What a great thread.
A worthy and fun read...
highly entertaining. Kudos Gibran2 for being the clear headed voice of reason (as usual).
Like anyone who has done any serious reading here, the following debate template is all too familiar to me.
gibran2 said:
The Debate
x: Yes, it exists. I’ve had experiences that have convinced me.
y: No, it doesn’t exist. We have no scientific evidence for its existence.
x: But we don’t know everything about reality yet.
y: As we learn more about reality, it will become apparent that there is nothing beyond the physical.
x: You can’t say that with absolute certainty.
y: No, not with absolute certainty, but with a high likelihood.
x: Well, what about the primacy of consciousness?
y: There’s no evidence that the primacy of consciousness is correct.
x: But neither is there evidence that the primacy of matter is correct.
y: Well, it seems to be, and there’s no evidence that it isn’t correct.
x: Yes, but…
y: …
The use of the marble analogy to show the probability of any speculations on
either side of this perennial debate being the truth is an inspired move.
Though, as usual with Gibran2 & I, I will attempt to turn the analogy inside out and come to the opposite conclusion.
*********
In the multitude of posts on this thread, there has been a lot of talk of
infinity. I won't rehash it all, but will merely say that whatever we can say about infinity can not encompass it,
by definition. Scientists and laymen alike are often frightened of infinity, and things like
mathematical series are simply ways to try and factor out the infinite or brush it under the rug.
As long as we are dealing with finite phenomena within our very localized area of space-time, this ignoring of infinity works out fine, generally. However, ignoring the infinite when trying to find ultimate truths, debate the nature of reality, achieve "unified field" theories or other TOEs is tantamount to
cherry picking the data and failing to accept what the evidence is showing us.
And, when we go ahead and face the ramifications of infinity head on, we are forced into accepting the likelihood of such confounding and "ugly" (from scientific perspective) theories as Everett's Many Worlds Theory or other MWIs.
******
Let me break this down as simply as I can.
Current understanding of dimensions indicate that each successive dimension breaks off from the last at a right angle, and can contain the entirety of the preceding dimensions as a line in the higher dimension and a single point within the dimension above it. Since the 4th dimension is duration (time & anti-time), our entire line of space & time is but a single dot in the 5th dimension. And going on like this, all possible versions of our space-time amount to a single dot in the 7th dimension.
All possible versions of our space and time could be considered infinity. In fact, it goes well beyond what many people think of when they use the word. (like endless repeating digits or whatever)
However, our theoreticians have gone even farther than this, and posit that our collection of possible space time events is only one of an infinite number of "universes." An infinity of infinities.
:idea:
Or what physicists call the 8th dimension.
All the possible timelines of all the possible spaces in all the possible universes would be a 9th dimensional matrix, and just a point in the 10th dimension (or 11th dimension depending on which string theorists you talk to).
Even here, there is no logical reason to stop. These Multiverses forming an Omniverse could even go on to infinite Omniverses and so on.
:shock:
Perhaps you see where this is going.
According to these conceptions of reality, anything that is possible MUST exist somewhere. Furthermore, it is completely conceivable that lines can bend and twist through higher dimensions and connect alternate timelines, other universes and so on.
If you think about it, what we call Hyperspace sounds a lot like a higher dimensional nexus. Beyond our time and space... connected to an infinite number of divergent worlds...
A lot of theoreticians like to tie all the infinity up in some arbitrary high dimension where all the + & -, matter & antimatter, yin & yang of all possible infinities of possibility converge and balance out into a 0 state. A kind of pure field of creation. A white light, Buddha field if you will. This is no different than the mystical conceptions of any number of advanced spiritual philosophies, and could be called "God" if scientists weren't so petrified of the term.
In fact, the only difference between this "cutting-edge" view of reality and any other religious or spicenaut hyperspatial conception is that these whopper ideations are published in peer-reviewed journals by members of the lab coat tribe.
Nonetheless, the fact that mystics
and geeks... psychonauts, mathematicians, yogis and cosmologists all seem to arrive at the same conclusions of vast infinite possibility... it lends a lot of weight to the idea that such things might be the
actual state of our existence.
Unless you reject dimensions (the logical outcome of many materialistic, idealistic, rationalistic and even solipsistic philosophical stances), you basically unwittingly believe that
everything is true.
*********
Therefore, if we apply all of this to my friend Gibran2's marble analogy:
1) There is a box that contains an infinite number of boxes... each with an infinite number of marbles, as well as an infinite number of "no-marbles".
2) Each marble contains an infinite number of sub-marble particles... and so on.
3) We ask an infinite number of people what they think the box contains.
4) We receive an infinite number of answers and sub variations.
5)
All of them are true.
Some will speak only to things that are true on a single sub-marble particle. Others will talk about things that encompass an entire box of marbles.
If I say there are red marbles in the box. I will be correct. If I say that there are iridescent blue-green marbles with psychoactive lichen growing on them... I will be correct.
Only by saying that something surely isn't in
any of the boxes, or is surely in
all of the boxes, will I be able to be incorrect. And even then only at the highest levels, and only partially so, as there are sure to be boxes that conform to whatever I could possibly say.
In this model, anything you say in the affirmative, and anything qualified you say in the negative will be true some how. As long as you avoid the use of absolutes like never or always, you can be assured of the veracity of anything you might say.
Thus:
The probability that Hyperspace exists?
100%