A Boring Universe

[afiddleinthevoid]

Hi everyone, I'm new here. I'm not sure if this has been posted before, so please bear with me.

I don't believe in alien abductions, crop circles, what have you, but, at least to me, science has made the universe vastly more boring than I would like to believe. For instance, the light-speed limit of moving objects. While sure, there are some vague theories of how it might be possible, it looks like nothing short of freezing you and shooting you into space. In essence, the best any of us will ever get of the "grandeurs" of space is hanging about a cramped ship for months, years, or more against a blank backdrop of stars moving with impossible slowness.

Forget about all the glorious nebulae that you see in hubble space telescopes. They're there alright, but you won't see them as much. They're not really that pretty, it's a time-lapse photograph.

But the point is, it's extremely unlikely you'll ever get off the earth, and if you do, the farthest you're going to go is Mars, which is essentially a boring version of earth.

Perhaps even funnier is the fate of the universe, that is, countless aeons of nothingness, everything growing colder, slower, and farther apart, until finally matter itself decays and then...well, and then nothing.

The worst for me, however, is the carbon-binding requirement of life. Life must use carbon, it might use silicon, but it's unlikely. Outside of those two elements, it doesn't seem that we'll ever encounter life that was born and bred in some more exotic stew. Sure, we might find some machine intelligence, but they've been assembled by carbon and/or maybe silicon life forms. Being such, they probably come from an environment not hugely unlike at least one of the ones found on earth. that being the case, it's pretty likely they're not really going to be anything special. They might have an extra arm or what have you, but really there's only so much variety we can conceive of. More and more, i think that our first message received will be "hey, does anyone have a cure for cancer yet?". They won't be spectacularly strange organisms flying about in faster-than-light spacecraft but rather lonely beings like ourselves, our only communication coming in hundred-year or more intervals as regulated by the iron fist of physics. Sigh.

If you agree with me, don't say so. I only want to hear from people who disagree with me, because I'm sick and tired of regarding the universe as so much of the same as around here.

[Maksutov]

Too bad about your attitude.

But some consider reality that way.

Others find it fascinating.

Meanwhile, welcome to the BAUT. Read the FAQs and have, if somewhat boring, fun!

[speedfreek]

"Science has made the universe vastly more boring than I would like to believe."

Whilst unfortunate, it is what you would like to believe that has made the universe boring for you, not the other way round.

"Forget about all the glorious nebulae that you see in hubble space telescopes. They're there alright, but you won't see them as much. They're not really that pretty, it's a time-lapse photograph."

Well, those glorious nebulae would look awe-inspiring up close. The "time-lapse" photography you speak of is the same as any photograph of a real object taken in very bad light - it requires a long exposure to collect enough photons. In their local region, the nebulae would indeed look glorious.

"But the point is, it's extremely unlikely you'll ever get off the earth, and if you do, the farthest you're going to go is Mars, which is essentially a boring version of earth."

That is a rather pessimistic view. If you are simply considering us to be limited by the speed-of-light, then you should also consider us being helped by time-dilation. At just below the speed of light, a journey of 5 light-years would only take 3 weeks. It would look like it took over 5 years to the people back home, but the people making the journey experience less time on their journey. We aren't (theoretically) constrained to staying in our own solar system, journeys of a few weeks could allow us to visit other star systems without the need for "freezing" ourselves. Time-dilation at relativistic speeds does the freezing for us! This allows us far more freedom than we might imagine and doesn't require us to sidestep the speed of light limit.

"The worst for me, however, is the carbon-binding requirement of life. Life must use carbon, it might use silicon, but it's unlikely."

Here you are making assumptions based on what we know so far, there may be other forms of life more exotic than we can conceive of.

"They might have an extra arm or what have you, but really there's only so much variety we can conceive of."

See, I was right! We cannot assume that the kinds of life that evolved on Earth are the only kinds there can be. I would expect us to get a lot of interesting surprises when we eventually find other planets with different environments that support strange, new forms of life.

