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Greetings, 

I have often been laughed out of science forums or philosophy forums for the ideas I have. There seems, in me, to be a distinction between true physics and fantasy physics; that is that latter is the topic I seem most interested in bringing to the table, and that interest keeps me going, and keeps me steeped in circles where I'm called a "quack" or some such other thing like it. I know I should concentrate on mainstream physics, which is where the money is. But some scientists are schizophrenics, and when they do science, the reach up for the less-low-bearing fruit that people are apt to avoid. I am such a scientist, and my goals are to consider those ideas which are less likely to be understood, but which can deal with the sub-topics of science which mainstream science considers "done-with". That is, for example, where does the wavefunction collapse take place? Will we ever be able to appropriate consciousness with computers? What is space? What are thoughts? Indeed, what is consciousness? These are questions which my mind is open to try to tackle. 

So, I would like to outline perhaps one or two of these ideas that have occurred to me through my career as a student of physics. The first is about time. 

Time, as we understand it, is simply a coordinate. It does not move, nor does it flow, but merely it is a conduit through which physical objects can move. But the claim is that time is a relative concept. In answer to the question of what time is relative to, we say: relative to the frame of the observer. 

But nothing in physics is measured in terms of consciousness; that is, there is no 'unit' of consciousness, and we cannot quantify it. So, then, what is time relative to, if the frame of the observer has nothing to do with consciousness? 

Firstly, I am given to suspect that we are wrong about our understanding of consciousness in this way. That is, if time is relative to the frame of the observer, then time is relative to consciousness. I can see no other way out of this. 

That said, if time cannot be relative to consciousness, that what can it be relative to? 

Imagine a train moving down a line. If you are on the platform, then it is clear to you that the train is the thing that is moving, and the platform that is stationary. Yet, if you are inside the train, then by relativity, you might feel that the train is the stationary thing, and that the outside world is the moving thing. This is a common view. 

And I feel time has a similarity. That is, in the world in which time 'flows' - and only in that world - time therefore must be expanding, or at least going forward according to the arrow which governs it conceptually. Then we might be in a position to ask, "what is time expanding into?" 

In this view, we might imagine that the present moment sits on an imaginary surface, the latter which expands in a direction toward the future. The situation is like that of an air bubble in water - although that doesn't necessarily expand, it just merely feels the compulsion to rise to the surface. The bubble is reaching out, and the surface is reaching into something of a recessive entity. Whereas the train is moving relative to the platform, the bubble of time is expanding relative to this recessive entity. What is this recessive entity? 

Perhaps it is the reciprocal of time, that is, perhaps it might have units of s super negative one , where the unit of time is s . Such a unit of the reciprocal of time, s super negative one , is the same as that of frequency, hertz - strangely, that unit which some web sources claim is a measurement of consciousness. 

This really is the end of my idea about time. Make of it what you will, but be wary it is not mainstream physics; there is nothing in modern physics which has claimed this. 

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I include a second theory of the universe. Again it is not mainstream physics. 

This idea pertains to the multiverse, which is considered in such branches of physics as quantum mechanics and string theory. 

Some physicists sniff at the idea of a multiverse, claiming it is not testable physics, and therefore not science. Sabine Hossenfelder, for example, says something like since we don't have access to these other universes, we have no right to call this science. 

But Sabine Hossenfelder is taking a view that is somewhat solipsistic. Let me explain. In her view, the multiverse is a facet of branching universes which come about at each decision. That is, in her view, the multiverse is an entirety of universes in which there is one human being acting out all the different versions of themself, in other dimensions. 

That certainly is untestable. But consider this. At the beginning of time there was a singularity. The evolution of said singularity was an event in which one lone entity divided into a many-entity entity. And in the origins of life on Earth, at one point there was a single organism which divided, and divided further, and divided further. 

But we are all connected to this organism, whether we like it or not. So, in some respect, we are the outcome of this branched event, and there are billions upon billions of conscious beings which have branched, up until this present moment. 

