"Our universe may be the offspring of some other universe."
The science of thinking about the universe (Does Time Run Backwards In Other Universes?) really trips me out. Reading articles like that and thinking about the fact that we are even capable of and interested in thinking and reading about such things is a profoundly strange experience for me.
How unlikely is it, assuming that we are capable of eventually understanding the basic framework of the universe, that the cosmos has evolved such a capacity to understand itself? That sentient beings exist at all? Maybe not so unlikely--I don't have an understanding of the probabilities of life arising and evolving to this point in this universe. And maybe we are deluding ourselves in the assumption that we can really know anything at all. But if we are not, then I am amazed at us simply for existing and asking these questions. To paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke, any sufficiently advanced cosmology is indistinguishable from science fiction.
I'd love to read more stuff about what we think about the universe. Any recommendations?
How unlikely is it, assuming that we are capable of eventually understanding the basic framework of the universe, that the cosmos has evolved such a capacity to understand itself? That sentient beings exist at all? Maybe not so unlikely--I don't have an understanding of the probabilities of life arising and evolving to this point in this universe. And maybe we are deluding ourselves in the assumption that we can really know anything at all. But if we are not, then I am amazed at us simply for existing and asking these questions. To paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke, any sufficiently advanced cosmology is indistinguishable from science fiction.
I'd love to read more stuff about what we think about the universe. Any recommendations?