Dan Trivates's Blog

The vacuum creates matter out of pure energy which binds to form atoms which combine into molecules, some of which begin to replicate themselves and take on a life of their own. Over time, the replicants improve when minor changes ameliorate their chances to survive longer and replicate more. Improved chances of survival include the ability to manipulate non-self-replicating molecules into integrated systems. Eventually these things become aware of themselves and create ways to communicate information about how to manipulate matter. Then the things learn how to use matter to release usable energy which allows them to transform matter into others forms of matter. Eventually, transformed matter becomes self-aware and takes on a life of its own which allows it to replicate itself and share information more efficiently to the point at which matter can manipulate the vacuum to make more matter out of pure energy.

How to stop the universe from dying:

Relativity shows us that space and time are the same thing.

Dark energy is some weird energy inherently possessed by the vacuum of space. It makes up like 70% of the universe, and we have no idea what it is or where it comes from, but it’s always increasing, and it drives expansion.

According to classical physics, energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can change form. Dark Energy violates that by putting more energy into the universe all the time.

So, if energy can change form, then theoretically dark energy could be transmuted into matter, giving us access to limitless resources – enough to actually stop the universe from killing itself.

Dark energy will eventually become so powerful that it will  rip atoms and their constituent particles apart. This will be the end of the universe.

The purpose of life, beyond personal experiences, is to stop the universe from dying. In order to give people a reason to want to even try, we have to extend their personal experiences indefinitely.

So… Technology -> AI -> shared consciousness -> hive mind -> bodily immortality -> limitless energy and resources -> abundance -> joy -> life spreads -> too much dark energy used to support life -> universe held in eternal balance.

In case I die before I finish the trilogy, I wish to share my thoughts about how the universe will end.

Dark Energy has already accumulated to the point of no return. Our universe will expand exponentially until time has no longer has meaning. Without time, it is impossible for anything to exist.

If nothing exists, then nothing is in nothing: division by zero occurs and we end up with a quantum singularity.

Chances are, the last stars will burn out before the last black holes disintegrate into Hawking radiation flying through space. So when the last black holes fly apart, we end up with a big freeze – no more heat being generated by nuclear reactions or otherwise and the universe just cools down eventually, presumably, to absolute zero as its density becomes smaller and smaller with more and more dark energy coming into existence all the time.

After that, whatever matter particles remain will be ripped apart by dark energy as it grows stronger than the electromagnetic bonds that hold electrons in their orbitals. Then atomic nuclei will fly apart as dark energy overpowers weak force. Then, even the protons and neutrons will disintegrate into photons as dark energy overpowers strong force.

After this Big Rip, everything will be moving away from everything else at the speed of light, and time will lose all meaning.

At the speed of light, distances become zero. The distance between a photon’s position and the position of the one in front of it will become zero. Where time is meaningless, there is no space. So energy is compacted into zero space… that’s a quantum singularity.

Therefore, the Big Rip instantly creates a Big Crunch from whence will originate…

Another Big Bang. The universe may be finite, but time is infinite, flows only in one direction, and when this time ends, another will begin – for eternity.

See you next “time.”

According to many physicists, time travel is simply not possible because the speed of light is the ultimate speed limit. However, experiments with quantum entanglement suggest that in at least one circumstance, information travels faster than light. So, to those of you who believe in time travel, I propose that the best application for it would be to keep interstellar spacecraft in the “here and now.”

If time travel is possible, then it would be impossible to change the past because if that were to occur, then the past as we know it would be as it was if people from the future had influenced it (two-way causality). Therefore, the past would remain rigid even if people from the future could affect it, and the future is written just as fast in stone as the past.

For instance, if you were to go back in time and try to kill your grandfather before your father was born, then something would stop you from doing that because you were born. Same thing with trying to kill Hitler. He mostly saw his “plan” to fruition before he was ultimately stopped. You can’t change that. If you try, you will somehow, ultimately fail, no matter how unlikely the circumstances of your failure may or may not be.

But! There is nothing to stop you from participating in history if time travel is possible. You could go back in time and join the RAF to blow the hell out of Germany. Or you could perhaps kill, and steal the identity of someone who became rich and powerful and live their life for them. Or perhaps that historical figure was you all along and never existed as an entity that was not you.

