Imagining the Multiverse ~ A Mandelbrot Set???

The multiverse is still a popular alternative for explaining the origins of the universe and the strangeness of its many aspects: time, space and direction or movement in them. Changing direction in the vastness of the universe is not just moving forward and backward. It can mean moving higher or lower, inward and outward. Such movement or direction can be illustrated by the Russian doll ... one inside another. Or, simply that when you take a bird's eye view you are changed by that position not just physically but cognitively and emotionally.

For the social quantum analysis to have any application here, one must consider too that the universe is 'socially' experienced and that is through the exchange of information. Is it then that the multiverse can be viewed as copies of information; after all, the Russian doll illustration is exactly that one copy inside another copy. Does that mean there was/is an original? Yes, I assume it does but the troubling thought is whether asking if its necessary to find it since the copies are exactly the same. And, are the copies the same? The Russian doll shows us 'sameness' but there is difference. Yes, as one is smaller than the other and fits inside another and one is always further from one and or another one.

If we were the doll, then we would have a slightly different experience of that same information. This can be better grasped by appealing to fractal design ~ The Mandelbrot Set. 

The term Mandelbrot set is used to refer both to a general class of fractal sets and to a particular instance of such a set. In general, a Mandelbrot set marks the set of points in the complex plane such that the corresponding Julia set is connected and not computable. The Mandelbrot set is the set obtained from the quadratic recurrence equation. 
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/MandelbrotSet.html

What does that mean exactly? Well, think of it as the set of all complex numbers z for which the sequence defined by the iteration remains bounded.

z(0) = z,    z(n+1) = z(n)*z(n) + z,    n=0,1,2, ...    (1)

This means that there is a number B such that the absolute value of all iterates z(n) never gets larger than B. A bounded sequence may or not have a limit. For example, if z=0 then z(n) = 0 for all n, so that the limit of the (1) is zero. On the other hand, if z=i ( i being the imaginary unit), then the sequence oscillates between i and i-1, so remains bounded but it does not converge to a limit.

You may ask, what's so special about the particular iteration (1), and why do we use complex numbers instead of real ones. In a sense, the formula (1) is the simplest other than a linear formula which would give rise to a much simpler and quite uninteresting picture. (The analog of the Mandelbrot set would be empty or the entire plane.) If we restricted the iteration (1) to the real instead of complex numbers then again we would get an uninteresting picture: the interval from -2 to 0. Much of the fascination of the Mandelbrot set stems from the fact that an extremely simple formula like (1) gives rise to an object of such great complexity. 

http://www.math.utah.edu/~pa/math/mandelbrot/mandelbrot.html

You see, the experience of the Mandelbrot is 1 and the same yet different at the same time. Essentially, at any one time, an original and a copy. A multiverse of one!

Is anything then in the multiverse without flaw/corruption? What happens if we imagine that any one aspect of the Russian doll is flawed, though that one flaw maybe hidden one inside another. The flaw may not be seen but it is there just the same. Thus, we can greatly imagine the same about a Mandelbrot set, whatever flaw there is imagined in it will be in every view, every representation.

Applying the structure of repeated pattern, we can realize that if a pattern has a flaw in it, that flaw can and will be repeated if it is not 'atoned for' or deleted/erased. The Creator sent His Son to atone for that flaw so that all are made righteous by faith in Jesus Christ for in Him there is no sin ~ 1 John 3:5.

"Sin so easily entangles" ~ Hebrews 12:1 (NIV). And, thus, "there is no one who does not have sin" ~ 1 Kings 8:46 " "Everyone who sins is a slave to sin" ~ John 8:34. Yet, "Sin is not taken into account when there is no law" ~ Romans 5:13. We might ask then who realized the law which would point out the flaw/sin - corruption? When Adam broke the command given by the Creator, sin entered in ~ Romans 5:12. And yet he was the pattern of the one to come ~ Romans 5:14. And, he was created without sin to atone for it ~ 2 COR 5:21.


*With God all things are possible ~ Matthew 19:26 God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made things we can see and the things we can't see...Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else,and he holds all creation together ~ COL 1: 16-17

The State of Entropy and Carbon Dating

Just recently, we were discussing the condition of the universe which is in a state of entropy beginning since the Big Bang. That means everything in the universe is going to collapse as it expands. How will that  happen?  The expansion of the universe means an ever extending a plane; thinner and thinner. That is exactly the point. The universe will expand to a thin plane, a line and then into a point - a singularity. 

How can any experiments be done to test the age of the universe let alone anything we dig up on this planet? Good question. Everything being in a state of entropy 'expansion' causes everything to be in a state of decay. Whatever we use to determine the age of something is too in a state of decay. The most common used form of measuring the age of something is called carbon dating. What is that? 

