People act, so my take is that if a person has to ask the question, it's unlikely they are going to do anything about it. So I figure they can just get on with whatever it is they do. :wink: Scenarios and conundrums are diversion strategies. — Tom Storm

Would you describe yourself as cynical?
If 'yes' then why have you become so?
If 'no' then by what other means do you take action if it's not based on self-reflective questioning?

This kind of hypothetical moral quandary puts people in untenable situations. If you accept the machine-like logical computation of Utilitarianism, or the god-like Categorical Imperative, then the moral solution would be obvious -- if you could instantly calculate all possible consequences of your decision. But very few humans (academic philosophers aside) don't think that way — Gnomon

I agree that such hypotheticals are very difficult. We struggle every day to gain the merest insight into, why me? why here and now? What is the meaning of life the universe and everything? (which is not 42!)
We can never escape complexity in this existence.
But very few humans (academic philosophers aside) don't think that way
I assume you didn't intend the word 'don't' here. Why is this sentence true?
Lack of education? Due to the deliberate historical actions of others? Why do you think its true?

Instead, we do quick back-of-the-envelope subconscious calculations, based on personal emotional values. That's usually good enough for small-group ethics. But when faced with global ethical repercussions, such as the Holocaust, ordinary people tend to do mundane acts (followed orders), and hope for the best. That's what Arendt called "the banality of evil" — Gnomon

So, is this good enough? Could we do better? are we capable of doing better?

You've never been tested in such a situation, because it is an extreme case, seldom met in real life. — Gnomon

Yes, I agree but I am tested, every day almost and in ways that are not so disconnected to the scenario you mentioned from my OP. I see problems all around me, every time I leave the house or watch TV (especially the news). Mostly I use one of the excuses I outlined in the OP and I do some painting, listen to some music, eat some comfort food, watch a comedy show, etc.
At some point my mind will drift back to 'the real world' and at some point I inevitably feel ashamed that I don't do more. I do some stuff but I could do more but should it be the main cause in my life?
I am an atheist, I'm 57, There is no judgment day. When I am dead I will simply permanently, disassemble but until that happens, I will always feel guilty that I could have done more. Do we all deserve such a self-judgment? Is it possible to be too harsh on ourselves on this issue? I don't feel I am being too harsh, it feels correct.

Stalin was a horrible person, no doubt, and another example of why adequate checks and balances are vital to apply to any person or group in power or rising towards such.
But that phrase is misleading. 'A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic.' It does not reflect the truth of Stalin's dictatorship. Why was he not brave enough to say;
"When I had one or two people executed, I may have raised an eyebrow or two at first but when I had a million people executed, everyone else became too scared to challenge me."
This would be much more accurate.
Even after such historical lessons, we see Trump elected in the USA. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Arent 'WE THE PEOPLE,' where the responsibility has to ultimately lie? Surely we cant satisfy ourselves with forlorn hopes and ridiculous scapegoating such as, 'God works in mysterious ways, it's all part of its plan, don't worry yourself!'

a consequence of mostly insignificant individuals — Bitter Crank

An intriguing choice of words. Are you referring to those in history whose actions had a direct affect on where we are now? In what way are they insignificant?

You and I can can choose to ride bikes to work and the grocery store instead of buying big gas-guzzling SUVs, but neither of us are in a position to do anything about the 1 billion cars on the world's roads, or the giant auto, oil, steel, and rubber businesses committed to continuing business as usual, or even changing gears and replacing 1 billion gas guzzling vehicles with 1 billion electricity guzzling vehicles — Bitter Crank

Well, this is the 'what can I do and its not my fault,' stance I typed about in the OP.
I am not disrespecting such stances. I am trying to dissect them a little more.
Your 'riding bikes,' is I agree, only an individual gesture against the problem you mention. But if more people decided to take a Greta Thunberg type stance then the result could be more effective. This may not be possible for you personally but you might be able to assist causes against the situation you describe more than you do at the moment, me to! To what extent is the statement 'Bad things happen because good people don't do enough to stop or combat them,' really true, and is it really acceptable to excuse ourselves by merely recognising the validity of the statement I just typed or saying things like 'the problem is just too big' etc.