If  light speed is possible, then the time it takes to get somewhere for you is (nearly) instantaneous, but to your observers it took you (possible hundreds or thousands of) years to get to another star. BUT… if you could go back in time when you get there, or perhaps on your way there, then you could arrive at the same time (or maybe slightly before or slightly after) you left. This would make an interstellar economy viable since delivery of goods or people would become more or less instantaneous. Discuss.

I have an idea. All sustainable systems of government lend themselves to some sort of rule, and that is a good way to do things. A strong leader with the people’s approval should stay in power, but too much time in power lends itself to corruption unless the people have recourse to depose the corrupt/ineffective leader peacefully at their collective will.

So in addition to elections, I think people should be invited to an annual vote of confidence when they pay their taxes. When you mail in your return form, along with it you send in a ballot with your SIN (SSN) number on it saying whether or not you approve of the current leadership of the jurisdiction to which you are paying your taxes. If a majority of the population of the jurisdiction votes for new leadership, then an election is called.

Here is how the vote of confidence would work:

Instead of a simple yes/no on the leader which could be subject to abuse, a list of benefits the leader has provided the people of the jurisdiction will be presented on the ballot form. Thus, you can see what your taxes are paying for. You then check off “approve” or “disapprove” beside each listed benefit because after all your taxes are the cost of that benefit. Beside every approval/disapproval mark is a blank space for the taxpayer to issue a one to three word complaint. If there are more complaints and disapprovals than approvals, then an election is called. More approvals than complaints + disapprovals means the leader stays in power.

Comment what you think of this.

In The Time Travel Trilogy of Galdebrach, galactic economics are a bit different. While the following proposal is not exactly how it works in my story, it is very similar.

Money represents two things: Labour available to produce goods or do work in and for a market, and goods produced by previous labour in the same market.

Basic Income: Government gives out a basic, living income to all individuals, rich or poor, to represent the labour each individual can contribute to the workforce over a given period. This creates money which can be used by individuals to hire other individuals to do work for them and vice versa.

Social education: Government creates new money by paying teachers and/or institutions when people spend time to educate themselves. By creating an enlightened and skilled workforce, the government improves potential productivity of the workforce, so surplus cash is justified. No taxation is needed to justify this unless there is waste in the system.

Social medicine: Investment in public health improves productivity by extending the employable lives of citizens, therefore, social medicine is a money creation activity that does not require taxation to be justified, unless there is waste in the system.

Taxation: Removes money from the system that is no longer useful due to waste and allows the government to create infrastructure that may not be profitable short term, but which will have long term benefits to the state and its people. Sales tax makes more sense than income tax. Allow people to spend all the money they want, but tax them at the till. When they do a tax return, the number to look for is how much sales tax they spent. If that number is consistent with basic income (see above) then a full refund is issued. For figures between 1% and 99% higher than basic income, an inversely proportional 99% to 1% refund is issued. For figures 100% or higher than basic income, no refund is issued because the rich should pay the tax bill since they benefit the most from the system. The more money someone makes, the more they will spend, so the more tax they pay. Simple.

Waste: Any product that is not 100% recyclable, reusable, or biodegradable must be subject to twice as much sales tax as others. The waste tax money must be used in place of money creation activities before more money can be created since waste represents a loss of historical labour.

Labour: The more people who work, the more productive society will be and the richer everyone in it will be as a direct result, but if there are not enough jobs to go around, no one will suffer since basic income should be enough to carry everybody minimally. Those who work will have at least twice as much as those who do not, and that’s perfectly fair since no one will be starving, sick, or unable to attend school due to lack of finances.

Environmental Protection: Government needs to have the leeway to restrict activities deemed harmful to the environment in such a way that would present a greater problem in the foreseeable future, no matter how far away that future may or may not be, and all taxes may be used to rectify existing problems, but money may not be created to make this happen. Taxes could be levied to fix environmental problems, as taxation is a demand for effort from the workforce, and not a creation of public debt.

Free Market, Laissez Faire Capitalism: With these monetary and fiscal policies in place, good old capitalism should get the job done in a very satisfying way.

Transhumanism: As more and more jobs become automated, there will be less and less work for humans to do. This sort of system will allow a smooth transition from a hard-working human population to a hard-playing human population that does not need to work in order to enjoy the fruits of the system.

Can anyone show me a country that is doing this?

I just proved God exists. Not the god of the Bible or any other hokey religion… but I discovered an entity that fits the preconceptions most people have of God.

