The problem with proving the theory of multiple universes is that these universes are inherently not apart of our own.  Due to this seemingly obvious fact, designing and tediously carrying out experiments in our universe have failed to detect anything beyond it.  But still our great minds ponder a bubbling foam of multiple universes.  Our whole universe trapped inside only one of these many bubbles.   Perhaps we will soon decipher a method for crossing through the thin skin of our cosmic bubble.  Just maybe we will travel through the space between space and find ourselves to be but one of a multitude of different worlds.

    But for now the idea of multiple parallel universes is entirely theoretical and mathematical.  Quantum theory suggests these hidden worlds with cornerstone principles such as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, Bells Theorem of Non-locality and Quantum Retroactive Causality.  There seems to be something nonsensical at the base of matter.  Something that acts in probabilities and not actualities, something caught between worlds.  And that something builds upon itself to form our world.  It clumps together to afford us our daily lives.  Their probabilities get lost in their combined immensity, but on a individual scale these particles are still caught between worlds.  And so theories like the popular String Theories (Often called as a collection "M Theory") explain this behavior with multiple dimensions and paralleled universes.  Many of these theories are brilliant mathematically.  However, the beauty of science is that no matter how elegant the mathematics or logical the argument; something is not true until it has been proven experimentally.  And since there are no experiments that have even been proposed to prove this theory, we are left to live in a world of wonder.  Could there be other worlds out there?  Not across the vastness of space but beyond space itself.  It is as if we reach out to grab it and it slides through our fingers, like grasping for the wind.

     The Anthropic Principle takes this theory of multiple universes and uses it to explain the fine tuning of our universe.  The fine tuning being the precision of the elements needed for life to exist on our planet; the enormity of factors that had to be just right for our existence.  How is it that our universe be the one with such precise tuning?  The Anthropic Principle states that this question is flawed because it can only be asked by a life source that inherently must live in a finely tuned universe.  The problem is the source of the question.  No such question would arise in any of the multitudes of universes that could not sustain life.  So in the same breath of this question we are also proclaiming its answer.  We are here because if we were not, you would not have even wondered why.

(Richard Dawkins --- The Anthropic principle)

   Any student schooled in logical fallacies might call this argument, "circular reasoning," and they may even be right.  The argument does seem to dance around the issue.  But we must remember it is based on the assumption of a infinite amount of universes.  This is not a theory proven true.  But if there were infinite amount of universes, there would be some lucky ones out there that could foster life.  If this then is the case, it does seem foolish for the inhabitants of those universes to question why they are so lucky.  Random chance has no why, there is no mind behind a roll of the dice.  They are a inevitability of a infinity of possibilities.  We may ask this question with some hope for a purpose or as a search for the security of design, but the many worlds theory robs us of that.  Perhaps if this theory proves true we can take solace in the wonder of a infinite frontier.  But I doubt we will ever stop asking why.  Nor should we.  It may just have been what was keeping us alive so long.

     Here is where I branch off from real "feet on the ground" science and back into science-fiction; however, I prefer to think of it as logical philosophy.  If there are these branching universes, and they allow for a infinite amount of possibilities, then how does our consciousnesses steer through these forks in the road?  We can imagine ourselves as navigating a continually branching pathway, the universe we live in is one winding path in this sea of possibilities; constantly choosing to go down one road or the next, even if we might not feel a turn.  Is it random chance that determines which universe we are in, or is there someone in the drivers seat?  Is there some driving force that guides us?  And are the versions of ourselves in the other universe even us?  There might have been one universe where I died on the way to work today, another where I die at age 80 after a long and fruitful existence, and possibly (if there are truly a infinite amount of universes) there is one where I don't die at all.  To clarify, this may not be something I believe or even want to believe but we must follow the assumption of multiple universes to its logical end.  If time travel to the past is possible, then it suggests parallel universes to avoid paradoxes.  If these universes are numerous, even unlikely events are possible, but if these universes are infinite, anything that is possible is inevitable.  So, then I am brought back to my original question:  which universe do I live in?

