Alan Fox
Posts: 1556
Joined: Aug. 2005
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As things are quiet enough for postal Mornington Crescent could I ask if any of this makes sense | Quote | Current reality (as perceived today with all the accumulated knowledge of mankind) is everything that is known. The boundaries of this domain are easily defined though what is contained is rapidly changing and, I would suggest, expanding.
Ultimate or potential reality is everything that exists that is capable of being perceived by current or future humankind from Earth. The boundary of this domain is the past and future light cone (I doubt it makes much practical difference if I say of the Earth or of our galaxy). I would suggest the limit of exploration into past events is the Big Bang and the limit into the future will be the Sun’s metamorphosis into a red giant, unless some earlier catastrophe intervenes.
Then there is a domain that is outside current and ultimate reality which I would like to call the imaginary domain. (complex numbers, argand diagrams and the Mandlebrot set seem to fit)
So bacteria were, prior to their discovery, in the ultimate reality domain and were engulfed by the expanding boundary of the current reality domain. (All things that are real exist but not all things that are real are within the domain of current reality, yes I get the black crow concept.)
What about extraterrestrial lifeforms. They are certainly not in the domain of current reality. Are they in the domain of ultimate reality? We don't know that but we have ideas that guide our search. The domain of ultimate reality is, I assert, contained in (cannot be bigger than) the same envelope as the knowable universe and thus has the same physical properties (or laws, if you prefer). This limits the possibility of what a discoverable alien could consist of.
Other universes with other physical constants, life beyond the boundaries of the knowable universe, what happened before the Big bang would all seem inaccessible to us now and ever. |
If not:
Mudchute!
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