Definition of Universe requires clarification, to enable discussion

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Atlan0001

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From what I've read, relativity predicts its own breakdown "with distance-time going away," thus, concomitantly, its own buildup "with distance-time oncoming." You can't look at it 1-dimensionally! Not even just 2-dimensionally! According to 11-dimensionality, not even just 10-dimensionally!
 
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Asking google's AI : "measuring gravitational time dilation on earth"

Answer :

"To measure gravitational time dilation on Earth, scientists use highly precise atomic clocks placed at different altitudes, comparing the timekeeping rates between them, where a clock at a higher altitude will tick slightly faster due to the weaker gravitational pull at that height; this is most notably demonstrated by the need to adjust clocks on GPS satellites to account for time dilation caused by their orbit around Earth."

So it does appear that time runs at different rates depending on the clock's position in a gravitational field. Not an expert on this, but it seems relatively straightforward.
 
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Atlan0001

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Asking google's AI : "measuring gravitational time dilation on earth"

Answer :

"To measure gravitational time dilation on Earth, scientists use highly precise atomic clocks placed at different altitudes, comparing the timekeeping rates between them, where a clock at a higher altitude will tick slightly faster due to the weaker gravitational pull at that height; this is most notably demonstrated by the need to adjust clocks on GPS satellites to account for time dilation caused by their orbit around Earth."

So it does appear that time runs at different rates depending on the clock's position in a gravitational field. Not an expert on this, but it seems rather straightforward.
It's not how it runs in place, it's how it keeps regarding magnitude of differing distance times and constant change needing to be adjusted to, in those magnitudes. Plus the Earth is changing instant to instant including its magnetosphere. I, in my own careers, have worked with the necessity of global precision time keeping and it never happened, never kept, for long. The Earth and solar system factors wouldn't let it stay with the precisionist quantum particle-orientated time-keeping clocks. The only factors we could adjust were the clocks, bringing in time adjusted precisionist clocks, sending out the ones then out of whack. That work is approaching fifty years ago now, so I have the actual personal working background to know of what I speak.
 
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Atlan0001

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By the way, it has been proven that you can't find much more stupidity than that of Google's AI!

It is still as always with such "artificial intelligence," garbage in, garbage out! There is an old movie, among a few others that speak to the same machine utopian-intelligent supremacy, everyone should watch, 'Forbidden Planet'.

The most lasting intelligent species are those that spread and dilute themselves far and away over the frontier universe, branching out, to survive by avoiding the unwise perfect "spike" of their own 'id' of intelligence.
 
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Science tries to make sense of the universe using our best tools (laws/theories), even if they're not perfect.
Yes, but Cat’s point about instruments (measurements) gives us the objectivity needed to distinguish science from, say, philosophy.
This is not my phrase but it seems to be in vogue: "It's like science is the map, and logic is the compass. Sometimes the map needs updating, but the compass keeps pointing true."
Yes, that’s nice. Cat likes to note that the map is not the territory, Orienting the map does indeed require logic.
 
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By the way, it has been proven that you can't find much more stupidity than that of Google's AI!

It appears to be accurate on this one. There are measurements of gravitational time dilation by various means. Here is only one of them, and was not found using any AI source.

And it comes from this very site:

"Einstein's 'Time Dilation' Gets Pinpoint Measure Thanks to Wayward Satellites"

 

Atlan0001

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It appears to be accurate on this one. There are measurements of gravitational time dilation by various means. Here is only one of them, and was not found using any AI source.

And it comes from this very site:

"Einstein's 'Time Dilation' Gets Pinpoint Measure Thanks to Wayward Satellites"

It's still RELATIVE physics! And I worked with clocks based for precision on QUANTUM physics!
 

Catastrophe

"Science begets knowledge, opinion ignorance.
It’s the ability to measure, which usually requires an instrument. This produces verifiable objective evidence.

If the object emits photons then science can study it directly, or indirectly if it’s a bh influencing other objects.
Do you call that interaction? Is it studying back? At so many light years away? Interaction?

Cat :)
 
Do you call that interaction?
Sure. Some have said science is a conversation with Nature. :)


Is it studying back? At so many light years away? Interaction?
I'm unclear what you mean. Are you asking if a simple observation is an interaction? It is an interaction with the message, but not the messenger. Astronomical lights are the message and astronomers now, remarkably, understand the messengers. ;)
 

Catastrophe

"Science begets knowledge, opinion ignorance.
RECIPROCAL
done, given, or felt equally by both sides. reciprocal affection. 2. : related to each other in such a way that one completes the other or is the equal of the other. reciprocal agreements

Sure. Some have said science is a conversation with Nature. :)



I'm unclear what you mean. Are you asking if a simple observation is an interaction? It is an interaction with the message, but not the messenger. Astronomical lights are the message and astronomers now, remarkably, understand the messengers. ;)

INTERACTION

An occasion when TWO OR MORE people or things communicate with or react to each other:

E.g., There's not enough interaction between the management and the workers.

The
play follows the interactions between three very different characters.

The Latin word INTER means "between" or "among".

"Some have said science is a conversation with Nature.

