Brian Greene: A Physicist Explains 'The Hidden Reality' Of Parallel Universes

I know of no 'explanation' of how matter come into 'being' ---'being' being the term given existence itself. There are only two possibilities ---matter ALWAYS existed and that is forever beyond either mathematics or philosophy to 'explain'; and 2) matter came into existence from utter 'nothingness' and that is, likewise, beyond anything existent to explain. As the emperor Augustus was fond of saying: "Words fail me". Not only words but numbers fail us.

I agree that the human mind, even with mathematics, is not capable of understanding "all that is", but that does not hinder us from understanding many of its physical processes.This is an explanation of how matter can come from a virtual state to a real state of physicality based in the transfer of scalar informational waveforms to a vectorial, observable state. Nothing is created, but only observed and brought into physical realization. This cosmic plenum had already been experimentally observed since the 1950s, an undebatable fact. All i read about is this type of material, and of the hundreds of books I have read so far, Ervin Laszlo has the most comprehensive and well documented theory. Check out the connectivity hypothesis. Its a 120 page paper, and
I'l share it if you want.

Understanding 'many' is not the same as understanding 'all'. Secondly, no one really knows what it means for matter to '....come from a virtual state to a real state'. Anyone claiming that they understand it doesn't really understand it. The sentence "Nothing is created, but only observed and brought into physical realization" moreover implies in the phrase 'nothing is created', that everything that is always was! And if that is the case, no one can explain that either. All we can do is label objects or processes of which we can be sure exist empirically. But we are forever unable to explain 'nothingness' with 'something' and words --being 'somehing' --are only meaningful to the extent that they represent things that are already known to exist.

In no way do I disagree with you. I am just putting forward someone's hypothesis to explain the emergent phenomena of coherence within an information driven cosmos. In no way do I believe that science and mathematics will ever be able to explain everything. I am just offering a model that has practical applications to the real world. And when I mentioned the realization of a a physical state from a virtual, a polarization between scalar potential and physical fields ... this has been empirically demonstrated and a nobel prize won for it. Energy was successfully extracted from this cosmic plenum I speak of. It has influence of physical processes. The full extent of this is definitely far from understood and I agree, that it might never be fully comprehended as well. Bottom line, I am completely aware of the limitation of rational knowledge through the scientific method. It is only meant to explain a small sliver of total reality. But this physical plenum of nothingness, teeming in virtual probabilistic states does have an observable effect on physical reality, literally in-forming it. That is the only point I was trying to make. It is an indirect knowledge of this plenum.

Indeed, I hope I did not state the case too strongly. Obviously --we are both on the same side of the equation here. I suppose it just demonstrates the difficulty that 'humankind' has always had with respect to 'nothingness' and 'ultimate origins'. The mind boggles and, as Augustus said 'words fail me'! He is not alone. On this issue --words as well as equations fail everyone.

Dear Echelgreen
I have read some Lazslo, and have his Akashic (?) Field book, but I'd be very interested in obtaining an ebook copy of any of his works you may be willing to share. My email address is: b.carozzi@bigpond.com

Thanks
Barry

The way Greene explains it joins Julian Barbour's theory on the non-existence of time.

http://discovermagazine.com/2000/dec/cover

A very interesting article. Excerpt:

That sounds reasonable, as it should, coming from a thoughtful gentleman like Barbour. But the next part of his argument— the crux of his view— is much harder to swallow: Every possible configuration of the universe, past, present, and future, exists separately and eternally. We don't live in a single universe that passes through time. Instead, we— or many slightly different versions of ourselves— simultaneously inhabit a multitude of static, everlasting tableaux that include everything in the universe at any given moment. Barbour calls each of these possible still-life configurations a "Now." Every Now is a complete, self-contained, timeless, unchanging universe. We mistakenly perceive the Nows as fleeting, when in fact each one persists forever. Because the word universe seems too small to encompass all possible Nows, Barbour coined a new word for it: Platonia. The name honors the ancient Greek philosopher who argued that reality is composed of eternal and changeless forms, even though the physical world we perceive through our senses appears to be in constant flux.

Before allowing himself to be interrupted by the stream of questions he knows will come, Barbour continues to press his point. He likens his view of reality to a strip of movie film. Each frame captures one possible Now, which may include blades of grass, clouds in a blue sky, Julian Barbour, a baffled Discover writer, and distant galaxies. But nothing moves or changes in any one frame. And the frames— the past and future— don't disappear after they pass in front of the lens.

Right on. I share the exact same view. I propose it is our consciousness that acts as the projector, choosing which slide, or "Now" so to choose. But the film is being read at one frame per 5.39124 x10^-44 seconds (the Planck time). In our current state of consciousness we just string these "now's" together in a fairly linear way to make sense of our chosen reality. And the term Platonia is sweet. I am definitely adding that one to my standard vocabulary.

A light year is huge, but tiny in terms of outer space. Like trying to picture a trillion dollars.

Try reading the whole article, and watch the three videos I posted below.

Shortly after the discovery of Andromeda galaxy n the early 1900s, 'Galaxies' were often called 'Island Universes'. They were, rather, cloudy, spiral-shaped objects not unlike our own Milky Way and far beyond it. The man who is credited with changing our view of the universe is the American astronomer Edwin Hubble. Utilizing what was then the new 100 inch (diameter of the reflecting mirror) telescope on Mt. Wilson in CA, he photographed the 'great nebula' in the constellation Andromeda. His historic images revealed that Andromeda was not a nebula but a galaxy and not unlike our own Milky Way. By definition and according to what we know of our own universe we should not expect to see another universe. The question is whether our own universe is 'closed' i.e, light does not escape it but instead finds its way back to its origin; ergo: if the Starship Enterprise continued indefinitely upon a straight path, it would find its way back to its point of departure due to the curvature of space-time itself. If such curvature of space-time is the defining characteristic, then we may never expect to see another 'universe'.

Back in the late sixties when I was living in Cambridge (England) I had a South African friend named Roger Clegg who was studying mathematics. He at that time created quite a stir when he came up with a mathematical equation which proved the existence of a parallel universe. I don't know what has become of him, I left Cambridge shortly after that.

I caught it in the car to ! Glad to find it here ! +^d