Considering that the origins of this primordial evolutionary organism which has branched over time were  singular, could we not also consider that we as conscious beings represent the branched into multiverse which is, in Hossenfelder's view, so unscientific? Why ask for a multiversal counterpart in another dimension, when we have our neighbours and colleagues next door to us? The question still remains, can we be sure that are conscious entities? 

The questions we have found to be asked are these: Are other humans conscious? Is consciousness quantifiable? Will consciousness ever be quantifiable? What is time relative to? How long is a second? 

This question - Will consciousness ever be quantifiable? - is a lot like the question how long is a second. I daresay that were I to ask the former question on such a website as Physics Stack Exchange, the question would be closed. But I would like to know if there are any studies into this question, whether there are any papers that might be worth looking at, or if any research whatsoever is being carried out on this question. I would like to know what progress we are making towards conscious AI. 

I would also like to know, if time, as goes the claim, is simply a coordinate, does it have any physical form at all? If time does not flow and it is static, then could we imagine it to be like a massive object? Or is it possibly a geometric shape? If it is a geometric shape, then which one? A circle or sphere? A triangle? Something much more convoluted? 

I will leave it here. But now, I am going to think of ways to put the consciousness question to Stack Exchange. 

Best
Daniel

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Riffing on a theory

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Now that I'm at the beginning of my final year of studies (Q77), I've been reading through the books for my courses, to get a heads up for the official start of my modules. Today I finished a cursory readthrough of Block One of Mathematical Methods and Fluid Mechanics, and hence began to read the first chapter of Observational Cosmology for The Relativistic Universe. And in doing the latter, I came to find myself reflecting on a physics theory about the Big Bang. 

We ask "Where did the big bang occur?" and we are given various answers: The universe began everywhere, at every point of space and time, etc. We ask, "If the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into?" and it is suggested that, since the big bang happened at all points of space and time, it is not really expanding into anything; moreover, it is just expanding. We ask, "What happened before the big bang?" and we find that there are various answers - Penrose suggests conformal cyclic cosmology; that the universe is composed of a multitude of previous universes, that somehow information seeps through from past epochs to present epochs and from present epochs to subsequent epochs. I am no expert on the latter theory, but I like it, yet I have to work out the details, etc. But it is also said that there was nothing before the big bang, because that is where the universe began, including matter, radiation, gravity, space and time. That is, the big bang constitutes the beginning of time itself. 

I found myself previously unable to imagine this idea, of time having a beginning. But when we look at that other cosmological idea, black holes, we often hear of those infinite solutions to Einstein's field equations, namely, singularities. These are the objects at the centre of a black hole, and have infinite curvature and infinite mass (I think), and from them nothing (bar Hawking radiation) can escape. 

It is said that the beginning of the universe constitutes such a singularity; that the universe came from this singularity. Now it makes sense to me that this latter notion could be true. 

It is a known fact of physics that time runs slow for moving clocks. That is, in the strength of a gravitational field, observers find clocks run slow. And now time runs slow for moving clocks, consider this: At the beginning of the universe, when all in existence was a singularity, this singularity must, from its infinite curvature, have contained time in its slowest form known, namely, a grinding halt!

That is, if moving clocks run slow, and singularities constitute the required infinite curvature, time at the beginning of the universe, before the big bang, must have been very, very slow. 

So time did exist at the beginning of the universe, but it was at a full stop. This was the beginning of time. 

Now, if that is true, then it is viable to consider that after the big bang happened, and thus time was born, there must have been a period in which time was able to "get up to speed". It so happens that such a period has been suggested, namely, inflation

But could it be possible that all moments from the big bang up until and including now were part of this inflationary period? The big bang is in the distant past, but perhaps we are more related to it than we know? 

Anyway, in short, that's the theory. In the beginning of the universe time was so slow that it was effectively stopped. Somehow, this was disrupted, and there was a period of inflation in which time increased to the pace we feel it today. 

There are other theories, some claiming that lightspeed was faster in the distant past. I feel this accords with this little idea I've been explaining. 

Anyway, it's time for sleep. 
x









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