You and I can bicycle across the country to help out in the next big disaster, but fortunately there are large organizations like the Red Cross, FEMA, Catholic Charities, Lutheran World Relief, and so on that are prepared to get there first and to start major relief efforts — Bitter Crank

Yep and all good but the current state of the planet would suggest, it's just not enough! This all needs to keep happening but we need more prevention as well as many more hands on cure.
From those who are willing to spend a day helping out in a local foodbank to those who decide to start a local youth initiative of just get together with others in a local community to sit down and talk about other locals who are having real difficulties and trying to help them. To what level could such be effective if we were taught this 'altruistic' approach to others from primary school.

I love your ABC but how many are actually learning your ABC's and practicing them every day and how much responsibility do each of us have to push your ABC forward against those who see an educated, informed, organised, altruistic majority as a serious threat?

Well if that is what he suggests then I would require irrefutable evidence, that he is correct.
If that is not available then I would put this idea of duplication of events to the levels of the entire history of the Earth or even an individual life, as nonsense.

So sounds like bcd reduces inefficiency significantly from 30 vs 10 to 12 vs 10 valves/transistors.
So again, I think the strongest reason for using binary and not decimal in computing is the complexity of decimal arithmetic compared to binary arithmetic and the error handling which would be required if you used 10 states instead of 2.

Ok, well thanks for trying to make your hypothesis clearer to me.

Probably like most people, I read each word/label you or anyone else types, access its traditional meaning and try to garnish an overall understanding of the idea/opinion being expressed. But I am 'tripped' by combinations such as '1D circle,' 'space seems to appear,' 'accelerated into infinity,' etc.
I cast no blame for this as I have the same struggles.

So far, I am unable to conceive your 'big picture' of the structure of the Universe but I would ask the following.

Do you think there has only ever been one singularity in existence and if so, what's at the center of every super-massive black hole?

How can a parallel copy of you and me be the same as us? — Cornwell1

By parallel, do you mean 'can never meet?'
"You and me be the same as us?"
In the literal sense, I think these are synonymous aren't they?
If I was standing next to you then I could use the reference 'You and me'
If I was talking about you and me to a third party then I might use the label 'we' or 'us'

So you must be talking about 'how a third observer' would view identical copies of you or me, in which case I would use 'them.'
If they could observe both the copy and the original. I think they would see them act differently(diverge), but are you sure Tegmark is suggesting they would be tied to a kind of 'Simon says' duality of action and that every event that happened to one copy would happen to the other in the exact same order? I don't think he is claiming that but I say that not having read everything he has written about his Level 1 multiverse.

I know you cant graph a 4D torus but what shape do you posit for the two universes?
Flat? — universeness

Sorry, earlier you said your universe was curved, so curved in what way? curved and closed?
I think you said before that you think the universe is closed. If so do you mean closed in the form of your 4D torus and if so, what shape would that cause in our 3D universe?

I assume the singularity to be the Planck-sized mouth on the 4d torus on which two 3d universe inflate from Planck diameter into 10exp11 times the size of the observed universe (about 90 billion ly). — Cornwell1

So does the singularity still exist as the nexus between your two universes?
I know you cant graph a 4D torus but what shape do you posit for the two universes?
Flat? But what is flat in 3D? a cube or cuboid?
Is this 4D torus what you suggest is the inside volume of the ballon?

Well, if two halves on a 2d sphere contain particles that have identical relative positions and velocities , then they will develop identically. — Cornwell1

I assume you mean 3D sphere. You cant get a 2D sphere. But two such particles can still have some different attributes? You are talking about aspects such as spin, charge, mass, wavelength etc but there could be other attributes that we have not yet identified which are different in each one.

So here we go guys:

Title: Tegmarks Lover

Verse I
The first circle is the boundary of your heart
The bloody bull at the center
Hit by my poisoned arrow
Will the sound replicate baby?
Can ya hear me now?

Chorus:
We cant talk no more baby
There are too many stars
The distance between us
Is just too far

Do you think we can finish this song before we finish with this thread?
All titles and words are fully open to review and editing by anyone.
No copyright is claimed!
Life has to be as fun as we can make it!
Hey! maybe that line should be in the song!

Dark energy has no related particle — Cornwell1

But this is just your opinion, there is no accepted proof of this.