[Ronald Brak]

I think it's healthy to challenge ideas people present as if they are facts but don't back up such as the universe is an amazing place. However I don't think it's healthy to get depressed if you discover that the universe actually is a boring place as a result. I think that if you were to put effort into it you could find things about the universe that would amaze you. As Shakespere said, there is nothing good or bad in this world but thinking makes it so. Of course it might be easier to just spend time in a fanstasy universe such as the ones created for Star Wars or Star Trek. You can find plenty of people and resources that can help you to do that. Personally I think the universe is what it is. Whether or not I find it interesting or boring is up to me.

[Ken G]

I'd echo that, and point out that if you find science boring, it is because you are not digging deeply enough. You only know enough science to "shoot down" certain unlikely scenarios, but not enough to see the fascination in science itself! A perfect example is other life. If all you see is life with an extra limb, you are not looking at it with the scientific eye. The scientific eye sees how differences that might seem inconsequential at first might cause dramatic differences in perspective. That's the whole idea behind anthropology-- anthropologists are fascinated by the differences in cultures that have appeared all with one single life form! The other examples are myriad.

You might want to consider the extent to which you find this statement true: "The goal of science is not to demystify the universe, it is to replace superficial mysteries with far more profound and grandiose ones." But you need science education to take advantage of this function.

[hhEb09'1]

Buck up, afiddleinthevoid, you could live here!

It's basketball, basketball, basketball. People always giving me tickets to see Duke, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio State...it's always the same, old boring stuff.

[penny]

First I would like to ask you a question, are you bored of your life? We have a colorful universe before us. If not the whole universe at least the earth. There are so many things yet unknown to man that remains to be discovered. Think of the mysteries and the fictions that you and I and everyone must uncover. Science did not set out limits it just expanded our point of view. What you have stated are theories.Who knows someday you might break them! Go! go! go!

[Blob]

Hum,
these posts are just composed of combinations of 26 letters.

"One light, two lights, three lights, four laps, five lights, go, go ,go" - Murray Walker

http://www.farzadsf1gallery.com/f1_sounds.php

[Grand_Lunar]

Welcome to the board!

The pictures you mention are not time laspe photos, but long-exposures.
We need to do this because the objects appear dim from our distance.
If one was closer, then we'd get a more colorful view.

For instance, the light-speed limit of moving objects.

Actually, the idea is more like this: nothing travels faster than light in space.
Space itself, however, is not limited to such laws. If it could be altered, then the speed limit of c would not be an issue anymore.
Our problem is that we don't know the physics to do this. Yet. So, stay tuned.


You have to look deeper, past the surface of things. There's so much about life itself, for instance, that we don't know.
We know of life forms that can withstand acidtic enviroments, extreme heat, radiation, extreme cold, and even a vaccum. This bolds well for finding very weird life forms elsewhere.

With the chance of groundwater on Mars, and the extreme types of life that we know of, there may be a chance of finding life there.
The chances are even better for Europa, one of the major moons of Jupiter. Evidence points to a ocean being there. If confirmed, we can expect life to be there too.

Life aside, simply the characteristics of our own solar neighborhood are facinating. Jupiter has complex weather and chemicals. Saturn is a place of beauty, while it's moon Titan is like a cold version of early Earth. Mars can provide better insight to our own planet. It's not the "boring" version of Earth by any means; it's more like a giant, freeze dried desert version of Earth.
I could go on.

As for our the universe itself, its merely a matter of appreciating the wonders about it.

Considering what we have found in deep space, we needn't feel gloomy about finding life.

The excitement is there. You just have to know where to find it.

[eburacum45]

The surface brightness of an extended object is independent of its distance; so the Orion nebula, for instance, would look like a hazy patch with the same brightness per square degree as the hazy patch we see in the sky. It would probably look like a thin, faintly glowing, almost colourless cloud if we saw it close up. Of course a long exposure photograph would look spectacular; but whar we see with the naked eye would be less impressive.

See this pdf;
http://www.sdsc.edu/~nadeau/PhD/Visu...ionNebulas.pdf

But the universe is far from boring, even if it doesn't look like the astronomical photos pasted up in Captain Kirk's Enterprise. In fact it is probably much more interesting than we now imagine; compare the artist's impressions of Jupiter's moons before Voyager got there to the real thing. When we get to see the planets orbiting other stars, they will no doubt be a varied lot. And I have every confidence that the diversity of life on distant worlds will be astounding.

