Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

TagRoger Penrose (cyclic universe)

deep-space-travel-part-of-the-first-image-from-nasas-new-james-webb-space-telescope-has-been-used-in-this-composition-credits-nasa-esa-csa-and-stscihttpswwwnasagovwebbfirstimages-stockpack-adobe-stock
Deep space travel. Part of the first image from NASA's new James Webb Space Telescope has been used in this composition. CREDITS: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScIhttps://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages

Theoretical Physicist: Can’t Avoid a Beginning for Our Universe

Recent shakeups from the James Webb Space Telescope images invite fundamental questions like, Does the universe have a beginning?

The recent flutter over whether the James Webb Space Telescope’s data stream is a plus or a minus for the Big Bang and the Standard Model of the universe touched on some interesting cosmological issues. The Big Bang and the Standard Model support the assumption that our universe is finite and had a beginning. Could it have been eternal — with an infinite past instead of a beginning? The trouble is, as we saw last Saturday, when we try to apply concepts like infinity — typically used in mathematics — to the physical world, the basis of reality can collapse into absurdity. The world science observes seems to be finite; time starts at a certain point, flows in one direction, Read More ›

big-bang-in-space-the-birth-of-the-universe-3d-illustration-stockpack-adobe-stock
Big Bang in Space, The Birth of the Universe 3d illustration

How Easy Is It To Imagine Absolutely Nothing?

Theories around the Big Bang provide an interesting test of the concept

The Big Bang is, for most, the beginning of all science questions about the universe … and the mind and all that Many dislike the Big Bang because, while it is makes the best sense of the universe, it implies that there is a God. What are the arguments either way? Some see the Big Bang as engineered, though not by a divine Mind. Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, argued in Scientific American last October that advanced aliens engineered the Big Bang and that, when we humans are sufficiently advanced, we will create other universes as well. Loeb’s hypothesis is not logically stranger than the many that attempt to account for the Big Bang without underlying information/intelligence. It does not appear Read More ›