     This is now a much more personal question, for no one else can come with you on this journey.  If we are continuously branching off into different universes, then so are our friends, family, and acquaintances.  We can only live and experience from within our own individual perspective.  With every random event we leave version of ourselves and others behind for a new world.  This thought reminds me of the movie "The Prestige."  In this movie a magician clones himself every night before a crowd of adoring fans.  Every night one version of himself falls into a tank of water that is sealed shut with chains and then covered in a veil.  Unbeknownst to the crowd, this clone inevitably drowns behind the veil.  Meanwhile, the other version of the magician arises from the back of the room to surprise the masses and claim his glory.  When finally discovered, the magician lamented that every day he would flip the switch and wonder; would he be the man in the water?  Or the man being applauded?  But every night that he flipped the switch he found himself lucky, lucky to be the man alive.  Spending a few moments to think, one realizes that this is not luck, but instead a logical conclusion.  Who else could this man be besides the one that survived?  If he was not, the interrogator would have been speaking to a glass container filled with water and one very dead magician.  So then, which version of myself would I be in this infinity of universes?  The one that survives.  In some sense, this Anthropic theory of everything alludes to a fountain of youth that has been right before us since the beginning of life itself.  That each of us will live forever in our own separate timelines.  That we will be as immortal islands separated by the branching of worlds.


-by: Brett Vollert

 


       Time is such a familiar mystery.  We boast ourselves intimately acquainted but with one question we are at a loss, straining to describe the face of a stranger. What is time?  Einstein describes time as, "the reason things don't happen all at once," even though at times it seems that they do.  However, many people are dissatisfied with such a simplified explanation (and frankly so was Einstein) .  Scientifically, time is most often described as a measure of change, in a closed system this net change is always from ordered to disordered.  For a system to go from configuration A to configuration B, it will have to travel a distance through time to allow for change to occur.  A description of this type, explains time as having distances or durations and spawns the idea that time is also a dimension.  Not a dimension like the 3 spacial dimensions we are very familiar with in our physical world, but instead a temporal dimension.  A dimension in time.  However, Einstein also proved with his theory of general relativity that time and space are linked and that our universe can be thought of as a web of space-time.  Einsteins theory also showed that time itself is effected by the warping of space-time by mass (coined time dilation).  The most common example of this effect in real life is the global positioning system satellites (GPS).  These satellites need to be calibrated with atomic clocks regularly or they would be inaccurate by miles a day!  This is because at the high altitudes they are less effected by the mass of the earth and their clocks actually tick faster in orbit.  The remarkable part of this discovery is that it proved that time is not a static, unchanging entity.  Instead, time was proven to be highly malleable and with enough mass or energy it could be sped up, stopped, or possibly even reversed.  And so the topic of time travel has drifted away from fantasy world of science-fiction and into the very real realm of science-fact.

Stephen Hawking explains: Time Dilation

       So according to Einstein, there are two things that effect time, mass and speed.  Time passes slower near more mass or with more speed; and conversely, time moves faster near less mass and with less speed.  Immediately this shows that time travel to the future is possible.  Theoretically, if we had enough energy, we could send a spaceship away from the earth close to the speed of light.  Traveling this fast, time would slow for the space travelers but time would move much quicker back on earth.  When these space travelers returned, they would return to a world much further into the future than their trip should have allowed.  Depending on how fast they traveled, this world could be days,  years, or even centuries into the future.  Einstein imagined two twins, one that shot off into space and the other that stayed on earth.  When the space traveler returned, his twin would be an old man but it would have been only a short trip for the still young rocket brother.  The same slowing of time could be done by closely circling a black hole or any other object with a large mass.  However, this would be a one way trip because while we may be able to slow the rate of time or speed it up comparably, the arrow of time is always pointing in a future direction and travel to the past seems unreachable.  This would explain why we are not frequently visited by future time travelers. However, there are a few hypothesized ways to reverse the arrow of time and travel into the past.
       The most common method suggested for time travel is an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, which is most commonly referred to as a worm hole.  This is essentially a tear in the fabric of space-time, a portal to a different place and time.  This idea spawned from the study of black holes but is strictly theoretical because a portal like this would require an enormous amount of energy (energy on the order of stars and galaxies) and the gravity involved would most likely rip a time traveler apart atom by atom through a process properly coined, spaghettification.  So in order for this backward time travel to work, a person would have to be shielded from the gravitational forces and the portal would also have to be stable enough for it to remain open at a large enough size for a traveler to cross through.