Carbon dating itself as a means to measure or date is actually a combination of a variety of radioactive dating which is applicable only to matter which was once living and presumed to be in equilibrium with the atmosphere, taking in carbon dioxide from the air for photosynthesis. Before we delve into the process let's take a look at the first problem we incur. Everything which was once living is in an even faster state of entropy. We have a lot of that going on, matter (information) that becomes 'no longer alive'. However, some argue that we have just as much new matter (information) coming in - being born. All hosts of information and including mothers are subjected to the state of entropy so their own bodies do not contain any 'real' new information. What about cells themselves? Good Question.  All cells too exist in this state and that state is sped up as soon as they start to divide.

So, what to do. Retreat... well, let's look at how carbon dating actually works or is supposed to work. Carbon dating is a variety of radioactive dating. The application is thus... dead as in decaying matter is supposed to continue in its path by coming into a state of equilibrium with the atmosphere where it takes in carbon dioxide from the air for photosynthesis. There cosmic ray protons blast nuclei in the upper atmosphere, producing neutrons which in turn bombard nitrogen, the major constituent of the atmosphere. This neutron bombardment produces the radioactive isotope carbon-14. The radioactive carbon-14 combines with oxygen to form carbon dioxide and is incorporated into the cycle of living things.

The carbon-14 forms at a rate which appears to be constant, so that by measuring the radioactive emissions from once-living matter and comparing its activity with the equilibrium level of living things, a measurement of the time elapsed can be made. Ahh, sounds plausible but we have to acknowledge that so called 'living things' are in a state of entropy = decay. So, what is thought to be 'living' is an earlier form of 'death'. Yes. 

We can agree such is the case. Does this mean we cannot detect the age of that decay and determine a date? We can. But, this kind of data is only telling us about the state of entropy and not about when things actually appeared for the first time ever.... because even carbon 14 is in a state of decay. 

*But, I am only a sociologist...

Entropy ~ A State of Decay!

Scientists conduct experiments in a state of decay. The universe is expanding and as it does, causes the universe and everything in it to be in a state of decay; again, caused by its own expansion which began at the Big Bang.

Therefore, in a state of decay, how could any truly new particle be discovered? Is it really new and if it is wouldn't the newness wear off so fast we might not even be able to see it in its 'new' form?

What we must also consider is: who is observing them? Scientists, who themselves exist in a state of decay. So, how could they actually see any new particle? What about computers, as they can "see" and analyze information/things much faster.  The problem with that is that computers pass on the data to scientists who in their state of decay try to make sense of that data. Of course, experiments at CERN are being done that speed up particles so that computers witness what might be called new particles and they tell scientists "yes" there are new particles.

Even if scientists in their state of decay are able to recognize this computer data and agree that those particles are new, how could those scientists apply that data in a state of decay?

It has even been suggested that scientific observations, observing dark energy in order to discover new particles using equipment (Large Hadron Collider) and super computers to detect what scientists with their 'naked' eye cannot observe, have in fact shortened the life span of the universe.  Back in 2007, featured in the latest edition of "New Scientist" magazine, the subscriber-only story, questioned ... "Has observing the universe hastened its end?"

Why or how would that be possible? It would be possible if we consider the possibility that observations of the state of decay actually cause the process of decay to speed up. We have to imagine that means whatever that we look at in the blink of an eye (particle collapse due to observation) is gone in the next. If we try to suspend that blink in a single observation, do we actually move forward in time? Maybe, as once we stop that suspended view and set it free, we may actually have moved in time in the realization that we have made a dangerous quantum leap forward simply via observation of the universe. However, perhaps we can play catch up as we utilize past observations to counter that leap forward which then allows a kind of slow motion; which does not lend to anything new, only that we have come round again so that ... there is nothing new under sun! (Ecclesiastes 1: (). Escaping danger or prolonging it may depend on how you look at it.

My social quantum analysis takes that into consideration and goes even further. The social imagination too exists in a state of decay. We exist in it or have been enabled to exist in this state via what can be called reoccurring collective memory. Is that a problem as it is in the observing of dark energy? Perhaps, if we imagine that without collective memory, we would not have a purpose to observe it. What is the purpose? The purpose is to better understand the state of decay and our imagination of it and in it, right? In our social imagination's state of decay, subject to decay as we experience it around us, we have to ask if we are actually living in a state of decay? If we are, brought on by observing what is while trying to process what is not, then wouldn't we be subject to losing what was imagined prior to that moment of observation?

We would have to ask if there is any 'real' sense of reality. If we lose sight of our 'past' collective memory, an essential aspect of the social imagination, we would run the risk of never having had any real experiences of social imagination in our social imagination.

I think that this is the problem for us today, resulting in more and more of historical revisions of the past and past theories encouraged by those who think that we can create a new future without an embedded collective memory as in an absolute 'past - particle'. And, I am only a sociologist!