Why the universe want to know itself?

[Will_C]

Hello All,

Are we a part of the universe? I think so.
What we are doing now, is to understand the universe, or to work out Theory of Everything, etc.
But why the universe want to know itself?

Maybe someone will think this question is similar to, why the human want to know/understand themself? One of the answers is that we want to "improve" or that is called "Evolution".

Even you have any kinds of answers for the both questions. Please think it again when you are cooking a soup, will it want to know itself?

P.S. I would like to think universe is like a soup.

Thanks,
Will.

We have no freedom, but we have choice. And I choose "NO WAR".

 

[Entropy]

I think this belongs in the philosophy forum.

 

[meteor]

You may be interested in Paola Zizzi's "Big Wow"
http://www.shellysaunders.co.uk/
"The "Big Bang" model raises questions which are partially dealt with through "inflation" (as originally proposed by Guth). This suggests that in the early universe (i.e. within 10-33 seconds after the beginning of the Big Bang) the universe expanded rapidly, reached a threshold for the end of rapid inflation, and has expanded only slowly ever since.

Building on this idea, Zizzi proposes that during rapid inflation the universe was a quantum superposition of multiple possible spacetime geometries ("multiple worlds") and that the end of inflation was marked by a Penrose "objective reduction" ("OR"): the superposition reached a quantum gravity threshold for self-collapse due to instability in the spacetime separation, and reduced to a single universe. By the Penrose (and Orch OR) criteria, such an objective reduction would constitute a conscious moment. Consequently Zizzi has suggested that the end of inflation (in the context of the Big Bang) was marked by a cosmic conscious experience (the "Big Wow")".

 

[Will_C]

I think this belongs in the philosophy forum.

Thanks Entropy's remind. Actually I really had a consideration which forum I should post. But I still post on this forum, since I think sometime philosophy is a tool for physics, same as mathematics. On the other hand, I come from physics, so I post it on here.
I am sorry, if I make any confusion.

Will.

We have no freedom, but we have choice. And I choose "NO WAR".

 

[Will_C]

Thanks meteor's reply.
Would you mind explain a little bit more on your suggestion?
Is it about a collapse of wave function produces the mind?

Will.
We have no freedom, but we have choice. And I choose "NO WAR".

 

[olde drunk]

i subscribe to Jung's idea of a universal consciousness as being the prime within the omniverse. within that context, as we experience and grow, the universe expands.

whether or not there are infinite physical universes within the omniverse; whether or not the wave function collapsed; we ARE currently enjoying a visit to this particular physical world. let's explore and expand by living, experiencing and expanding. yeah, i do believe there is a geometeric effect to expansion.

personally, i believe in freewill. SO, i choose PEACE! (war hurts and i don't do anything i don't like, is painful (jogging, etc) or isn't fun).

love&peace,
olde drunk

 

[meteor]

Is it about a collapse of wave function produces the mind?

AFAIK, Roger Penrose believe taht to explain the consciousness you have to invoke quantum phenomenona. There are people that say that introducing a a very complex program in a computer you can achieve taht the computer have consciousness, but he don't think so. He says that in the brain there can be a macroscopic superposition of states of certain structures, and when some big gravitational mass is near, the superposition collapse through a mechanism called orchestrated objective reduction, and this collapse can explain moments of consciousness, like comprehend a theorem, that a machine cannot achieve. I think that the theory of Zizzi more or less tries to model the universe like a huge brain

 

[Will_C]

personally, i believe in freewill. SO, i choose PEACE!

Hello olde drunk, thank you your reply.
But may I have a comment on the statement I quoted...
In my point of view, we can have only either Freedom(or freewill) or Choices. It is because, choices are provided/given. Also Choices are constraints. Once we say "I choose X from them.", then it implies that we are limited; and we are no longer for freewill. If we have freedom, it is no need for choices!
It is only my opinion, I am not criticizing who are right and wrong. Also who knows right or wrong.

Will.
We have no freedom, but we have choice. And I choose "NO WAR".

 

[pace]

More than why the universe wants to know itself, I'm more fascinated by how such a complex thing as how us advanced brain creatures started to exist in the first place. That it's such a strange world we live in that everything is so advanced and that death seem so distant. How did It go to why?

 

[praveen]

Are we part of the Universe ? I doubt we are not.

Physically we may be part of Universe...like a drop of water in a sea. But are we in similer with Universe in every aspect ? Universe is in order . do we have order in our life?