   
      It is not mathematically impossible to travel to the past, so perhaps our understanding is simply too juvenile at this point to accomplish backward time travel.  And just maybe, one day, we will have advanced enough technology to make this dream a reality.  Perhaps we should utilize forward time travel until we reach a civilization that has mastered backward time travel.  But what then?  What precautions must we take before leaping into the past, and what ramifications will this discovery have on our understanding of the world.  We all remember from the movie "Back to the Future"  that most important thing we want to make sure we do not to do is anything that could possibly prevent us from ever being born (like killing your grandfather or preventing your parents from meeting).  However, if you were foolish enough to kill your grandfather you would inevitably create a paradox.  Because by killing your grandfather you cause yourself to not exist.  But then if you do not exist,  who killed your grandfather?  This "grandfather paradox" is the reason that Stephen Hawking, along with many other scientists, do not believe time travel to the past is possible.  This notion is based on two assumptions: that there is only one universe, and that it acts logically.  Most research, barring quantum mechanics, points towards a logical universe.  But as I stated earlier, according to logical math, time travel is possible in both directions.  The way theorists explain away this issue of paradoxes is by suggesting that there is not just one universe but instead that there are many parallel universes and that when you travel back in time you are also traveling into a different universe, or a different timeline.  One can then imagine that there are a infinite amount of these universes and possibly these universes are all branching out and splitting like forks in the river of time or branches on a tree.  Each branch slightly different from another, infinite possibilities and infinite diversity.  (I will speak more about Multiple Universes in my next post)  However, these extra universes are very hard to prove because any experimentation in this universe would not directly effect them.  Because of this, extra dimensions are only spoken about in theory by primarily string theorists who have been scratching their heads for more than 30 years now.

      Possibly we fail to be able to move backward in time because we fail to understand times role biologically because physically time should not have a definite direction.  Our limitation in time travel then might be a biological one.  Perhaps, we are stuck in this one way trip because of our minds.  Like all things in this universe, all information we collect is done through the filter of our minds.  There is still so much we dont understand about how our minds work.  The human brain is truly a complex machine, a machine that is bound by the laws of thermodynamics.  It seems the mind is born a blank slate and then slowly grows and develops memories and functions.  But how does the mind do this when the laws of thermodynamics require order to decrease in the forward direction of time?  It does so by expending energy and doing work to create an ordered network in the mind.  Memories are then formed in the forward direction of time because of this formation of cells that create neural synapses.  So we are slaves to our minds.  Trapped on this journey by their structure.

    So then why does it seem that only events in the past can affect those in the future and never the other way around?  Again this may be a trick of the mind.  We are so sure of free will.  So sure that our choice is our own, that we can change the world.  On a cultural and philosophical level this paradigm is assuring but it does not seem to agree with our physical understanding of the world.  Physically the world is predictable at the scale of humans.  That is to say that with enough understanding an calculation a outcome of a physical interaction is predictable.  The firings of the human mind do not suggest anything different.  Perhaps the future is just as set in stone as our past, just that in this moment our brains lack the structure to know it.

   The most common assessment of human consciousness among scientists is that it has spawned from the unique complexity of the human mind.  That within our DNA lays a design for a being capable of dreams, hopes, and fears.  Yes, these seemingly intangible qualities are thought to be simply manifestations of a complex physical structure.  It is ironic that the concept of consciousness being the product of complex bio-chemistry is hard for that same consciousness to accept.  That mechanical processes, quantum effects, chemical interactions and biological machines can generate such a seemingly unique, self-aware, and sentient being.

   But if it is only a matter of complexity then it could be replicated.  Imagine a computer program code generating a virtual reality.  The video games and computer programs we have today are not nearly complex enough but with enough man hours and enough time we could theoretically generate a world as complex as ours.  After all, many scientists are finding that our world has characteristics of a computer code.  The question then is...if this world has equally complex features and equally complex people within it, will this then incite consciousness? (and will they then create another equally complex reality!?)  Will these people within this program have our same thoughts and dreams?  This question is very crucial because if the answer is in fact yes; then what would prevent us from living in a similar program.  Who is to say that we too are not apart of a program and an eventual product of complex code?  Matter seems to scream intangibility, quarks could be our pixels and  mathematics shows us a set of absolute rules, all characteristics suggesting a programmable reality.  But would it even matter if we were?  Why does this idea so shake the souls of men?   Without a doubt it is the ego of mankind that causes their discomfort.  Their belief in a higher power that causes them to stumble over an equally high calling.  But as for me, if the world is a product of code.  It is quite a beautiful code....