[Melusine]

Afiddleinthevoid, welcome to BAUT. Others' answers have been so good that there's not much to add without being redundant.

The thing is, even if most of us never "get off the Earth" the universe is still interesting. Large telescopes are our spaceships, satellites, rovers, and well, astronauts. Even if there is no life, as we define it or can recognize, elsewhere in the universe, the journey to discovery still provides us much knowledge and amazement about how things work and what's out there.

And as far as Hubble images, etc. - how do you know what some of these nebulas or planets would look like up close and personal? Could they be even more beautiful? Is Earth not cool looking from the ISS? Behind all the colors chosen for their wavelengths are REAL worlds! I'm curious what's behind the curtain of photography - we know from Mars images that it could be desert-like or like Earth it could be filled with lots of creatures and varying topography with swirling oceans.

Perhaps some things are not possible now, but history has shown that things we've deigned to imagine about have become possible. Maybe intergalactic spaceships will never be possible with what we know about physical laws right now, but who knows, and people are thinking about it. If it turns out to be science fiction, well then, we still have fun movies and books! And we still have our roving observatories and spacecraft plying the solar system bringing us new information and views all the time.

I don't know if you think Earth is boring, but we are part of the universe. Go look at a sunset and compare our atmosphere to Mars' atmosphere and imagine the views from different planets...what's different, what's the same? I find it all very interesting, but then we all have different tastes in what we find appealing or interesting, and that varies at different times, too. Just be openminded and try to enjoy new things - give people the opportunity to persuade you. Maybe you'll get hooked and be the next spaceship inventor!

[triclon]

Not everyone likes everything the same. I consider Opera boring but some people love it. Same with you and outer-space I suppose. Maybe too much science fiction has made your expectations a little high.

[Squink]

Maybe too much science fiction has made your expectations a little high.

I was that way in high school. Fortunately, a good course in Statics and Mechanics set me straight. I suppose the study of any hard discipline could serve to dispell the conviction that only squishy things can be interesting.

[EvilEye]

I'll just say this. If you are thinking about it, how bored can you be? Science (especially space) is infinately interesting. If we had all the answers, THEN it would be boring.

[afiddleinthevoid]

"Well, those glorious nebulae would look awe-inspiring up close. The "time-lapse" photography you speak of is the same as any photograph of a real object taken in very bad light - it requires a long exposure to collect enough photons. In their local region, the nebulae would indeed look glorious."

Not really true...I'm not sure of what "local region" you're referring to, but nebulae are many many many kilometers across, and the density of gas contained in them is vastly lower than even the upper reaches of our atmosphere. For instance, if you were within a nebula, you wouldn't know it as the gas is simply so thin (at least, without special measurements).

As for time dilation, while I'd like to see Tau Ceti or somesuch, i wouldn't want to do it at the expense of losing all my friends and family (at feasible speeds everyone you know would be long dead).

As for carbon-based life, we are absolutely sure that carbon and silicon are necessary to make complex molecules, which appear to be necessary to create information processing gradients, which is the broadest definition of life. And yes, i'm aware that bacteria can't think and whatnot, I don't mean information processing in the sense that it's known today rather in the context of information theory.

[afiddleinthevoid]

Some people have brought up that examining the cutting edge would make things interesting. Don't worry, i've done this--I spent a year at MIT doing just that (until i decided i didn't want to spend my college years in an environment like MIT) and I continue to do it at my new school. I mean, yeah, i find phantom energy and such interesting and all, but at the level physics is at now it seems simply to examine things that cannot physically affect us. Now i'm not saying this about practical physics, and i'm not trying to insult anyone, but consider cosmic inflation. it's a facinating concept...but what? who cares? everything in the universe that's interesting seems to occur in one of two timescales at one of two times: these are, vastly faster than a human can observe, or vastly longer than we live, and these events occur either way back when or extremely far into the future.

Several of you have brought up (sarcastically and without really knowing it) a philosophical practice known as "novelty theory" pioneered by the somewhat crazy terence mckenna. You might find it interesting, especially in the context of this conversation. Sure it's a little crazy, but it's interesting nevertheless.

