I have a problem with big concepts. Mostly, that they hurt my head. Almost literally.
When I was younger, maybe 18 or 19, I took some time out to
seriously ponder some things.
Specifically, the endlessness of space.
It was late at night, and I was tired.
I had just gotten done reading a short story that dealt with such
things. Inside my head, I wondered what
endless space might look like. So I
tried. I really tried hard. I think, I almost got to visualize a hint of
it. At that point I felt a little
queasy. It is the hardest thing to
describe. Like going over the top on a
roller coaster, losing your equilibrium perhaps. It was something else.
Getting to that point, I thought of another aspect, the
reverse side of that same coin, if you will.
What if space actually had and end?
What the heck would that be like?
That time it was even worse.
I really felt kind of sick.
Getting to the point that you can envision space having boundaries, or
walls, or just trailing off into the white of a blank page, ala a Warner
Brothers Cartoon where Bugs Bunny is the artist.
I haven’t been able to envision either concept that deeply
ever since. Not that that’s a big deal,
after all, who wants to be all queasy and woozy thinking about such crap all
the time.
There is math to describe all the deep concepts that perplex
me. As well as better ways to express
them in language. Of that I am
sure. I have what I have though.
A good friend responded to my “Vacuum of Faith”
posting. She expressed that it made her
happy to think that something had a hand in making the Big Bang. Rather than that nothing became something for
no reason at all and that's that.
I took a few minutes to chase that chain of thought down my
rabbit hole a little bit. Almost hurt my
head on that one. Looking at it both
ways a bit.
The “No Hand” train of thought seemed pretty
straightforward: Lots of matter
collecting, natural forces building, until BOOM! A big bang.
Although it isn’t that simple.
Why was all that stuff congregating?
Did it gather together naturally?
Randomly? Is that just the nature
of matter? To be inexorably pulled
towards each other, even down to the most microscopic particles? The short answer could be “yes” I suppose.
But that train of thought, almost naturally feeds into the
“Hand” idea. It’s pretty bloody unlikely
for all that to happen naturally, isn’t it?
What if, something did give things a little nudge to start it going? On purpose, or by accident. That would open a bottomless pit of speculation
in our rabbit hole. Second only to the
one generated when we think on all that matter existing forever, without a
beginning, only to come together to form our universe of matter in all it’s
variety.
If someone/something did give the nudge to start the ball
rolling…….where did they, or it, come from.
And if that entity had a hand in our chain of existence, who or what had
a hand in their chain of existence? How
far back does it go? How far can it
go? To the beginning of time?
Time, as a necessary part of this discussion, seems to be a
human creation, to give us linear logic.
So no, not the beginning of time.
There was no beginning. It all
just always has been, and will be. Long
before our big bang, and long after our eventual big crunch.
To further the wild analogies, the Sci-Fi idea that we are
some colossal science experiment by some other race of super beings, actually
starts to sound not completely improbable.
Which just would rock my mind to think about seriously. So I won’t.
So without thinking,
I’ll throw this out there.
Amongst the race of En, there was the being called Eb. Eb was experimenting with his theories of
evolution and creation. So Eb set up a
universe in a bottle (which Eb may or may not have gotten via mail order from
the back of a comic book), set it into an accelerator field, so as to make
things happen within a reasonable period.
Then Eb sat down and watched, and took notes. When Eb's collection of ingredients
condensed, Eb applied heat and pressure to his bottle, causing everything to
compress and mix. Releasing the
pressure, Eb's experiment exploded.
Though a very small explosion contained to the bottle on Eb's desk in
his bedroom, it did create our universe.
Eb took note of everything he saw, using the best scientific methods he
knew. When life appeared in various
places due to the strategic seeding of certain ingredients, Eb took notes. When the universe reached the limits of the
confines of the bottle on Eb's desk; Eb turned the heat down, and watched as the
universe slowly contracted. All life was
slowly extinguished, until all that was left was a smallish, black pebble of
matter. At this time, Eb took photos,
and more notes, cleaned out the bottle, threw away the used up matter from the
experiment in the appropriate biohazard container; and worked up a paper
describing what he'd seen. Eb submitted
this paper to his university, and received a doctorate for a job well
done. Eb went on with his life. Never suspecting that his own universe was
nothing more than a science experiment on a giant, unseen beings desk, in a
bottle, in a bedroom.
Huzzah.
I would say I was rambling, and maybe you will. But really, where is the logical place to go
with this discussion? I haven’t a
clue.
And hence, my worry of the day.
Oh, and if you are currently rolling your eyes at my naïveté
and amateur long winded philosophizing quasi science: My friends did the exact same thing when I
was 18 when I tried explaining my thoughts as well. So you would be in good company.
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