Well, in fact there could be two identical parts in the universe. Imagine the space that banged into existence. — Cornwell1

But why would two identical parts, remain identical over time. Why would every event in each remain identical? Under which scientific imperative?

It had a diameter already of 10exp11 times the diameter of the observable universe. — Cornwell1

Are you referring to the singularity here?

Yes, but there are 30 tubes in total, compared to 10 tubes for binary. See the ENIAC example link in my initial post. — Andrew M

Ah, I see what you mean now!
As the valves became tiny transistors, a decimal system would require 30 transistors to represent the range 0..999 but can such a problem not be overcome using something like floating-point representation? So 999 stored as a 9 vaccum tube and use the 3 vaccum tube to represent the repetition? You would need a method to separate this from storing 93 but....
I think the main reason for not using decimal is still the complexity of decimal arithmetic compared to binary arthmetic.

Had to look these up again to remind me what they represented.
The most advanced maths I taught was Higher and Advanced Higher but I had not taught either for at least 20 years as I was full time Computing after my f9rst 10 years.

≈ : almost equal to
≃ : asymptotically equal to
≅ : approximately equal to

I have never seen these used as operators in computing but I'm sure they are used by some programming language for various purposes.
sin(x) almost equal to x, ok but to start with? does this not depend on which units are used?
sin(90 degrees) = 1 but sin(90) = 0.89399 or am I going in the wrong direction as regards your intended points.

Dark energy doesn't have a related particle — Cornwell1

Maybe it does or perhaps we will never find the graviton either and dark energy like gravity may be a 'consequence of the structure of the Universe' rather than a force. Perhaps gravity and dark energy are both different aspects of the same affect.

Suppose we look at a galaxy near the edge. Far away in spacetime. My copy does the same. The galaxies are different because of interaction with stuff outside the two volumes. But if I see a different galaxy than you, we are not the same anymore. — Cornwell1

I don't conceive the same depth of problem with this general issue of a replicant.
In general, replication is fundamental in our own local. DNA does it all the time.
Cloning claims that its possible to replicate humans in the future. It's already been done with sheep etc.
Surely the idea of 'multiverse replication,' is to deal with the mathematical posit that every member of a set must be an outcome. Every possibility that can happen must happen. But the point of replication would be the only point where 'identical' is true. Divergence will occur one instant after the state 'identical.'

Yeah, I'm talking about the single infinite 3D universe introduced in the OP: "In an infinite universe <...>". I think you contributed with the idea of a 4D space with many 3D universes, but for the purpose of the OP I'm assuming a single infinite 3D universe. I'm also assuming that the universe has a finite age and it's expanding similar to our universe. — pfirefry

This is by far, my favorite stuff to discuss. I am on a few 'cosmology' sites, with a wide range of folks who discuss this stuff. I also enjoy TPF as I am also interested in the philosophical aspect of all issues. I watch Sam Harris, Dan Dennet, Steve Pinker, Jordan Peterson etc on YouTube for the more Scientific side of Philosophy and I watch recorded lectures on the classical philosophers and on those who became historically well known for philosophy since. On TPF I see how their musings are debated by many contributers from Garret Travers through to Agent Smith et al. I do like the cosmological threads the best however.

If you think that the Universe has a finite age (and I agree) then how do you arrive at 'infinite?'
If at an earlier time it was smaller then it expanded then an infinity of time would have to have passed for space to be infinite due to the spacetime concept. We still move towards a future, every second so has enough time passed for space to be infinite? is it possible for space to be infinite, given the constraints I am suggesting? I think that this suggests at least a 4th extended spatial dimension. You confirm your own doubts about 'infinite space' with:

I don't find the idea of infinity very realistic. — pfirefry

The finite age allows us to consider the regions of the infinite universe so far removed from each other that there is there no way for them to interact with one another. If they sent beams of light towards each other at the moment of the Big Bang, the light wouldn't have reached the destination by today. — pfirefry

Yep, I agree but only if 'information travel' and movement from A to B at light speed is the only way one part of 'existence' can 'affect' another. The only way I can conceive this is that I can touch two parts of an object at the exact same moment in time, using two fingers as I can stand above it. If there is a 4th extended dimension then I wonder if any two parts of its 3D components can be affected instantly due to the existence of the 4th D. I can touch any two parts on a 2D shape, within the extent of my arms.

