Modern Cosmology

 I was reading this morning the comedy of modern cosmology.  One positive note; of late these cosmologists seem to be worming up to the idea “Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain:” – Psalm 104: 2  You see some of them think the Universe has a diameter of 156 billion light years while all the lemmings agree the Universe is about 13.7 billion light years old.  Read for yourself from CNN.com

“"All the distance covered by the light in the early universe gets increased by the expansion of the universe," explains Neil Cornish, an astrophysicist at Montana State University. "Think of it like compound interest."

Need a visual? Imagine the universe just a million years after it was born, Cornish suggests. A batch of light travels for a year, covering one light-year. "At that time, the universe was about 1,000 times smaller than it is today," he said. "Thus, that one light-year has now stretched to become 1,000 light-years."

All the pieces add up to 78 billion-light-years. The light has not traveled that far, but "the starting point of a photon reaching us today after traveling for 13.7 billion years is now 78 billion light-years away," Cornish said. That would be the radius of the universe, and twice that -- 156 billion light-years -- is the diameter. That's based on a view going 90 percent of the way back in time, so it might be slightly larger.”

If you extrapolate this idea just a bit more, then a 6,000 year old Universe is not hard to see.  I am reminded of a problem I gave my high school students when I was a math teacher.

Just for fun let’s say that the 13.7 billion year age is an accurate coordinate time age for the Universe and that the 78 billion light year radius is equally as good and that it all started at the big bang.  What would the proper time number look like?  Well, the velocity of the expansion after the big bang is generally agreed to be preposterous or insane or some other such adjective by these folks ( LUDICROUS SPEED).   Ok, maybe not ludicrous speed.  Let’s try an average rate of expansion of 0.9999999999999c where c is the speed of light.  According to the accepted formula, ΔƮ = ΔT*SQRT(1 – v^2/c^2), for proper time ΔƮ, then due to the observable phenomenon of time dilation proper time would be about 6,128 years.  In relativity, proper time is the elapsed time between two events as measured by a clock that passes through both events.

In other words, if we would have lived through the events of the supposed big bang as they unfolded the current physics tells us that it would have taken no more than a few thousand years (proper time) for the Universe as we know it to have formed.

That Great City!

Revelation 21: 10 -- "And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,"
Revelation 21: 16 -- "And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs.  The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal."
So, how big is that?  Will we, Christians, all fit?
Well a furlong here is a Greek stadion which is 1/8th of a mile.  So, the Jerusalem cube has a volume of 3,375,000,000 cubic miles.  That sounds kinda big; but how big?  Let's compare it to the space we live in here on earth.
The radius of the earth is approximately 3,959 miles.  So, the volume of space we live in can be calculated using the following formula:

V = 4(pi)((3959 + x)^3 - 3959^3)/3

where x is the altitude in miles above sea level for the top of our space.

According to National Geographic the highest town in the world is La Rinconada, Peru some 3.2 miles above sea level.  For x = 3.2, V = 630,785,690 cubic miles.  The Great City is more than 5 times as large.  Ok, commercial jets fly at about 45,000 feet or about 8.5 miles.  For x = 8.5, V = 1,677,767,946 cubic miles.  That is about half the size of the Great City.  The tropopause has an altitude of 10.6 miles.  This is the end of weather.  For x = 10.6, V = 2,093,384,542 cubic miles, not even 2/3 rds the size of the Great City.  In fact, not until x > 17, well into the stratosphere, does the volume of "our space" reach that of the Great City.  Bacterial spores are the only things that live in the stratosphere.  So, I think we can safely say that the Great City is larger than the total of space that we all, saved and unsaved, live in now.  Glory to God.

Information

Information can be thought of as an indiscernible fluid.  We measure information flow by the ‘diff’ in the mind.  That is to say, the information that flowed is the difference between what was in the mind before and what is in the mind after.  Indiscernible, in that, this fluid is not a real physical substance but the dynamics of information are fluid like.

Fact – a fragment of material reality.

Concept – any derived virtual reconstitute of fact formed in the mind of an intelligent agent.

Consciousness – the set of concepts an individual intelligent agent is aware of at any given moment in time.

Information – the fluid of conception.

For this thesis we will assume that there exists a reality comprised of facts and there exist intelligent agents who are able to derive concepts based on the facts of reality.  These concepts have a dynamic flow.  They flow within the consciousness of the individual and, more importantly, they flow between and among the collective consciousness.  They can readily evaporate (leave the conscious mind), condense (form in the conscious mind), or stream (transition into a separate concept).  Let me give a simple example of this flow.

