Philosophy as physics without the maths — Banno

Allow me to make it mathematical.
The singularity state = 0.
The manifest state (the universe) = +1 - 1.
Both are equivalent to one another.

+1 - 1 can be derived from 0 and 0 can be derived from +1 - 1. One state is a relativistic couple. Like 2 particles that can cancel eachother out/annihilate. The other is a singular entity that can only interact with itself, as its singular, there's nothing else it could interact with.

And the only interaction it can make of itself is derivation/ separation into mutual couples of opposites. As many as you like, so long as they're equal and opposite and all sum up to 0.

A superposition.

Well, in math a singularity is roughly where a function goes haywire, but your interpretation is interesting. — jgill

I'm not surprised that a singularity is where a function goes haywire. Because a function requires components: input, function and output. A singularity by definition is singular, what it "does"and what it" is" are unified as one thing. There are no variables, no additional factors, as again variables are multiplicitous by nature of being variables. They vary, and so cannot be one singular entity.

Potential is that which is and does. It is because it does and it does because it is. A cartesian circle of causality because function and being are one and the same. Inseparable

. Time and space and thermodynamic laws where being created during bigbang, so it doesn't make sense to ask what was there before or where it happens... time and space were being created! — Raul

I agree with this as outlined in the OP.
However from what was space, time and thermodynamics being created from? For me the answer is Potential. As potential is not contingent on anything else but itself to "potentiate" the manifestation of emergent properties - such as time, space and thermodynamics.

As in potential is the the sum of all products. The big bang therefore would be the process of potential converting into time, energy, space and matter etc.
Entropy and thermodynamics would be the unwinding of potential into the manifest.

The ability to be (potential) and being (the realised) are a couple. Opposites of a sort.

I agree with you gnomon. As per usual lol.

They pointed out that his "nothing" was not nothing. Despite the title what he described is a universe from something, — Fooloso4

Indeed and would agree with them in the sense that the concept of "nothing" is nothing without something. Excuse the pun.

They're relative. Its like trying to define light without darkness. You can't. Definition itself is distinction, delineation, separation, contrast. It needs at the very least A and B.

it seems to me this is a book of "conspiracy theories" or a book of "personal biases, fantasy, fiction or delusion" because it tells you what you want to hear. Not what is actually true.

Sometimes the truth is a hard pill to swallow. Sometimes knowledge and facts hurt. But they're valid whether we like it or not. This book would cherry pick only the explanations one likes disregarding information that is accurate yet unsavoury.

However if it offers solutions to problems without giving you the correct interim reason for it, it is still interesting. It's practical and can serve to do useful work even if you don't understand why in a coherent or uniform scientific way. Then it is akin to getting the right outcome regardless of the input.

Getting a cure for all cancers, even tho it involved peeling a banana 8 times and spinning in circles while reciting your favourite poem backwards, because thiis is the method that pleased you most.

You would be forfeiting actual sensible stepwise reasoning for spontaneous, miraculous and inexplicably Correct outcome.

Its hard to say then whether one wants to book. On one side it will never allow them to understand correctly the relationships between things in physics, chemistry and biology as they are, but it would still allow progress of a form. It would provide for all needs.

So in the end the question is really do you want true knowledge of how things work but without the guarantee of immediate desired outcome, or do you want the security of all needs met, without knowing how they came to be. So it's like do you want to be spoon fed like a child or do you want to put in the work to figure out the solutions yourself even if this comes with the risk that you may fail.

simple example. Ethics is not provable nor testable by scientific method and yet dictates what science is permitted to study and how

Science is a tool to discover "some" of the truth. But not all of it. Art, music, dance, spirituality, personal perspective, individuality/personhood and self expression, morality, none of these things are both testable, quantifiable, repeatable nor provable by any scientific means of investigation. And yet they exist nonetheless and are true nonetheless.

Science is an investigation, but it is not an answer. It can never confirm with 100% certainty the truth of anything as its very progress involves recapitulation, paradigm shift and discrediting previously accepted scientific "truths" in favour of more plausible, accurate or explanatory ones.

And what you cite from Benj96 is an obvious false dilemma — Banno

So obvious and yet you fail to clarify exactly why. Laughable. All talk no action. Bring on your "actual" arguments.