This sets the ground for a multiverse within a 3D universe. — pfirefry

Yep, If we define a single universe in accordance with light speed since 'our singularity' and reject Mtheory and the brane idea with many singularities starting many universes.

Exactly. I'm assuming that singularity was uniform. When the universe started expanding, the areas of space appeared everywhere at the same time, so that space was already infinitely large the moment it appeared — pfirefry

I don't understand this one? Already infinite space? so why to we need inflation and expnsion?

I'm allocating a chunk of space in which an observer will exist. This area of space can be the size of our observer, or our planet, or our galaxy. Arbitrarily, I chose the size of a Hubble volume to connect with the OP. I will introduce the second circle to outline the observable/detectable 'section' of the universe, where the first circle acts as the observer. — pfirefry

Yeah I get this, the observer can't get any information from anything moving away at faster than light speed, even if the observer was traveling at light speed, light would still move away from the observer at light speed. This is a really difficult concept. Especially when trying to think about light source.

let's say that yeast bacteria is living inside the dough. It can travel through the dough over time, regardless of its expansion. — pfirefry

Yep, I understand but does the yeast bacteria move through in a 'ghost like' way. Some quantum effects seem to do this OR does it compress/warp the space around it to 'move through it'. Perhaps I warp surrounding space in some way to allow me to move or be dynamic in anyway. To be animated is an old meaning for 'spiritual' interestingly.

The first circle is the boundary of your heart. — pfirefry

I digress but, this should be a line in a song :lol:

It just expands because new space appears for it to expand into. New bubbles of space are forming in the dough, while no new dough is being created. We don't know where the space is coming from, but we know that it just appears and it causes the expansion of dough. It's not important where the space is coming from for the purpose of the OP. — pfirefry

Yeah, I share your feelings of frustration at this point. We just don't have all the answers yet so conjecture or projecting possibilities based on what the current evidence gives us, is all that Max Tegmark is doing and I for one, label him a 'Truth Seeker' for that. You are doing similar thinking in your own head. Another truth seeker! Keep going! Someone will make progress eventually. I have FAITH in that, but I would never insult it with the God label.

On the other hand, "The capital of France is Paris," is a true statement and I agree that it constitutes knowledge. I do knock my head against that a bit — T Clark

Just an interesting twist..... If I said the capital of France is F, this would be true from the standpoint that F is the only capital letter used in the word France.
The capital CITY of France is Paris. Am I being more pragmatic here or more intuitive?
or would you insist on The capital LETTER of France is F.
It's a matter of interpretation but perhaps such nuances would be missed without the kind of 'out of the box' thinking that the emotional content of your personality might encourage.

It's the theory of black holes. If you look at a collapsing sphere of dust from a distance, the sphere seems to slow down in collapsing. When the sphere has a radius equal to the Schwarzschild radius it seems to have frozen and starts to emit Hawking radiation over a long time. On the inside the process takes a small time, about the time it takes light to travel over the Schwarzschild radius (so for the Sun about 1/100 000 seconds as the SR is about 3km — Cornwell1

I understand the material on the death of large stars and all of the 'types of supernovae, hypernovae) involved. involved.
I understand collapse to the size of a white dwarf, a neutron star (or pulsar) and the final possibility based on the mass of the original star, a black hole. I understand the basics of the forces involved and the subsequent events. Still doesn't suggest that all matter in the Universe is destined to fall into black holes.

To me your are now just running in a circle. No way to make progress.
Thanks for the exchange.

The matter seems to end up on the horizon because there time seems to stop — Cornwell1

I am still very far away from getting this one.
Is this theory based on the idea that the black hole at the centre of a galaxy will eventually expand/grow so that it will consume all of the matter in that galaxy?

I think I see how you envision it. If we are on opposite sides of the universe we are not on opposite sides of a 3d sphere.
The balloon (2D). Draw, on a huge balloon of say Earth size, a circle on it. Diametrically opposed points on this circle are you and I on opposite sides of the visible universe (which you can see from the center).
In reality the balloon is much bigger. If you draw a circle of one meter radius on the balloon, then the circumference of the balloon is about 10exp11 meter... About a hundred million kilometers. There's more behind the horizon — Cornwell1

Ok, yes, I understand what you have typed but what is the inside of the volume of the balloon you are describing in relation to the Universal structure you suggest?