-By: Brett Vollert

   

     Science aims to reveal what the world really is.  Not what we think it should be or what we wish it to be but what it truly is.  Science seeks the true nature of nature.  But scientists have become increasingly aware that the world we see is only a shade of reality.  That the true nature of nature is an elusive entity.

An excerpt from my screenplay:
"No, the universe doesn't scare me.  In fact, it is the universe’s expanse that entices me.  I find solace in its enormity.  Looking out at the night sky, I see that I am just part of a bigger whole.  And through studying the rules and laws that govern it, I feel connected to it.  No, I don’t fear it.  I cherish it.  But what I do fear?... is the world within.  Because everything that occurs out in this sprawling universe is only revealed to me by my mind.  The entire universe might as well be squished between my ears... every burning star and every spinning galaxy."
-by Brett Vollert


     It is true that the world is revealed to us by our minds.  And one thing that continually is forgotten is that we did not evolve to see the world as it actually is, but instead in a way that best allows us to function within it.  We are here to survive and our sensory organs and central nervous system evolved to ensure just that.
       One example of this disconnect between reality and our mental image is colors.  There are no colors out in the world, only different wavelengths of light (most of which our mind cannot even recognize at all).  Colors are simply mental tags used by our minds to create a mental map of our environment.  Many people might not even see colors in the same way within their minds.  It is also theorized that bats, who see the world through echolocation, use color to create their mental map, even though their visual mapping system is not based on light but instead sound.  Once we realize that colors are only the mind's representation of waves, we begin to realize that our senses are merely meant to filter relevant data and our mind to organize that data to make it usable.
      The universe is a network of waves.  Quantum mechanics has taught us that down at the very small scales of reality, matter acts more like a wave than a thing.  Scientists call it a quantum cloud or a realm of possibilities, which is a very vague way of the scientific community saying, "we have no clue."  We have so many answers but we are still unable to tell what our world is made of.  And even so, life goes on.  Perhaps this lack of information is too little to distract us from the little things in life.  But once in a while, something small might catch our eye.  And we might wonder what the stuff of stuff is.
      Similarly, we cannot definitly define our consciousness scientifically and we are also finding that a conscious observer has a huge role to play in our universe.  For example, quantum physics has discovered that the universe might actually be observer affected and controlled.  This means that our universe is affected and changed by simply our act of observing it.  (see videos below)  We fell further into paranormal activity when Bells theorem discovered that objects can be affected instantaneously at a distance.  Indicating that the universe is non-local, everything is connected instantly.
      Magic was once used to explain unknown phenomena.  But now when a scientist speaks about the strangeness of the world it seems more like magic than logic,  more like philosophy than science.  With these recent discoveries, science has seemed to cross into the realm of magic.  The true nature of nature is much stranger that any could have imagined.  And a logical scientific community is scratching their heads in disbelief of a seemingly irrational reality.
-by: Brett Vollert


Dual Slit Experiment:

Quantum Consciousness:

          What can we not doubt? What can we be certain of? It seems all that we can be entirely certain of is that we are in fact experiencing something, even though we do not quite know what it is.  In the words of Decartes, “cogito ergo sum” or  “I think therefore I am.”  Our experience is our reality, and our thoughts are our souls.  So how does this consciousness, capable of experiences, stem from matter.  “Well whatever matter is made of it clearly isn’t matter” (misquoted and source unknown).  At least not as defined by common understanding.  We see matter as inanimate, lifeless and solid.  The stuff that stuff is made of.  But in reality, matter is mostly empty space.  An atom is like a basketball being circled by marbles miles away.  Physically, not a whole lot there.  Except for the fact, that that isn’t even true.  Are we confused yet? A physicist’s best description of an atom, to meet what it is in reality, is a value in a wave function.  A value, meaning that there is no “thing” really there.  Quantum physics describes atoms as possibilities of existence or a likelihood of interacting with other values…Starting to make absolutely no sense?  Well the truth is that this is the real world.  And we did not evolve to see the world as it is but instead to see the world in a way that allows us to function and survive.  