I considered referring to the Dunning-Kruger effect for that post, but it's so cliché. — Banno

Oh please come off it. It's a). Absurd to assume that physical principles and relationships cannot be explained or at least attempted to be explained approximately in a non-mathematical/formulaic capacity. Relying on esoteric language as a stand in barrier to discussion is a great way of saying "you can't talk about X without using y and z wording. That's not only restrictive and narrow, it stagnates elucidating useful or novel perspectives on a subject matter which may (or may not be, granted) apt for discussion.

B). Anyone citing dunning-kruger effect as a go to could, in doing so, be propagating their own dunning-kruger effect. It, rather ironically, takes a certain level of arrogance to determine the dunning kruger nature of any oppositions interjection. It is as if to say because I clearly know the answer, everyone else's is a dunning kruger answer.

Therefore, instead of resorting to/relying on this, I welcome an actual argument that obliviates mine. Or picks a flaw in it. Citing dunning kruger but not offering any explanation of your own in place of what I said? Slightly curious, mostly boring, and especially convenient/lazy.

C) your assumptions of my academic background on the matter are in themselves a personal conjecture, and much less anything that can be regarded as fact.

care to argue a point of some/any form to support your assumption that it is..."BS".

A declaration without supporting explanation is hardly philosophical at all is it.

And yet Interference happens. — Banno

Intereference can't occur between photons travelling at the same velocity. It is the result of an interaction with a physical barrier that deflects them - either Co vergently of divergently (for example via double slit experiment).

I said "how does something interact with itself when the velocity is equal". In interference, the velocity is not equal is it.

No, it doesn't. Not unless you're a materialist :rage: — Wayfarer

What laws would you determine consciousness as obeying. For me consciousness requires a spatial dimension (from which to perceive environment) , energy (to run cognitive processes) and matter (to store memory). And thus would assume that the laws that govern these things would uneccesarily also imoavt the consciousness carried/conveyed or manifest by them.

What does it feel like to be energy?

Running the hundred meter dash. — jgill

Or maybe it feels like being something static and substantial (body) holding something flexible and every changing (perception).

Our whole body can be broken down into different forms of energy and also matter (equivalent to energy).

What happens to the consciousness when energy is transformed into matter? — RogueAI

The first memory is created/stored. Energy pent up in a stable and enduring state, holding information, to later be manipulated and reformulated.

This would imply a completely non-material world where whatever constitutes a form of energy is sufficient in-itself for a kind of existence. Though if matter is really just a form of energy, it's all energy dude (and this is not profound). — Nils Loc

Potential energy doesn't require matter, space or time. It's just potential. The moment that potential is converted to something "actionable" it requires time, space and matter to "act."

So the first act of pure potential is to convert into time, space and matter simultaneously

What then is 'unconsciousness' – non-energy? How then does it do work constitutive of consciousness? I don't think this "energy" analogy works, Benj. — 180 Proof

Agreed. The original statement has since been considered again and I now don't agree with my original position. It's too vague and inaccurate. It is incorrect. Consciousness is not simply a "form of energy" like the physics definitions.

However, I've since mused upon/ elaborated the idea that consciousness is a specific subset of interactions between energy and matter in the same sense that active thought impulses and memory are both required for a coherent present tense perception.

Thoughts can be stored as memory in a material anatomical substance. And memories can be revisited/brought back into active thought/reflection and even reformulated/altered (change of perspective) .
In this way it seems consciousness is a combination of stored energy (matter organised in a specific way yet stable) and "active energy" - that which upholds the maintenance of memories, alteration of memories, processing of new stimuli and integration, imagination and creativity.

In thay way consciousness could be said to be energy indeed, but only in a restricted capacity as it relates to highly organised and refined material substrate - the brain.

I don't see how, because energy operates according to physical laws, — Wayfarer

And consciousness doesn't?

no capacity for self-determination or any innate direction. — Wayfarer

And what might be said about the energy we use to live? That which does all the computations and organismal procedures used to sustain us for a minute of experience. Can we say that that specific quantity of energy is used for self determination and agency?

Secondly, what might we say about the autoorganisation or self-ordering of life processes from abiogenesis onward. All Negentropic processes still require energy to occur. So the birth and evolution of the first life forms all the way up to humans used X amount of energy which qualitatively acted out its ability to do work in a very much pro-agency, pro-life, pro-conscious awareness and experience type determination.

Im not speaking about all universal energy here, but rather the "force vitale"- that subsect or portion of energy that grants life through its particular action on inanimate matter.

Energy is required for life. But only when it operates in a a cohesive cooperative way against other energy - the chaotic, destructive entropic kind. But we cannot deny that the positioning of molecules in a specific way that confers sentient life is not a process carried out by energy.