Two good thought scenario's:

Let's say the Universe is an infinite sheet of cookie dough. — pfirefry

This suggests that only one Universe exists and what you are about to describe are possible limitations for any lifeform living within it, yes?

It was super dense 14 billion years ago, but since then it has risen just enough for us to start making cookies. — pfirefry

So we could call this state the singularity, yes?

14 billion years ago we drew a small circle on that dough, and this circle has been expanding with the dough this entire time — pfirefry

So our current observable/detectable 'section' of this one Universe you posit.

Besides that, there is a second circle that initially was equal to the first circle, but its expansion was at the speed of light — pfirefry

So we now have a section of the Universe that expands faster than our section.

We know that dough expands slower than the speed of light, so the second circle ended up being larger than the first one. — pfirefry

So the Universe has a section that expands faster than the rest of the surface.
In my head, this would be the same idea as one of my organs moving faster than the rest of my body was running. Ouch! OR your cookie image indicates that during the initial expansion, something happened to break up the expanding dough into 'cookie' sections. What happened? where did the cookie cutter come from? etc. I can conceive the fundamentals of what's going on in your scenario but I cant see why this is a multiverse. It suggests we started off with a universe of dough that became a multiverse of cookie's, instead of a multiverse of dough's.

so the second circle ended up being larger than the first one. — pfirefry

So what did this cookie expand into? would it not crunch against its surrounding slower moving dough?
Does each cookie create a new layer to the Universe depending on its expansion rate?

I wondered about "universeness". Doesn't this mean "without a universe"? — Cornwell1

Nah! that would be UniverseLESS, universeness means something OF the universe.... :halo:

The imaginary surface where the redshift of receding galaxies seems infinite. All galaxies seem to accumulate on this surface — Cornwell1

But is this not expansion of an entire 3D volume in all directions, rather than any kind of surface expansion? Some galaxies are blue-shifted, such as andromeda as it is moving toward us. We would also be red-shifted, if observed from most other galaxies, so we are part of the expansion. All galaxies are moving away (receding) from each other, including the milky way. Every part of the volume of space
expands at the same increasing rate. At that scale, the cosmological principle suggests a homogeneous and isotropic space so why use 'an imaginary surface model?'

I get the time issues and the 'freeze at the event horizon' of a black hole from the point of an observer stuff.
I get the spaghettification idea of what would happen to you if you fall into a black hole
I get the hawking radiation and black hole evaporation.
But why would all matter end up at the event horizon of black holes?
In the 'big rip' and 'heat death,' the expansion continues until we can't see any other galaxies and then everything just ultimately disassembles and fade's away. Why would everything end up at black hole's?

Imagine this. You find yourself 80 billion ly away from here. You can see things from there that I can't see, like you can see a part of the world where you live that I can't see. When 80 billion ly apart we can still see each other but we both can see things the other can't. Which means there can't be two identical Hubble spheres. Because if so, everything around it should also be the same, contrary to assumption. — Cornwell1

But if we live on opposite sides of a really big spherical universe then we don't need two 'hubble volumes', we could just be on opposite hemispheres of the same big Universe.

Numbers can be stored in a binary representation about 3 times more efficiently than in a decimal representation (since 2^3 is approximately 10), so 999 (1111100111 in binary) would require 10 vacuum tubes. The miniaturization improvements are really to do with the hardware, e.g., billions of transistors on a chip compared to the space required for vacuum tubes — Andrew M

Surely using vacuum tubes, switching on or off, to represent decimal, would be a completely different system. You would need to represent 10 states 0-9. In such a system. 999 could be stored using 3 of the 'state 9' tubes. Representing 999 in binary needs 10 tubes. How is 10 tubes more efficient than 3 tubes.
I understand that such decimal representations would not work due to complexity of decimal arithmetic.
The circuitry needed for binary arithmetic is much simpler but I don't see your efficiency argument.

Morning universeness — Cornwell1

Morning Cornwell1!