Yes. It is a conversation which, by definition, is an interaction between . . .
The conversation is the interaction. Not science and/or nature, but the conversation between.

*******************

For example, we can see Andromeda and detect it with our instruments, but how do you interact with something 2.537 million light years away?

This is NOT an interaction. We cannot communicate or react (interact) with Andromeda Galaxy whilst we are over 2.5 million light years apart. Vide

when TWO OR MORE people or things communicate with or react to each other:

INTERACTION is TWO WAY. Vide communication with, or reaction to.

Two million people seeing something on TV is not interaction they must communicate with or react TO EACH OTHER (person and TV station)
One person phoning the TV station is. This is 2-way INTER action.

Maybe we have another case where we have two different languages.

Cat :)
 
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Atlan0001

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Only circumstantially possibly interacting: Separate but entangled, entangling, spontaneously concurrent (t=0) REALTIME NOW (t=0) instant moment.

The faster a traveler, including Einstein's traveler always, cuts through a curvature (like Alexander the Great cut through the Gordian Knot), the more the space (the hyperspace) contracts between points A and B. the more the real-time traveler disappears from all observation of the rearward observer (thus the more the physic of relativity has completely broken down between traveler and rearward observer) leaving only the relative light-time, time-dilated, holographic mirage of a traveler fallen behind in the wake of the reality of the traveler.

Some would say then that the real-time traveler has to have achieved faster than light travel to achieve the above. In a sense, they would be right on the money . . . if that is the only way to do away with the idiocy of the nonrelative real-time (object) traveler on the unobservable -- from the rear -- spot in the universe being "time dilated!"

It is sheer idiocy to so flatly deny so constantly that there are two travelers involved in the picture, not one! One real and unobserved! One relative and observed! TWO TRAVELERS (though the same traveler, one of the traveler in the box, one of the traveler outside the box) . . . NOT JUST ONE!!!!

Geez can't people get out of their lock of strictly 1-dimensional thinking, even if only to reach 2-dimensionality in thinking!

Stephen Hawking said it was difficult for him to think in two dimensions of anything, much less three. It's not that hard once you see, once you can think, in the Schrodinger-like split screens (at once the black hole horizon-like split-screens) . . . inside the horizon of the box, and outside the horizon of the box, at one and the same time. If you have to take the unobserved and unobservable real traveler, versus the observed and observable relative traveler, faster than the speed of light to split the screen into two dimensionalities, then do it!

I am one of the very few people in the world capable of realizing how really slow the speed of light is in bringing me information of the world immediately around me . . . never mind information from farther distant and ever farther distant out.
 
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RECIPROCAL
done, given, or felt equally by both sides. reciprocal affection. 2. : related to each other in such a way that one completes the other or is the equal of the other. reciprocal agreements





"Some have said science is a conversation with Nature.

Yes. It is a conversation which, by definition, is an interaction between . . .
The conversation is the interaction. Not science and/or nature, but the conversation between.

*******************



This is NOT an interaction. We cannot communicate or react (interact) with Andromeda Galaxy whilst we are over 2.5 million light years apart. Vide



INTERACTION is TWO WAY. Vide communication with, or reaction to.

Two million people seeing something on TV is not interaction they must communicate with or react TO EACH OTHER (person and TV station)
One person phoning the TV station is. This is 2-way INTER action.

Maybe we have another case where we have two different languages.
Agreed. I was erring by taking a reaction to, or engagement with, observations as an interaction.
 
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The definition offered by John Gribbin is worthy of acceptance, in my opinion.
I respect John Gribbin! His definition of the universe does not refer to our universe, but to infinite Matter. I have given the definition of Matter in my posts. The meaning of our definitions is the same, but I have given a more detailed definition. In fact, we are talking about an infinite material world. Our universe is a part of the Matter that we have come to know today.
 

Catastrophe

"Science begets knowledge, opinion ignorance.
Definition of (The) Universe, as opposed to "observable universe".

Defined by whom? Some English speaker at some time living on planet Earth.

OK. That is fine so long as it is understood as valid only according to these limitations.

"That is good enough for us" we may say. With every good reason. That is all we care about.

But is it complete? No. Anyone who suggests that there are (were/will be) no other intelligent species in the entire Universe, and that such would not have their own definitions/understandings, would be very "short sighted".

Good enough for us in general terms, but who will take on a bet that there is no such intelligent life anywhere else in the Universe? Outside our observable universe? They would lose, because statistics would say otherwise. Not observation I believe we all agree, but is it likely?

One answer, as a generality, founded on observation. Another more accurate answer, in terms of probability.

That is just a parting summary of my position on the matter. Most likely, but cannot be proven - hence metaphysics, not science.

Cat :)
 

Catastrophe

"Science begets knowledge, opinion ignorance.
So time passes and new thoughts arise, more ideas are aired.

Sorry, but the Gribbin definition is up for further examination.

The Universe is everything that we can see, and interact with, and detect with our instruments.”

Looking at it now, it just screams subjectivity. Far from being wide, or all inclusive, it is completely the opposite.

Just look at it:

The Universe is everything that we can see, and interact with, and detect with our instruments.”

