26 Feb 13
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Originally posted by finneganI suppose it might be dismaying to contemplate that a Shakespearean sonnet or a symphony by Beethoven may one day become extinct; however, if the quantum mechanical hypothesis which holds that all events that are possible in fact occur in parallel universes turns out to be true, then it stands to reason that the same sonnets and symphonies are being created over and over somewhere out there in other dimensions apart from our own.
Why would that matter to you in any realistic sense whatever?
26 Feb 13
Originally posted by woodypusherI aint letting some Higgs Boson kick my arss !!! I am going to make a shell of Einstein Boson condensate and get in it when all this goes down next month.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57570097/higgs-boson-may-spell-doom-for-the-universe/
😉
26 Feb 13
Originally posted by joe beyserMe, I'll take that condensate and create a shell that protects me from being crushed inside a black hole and drop out of this universe and into another safe from the fate of our old universe.
I aint letting some Higgs Boson kick my arss !!! I am going to make a shell of Einstein Boson condensate and get in it when all this goes down next month.
26 Feb 13
The idea that humanity might evolve in such a way as to outlast the universe seems absurd to me. Just nonsensical.
The belief that Shakespeare's sonnets might be retrieved or recreated in a different universe does nothing for me on any level. I any case, I am not clear that they would have any significance or meaning unless that alternative reality was so identical to this reality that it actually is this reality.
I am impressed that we did evolve to the point where those sonnets were produced and furthermore valued and preserved. Not only that but also Greco's Mate, Anastasia's Mate, Morphy's Mate, ...
This is it - the one brief shot at existing for a group of self aware, conscious beings.
27 Feb 13
Originally posted by finnegan
The idea that humanity might evolve in such a way as to outlast the universe seems absurd to me. Just nonsensical.
The belief that Shakespeare's sonnets might be retrieved or recreated in a different universe does nothing for me on any level. I any case, I am not clear that they would have any significance or meaning unless that alternative reality was ...[text shortened]...
This is it - the one brief shot at existing for a group of self aware, conscious beings.
The idea that humanity might evolve in such a way as to outlast the universe seems absurd to me. Just nonsensical.
To be honest I regard the idea that humanity will still be around in a million years the slightly more fantastical prospect. If we can live with our technology and continue to shape it without destroying ourselves for a thousand millennia, I reckon that nearly anything is possible.
There almost certainly are other universes, so outlasting this universe becomes "merely" a problem of getting out of this spacetime and into another. If we could just transmit our information to another dimension (as opposed to physical bodies), that may prove sufficient.
But yes, it's all idle talk for the foreseeable future.
27 Feb 13
Originally posted by SoothfastOh dear, this is difficult to communicate.The idea that humanity might evolve in such a way as to outlast the universe seems absurd to me. Just nonsensical.
To be honest I regard the idea that humanity will still be around in a million years the slightly more fantastical prospect. If we can live with our technology and continue to shape it without destroying ourselves for a thou ...[text shortened]... odies), that may prove sufficient.
But yes, it's all idle talk for the foreseeable future.
Start with the expected life of this solar system, in which we know our sun will go through a series of changes until it is finally expired. In terms of human life (all human life, not just our's) that will be an unbelievably slow and drawn out process. What would be the point at which some generation of humanity makes a decision that it is time to hop off to another star's planetary system? For any particular generation the timescale will always be a ludicrously lengthy one. Even if you could narrow it down to know this is the start of the final million years, in human terms would that be urgent enough or would our descendents procrastrinate for another generation to deal with it?
After the species hops through a sufficient number of planetary systems and stars, at what point would some future generation make the decision that actually, things are getting a bit hot on this universe, let's hop into another one with better long term prospects? 14 billion years time? 15?
Trying to relate human history and culture in any sense at all to the history of a galaxy or a universe just seems to me an absurd mismatch.
28 Feb 13
Originally posted by finneganYou have a point. But then, if "humanity" is still around in a million years, I reckon it will be as far removed from present-day humanity as we are removed from bacteria. Thus, in a sense, "humanity" will have long since ceased to exist a million years from now even if it doesn't manage to destroy itself.
Oh dear, this is difficult to communicate.
Start with the expected life of this solar system, in which we know our sun will go through a series of changes until it is finally expired. In terms of human life (all human life, not just our's) that will be an unbelievably slow and drawn out process. What would be the point at which some generation of human ...[text shortened]... ny sense at all to the history of a galaxy or a universe just seems to me an absurd mismatch.
Put in a slightly different way, I'd say that even if humanity is not snuffed out of existence in a single cataclysm (external or of its own making), it will evolve itself out of existence. "Humans" a million years from now will be altogether alien, perhaps incorporeal and virtually immortal. For such beings a century would be no big deal.* A billion years, though? Still a big deal, yes. As I said, you have a point, and it still stands.
But a civilization vastly in advance of our own would likely have better foresight and be capable of very long-term projects. For instance, it is theorized that, starting in half a billion to a billion years, the extremely gradual heating up of the sun will render life on Earth nearly impossible. What's the fix? As you say, the process would be mind-boggling gradual, but that means the solution, too, would need only be mind-bogglingly gradual.
Here's a possible solution: once every year, the civilization could shepherd an asteroid or comet along a trajectory that causes it to slingshot around the Earth in such a way that it imparts momentum to the Earth's forward velocity, thereby kicking it into an orbit maybe several meters farther from the sun. Each meter would win an extra million kilometers worth of distance from the sun over the course of a billion years, and it would just be a routine, ongoing project. Alternatively a single massive asteroid could perhaps be maintained, with thrusters, at some point in space nearly parallel to Earth's path but slightly ahead of it and outside its orbit. The continuous gravitational tug of the asteroid would gradually pull Earth away from the sun, and as it did so the thrusters on the asteroid would make course corrections to keep the distance between the two bodies fixed.
A billion years can be your friend as well as your enemy. Your suggestion of "death by procrastination" still cannot be dismissed, but I'd say it depends on how "human" future "humans" still are. If faster-than-light space travel is never figured out it's going to be multigenerational "arks" that will spread humans to other star systems.
At any rate I'm probably rather less worried than Humy about whether homo sapiens is still kicking up his heels five billion years hence, or even five thousand years. If we perish, well, there almost certainly are other civilizations out there that are embarking on their own grand odysseys to understand the meaning of it all, and they may fare better. And absent other civilizations, there must surely still be life of some sort, and the stars and galaxies that ever wheel and turn. Wonder is a cosmological constant even if there be none who wonder.
*And for such beings Shakespearean sonnets and Beethoven's symphonies may be held in no particular esteem, and have no more emotional impact than cave drawings have for us.
15 Mar 13
Originally posted by woodypusherTo boldly push your woody where no woody has been pushed before! These are the voyages of the skin flute circumcise.
CONFIRMED:
http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/14/17314249-higgs-boson-confirmation-boosts-physicists-to-higher-energy?lite