I've always had this feeling that the universe started out much simpler than it is today. Of course physically it was, for example galaxies looked different, but I mean all the way down to fundamental things like the laws of physics or the strength of gravity. Perhaps nature started out with very simple rules and had some fractal way of figuring out what works and doesn't work and began finely tuning things. It's hard for me to imagine something as complex as the universe starting out the way it is now. It's such a great success. It seems like if you changed even subtle things the universe could fall apart.
Here is an interesting article about how the universe is growing similar to a brain.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/11/27/physicists-universe-giant-brain_n_2196346.htmlA brain changes physically as it learns. Could the universe be doing something similar?
I think that this would have some very profound consequences.
As you look back in time, it seems like we always thought we were close to figuring this universe out, but then it turns out a little more complex than we thought. Always appearing to be just out of reach when really we knew so little.
It's as if answers yield questions.
If you assume this is true, it leads to a very important consequence that I absolutely hated at first glance.
Man has always been trying to find some beautiful theory of everything that could predict the results of any experiment and explain all natural phenomenon. But if what you are trying to explain is dynamic and dependent on what you know, you could be on a wild goose chase. This is something that could be difficult to accept by anyone with a scientific mind. At first glance it makes it sound as if science would have no purpose.
This reminds me of the proposal of irrational numbers. I've read that people would be killed just for saying a number's value is infinite. It's a curve ball that people didn't want to accept.
But a "theory of everything" could very well still exist in such a universe, and science would be useful as ever. What if you could mathematically show that the complexity of reality increases indefinitely? What if seeing the big picture is knowing that the picture frame's bounds are infinite?
We might discover some beautiful way of uniting quantum physics and relativity, but with that new information realize that the grand design is still a step ahead of us. Maybe we just aren't meant to know the answers to everything.
"If our brains were simple enough for us to understand them, we'd be so simple that we couldn't" - Ian Stewart
Trying to understand the universe could be like trying to understand our brains. It seems to me that it would be a paradox to fully understand your brain, because your brain has become something different every time you know something new. How can one understand that which is doing the understanding? This idea relates directly to us trying to understand the universe.
The article talks about how other systems grow in the same way, such as the internet. What if the internet wanted to understand itself? The more the internet was aware of, the more there would be on the internet.
This also relates to ideas I've heard about how space is finite but unbounded, or some quantum related theories about how things don't yet exist until they are discovered, or that the act of looking for something is what creates something for us to see.
If space and the universe as a whole are "finite but unbounded", would that mean that we always know everything until we question it further, and that the universe is as big as we think it is until we take another step?
Could the highest number ever mentioned in human history be the highest number there is, until we add one more on to it?
I think buried somewhere in here could be an explanation of how we could have free will but be in a universe with exact outcomes for any given situation. It's always been troubling for me to understand if there is free will. It seems like there are two choices. Either the universe allows for randomness and there is free will, or everything is a "set in stone" cause and effect chain reaction. I've always agreed with Einstein's reasoning that "god does not play dice", but equally feel that there is free will. Perhaps a dynamic playing field would allow for something like this.
This idea has always fascinated me and I'd like to see if anyone else has any ideas on this.