[Doodler]

Boring? Hehe, the universe hasn't been boring since the first confirmed planet found around a Sun-like star turned out to have a year three days long. This is a golden age for planet hunters, and it just keeps getting shinier.

[grant hutchison]

Several of you have brought up (sarcastically and without really knowing it) a philosophical practice known as "novelty theory" pioneered by the somewhat crazy terence mckenna. You might find it interesting, especially in the context of this conversation. Sure it's a little crazy, but it's interesting nevertheless.

You're kidding me. The Universe is boring, but Terence McKenna's novelty "theory" is interesting?

Perhaps I'm not on the right drugs ...

Grant Hutchison

[Dubb]

-

[Cougar]

Boredom is in the eye of the beholder.

[Ken G]

Some people have brought up that examining the cutting edge would make things interesting. Don't worry, i've done this--I spent a year at MIT doing just that (until i decided i didn't want to spend my college years in an environment like MIT) and I continue to do it at my new school.

Hang on-- it sounds like you are talking undergraduate school, am I right? And you think that's on the "cutting edge"? You are simply not trying nearly hard enough. There is more fascinating processes going on within your range of view right now, and the timescale for reading this post, than any of us will even remotely scratch in a lifetime of being on the "cutting edge". But we can try, we don't have to say "boring" and give up. That is about the most scientifically soulless approach I can imagine-- maybe MIT wasn't the problem. (I'm not trying to be harsh, but rather to shake you from your slumber.)

[Ronald Brak]

I will mention that I find sports incredibly boring. However, many people seem to enjoy for some reason I can't seem to fathom. Perahaps Afiddleinthevoid should try sports instead of science and maybe he will find her passion that way.

[Squink]

Hang on-- it sounds like you are talking undergraduate school, am I right?

It sure sounds that way.
Undergrad ennui is no fun, but can be overcome if your really work at it.
Sports boredom, not so much. I have resigned myself to a life of that.

[Ken G]

"Willful melancholy", that is indeed a great characterization.

[grant hutchison]

Undergrad ennui is no fun ...

Especially for those who have to share a room with it.

Grant Hutchison

[penny]

Its funny you know for a 15 year old boy to talk like this,... Life is FUN in so many ways. Sex... Women... Money... Luxuries... sports... games... hobbies... books....etc... You can find boredom in so many places but it is in different forms. Each man is only susceptible to a few kinds of boredom and that means there is a chance that you can find something interesting in another place.

[publiusr]

I've had down days. It would be nice if anti-gravity were real and we had cheap energy from easy fusion.

[Romanus]

The universe *is* marvelous. It all depends on how you look at it.

We regularly travel into space these days; a hundred years ago, this would have been unthinkable. It only seems dull because we're used to it, and that's true for all things. Suppose it were the case that there were aliens in FTL spaceships, or energy beings, or silicon invaders, or that the universe would become stranger and more "interesting" with time. Suppose all those situations were facts. The universe would *still* be boring, because "we" would take all of that--which would seem amazing to us--for granted, because that's just the way the world worked.

For instance, good SF often ignores the technology in it, whether the protagonists are on an alien planet or just sentient computer programs. We--the readers--are supposed to be wowed, but to the characters it's just day-to-day existence. That tension between how we perceive and how the characters perceive their worlds is part of the great interest of SF--to me, anyway.

All I'm trying to say is basically what everyone else has said: it's all in how you look at it. I love geology; where some people see dead rocks, I see the rock and all the processes and time that led to its formation, and ultimately, to my grubby little hands...

Just my two bits.

[Ken G]

For instance, good SF often ignores the technology in it, whether the protagonists are on an alien planet or just sentient computer programs. We--the readers--are supposed to be wowed, but to the characters it's just day-to-day existence. That tension between how we perceive and how the characters perceive their worlds is part of the great interest of SF--to me, anyway.

Good point, Blade Runner was a great example of the dirty, cigarette-smoking common people, unimpressed by, even belligerent toward, the astonishing technology around them.
[/QUOTE]

[Doodler]

Good point, Blade Runner was a great example of the dirty, cigarette-smoking common people, unimpressed by, even belligerent toward, the astonishing technology around them.

Not unlike a few of us are these days when we think of text messaging, people talking to themselves with plastic things stuck in their ears....shall I continue?