The only thing that can "feel" as we do is either our matter, our energy, or the interaction between them. I would say it's the latter. Because we know matter can be a rock, and energy can be a fire blazing, but in a particular interaction they confer collectively the state of being conscious. So it is at very least a property of how energy interacts with matter.

No. We can't harvest or store consciousness like the energy. There is no storage for consciousness. Consciousness is a live streaming. — L'éléphant

I disagree. Consciousness requires storage - namely memory. Without memory, our sense of self, of place, of time, of coherent chronology, breaks down. As one with dementia experiences as their brains architecture breaks down due to disease.

If we had no memory (storage), we would not be able to revisit mentally the past, and thus contextually would not be aware that the present moment is indeed the present because we cannot retrieve anything beyond it historically. And lastly we could not anticipate a future because we don't have a past, nor present. So why expect a future?

Consciousness for me is the constant and live comparison between the previous moment (short term memory) and the present moment. Elucidating the differences to establish a coherent progression of perceived time.

Therefore, like energy which relies on interactions between matter thay stores it, consciousness relies on interactions between memories which stores it. Both consciousness and energy can reformulate, recombine, cause novel interactions. In an energy-matter capacity we calm this chemistry, in a consciousness capacity we call this thinking, imagination or change in perception/perspective.

very apt indeed.

If consciousness is a pyramid of complexity, with quantum states at the base, then newtonian physics, then biology and finally complex brains like the human one, the "trophic levels" of energy usage, organisation and refinement are quite literally enormous.

The degree of negative entropy (order) required for one minute of human conscious experience is contingent not only on the millions of neuronal computations done in that time, but also the millions of years of trial and error through evolution that got to this point.

But if you make the playing field and variables of possibility large enough (the universe), then somewhere, somehow, the improbable becomes possible.

I'm inclined to believe that consciousness is the ability of the system to self organise. And by organise i mean become a stable, consistent, self sustaining, replicable/repetitious reiteration, that with each generation becomes more sensitive to it's surrounding environment. That is knowledge at the end of the day., an entity that has become so complex and refined that it can sense, think, predict/anticipate, imagine and question and understand its environment to such a degree that it can begin to manipulate it to further it's agenda - namely to be curious, explore and reveal, to prosper.

. So if consciousness directs energy, it interacts with energy. Basically, you can see matter as just that, viz. a mechanism for energy interaction. — Pantagruel

Exactly Pantagruel, all matter must possess/carry internal kinetic energy in the form of the bonds that bind and stabilise it's substance/ makeup.

If a physical object were to reach absolute zero it would cease to exist because the energetic field making up its forces and bonds would no longer have any actionable consequence and wouldn't function to form matter. Time would also lose it's relative reference frame as their is no content (space and the matter contained within it) for which to be subjected to an arrow of time, and thus any duration of Existance.

So I see matter as a stable or "pent up/locked up" form of energy. As a rough analogy, if energy is the ethereal "fluid" or "gas" phase so to speak that pushes and pulls things (exerts force/does work) , matter is like the solid or crystalline phase that gets acted upon. More stable/less changeable, durable, but less potent. Neither can exist without the other if we take "Existance" to simply be the ability to interact/ impart information.

As for consciousness, if energy, matter, space and time can be adequately explained in relation to one another, the only remaining component of the universe to be explained is consciousness.
If E=mc2 pertains to all four elements - energy, mass, time and space, then either the formula is incomplete or consciousness as a property is hidden within it as a poorly understood or under appreciated component in the relationship. Therefore there ought to be 5 components to the equation to explain all 5 fundamentals.

And as it happens there is.
Energy (E), matter (M), time and space or "speed" (C) and lastly consciousness (^2)- the factor by which all the others relate. The relativism of the equation.

In that sense, consciousness requires the other 4 components to exist. But equally and oppositely, the other 4 components require consciousness to give them context. Ie. Observation of time, space, energy and matter as they are/interact.

The universe/existence needs to be "seen to be believed". And with 5 fundamental components all equally important, it can.

Do you have the idea of energy as a substance which would constitute one half of a dualism (the old classic of spirit/energy and matter)? — Nils Loc

Even more so Nils. I think it's a quadralism? Quadratism? Or "dualism squared"? Not sure what to call it.

