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.