-1- wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 10:32 amI did have encountered new stuff, useful, to me unknown and digestible stuff on these forums, from the pen of uwot, or from the pen of the other guy with a similar name, but it wasn't philosophy, but physics. I learned a tremendous deal about the workings of the known universe.
Well I consider uwot to have a late 19th - early 20th century view, (non-)interpretation of physics and the world. But there was a major revolution since then, that largely went under the radar. I think now that earlier view is a "special case" seen through a "special lens".
And I am in contention with some of the greatest minds on some issues: one, if the physical universe (including the one beyond the known one) is infinite then they say all possible states must occur at any one given time (point or interval) and I say, no, that's not necessarily true. This is an insight issue, and it can't even be worded so that it makes an argument, either way.
Well I think "time" is probably just some apparent feature of a part of our (apparent) universe, so not relevant here. And no one can be certain either what "infinite" actually could mean, maybe there are states we think are part of it but aren't. Or maybe the world is just really big but not infinite.
Personally I think it's infinite, and spent the last few years thinking about the parts of it where the infinite could sort of "loop through" itself while also being itself; and calculating the relative probabilities of such loops. What else could better naturally explain our world and human existence. Unfortunately I have never seen anyone else philosophize about this. Maybe I'm totally wrong but I think this is where it's most likely at.
The other is the infinite expanse of the three-dimensional space; some deny it, I see it as self-obvious.
I don't think infinite expanse is logically possible, but who knows, maybe the world isn't logical (whatever that means). I currently think that time probably goes in circle, and our part of the Universe will fall back into a singularity, which is one and the same singularity as the one it came from (the rate of expansion has already changed several times according to our models, so why couldn't it also reverse).
If I try to imagine infinite expanse, well.. maybe it's possible logically, but maybe that might mean that the entirety of infinity is infinitely looping through itself. I think that would mean that infinity is less than infinite, not containing parts where it doesn't loop through itself, but maybe I'm wrong. Also, something about the hypothesized looping seems to be centered on humans, but in an infinite expanse looping picture, I don't see why anything would be centered on humans.
Anyway this is all extremely speculative.
The third is the mismanagement of the expression "expanding space". Some understand it as matter in space; some understand it as ether (as per uwot's definition) in space; so far so good, both can expand, but I don't believe that the background "space" space, that is, the three-D space that can be described by Cartesian coordinates with numbers as well as with units and numbers is capable of expanding. I see that last, third, bit, as an ultimate backdrop to compare movement and expansion against an absolute.
I don't know how to put it, I see all of these as one and the same thing. But we have to divide it into 2-3 different components to be able to meaningfully talk about it. But space by itself is definitely not some separate component, that can curve or expand by itself or whatever.