But basically it is a 4 way conversation between energy and time as one couple, and matter and space as the second couple. 1 dualism interacting with another dualism but both of them mutually dependent (Squared). If that makes sense. Because you cannot have any individual one component of the 4 (energy, time, matter or space) without the other 3.

I believe this is what E=mc2 refers to. Energy is in a dualism with matter by a factor of the dualism between space (distance) over time, or in other words speed. That is, the speed of light. C.

The implications of this quadratic? Let's take an example.
For every action in one dualism, there's an equal and opposite (inverse) action in the other dualism.

So let's take state A: All energy, no matter, all time (eternity) , no space. A singularity.
In order for energy to "decelerate" from the "speed of light" and form matter, then endless time must contract into finite time by simultaneously converting into a now new and expanding space dimension.

Does this sound familiar? A singularity exploding out into space and condensing into matter? Time becoming finite an measurable by virtue of the existence of objects that are subject to it and thus have rates of interaction. And energy decreasing and spreading out as it converts to mass (entropy).

The big bang.

Energy and matter are different forms of the same thing. E=mc^2 — petrichor

Yes. Agreed. "different forms" of the "same thing". Ironic and seemingly contradictory but not.

I would go further to say that the c2 component is the factor by which the two entities interact by virtue of distinction into "does" (energy/time) and "is" (substance/matter and the dimension or space it assumes in being so).

My bets are that "consciousness" is contingent on/impressed within this c^2 component. As would be all information tbh. Because it is this factor that allows energy and matter (which are equivalent) to not be "equal" and thus have "different" or maybe even contrasting properties.

If matter and energy were "equal" in the strict sense than E=M would suffice. But they can be equivalent by a factorial (c2).

They're not equal in the strict sense E=M, because in order to be perfectly equal or perfectly the same identical thing in all regards of space, time,behaviour/property and form, they would thus in fact not be able to interact with itself at all.

Light cannot interact with itself at the speed limit. Because how does one impart action when velocity is unanimously equal? It's like the dog chasing it's tail but never quite reaching it.

In order to make distinction between entities. In order to make "separateness", or unique inidividual "things", there must be a dynamic between their individual spaces, times, energetic states and masses.

time exists based on energetic reactions (tha ability to do work). Energy travels through space/the vacuum (as light) or occupies mass as kinetic energy (heat). Both require space as a medium/dimension.

Talking about time without space, energy or matter is meaningless.

We can only measure time in any meaningful way with dimensions for which it can have influence over.

A state with no actionable energy, and no space for that action to occur, is a timeless state. The only concept that can exist in such a timeless dimension is "potential" : that is to say potential to become time energy, space and subsequent matter.

Potential energy doesn't require time as potential isn't an act merely the means in which to become action. But potential requires becoming actionable to be retrospectively considered potential at all. Potential must be able to do something or it isn't very "potent" is it?

So long story short Time doesn't need to exist to have "something" but the only something that can exist in such a state is the potential to act (a time dependent outcome).

I guess in that sense the potential for time is the same potential as for energy. They must come into play simulataneously, like the complimentary faces of the same coin.

I rarely enjoy such wordy/lengthy posts but this one truly captivated me from the outset. It really was well and simply articulated.

Your musings are valid imo. It reminds me of the old adage "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound".

For me the answer "it causes vibration, but only makes a sound when an ear listens to it" is apt here. As for me I understand things to exist independent of minds (as you said), but there is a dimension to reality that can only be framed within the context of an observer (sound/noise vs simple vibrations).

"Last Thursdayism" strangely comes to mind here also. And it took me a moment to understand why my subsconscious was offering this association.

It has to do I guess with the capacity for precision, detailed and extensive memory that only complex conscious creatures like ourselves possess.

Without the temporality offered by the vast memory that the human mind exemplifies, Existence would merely be the blink of an eye. Began and finished in an instant.

So it seems the details: the minute-to-minute existence that we experience, is part due to our ability to record events and chronology as they happen at a certain pace, in a given "frame-rate" of the passage of time.

So indeed, the mind creates reality; "our reality" but not "thee" reality where time and space are less sure, as we are things that occupy a time frame, and a dimension of space that dictates how we perceive reality.

So perhaps many of the conundrums if human logic and philosophic contradiction whittle down to those very assumptions about our limited/restricted and predefined tempospatial perception

"meaning" is applied, not inherent.

You can give any value, any weighting, any nuance of meaning, to anything at all, be it a scientific one, philosophical one, artistic one, spiritual one. These are just categorical restraints (or lack-thereof) to applying meaning.