There is nothing wrong with science, so long as we understand that it is very subjective.
What we can examine. What we can observe. What we can falsify.

As I have pointed out more than once, whilst the existence of extraterrestrial civilisations may be beyond our abilities to observe, it is certainly not beyond our logic.

We can try to widen Gribbin to:

The Universe is everything that can be seen, and interacted with, and detected with instruments.”

This seems innocuous, but only if we make our anthropocentric assumptions that whoever is doing the seeing, interacting and detection with instruments means only us.

So we have departed from science, but remain firmly within the bounds of probability and logic. We can widen the definition further by exceeding even these limitations. If there are what would be observable universes, if there were observers - but there are no observers?

Pushing the philosophical approach even further, what if all intelligent life ceases in one location too far from observation/interaction by any other intelligent life. What if they leave instruments which can observe and record? But cannot be investigated? But, if aeons later, new intelligent life arrives and investigates these records? Does science re-ignite?

Was the "Universe" real during the Big Bang? Will it be real if ending in heat death?

But this is too far. This is playing with words, since it involves far wider guesses than logic would permit.

Let us just be happy with "observable universes", but with the proviso that they can be observed, interacted with, and/or detected with instruents, by any entity capable of intelligent observation involving whatever reliable means of investigation available to them.
So we still have loopholes - what are reliable means of investigation, and surely any intelligent entities must have a brain (or even AI) capable of processing such data.

So we are treading beyond science, beyond metaphysics and entering the realms of imagination. Let us stop before we go too far, and realise that we risk danger of simply playing with words, with labels, which merely distort mirages. The maps are no longer associated with any real territory. After all, what is real?

Cat :)

P.S. That is about as far as I can push the subject at present. But who knows?
The realms of fatasy will surely beckon.

Addendum: I laid some emphasis on the flatlander analogy. It may be of interest to know that even the great Sir Artur Eddington


. . . . . . makes reference to Flatland in Space, Time and Gravitation, Cambridge University Press, 1935, page 57:

Probably the best known exposition of the fourth dimension is that given in E. Abbott's popular book Flatland. It may be interesting to see how far the four-dimensional world of space-time conforms with his anticipations.

He then examines the subject, but does not pursue the analogy which I introduced.
I openly acknowledge that the analogy starts from the common idea of a balloon.
 
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The realms of fatasy will surely beckon.
Yeh, my waistline is expanding (fatasy)

Suggested Definition: Universe = Everything

A subdivision term is needed for everything known =?

A further subdivision for the environment of all things detected =?

You are the word master around here so let's have some suggestions that the English Speaking World might adopt but don't include 'Universe' or it will never stick
 
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The Universe is everything that we can see, and interact with, and detect with our instruments.”


We can try to widen Gribbin to:

The Universe is everything that can be seen, and interacted with, and detected with instruments.”

This seems innocuous, but only if we make our anthropocentric assumptions that whoever is doing the seeing, interacting and detection with instruments means only us.
Yes, your change takes us from the "map" to the land itself. Perhaps Gribbin intended to imply the difference. His "The Universe..." is one that is built on the limited types of bricks we can use to construct our view of the universe. If better bricks are found, then "our universe" may be altered. Einstein made a huge change in our brick selections, resulting in a new cosmology. "Our universe" changed, but "The Universe", of course, never changes.

Removing the anthropocentric approach makes "The Universe" more of a goal to understand what we like to call real.

This is the main reason I like your "Universe" vs. "universe" viewpoint.

The essence of both are the works of science because it involves measurements, which is the heart of the SM (Scientific Method). This makes it objective-based since premises can be tested over and over, unlike the subjective-based realms of religion and philosophy.

Pushing the philosophical approach even further, what if all intelligent life ceases in one location too far from observation/interaction by any other intelligent life. What if they leave instruments which can observe and record? But cannot be investigated? But, if aeons later, new intelligent life arrives and investigates these records? Does science re-ignite?
Perhaps the investigation itself has, in this scenario, re-ignited science, if it were to have faded below the "radar" (assuming they have radar. ;)).

I still like to view science in the analogy of an island where objective-based efforts allow all kinds of structures to be built upon the island. Religion and philosophy are found offshore and are more limited in what can be built, though perhaps their realm is much larger.

So if the island structures are abandoned and fail, then it's likely any that return will recognize that things can be built there, and un-earthing plans of those prior constructs will just make it much easier. Of course, abandoning the island makes little sense since only technology can allow a 10 billion population, or so.

Was the "Universe" real during the Big Bang? Will it be real if ending in heat death?

But this is too far. This is playing with words, since it involves far wider guesses than logic would permit.
Who doesn't like a nice swim in the ocean? *wink*
 
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"No science is an island" - Nopruf Isneded, noted fictional namer.

Reading through this, I ended up floating in a sea of mixed metaphors. I can't make Science an island, and leave religion and philosophy treading water. Without them, and others, on land we're not seeing the whole, not in communication with other perspectives, not in possession of "all" that we can know. If it is supposed to be the island "Earth," then the analogy of offshore religion and philosophy puts them in space! In a universe within the Universe.