Some one is stupid - 'he does not have too much grey matter'
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The assymetry between past and future, rroted as it
is in the oneway tendency for order to disintegrate into chaos, is seen to
have a cosmological origin. To explain where the ultimate cosmic order came
from, and hence account for this distinction between past and future, it
is necessary to consider the creation of the universe - the big bang. The
cosmic structure which emerged from the primeval furnace was highly ordered,
and all the subsequent action of the universe has been to spend this order
and dissipate it away. Plenty remains, but it cannot last for ever. The
orderliness which drives the sun and stars, so vital for life in the universe,
can be traced to the nuclear processes which ensured that the nascent cosmos
was made mainly fo th elight elements such as hydrongen and helium, a feature
caused byt the rapidity of the primeval expansion which did not give the
cosmic material long enough to cook heavier elemetns in the early stages.
It also depends upon the relative smootheness of the cosmic material, so
that prolific black hole formatino immediatly after the big bang should be
avoided. So once again we discover how delicately life in the universem,
and our existence as observers, dependss on the right cosmic arrangement,
namely ont that gives a sharp distinction between past and future based on
primecal orderliness - an orderliness that reaches a pinnacle fo complexity
in living matter.
The intimate connection between our own existence, the assymetry in time of the owrld about us and the initial cosmic order must be viewed in the context of superspace. We have seen that the orderly cosmos is one of only a very small fraction of worlrds out of those that are possible. Among the other universes are those in which disorder reigns throughout, and also those which start out in a disorder state and then progress towards order. In such worlds time 'run backwards' irelative to our own world, but if they are inhabited by observers, one supposes that their brains are also subject to reverse operation, so that their perception of their universe differs little from our perception of ours (though they would regard it as contracting rather than expanding). When the equationns for the quantum development of superspace are exxamined, they are found to be reversible - they do not distinguish past from future. In superspace there is no distinct past and future. Some of the worlds certainly have a strong past-future property and these are precisely the ones that can support life. Others have a future-past, reversed asymmetry and presumably are also inhabited. The vast majority, however, have no such peculiar distinction between past and future, so are quite unsuitable for life and go unnoticed. In the Everett theory, all these worlds, including the reversed-time ones, really exist alonside us. In the more conventional theory they are possible worlds which, by incredible good fortune, did not come to exist, though they could still exist in the remote future ot on the other side of the universe. It could be that our own cosy, highly ordered worlds is just a local bubble of equability in a predominantly chaotic cosmos, seen by us only because our very existence depends on the benign conditions here. In this chapter the physicist's model of time has been contrasted with that of our personal experience, full as it is with weird psychological images and paradoxical motion. The grey area between mind and matter, philosophy and physics, psychology and the objective world is only on the threshold of exploration, yet any ultimate picture of reality cannot omit it. It could be that the images of our time, free will and the non-existence of the future, the use of tenses in our language - will come to be regarded as only primitive superstitions that srping from an inadequate understanding of the physical world. Maybe our descendants will not make use of these concepts at all, in which case one imagines that they will arrange their lives very differently from our own. It is conceivable that advanced communities elsewhere in the universe have long since abandoned the notions that time passes or that things change, that there is a single present moving towards an uncertain future. We can only guess at the impact that this abandonment would have on their behavior and thought, for without expectation, remorse, fear, anticipation, relief, impatience and all the other temporally-related emotions that we experienc, their conception of the world might be incomprehensible to us. It is probable that if we encountered such beings we would be unable to communicate much of common understanding. On the other hand, it could be that for once our minds are more reliable tha our laboratory instruments, and time really does have a richer structure that we perceive. In which case the nature of reality, of time, space, mind and matter, will suffer a revolution of unprecedented profundity. Either prospect is awesome.
Paul Davies - Other Worlds |
The assymetry between past and future, rroted as it is in the oneway tendency for order to disintegrate into chaos, is seen to have a cosmological origin. To explain where the ultimate cosmic order came from, and hence account for this distinction between past and future, it is necessary to consider the creation of the universe - the big bang. The cosmic structure which emerged from the primeval furnace was highly ordered, and all the subsequent action of the universe has been to spend this order and dissipate it away. Plenty remains, but it cannot last for ever. The orderliness which drives the sun and stars, so vital for life in the universe, can be traced to the nuclear processes which ensured that the nascent cosmos was made mainly fo th elight elements such as hydrongen and helium, a feature caused byt the rapidity of the primeval expansion which did not give the cosmic material long enough to cook heavier elemetns in the early stages. It also depends upon the relative smootheness of the cosmic material, so that prolific black hole formatino immediatly after the big bang should be avoided. So once again we discover how delicately life in the universem, and our existence as observers, dependss on the right cosmic arrangement, namely ont that gives a sharp distinction between past and future based on primecal orderliness - an orderliness that reaches a pinnacle fo complexity in living matter.
The intimate connection between our own existence, the assymetry in time of the world about us and the initial cosmic order must be viewed in the context of superspace. We have seen that the orderly cosmos is one of only a very small fraction of worlrds out of those that are possible. Among the other universes are those in which disorder reigns throughout, and also those which start out in a disorder state and then progress towards order. In such worlds time 'run backwards' relative to our own world, but if they are inhabited by observers, one supposes that their brains are also subject to reverse operation, so that their perception of their universe differs little from our perception of ours (though they would regard it as contracting rather than expanding).
When the equationns for the quantum development of superspace are examined, they are found to be reversible - they do not distinguish past from future. In superspace there is no distinct past and future. Some of the worlds certainly have a strong past-future property and these are precisely the ones that can support life. Others have a future-past, reversed asymmetry and presumably are also inhabited. The vast majority, however, have no such peculiar distinction between past and future, so are quite unsuitable for life and go unnoticed. In the Everett theory, all these worlds, including the reversed-time ones, really exist alonside us. In the more conventional theory they are possible worlds which, by incredible good fortune, did not come to exist, though they could still exist in the remote future or on the other side of the universe. It could be that our own cosy, highly ordered worlds is just a local bubble of equability in a predominantly chaotic cosmos, seen by us only because our very existence depends on the benign conditions here.
In this chapter the physicist's model of time has been contrasted with that of our personal experience, full as it is with weird psychological images and paradoxical motion. The grey area between mind and matter, philosophy and physics, psychology and the objective world is only on the threshold of exploration, yet any ultimate picture of reality cannot omit it. It could be that the images of our time, free will and the non-existence of the future, the use of tenses in our language - will come to be regarded as only primitive superstitions that spring from an inadequate understanding of the physical world. Maybe our descendants will not make use of these concepts at all, in which case one imagines that they will arrange their lives very differently from our own. It is conceivable that advanced communities elsewhere in the universe have long since abandoned the notions that time passes or that things change, that there is a single present moving towards an uncertain future. We can only guess at the impact that this abandonment would have on their behavior and thought, for without expectation, remorse, fear, anticipation, relief, impatience and all the other temporally-related emotions that we experienc, their conception of the world might be incomprehensible to us. It is probable that if we encountered such beings we would be unable to communicate much of common understanding. On the other hand, it could be that for once our minds are more reliable that our laboratory instruments, and time really does have a richer structure that we perceive. In which case the nature of reality, of time, space, mind and matter, will suffer a revolution of unprecedented profundity. Either prospect is awesome.