(without a universe? Appropriate for this thread!). — Cornwell1

What? this text flew right past me! What does it mean?

There is a whole lot of 3d space beyond the horizon. — Cornwell1

Yep, I get this, wherever we are positioned inside a flat 3D space or a curved 3D space or a saddle shape etc. I get that you can only observe to a horizon in any direction. I get the 'light cone' concept.
So yeah, there may be much more beyond all currently observable/detectable distance.

If the universe didn't expand there would become more and more visible. — Cornwell1

I get this too, because the light from other objects would reach us over time, if there was no expansion and the universe was flat.

There fit about 10exp11 observable universe diameters in the whole... It inflated all in existence around the singularity — Cornwell1

What do you mean by 'observable universe diameters?' Are you taking the universe as a sphere, cutting it into circular slices and then conceptualising viewing the circumference of each circle as a single universal horizon?

It inflated all in existence around the singularity — Cornwell1

So are you saying the singularity still exists somewhere by 'around the singularity?'

which is part of a 4d substrate — Cornwell1

A substrate is defined as 'an underlying substance or layer,' but such must have extent or dimension, as you call it 4D so you are suggesting a 4D space. I don't see how the term 'substrate' helps much.

another 3d universe on the other side of the singularity wormhole — Cornwell1

What do you suggest for the shape of this wormhole concept you suggest?
I know that cosmology has very little idea as to what a singularity is but if we just go with a really small point at the centre of a black hole, then I can conceive that. But does the black hole not surround the singularity as a spherical extension? Can you fly all the way around a black hole in a spaceship of the imagination?
If you can, then in my head, the only way anything could exchange anything (including information) with this other 3D universe you posit would be directly through this singularity, acting as some kind of gateway.

Does Mtheory not suggest floating brane structures within multidimensional space and at every point of collision between two branes, a singularity forms and a new Universe begins.
Are you a fan of Mtheory?

So there are a lot of Hubble volumes (they are defined as the volumes within the surface that recedes with lightspeed). — Cornwell1

Which surface in the Universe is receeding?

If you near such a surface (or anywhere else from its center) you see different things, so there can't be two equals. This holds for all spheres that you suppose equal, so there are no equal volumes of any size. — Cornwell1

Can you exemplify this? What kind of difference might you see and why?


Sorry Cromwell1, I realise that all I have offered you is questions but perhaps this will allow you to air more details about your own hypotheses and I can be a 'useful sounding board.'
Others may be able to contribute more.

Once one moves beyond 3D, higher dimensional "space" for me becomes an algebraic geometric concept rather than a reality. Very useful for predictions but that doesn't imply it truly exists. — jgill

I don't have too much difficulty, conceptualising other dimensions of the very small.
I can appreciate the curved pipe example, viewed from above. You see a rectangle, as the third dimension is 'wrapped around.' So from this, I can conceive a 4th dimension of the very small, wrapped around every spatial point in 3D 'cubic' space. I can accept the possibility of the 10 spatial dimensions in string theory, using this concept.
I have much more difficulty conceptualising extended spatial dimensions beyond our 3.
The best I can do is 'spheres spread out equally in a box' to try to conceive 'Hubble Volumes.'

Sorry for the digression. I will stay on track with the OP...I will....I will....I will.

As an ex-gymnast and climber, — jgill

I agree with your statement but the above is unfair as I now feel unfit, overweight and muscle stiff...
:groan:

Respect :smile: No offense taken and I will respect your OP's and try to contribute to them in a useful way, and try to stay on track. As you said...Nuff said.

Well, I don't intend to copy and paste examples for you here, where T Clark has been very disrespectful towards others. I am not a moderator so I don't intend to invest the required time. I am not trying to derail anything and I am aware that if I have a complaint I can PM a moderator if I wish to. I would personally rather sort it out myself, amicably, with the other party but thank you for your reminder that I can 'PM a moderator, if I choose to.

When I start a thread, I do it for a reason. I have a position I want to test, a question I want to answer, or some thoughts I want to put into words. I work to set up the OP so people can understand what I'd like the thread to be about. I define my terms, describe the issue, provide my position, and then lay out the terms of discussion. I am always surprised by how much I learn from other people's responses — T Clark

I'm sure we all have similar or identical intentions. My only complaint with you, is you can be very insulting towards others. You come across as petulant at times. This is just my opinion and I am no angel myself but I try to be fair and just with everyone I communicate with.