 

[olde drunk]

Hello olde drunk, thank you your reply.
But may I have a comment on the statement I quoted...
In my point of view, we can have only either Freedom(or freewill) or Choices. It is because, choices are provided/given. Also Choices are constraints. Once we say "I choose X from them.", then it implies that we are limited; and we are no longer for freewill. If we have freedom, it is no need for choices!
It is only my opinion, I am not criticizing who are right and wrong. Also who knows right or wrong.

Will.
We have no freedom, but we have choice. And I choose "NO WAR".

so much to chew on and so little space.

OK! within our physical enviornment you can argue that we have choices and choices imply limits. I have no problem with this because we agreed to accept the limits of physicallity. this limited freewill is temporal.

AH, but on the broader level within an infinite universe do we actually create our experience from scratch, as it were, not through choices?

is it possible that we are a necessary part of the universe, so that the universe can know itself?? again, i consider universal consciousness to be the prime mover. were we let loose to go out and visit or create worlds and play with our creativity just to see what happens??

there really isn't any right, wrong or good, bad only our perception of events. i prefer PEACE because it is more fun and doesn't hurt.

love&peace,
olde drunk

 

[Will_C]

Hello praveen!
Actually, this is an assumption(Are we a part of Universe) of this thread.
But I do think so, because:
1) According to Oxford Advanced learner's Dictionary (Fourth edition), Universe means "all existing things". I don't think we are excluded from the universe.
2) As you asked:

But are we in similer with Universe in every aspect ?

In my point of view, I think it is not necessary to make human similar with universe to prove "we are a part of universe". Think about your fingers or the neurons inside your brain, it is absolutely different from you (not similar with you). So are they parts of you?

On the other hand, in fact, there is a question boring me, and make me puzzling: Can we understand UNIVERSE/GOD (someone will make universe = god)? In the stephen hwarking's idea, once we build up the TOE (Theory of Everythings), we can know the god's mind. I am not putting negative on TOE, I won't do it. Since I agree it is a ultimate goal for me and physicists. But it is more easy for me to hear "We can not!".
It is a little bit similar to the work of cognitive science: The mind is made of neurons, and neurons want to know the mind!

Will.
We have no freedom, but we have choice. And I choose "NO WAR".

 

[Enos]

The universe rocks!

 

[Will_C]

The universe rocks!

Sorry Enos, what does it mean?

Will.
We have no freedom, but we have choice. And I choose "NO WAR".

 

[Enos]

The words it self can mean a couple things. Like the rocks apart of the universe are outside my house. Slang can mean it hip and cool or whatever other terms "rocks!" can be used for. But the meaning from me gets a little more complicated because I love to complicate simple things. Honestly I don't remember exactly why I said that but I can interpet what I understand from the sentence I wrote.

Since the universe is all existing things I think I meant it rocks because Enos is a part of the universe. But what is me is just part and will always remain a part and never whole. But what makes it cool is I am a part of what might be whole. Like cutting a cake in eight pieces and putting all eight pieces back on the plate. All the same **** is there and it still smells you know. Now I am just rambling on and let's get to my point.
Maybe its not that the universe wants to know itself, maybe it needs to know itself. But don't trust a man who works with maybes. Because maybe they don't know what they are talking about. Does any of this make sense?

 

[meteor]

Further development of Paola Zizzi's ideas
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0103002
The Early Universe as a Quantum Growing Network
Authors: P. A. Zizzi
Comments: 17 pages, 2 figures.Contribution to the IQSA Fifth Conference, March 31 - April 5, 2001, Cesena-Cesenatico, Italy. Submitted to General Relativity and Gravitation. References added

"We consider a quantum gravity register that is a particular quantum memory register which grows with time, and whose qubits are pixels of area of quantum de Sitter horizons. At each time step, the vacuum state of this quantum register grows because of the uncertainty in quantum information induced by the vacuum quantum fluctuations. The resulting virtual states, (responsible for the speed up of growth, i.e., inflation), are operated on by quantum logic gates and transformed into qubits. The model of quantum growing network (QGN) described here is exactly solvable, and (apart from its cosmological implications), can be regarded as the first attempt toward a future model for the quantum World-Wide Web. We also show that the bound on the speed of computation, the bound on clock precision, and the holographic bound, are saturated by the QGN."




It seems to me that she thinks the universe not like a biological brain, but rather like a kind of neural network, with quantum gates and qubits associated to it. This kind of network could develop moments of consciousness, like she explained in her earlier paper