Suppose Tyqado is a member of a primitive community, Smallville, and has the duty of scout.  Tyqado is to seek out and report on the presence of intruders.  All of a sudden, Tyqado spots some intruders.  Now, there are many things that Tyqado could report about these intruders but we will limit it in this example to the size of the party.  Fact, there are, what we know as, seven, that’s ‘7’, individuals in this party of intruders.  In order for Tyqado to report on this fact to Smallville, Tyqado must be able to conceptualize the fact.  Fortunately,  Tyqado has acquired an internal ordered number system and is familiar with the concept ‘7’.  If Tyqado would have been from, Mayberry, the community down the road, then Tyqado’s number system would have been more simple.  Mayberry’s number system is {one, two, two and one, two twos, many}.  In that case, the conceptualization, ‘many’, would have been less precise and arguably less accurate.  Regardless, Tyqado forms the concept ‘intruders = seven’.

At this point Tyqado is probably feeling pretty good.  There are, however, a number of issues Tyqado has only begun to deal with.  How close Tyqado’s concept (7) is to the real number of intruders must be stirring about in Tyqado’s mind along with a myriad of other concepts.  Tyqado must figure out a way to get the concept ‘7 = intruders’ home safely to Smallville and then come up with a way to communicate it to the tribe.

Tyqado could attempt to record the concept in some way.  This way Tyqado could allow the concept to evaporate and recall it latter.  The trouble is that the concept is not real.  Tyqado can’t record a non-material object on a material medium {chemical neural circuits, pen and paper, computer circuitry, stone and chisel}.  The concept is not a fragment of reality; it is an apparition of reality which could evaporate or stream at any moment.  Tyqado’s idea is to use a proxy material fact to securely inform Smallville.  Tyqado writes the numeral ‘7’ on a piece of parchment.

This ‘7’ is a character on a page.  It is a fact just like the seven intruders.  Tyqado will use it to reduce (abstract) the fact of the actual living and breathing seven intruders with names and families of their own to the fact of a digit written on a page that can represent the quantity of intruders and eliminate the other characteristics of the brutes.  Now, when Tyqado sees the ‘7’ it references the concept of seven intruders condenses it in Tyqado’s mind.  How does it work?  I don’t know, but, I believe that both the concept of making the reference and the concept of seven intruders are not material in any way.  If the concepts themselves are material, then the entire package inside Tyqado’s brian is mechanical.  In that case Tyqado merely reacts and cannot think.  Tyqado is then a zombie; a la David Chalmers.  There would be no Tyqado, just a bag of chemicals with a label on it that reads “Tyqado”.  If no Tyqado, then I do not exist.  Since I know I exist, then concepts themselves are not material.

We now have a glimpse of the information inside Tyqado’s mind.  These concepts are derived by Tyqado from facts and can be triggered by abstractions.  Tyqado will now use another abstraction in an attempt to communicate “intruders = seven” to the tribe.

Tyqado arrives back at Smallville and is asked:  “How many intruders did you find?”  Tyqado forms the word and then speaks “seven” into the air.  What happens next is truly astounding.  The concept ‘intruders = seven’ never leaves Tyqado’s mind.  The fact of sound waves carrying the word ‘seven’ was created by Tyqado.  The concept must be derived in each individual mind that receives the signal through hearing.  The concept does not live in the sound waves any more than it lives in the ‘7’ on the page.  The abstraction forming the concept is made in the mind and stays in the mind.

 The tribe at Smallville experienced the ‘diff’, became aware, was informed, of the seven intruders as information flowed from Tyqado’s original sighting of the seven, threw the abstraction ‘7’, and finally in the concept formed in the minds of the villagers from Tyqado’s sound waves.   

 “But where can wisdom be found?  And where is the place of understanding?  Man does not know its value, Nor is it found in the land of the living.  The deep says, ‘It is not in me’; And the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’ It cannot be purchased for gold, Nor can silver be weighed for its price.  It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir, In precious onyx or sapphire.  Neither gold nor crystal can equal it, Nor can it be exchanged for jewelry of fine gold.  No mention shall be made of coral or quartz, For the price of wisdom is above rubies.  The topaz of Ethiopia cannot equal it, Nor can it be valued in pure gold.  “From where then does wisdom come?  And where is the place of understanding?  It is hidden from the eyes of all living, And concealed from the birds of the air.  Destruction and Death say, ‘We have heard a report about it with our ears.’  God understands its way, And He knows its place.  For He looks to the ends of the earth, And sees under the whole heavens, To establish a weight for the wind, And apportion the waters by measure.  When He made a law for the rain, And a path for the thunderbolt, Then He saw wisdom and declared it; He prepared it, indeed, He searched it out.  And to man He said, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, And to depart from evil is understanding.’” – Job 28: 12 - 28