I try hard to show the same consideration for others that I desire for myself. I admit that I haven't always lived up to that goal, but I try. When someone calls me out on it, I apologize and try harder to keep on track.
It's just common courtesy. — T Clark

I agree. The golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Will try my best. Could you please ask T Clark to moderate his choice of phrase when debating others.

Oh, I forgot to type, I don't know who coined the phrase BInary digiT (bit). I've never heard of Claude Shannon, so there you go, you know stuff I don't about a subject I have an honors degree in and taught for 30 years.

I think the earliest stand alone computers worked on the same principle, for the same reason, that more than two states would have added too much complexity. I think this was even the case with the difference engine created by Babbage.

I'm finding it hard to imagine how computers could operate on anything other than binary digits — Wayfarer

You are correct, they don't. All computers work on the basis of the binary system, including quantum computers, they just use Qbits which have three states instead of two (the third state is based on quantum entanglement, so the system is still basically binary).
You could use say trinary but parity checking and error checking would be a lot more complicated.
Consider an input cable carrying an electric signal.
A binary digit 1 is recorded if a voltage on the wire is >0 and < 5 volts.
This happens within a set time pulse.
If no voltage is detected on the line then a 0 is recorded.
This is a simplistic view as there are other elements such as start bits and stop bits etc
If you introduce a trinary system then you need to represent 0,1 and 2. A three state system.
So you would have to have a range of voltages which represent a 2, say 5v....<8V.
Things get much more complicated due to this.
any loss in voltage (due to weather, interference, degradation, surge etc) can turn a 1 into a zero or a 0 into a 1) Most of these errors can be caught by parity checking (which I won't go into for now)
But if you have a third state, then a 2 can fall to a 1 or a 0 etc, much more complicated.
So binary is best.

Not a Bruce Lee fan eh? Probably not a universeness fan either eh?
Oh well, the Universe continues regardless.

How's that? — T Clark

Exceptionally average.

The moderators have to judge on a case-by-case basis I'm sure, rather than wield big dumb blunt weaponry or they will lose good contributors to this forum. There are plenty of others available.
Perhaps they will see your approach as a bit too inflexible and decide you need to be less provocative in the phrases you have used against others on this forum and arrogant text example you have just responded to me with ('hows that')
I and I am sure others on this site are quite capable of going further than the authority or judgment of one or more online moderators for this site. I don't find you in the least bit intimidating.
I agree that effort should be made to keep an OP on track but don't get over-excited.
You started a wee thread on a discussion forum, your not a general in charge of troops.

Well, that's not very diplomatic or friendly. The moderators are the arbiters. Why don't you request a directive from them? Let them be the class monitor.

I think I see why you write about the 4d space. I don't think you need a 4th spatial dimension to leave the observable universe. — Cornwell1

But why not? I took the term hubble volume to mean our observable/detectable Universe.
If there is another hubble volume and its contained 'beside' ours. I can't do any better than beside/above/below, then both volumes would have to be in 4D container of space, surely?

I understand your sensible move to a 2D circle within a 3D balloon, but does this not add credence for a 3D hubble volume to require a 4D spacial container?

It seems to me that near the edges of identical volumes there is information exchange with spheres outside — Cornwell1

But what exists between two hubble volumes? what separates them?
When I imagine the universe as a balloon, I consider the INSIDE of the balloon as containing the universe in its entirety. Not that the surface of the balloon is the universe.
As a 3D creature, you cannot exist outside of the balloon, there is no outside.
Unless space is 4D?

I can't get past this point, never mind getting to the idea that there are other Balloons with copies of me on them and whether or not individual/independent changes on one sphere as related to another, negates the existence of all of them, except 1.
I thought the multiverse posit was partly to explain the fine-tuning problem and help answer the logic posit that every possible mathematical outcome of a process has to happen in reality somewhere.

I don't think my maths and physics are strong enough to 'conceptualise' what you and Mr Tegmark are conceptualising. My head hurts but I love it! (no masochism involved! Just the pleasure of challenging thought!