RE: Nothing trivial

From: Ron McFarland <RonMcF.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 08:35:19 -0700

On 22 May 2004 at 6:26, george wrote:
> As a novice lurker on this list:
> You have given me an opening.
> The universe is infinite in time and space. That's the only logical
> way for it to be. You must agree. How could it arise from nothingness.
>
> Altho appearing random, every effect has a cause, so how could the U
> be really random? It that sense, it is preordained.
>
> The U is indifferent, however.
>
> I agree in the consequences of our doing and thinking, however.
>
> Is ennui the same as entropy?
>
> Ron, I don't know how, at this point, to put this on the list.
> Nor do I know if this sort of philosophy is interesting to the
> List-people. And I do enjoy physics more than math... SO tell
> Me if there is a better place for me.
>
> George

For the record, friend George, my post of yesterday was certainly meant to be taken
"tongue in cheek", so to say. It was spurred on a whim by my brother asking me to
tell him all I know.<grin> My answer I decided to post here, too. The list has been a
little quiet of late even though there is very recent new Chandra evidence in support
of dark energy, see:
Dark Energy
I am pleased that my post has invited you to comment, and I'm sure we would all
like for you to put forth your thoughts in much greater degree. There are some
*very* educated people on this list, some come at the genre of this list from a
philosophical view, some primarily from a mathematical view, some from a pure
logic point of view, some from a conjecture point of view, and many from some sort
of combination of those views.

Back on 2-Nov-03 I joined this list and argued from a logic point of view, and with
distant reference to data from such things as that Chandra article alludes to. I poked
fun at the mathematicians by stating that mathematics is a subset of logic which can
not fully describe the universe because mathematics is digital but the universe is
analog ... those decimal places keep confusing things!<grin> This did not exactly
enamor me to those members of the list, but I believe they realize the intended
humor being that we just don't really have a good enough tool to measure what we
see. Mathematics certainly models a very good representation of our universe.

There, on 2-Nov-03, I argued that the universe and by way of quantum mechanics
did indeed arise from nothingness. I went further to state that the expansion of the
universe is its apparent effort to return to that original state (kind of like a bubble in
a vacuum), and that we perceive this effort as being what we call dark energy (an
ever acceleration of the expansion of the universe that will eventually lead to what
has been called the Big Rip), that a black hole is yet another route to that same
seeking of state, and more. I was surprised to see the main arguments against my
post being primarily about if the Big Rip will really occur or not, a subject that is still
being hotly debated in the general scientific community.

But make no mistake, I am not a scientist. I am only a thinker, one who seeks proof
of being misguided. Logic is my only tool. Others here are much more educated in
these matters than I am, and all here are tolerated and respected.

Welcome to the list about the Theory of Everything, George. :)

Ron McFarland
Received on Sat May 22 2004 - 11:41:48 PDT