Life, the universe, and a few other things

[la_belle_laide]

I love spooky physics because I'm looking for some kind of central power, a unification that I'm waiting for mathamaticians and scientists to find (because it doesn't even fit in my brain,) but unlike scientists, I want it to be sentient. I don't want to call it god or even a god because of the stupid and outdated Christian and Biblical implications that I regard with nothing but scorn.

In fact, it doesn't even have to be sentient; it doesn't even have to care. It can play dice for all I give a crap. All I really want to know is that there's something after physical life. I halfway don't even care what it is; I just don't want to end. I especially don't want to end having seen nothing but these four dimensions. String theory occasionally proposes that there are up to eleven dimensions. Most physicists agree that if you think you understand quantum, you're not getting it. Most even say that even if you can understand string theory mathamatically, you can't feel it intuitively. I want to see those other dimensions. I want to spend like another hundred years in these four dimensions--goodness knows that even that's not enough time to enjoy them, but we can't get too greedy, ow can we?--and then when I die, I want to experience all the others. Not only that, but I want to know that I'm experiencing them. I guess that's asking rather a lot, but there it is.

The real world as string theory and even spooky quantum physics describe it is all so complex that we can't fit it into our human brains. It only seems fair that maybe we can fit it all in once we are no longer confined to our human brains. This idea also seems to imply, at least to me, that there's something out there that can fit it all into its consciousness. Because before the Big Bang, what the hell was there? Something so small and dense that humans can't even imagine it. Even Time didn't exist. These are things that don't belong in our brains. We're too small. All I want to know is that outside of the insignificant and comparitively so infinitesimally small particles and impulses that make up the human consciousness, there is a place--there is room--for all of this to fit. It's too awesome to not be understood by something. If I had an ounce of Christian or Biblical sensibility in me, I might be inclined to call it heaven. I enjoy Buddhism, so maybe it would be more pleasing to me to think of it as Nirvana. To me, Nirvana would be existing in a state to not only experience and understand the physics of the incalculably minute.

Otherwise, what the hell is the point of everything?

Also, I just plain don't want to die, ever. Is that arrogant? If so, there's nothing I can do about it. I'm human, after all, and most of us are arrogant in our assumptions about life and what we'd like it to fork over to us. I think it's maybe less arrogant than believing that if I'm better than everyone else I will sit at the right side of some immeasurably more arrogant--not to mention wrathful and jealous--Supreme Being who likes to play favorites wiht those who suck up to Him.

What I'm saying is that I think it should all even out. What is any universe without balance? Or, as Douglas Adams once asked, why does the universe bother to exist? Maybe those weren't his exact words, but it was something close to that.

I hope this doesn't even hint at the phrase "looking for God in science" because like I said, I'm not looking for god. It's entirely possible that there is a force to understand all of this madness (to clarify: there should be, otherwise why does all of this madness bother to exist?) but my primary interest isn't in god, it's in myself. What it all boils down to is my completely childish desire to keep on having fun in this fantastic jumble of universes and dimensions. Sadly enough, that's exactly what it all is for me, too. It's fun.

And, I'm not going crazy or anything, I'm just superfly tired and basically rambling. But I was thinking about all of this as I was falling asleep and I wanted to remember it, so here it is, on my blog.

Comments

[danalwyn.livejournal.com]

Strangely enough, I find the concept that there was nothing before the Big Bang to make perfect sense to me, although I have a hard time visualizing perfect nothing. But I like my self-contained 3+1 dimensional universe. It's cute. And fuzzy. And simple, which is why I study the very small instead of the very large. I don't want to know how complicated it really is.

And, not to damper your enthusiasm, but if you could see into higher dimensional spaces, you would just see weird three dimensional shapes. We can't experience more than that in any meaningful way, since our physical bodies are confined to a three dimensional slice. But it would still probably look pretty cool to pass through a space like that. Weird shapes would be changing all over the place, and it would look interesting.

You could always come write popular science books for us. We certainly need the press coverage.

[la-belle-laide.livejournal.com]

And, not to damper your enthusiasm, but if you could see into higher dimensional spaces, you would just see weird three dimensional shapes. We can't experience more than that in any meaningful way, since our physical bodies are confined to a three dimensional slice.

Re-read my post. I know I was a bit incoherent, but that's exactly my point.

[danalwyn.livejournal.com]

My point was sort of that it would be interesting for a bit, but it would probably turn boring rather quickly, as it would be kind of like watching a very detailed screen saver. It's usually much more fun to stick with the universe we're in.

I don't know if that made any sense. I'm sort of incoherent this morning myself.

[la-belle-laide.livejournal.com]

My point was sort of that it would be interesting for a bit, but it would probably turn boring rather quickly, as it would be kind of like watching a very detailed screen saver. It's usually much more fun to stick with the universe we're in.

I'm not sure you're getting me. I'm talking about after death. Who's to say what's boring and what's not boring when you're not even alive anymore?

Also, 1) these dimensions, if they exist, already are in the universe we're in, and 2) how do you know if it would be fun or not? No one has seen it yet.

[dalinae.livejournal.com]

Well, now I have to friend you. (May I?)

I started the exact same process of thinking about two years ago and it renewed my interest in astrophysical theory. Till then I had at least some leftover old-fashioned spiritual belief. As in "I don't need proof because I feel it." But in my junior year at college I took more advanced psychological courses and found out how often and with what consistency the brain tricks us into perceiving and feeling things that are not there. That spawned of the most depressing existential crises I've ever had but also led to my obsession with science and its answers. So I guess it's all good. :-)

By the way, one of the better psychological books that I have read about how people deceive themselves with mainstream religion (and how this developed as a defense mechanism with the development of consciousness) is Ernest Becker's "The Denial of Death".

[la-belle-laide.livejournal.com]

" But in my junior year at college I took more advanced psychological courses and found out how often and with what consistency the brain tricks us into perceiving and feeling things that are not there. That spawned of the most depressing existential crises I've ever had but also led to my obsession with science and its answers. So I guess it's all good. :-)

I read this one article once about how there is a part of the brain that registers religious experiences; basically lights up like a winter festival when people "feel god" and stuff. It is, not surprisingly, more developed in super religious or spiritual people. A few scientists were saying that this explained feelings of god, as it were. One scientist tentatively pointed out that there is also a part of the brain that lights up like a winter festival when we smell apple pie, too, which tells us, "Hey, apple pie!" But that it didn't mean the apple pie wasn't there. ^_^

By the way, one of the better psychological books that I have read about how people deceive themselves with mainstream religion (and how this developed as a defense mechanism with the development of consciousness) is Ernest Becker's "The Denial of Death".

Sounds pretty much like what I believe. I'd like to check that out sometime.

[dalinae.livejournal.com]

I read this one article once about how there is a part of the brain that registers religious experiences; basically lights up like a winter festival when people "feel god" and stuff. It is, not surprisingly, more developed in super religious or spiritual people. A few scientists were saying that this explained feelings of god, as it were.

Hm, I wonder how they got to that conclusion. I'd heard about the religious activity christmas tree but not about those particular implications. Brain lights up during activity, regardless of the activity's nature. For example in my synesthesia, when I am reading, my limbic brain would light up in perception of the different colors of letters but that doesn't mean that the letters aren't only black and white.

Do you have a link to that article?

[la-belle-laide.livejournal.com]

Which is exactly what that one scientist said about the apple pie.

I don't have a link to it though, nor even remember what magazine it was in. It was something I found in the lunchroom one day and started reading, then I could never find it again.