-by: Brett Vollert

"Primacy of Consciousness" - Peter Russell

     

(The existence of the Higgs Boson was confirmed with sigma 5 certainty July 4th, 2012 at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland)  

      The Higgs Boson (discovered July 4th, 2012) was the brainchild of Dr. Peter Higgs, who mathematically theorized that such a particle could exist in 1964 and gained much support for his theory due to his strong mathematical proof.  But what is true on paper so often does not come to fruition.  Dr. Higgs theorized that the whole universe is occupied by a Higgs field and that these Higgs bosons attach to particles at varying abundance and by doing this they essentially weigh the particles down and give them their relative mass.  This at first seems like a likely idea. It makes sense to the common man and seems to follow classical Newtonian physics.  But unfortunately this is a step in the wrong direction and shifts thinking back towards an outdated paradigm.  Not that the discovery does not allow for a more complete model but that this model causes physics to be a diminished to a game of fill in the dots.  Physicists have perhaps become to enwrapped finding all the particle pieces of the standard model that they have gone away from describing how the world actually operates.  They have become categorizes not theorizers.  And with the discovery of the Higgs Boson we seem to be falling further into a world of objectivity.  On the other hand Einstein was a step in the right direction away from Newtonian physics.  Einstein taught us about relativity and the bending of time and space by matter; that these dimensions are somehow affected by matter and are warped in its presence.  But the answer to how matter warps space and time cannot be explained by another particle but instead by the addition of another dimension.  And just as the 3 spatial dimensions and time dimension are seemingly inherent to matter without the need for another particle to explain them, so is the gravitational dimension.  There is no gravitational force…gravity is merely the effects of another dimension warping the movements of objects.  This warping of 3 dimensions can be seen in the warping of two. 

        A plane travels from New York to London and a passenger watches the trip represented by a line on a flat screen GPS.  The passenger expects to see a straight line from New York to London on the GPS because everyone knows that the quickest distance from point A to point B is a straight line.  But this is not what he sees.  Instead there is a arch on his GPS showing the plane first heading northeast until it turns and heads southeast towards London.  The passenger believes that he had lost precious time by traveling north and south instead of due east.  But he is wrong, the plane did travel in the shortest possible path and actually got to London quicker than if had gone due east.  In fact all planes travel in these arching paths and they are referred to as, Great Circles.  Essentially, these Great Circles are straight lines around the curved Earth, or bands around the earth.  And they only seem the longer path on the GPS because the flat GPS leaves out the 3rd dimension of space.  This left out dimension is what warps the path and if we were living in “Flat Land” we might see the paths of these planes and assume there is some force causing them to be warped.  But we would be wrong.  We would simply be seeing the effects of a hidden dimension.  And this is the same problem we are facing in our 3 spatial and one time dimensional world.  We are seeing the effect of a hidden dimension; inherent to matter that is affecting the paths of objects. 

       But how does this dimension arise simply from matter existing?  All dimensions are dependent upon matter and their relative location to each other.  Without matter we would have no reference for up, down, left, right, back, forth or even present and future.  Why cannot a gravitational dimension be similarly inherent?  And the more matter you have the more this dimension asserts itself.  Is this not the same with all dimensions?  The larger a object is or the more object there are the more the 3 dimensions of space seem to show their face.  And so the larger an object is or the more objects there are the more the gravitational dimension plays a role. 

      This gravitational dimension could also explain the dissipating effect of gravity over space.  Just as the further you are from a object the less the dimensions of it becomes clear so does the gravitational dimension becomes less involved.  Stars are no longer 3 dimensional giants at a distance but instead 1 dimensional points in the sky and a globular cluster is not a three dimensional cloud but instead a 2 dimensional tapestry.  Dimensions fade over space. 

The gravitational force we thought existed is simply the warping of straight lines by the gravitational dimension.  This is by no means a full theory but it does answer some unanswered questions and bring up many unasked ones.  Science cannot advance without a paradigm shift away from classical physics.  This theory might answer the gravitation question with, “them more you Matter, the more you Matter.”  But it leaves us with the question.  What’s the Matter?

-by: Brett Vollert