Meaning is created by a "meaning applier" - a conscious subject, an interpreter of things.

Meaning and how it is attributed to reality is fundamentally what separates us, what gives the "individual", as all individuals have an individual sense of the world and how it works, their own unique set of meanings, relationships, associations.

Meaning is a moving target. Even in Science where the meaning and significance of things is always shifting with the latest evidence and general consensus.

Meaning is fluid, flexible, like the language that carries it. The meaning of an "apple" can be metaphorical/figurative, poetic, spiritual, anatomical (Adams apple), scientific: physical, biological, chemical, or It could be literal, functional, mathematical, it could have meaning in a strictly cuisine/gastronomical sense or in a personal sense - for Steve jobs, for newton. It has meaning from the point of view of a cider maker, a botanist, gardener, a painter, a chef, a perfumer, a preacher, a geneticist.

One thing can have innumerable/infinite meanings, depending on how it's applied. And that of course changes over time.

There are 8 billion versions of the exacting and total meaning for each thing that exists based on the current human population. There are individual differences, and then there is the useful communal concept - the generic simple, approximate version we use to communicate and refer to it.

communism doesn't work because humanity doesn't operate as a "perfect community".

This can work on a small scale. The "everybody knows everybody" scale. Tribality. Where empathy can play a large role in shaping a small community.
But on a global scale, the ignorances, biases and prejudices between whole groups of people against other groups keep us divided and distrusting and leads to imbalances in how we value eachother, both what entitlements each person ought to have, and which opinions are valid.

Communism takes perfect cooperation, unanimity and persisting sense of equality/fairness, or at the very least it takes extensive propaganda, fear and silencing of opposition/revolutionaries. Neither case is promising.

Secondly, hierarchy of power directly contradicts communisms ethos that everyone is on a level playing field with equal empowerment. Someone has to enforce policy, but enforcers exert influence over their subjects, meaning there's a power dynamic, furthermore those in power are hardly "slumming it". They're "so important" to maintaining status quo that they are kept very well indeed.

because a property of consciousness is the ability to disagree on what consciousness is/its nature.

People are born either bad or good -- so nature — L'éléphant

Interesting. I'm not sure if I agree but all views are welcome. How might one look at a baby and say this is definitely a bad person. Do you suggest genes dictate antisocial behaviour? That there may be "crime" gene so to speak or a collection of genes that makes someone well civil.

I would find it hard to believe for the simple reason as it could be argued then that people should be imprisoned or stripped of rights from birth because they are fundamentally bad.

These two options fail to take into account the issue of intelligibility, — Joshs

Not sure if it "fails to account" for intelligibility. I feel that is nurture no? One is nurtured based on the paradigm (culture and form of education) of the surrounding people.

it's important to distinguish "divine hiddenness" from "divine nothingness" or "nothing divine".

Hiddenness suggests an ability to be revealed.
Divine Nothingness suggests an impossibility to be revealed/found.

So if divine hiddenness exists, then the ability to seek that which is hidden also exists.

if "truth" can be taken as "that which exists" the fiction, imagination, creativity, objectivity and subjectivity and fact are all subsets of that which is true - that whuhc exists as a concept and or physical thing/property in some form of relationship to one another. Relationships and associations also exist - and thus are also subsets of the truth (the sum total of all that can and or does/did/ ever will, exist.

one can know that in order for absolute uncertainty to exist absolute certainty must exist. They're mutually dependent.

Ends of spectrums exist. Because of you remove the end point of any spectrum, there is always another point that then must assume the state of ultimate limit.

Therefore ultimate extremes must exist oractiy speaking. Of course, theoretically, we can have infinities, for example in natural number line, you can count forever. But physical things are quantized. They have quantities. And the conservation law dictates that if energy cannot be created nor destroyed then it's quantity is finite.

Light changes with respect to position — NotAristotle

However light is massless. So where exactly is "it" in the sense of being a thing with a position in space.

I think this is relative. In the sense that light only appears to change position relative to that whuhc does have a position (that which has mass and thus occupies a point in space).

I believe that change can be constant. Which seems like a contradiction but is not. Because whilst change does lead to new forms, the act of change itself is constant.
The forms realised change, the act of realisation does not change as it is a constant process

Hmmm, what is that thing down there, poke poke; it seems to have feeling when I touch it. Hmmmm, that could be a piece of me -- hadn't thought about it all these years. poke poke. Oh! My secretary just said that was my foot, Foot! Imagine that. God! There are two foot, one right next to the other one, How did that happen? And they are attached!

