Our Brains Are Too Puny to Fully Understand The Scale of The Universe

[rangerrebew]

Our Brains Are Too Puny to Fully Understand The Scale of The Universe

This will blow you away.
MICHAEL STRAUSS, AEON
29 MAY 2018

As an astrophysicist, I am always struck by the fact that even the wildest science-fiction stories tend to be distinctly human in character.

No matter how exotic the locale or how unusual the scientific concepts, most science fiction ends up being about quintessentially human (or human-like) interactions, problems, foibles and challenges.

https://www.sciencealert.com/our-brains-are-just-too-puny-to-fully-understand-the-scale-of-the-universe

[ABX]

Heck, most people's brains are too puny to understand the concept of turn signals.

[rangerrebew]

   Truer words have never been spoken.

[roamer_1]

This is really kinda true - folks can conceptualize big things, but cannot bring that with them into reality.

Even money is conceptual. People may be able to visualize tens of thousands of dollars, but grasping more than a thousand or so real things IRL is pretty problematic.
 
Con men know this and take the advantage. Jack the numbers up and watch folks glaze over.

Scientists do the very same thing.

But then, I'm repeating myself. 

[thackney]

Our Brains Are Too Puny to Fully Understand The Scale of The Universe

A truly infinite universe is without limits.  Anything physically possible must exists, somewhere.  And then if you explore the infinity concept a little more, all of the combinations have infinite numbers of existence.

[Cyber Liberty]

Our Brains Are Too Puny to Fully Understand The Scale of The Universe

No they aren't.  Observe:

! No longer available

[Oceander]

Our Brains Are Too Puny to Fully Understand The Scale of The Universe

This will blow you away.
MICHAEL STRAUSS, AEON
29 MAY 2018

As an astrophysicist, I am always struck by the fact that even the wildest science-fiction stories tend to be distinctly human in character.

No matter how exotic the locale or how unusual the scientific concepts, most science fiction ends up being about quintessentially human (or human-like) interactions, problems, foibles and challenges.

https://www.sciencealert.com/our-brains-are-just-too-puny-to-fully-understand-the-scale-of-the-universe

What else should science fiction be about, other than the human condition?

[driftdiver]

The hubble telescope focused on one small part of our sky for about 11 days.    In this image there are roughly 10,000 galaxies.

It amounts to a tiny fraction of our sky.

[thackney]

The hubble telescope focused on one small part of our sky for about 11 days.    In this image there are roughly 10,000 galaxies.

It amounts to a tiny fraction of our sky.

Really, really tiny fraction.

It is equal to roughly one thirteen-millionth of the total area of the sky.  And it is a thin "layer" of that view.

[jmyrlefuller]

What else should science fiction be about, other than the human condition?

As if humans are the only entities in the universe? They're not even the only entities on Earth, which should put to rest any notion that we'll ever be able to communicate with any life form that developed under far different conditions. We can't even reliably communicate with other species here.

To assume all science fiction must revolve around "the human condition" is the utmost of hubris. (Good God, I sound so haughty sometimes.)

[Oceander]

As if humans are the only entities in the universe? They're not even the only entities on Earth, which should put to rest any notion that we'll ever be able to communicate with any life form that developed under far different conditions. We can't even reliably communicate with other species here.

To assume all science fiction must revolve around "the human condition" is the utmost of hubris. (Good God, I sound so haughty sometimes.)

Who are the readers of the science fiction humans write? 

[Ghost Bear]

! No longer available

[The_Reader_David]

A truly infinite universe is without limits.  Anything physically possible must exists, somewhere.  And then if you explore the infinity concept a little more, all of the combinations have infinite numbers of existence.

A few problems with your assertion.  First it's a contrafactual hypothetical: the universe we live in is very, very large, but finite, both in (past) duration and volume, moreover, it contains a finite amount of mass/energy, and thus there is a finite upper bound on the number of elementary particles it contains at any given moment.

Once it's finite, no matter how large or how many parts, the assertion that some ordered structure "must exist" because of the scale is the subject of Ramsey theory, a branch of mathematics is which the numbers that arise often outstrip the number of elementary particles in the universe by many orders of magnitude.  (Look at the wikipedia article on Graham's number.)

Second, there are plenty of infinite structures in the world of mathematics (where such thing really exist) which do not contain everything possible in a structure of that type.  For instance, infinite graphs (infinite sets of points connected in pairs by edges) need not have a vertex of any given degree (number of edges connecting it to other vertices) nor any given size of clique (set of vertices every pair of which is connected by an edge).

[Oceander]

A few problems with your assertion.  First it's a contrafactual hypothetical: the universe we live in is very, very large, but finite, both in (past) duration and volume, moreover, it contains a finite amount of mass/energy, and thus there is a finite upper bound on the number of elementary particles it contains at any given moment.

Once it's finite, no matter how large or how many parts, the assertion that some ordered structure "must exist" because of the scale is the subject of Ramsey theory, a branch of mathematics is which the numbers that arise often outstrip the number of elementary particles in the universe by many orders of magnitude.  (Look at the wikipedia article on Graham's number.)

Second, there are plenty of infinite structures in the world of mathematics (where such thing really exist) which do not contain everything possible in a structure of that type.  For instance, infinite graphs (infinite sets of points connected in pairs by edges) need not have a vertex of any given degree (number of edges connecting it to other vertices) nor any given size of clique (set of vertices every pair of which is connected by an edge).

In terms of mathematical structures that are both infinite, and yet do not contain all that is possible, one of my favorites has always been the set of all natural numbers.  Or even better, the set of all even natural numbers, which is infinite, just like its parent set (the natural numbers) and yet does not contain anything as simple as a single odd number. 

[thackney]

A few problems with your assertion.  First it's a counterfactual hypothetical: the universe we live in is very, very large, but finite, both in (past) duration and volume, moreover, it contains a finite amount of mass/energy, and thus there is a finite upper bound on the number of elementary particles it contains at any given moment.

Once it's finite, no matter how large or how many parts, the assertion that some ordered structure "must exist" because of the scale is the subject of Ramsey theory, a branch of mathematics is which the numbers that arise often outstrip the number of elementary particles in the universe by many orders of magnitude.  (Look at the wikipedia article on Graham's number.)

Second, there are plenty of infinite structures in the world of mathematics (where such thing really exist) which do not contain everything possible in a structure of that type.  For instance, infinite graphs (infinite sets of points connected in pairs by edges) need not have a vertex of any given degree (number of edges connecting it to other vertices) nor any given size of clique (set of vertices every pair of which is connected by an edge).

A finite Universe is also hypothetical.