the old one? I'm not trying to be difficult, I just don't know if I fully get this theory.

[Smitty-48]

No, our universe continues to fly apart, until it flies apart to almost nothing, all the atoms just dissipate by the time light slows down, so the next universe just explodes out of the Bulk to replace it.

But the new universe will be completely different than the old one? I'm not trying to be difficult, I just don't know if I fully get this theory.

Yes, new universe, another four dimensional space-time bubble explodes out of the Bulk, but it's entirely enclosed within itself like this one is, this one simply crunches into nothing at the sub atomic level.

[heydaralon]

No, our universe continues to fly apart, until it flies apart to almost nothing, all the atoms just dissipate by the time light slows down, so the next universe just explodes out of the Bulk to replace it.

But the new universe will be completely different than the old one? I'm not trying to be difficult, I just don't know if I fully get this theory.

Yes, new universe, another four dimensional space-time bubble explodes out of the Bulk, but it's entirely enclosed within itself like this one is, this once simply crunches into nothing at the sub atomic level.

so the new universe might not even have conscious life that would be capable of appreciating or discussing this theory like we are doing right now. Maybe the next one won't even have life at all. Or maybe somehow life is easy to generate when a new universe forms, and it is not as difficult and mysterious as we make it out to be. And this process is indefinite, and has occured indefinitely? I guess its outside of time, based on what you've told me. This is interesting as fuck, but I am quite ignorant of these high minded concepts.

[heydaralon]

the more a theory on the origins of the universe, despite its initial grounding in science is scrutinized, the more it starts looking metaphysical. This theory reminds me of creation myths that early man had. Out of all the theories you listed, which one in your opinion is most plausible?

[Smitty-48]

Given the sheer scale of the universe, something like Homo Sapiens Sapiens doesn't seem that unlikely, they might not be anywhere close to us, but with this much space-time, there could be trillions of planets like earth with time enough for a species to evolve to the point of conceiving of mathematics.

Mathematics is there, they just have to figure it out, and when you're talking billions upon billions of galaxies? That probably comes up more than a few times. Most aliens are probably bacteria, or slugs, or lobsters, but a few of them will be sentient and intelligent, just by probability alone.

[Smitty-48]

Out of all the theories you listed, which one in your opinion is most plausible?

They all seem incomplete to me, but higher dimensionality seems likely to be part of the equation. Mathematics doesn't restrict us to four dimensions, so what it not impossible, becomes probable.

[heydaralon]

Given the sheer scale of the universe, something like Homo Sapiens Sapiens doesn't seem that unlikely, they might not be anywhere close to us, but with this much space-time, there could be trillions of planets like earth with time enough for a species to evolve to the point of conceiving of mathematics.

I've thought about that, its kind of like that Borges short story The Library of Babel, or Nietzche's Eternal Recurrence theory (Borges actually wrote an essay refuting this theory that was pretty damn interesting).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel

The thing is, its the same problem as the Fermi (or however the hell you spell it) Paradox.

We don't know how probable human life or consciousness in the human sense is, because we haven't observed life anywhere else. We haven't even observed bacteria outside of Earth. This isn't that surprising, because we have basically explored about 0% of the Universe, but maybe we are the only part of it that has life at all and we are exceptionally lucky. Not to mention, natural selection and evolution does not have a point. We arrived here, if the prevailing wisdom is to be believed, through a series of chance occurences like other species that could eat us going extinct, meteors hitting at the right time etc. Consciousness is a huge energy drain, so from a gene passing standpoint, it can be a double edged sword. We act like appreciating art and shit is the high point for evolution, but maybe in the longterm trilobytes were better at passing on genes (they survived for hundreds of millions of years I think). Idk, it frustrates me that I will die before we even scratch the surface on answering these questions.

[Smitty-48]

Again, given the scale of the universe, those series of chance occurrences which led to us, become a mathematical assurance, at that scale, what is improbable, becomes exponentially probable. One in a hundred billion chance? That's all happening all the time, at the scale of the universe. Trillions of galaxies x billions of suns x planets.

[heydaralon]

Again, given the scale of the universe, those series of chance occurrences which led to us, become a mathematical assurance, at that scale, what is improbable, becomes exponentially probable.

Maybe. If we could identify what those conditions are and how probable they are, I would be more inclined to agree with you.

I hope you are right. Well, actually I'm ambivalent.

If there are a bunch of highly conscious civilizations across the universe, that sorts of makes us less impressive and important right? Our value goes down overnight.

Do you put any stock into Nick Bostrom Simulation theory? There are scientists that are probably three to four standard deviations away from me in IQ who are adamant that our entire universe is a computer simulation and that mathematical constants we see throughout the universe are evidence of a sort of computer code. They insist this has to be the case. If that's true, how do these scientists think the universe that created our simulation came about? Is it a series of simulations all the way down? This is weird as hell. The idea that the stability of our universe shows a sort of cosmic computer code seems a bit specious too, because that implies that the universe that created the simulation would not have mathematic constants and stuff right? If that is the case, how could it be stable enough to not only support conscious life but be able to run a computer simulation of our entire universe? A lot of this Simulation theory ends up looking a lot like Intelligent Design by another name lol.