Good to get body part consciousness out of the way early. — BC

Excellently put. I agree.
I imagine a baby as a sort of un differentiated sense of "me" -ness. And learning begins at the the "I" and rather quickly learns to make distinctions between that which remains with the "I" though experience - the body. And that whuhc changes relative to it - the external environment.

At the beginning the baby would indeed stare at its limbs and it would dawn on them thay they have direct control over this bit of matter/substance, that it is attached to the "I" in a way other stuff is not.

I think it might be the case that experience is special. — chiknsld

Do you mean "special" in the sense of special relativity?

For me I use this triad:
1. Thought/perceptions do not equal language.
2. Language does not equal what is observed (reality) .
3. What is observed (reality) does not equal thought/perception.

They're modes of communication. But all communication is imperfect - filtered, interpreted, altered in some way by the very act of interaction/being communicated in the first place.

The mind cannot comprehend reality in a raw form. It synthesises a comprehisble filtered and reduced version that's digestible. It organises the raw data into structures (dimensions). Disrupting this process with say... Hallucinogens, allows us to witness things unfiltered and unstructured but impairs our ability to memorise them well because memory requires executive tasking/structuring of info.

Language cannot impart the full scope of inner experience from one person to another. Words fail us to describe especially the most profound of emotions and experiences.

Finally, language and reality are only tied by a thin, frail yet pragmatic thread. This can be demonstrated in the fact that we have numerous languages (modes) to describe the same things. "Apple" has not only hundreds of other names but hundreds of descriptors and their respective meanings - from the literal, to the pragmatic/functional to the symbolic/metaphorical and figurative.

As well as the fact that words very frequently become obsolete or are formed anew. Languages evolve and with them we lose or gain new ways to describe. But never is language the reality we use it to describe.

There will be a “glow” of cosmic photons with a wavelength of the size of the visible universe. So the lowest and coldest energy state you could get. — apokrisis

We should probs wrap up well for that. Sounds chilly. Lol

I do not exist in the past or the future. I exist now, in the present. If God is real, I can only experience God in the present. Excessive thought and concern about past and future takes me away from where I really am, takes me out of reality, takes me away from God. — Art48

Furthermore, if God is only in the present moment also as you say, and that present moment is always the present moment, then distance/space and time is also a product of memories and the illusion of separations they create - the comparisons made by distinctions between memories of place and moment, the separation of the many "nows" into chronological order and dimension for which it must occupy. What separates you as a 7 year old with you now but space and time.

So "if" God exists, one would imagine they are accesible not by being "at the right place at the right time" to point them out and say "Hey there he/she/it is! Everyone look! I found where God's at/been hiding all this time!"

In essence that they're non-local and non-temporal. I would imagine such a state is prudent for an entity to qualify as everything, everywhere, all at once (the "omnis").

The only remaining way to "meet" such an entity is through contemplation from the present moment using ones mind. So if you're looking for "proof" of a God, it's unlikely that you can point to anything in specific. One must ask what form the "proof" must come in. What format? What type of proof is required and is it satisfying enough? You can simply know for yourself what the answer is. Perhaps you can explain it to someone else, perhaps they might believe you if you explain it well enough? Perhaps it enriches your experience or doesn't. Thats up to you - your free will/choice.

Horizons "exist" as properties of facts (not things). They are both ever approachable and unreachable; encompassing, yet never encompassed. — 180 Proof

Interesting. I will likely be mulling this over several times. A bit like a rainbow then, you can chase it but the faster you chase the faster it escapes to the... Well...horizon. Just there out of reach always.

So the first second did feel like it moved at light speed. The rest after that has become the longest and slowest crawl. — apokrisis

This amuses me because it gives a sort of satirical credence to "last Thursdayism". Everything happening, emerging and evolving so rapidly in a telescoping effect as you say that the big bang happened basically "very recently" and it is the time component expanding out that projects it backwards to a seemingly infinite temporospatial distance away.

Onto heat death. If energy cannot be destroyed, could we say that "cooling" of the universe is the sublimation of energy back into potential of some form? Perhaps when everything cools down so much that nothing moves anymore then time has effectively ceased and all energy must be pent up once again as a singularity. Otherwise we would have to say that energy is not conserved.

I think perhaps it is instead a constant interplay of matter time and space where the ratios change but the potential that transforms them from one state to another can never be destroyed.