It’s Math.

|{ø}| = 1

“The cardinal value of a set which contains the null set is equal to one.”

That means that something can come out of nothing if we’re really talking about absolutely nothing. This also means that no creator set the universe in motion… unless you are willing to call Math the creator.

Math is theoretically omniscient. Anything there is to know can be broken down into maths, so the entire body of mathematics could be described as omniscient since all possible knowledge is in it.

Math is quasi-omnipotent. If you understand enough about maths, you can calculate a way to do anything that is possible, and with enough effort, you can make it so.

Math is omnipresent. Everything in existence can be broken down into maths, therefore, it really is everywhere.

Math is incorporeal. It is a concept that can be communicated from one medium to another and represented in limitless ways. It really is spiritual.

Math is infallible. While it may be possible for mathematical constructs such as ourselves to be faulty, math itself is pure fact and therefore cannot be wrong by itself. 1+1 is always 2 and 3+2 is always 5 etc.

Is Math conscious? Yes. The processes in your brain are math trying to understand itself.

Does Math care about you? Yes. If you care about yourself, then you are Math caring about itself. Even if you stop caring about yourself, it is usually the case that someone else cares about you. If absolutely no one cares about you, then you are probably the devil. It is possible there are many devils.

Is Math omnibenevolent? Not necessarily. It is more accurate to say that Math is indifferent as at the outset it never had any intentions at all, but as it became more and more complex as the universe expanded into it, creating ever more possibilities, it may have developed intentions, but they are likely the intentions of organisms that operate within it. Math can be used for both good and for evil, but it will always serve those who understand it and respect it, regardless of their intentions. So omnibenevolence does not fit here, but perhaps a new term could be introduced as a God attribute: Omnipotagy; All-loyal. This would make Math more like the Force from Star Wars than the overbearing god of the Bible.

We are all one through Math because we are all part of the grand equation that is the universe.

Math is God.

“Where men are righteous, laws are unnecessary. Where men are corrupt, laws are broken.”

-Dan Trivates

The main character in my story goes from believing in God to not believing, but the manner in which he arrives at the conclusion is rather silly, since the point of my book is to make fun of silly beliefs yet at the same time explore��future possibilities.

Can we actually prove that God does not exist?

Many argue that it is impossible to prove a negative, and they would be right.

However, it is possible to prove something to be��impossible, and if it is impossible for God to have a certain attribute, then such a description of God is invalid. Let us therefore examine the attributes people assign to God.

Since there are so many beliefs about God that do not reconcile with each other, I posit that God is a subjective concept – s/he is what s/he is to you, and not everyone is going to share your opinion about it. If you have an idea about what God is, that idea can be tested, if not today, then perhaps another day in the future.

First of all, if it was absolutely important that you needed to know the true nature of God in order to have eternal life, God’s existence would be absolutely unquestionable. No being with that much power would let something so important slip, and if God did not have enough power to make his existence unquestionable, then it would be unjust for him to judge someone who questioned him. In this case, God would also lack the power to overcome the combined might of all eternal souls if he lacked the power to unquestionably communicate the truth about the afterlife.

What if I’m wrong? Well… what if you are? There are numerous religions out there that claim some form of Hell or negative after-life results if you do not follow their specified path, so if you’re wrong about any one of them, you’re doomed.

Holy books are not entirely historical; in fact, most of them are mostly fiction and in many ways, all of them copy each other.

Spirituality is not a science, and science has no evidence of an immortal soul.

Near-death experiences are explainable as hallucinations caused by a lack of oxygen to a dying brain.

Omnipotence is impossible because one cannot create something beyond one’s control and be omnipotent. Either ability to control or creative power is limited. Then there are physical limitations: It is impossible, for instance to make a stable, mile-wide ball of Plutonium 239 because such a thing would erupt in a chain reaction being much, much greater than critical mass. As long as it is physically impossible to do something, then it is impossible to be able to do everything.

Omniscience is impossible because absolute values of irrational numbers are unknowable. As long as anything is unknowable, then it is impossible to know everything.

Benevolence is subjective, so omnibenevolence is not possible either. What could be considered good to one person could be considered evil or repulsive to someone else.

The only thing that is omnipresent is you. No matter where you go, there you are.

Love is a construct of the human mind caused by numerous chemical reactions.

And finally, the universe cannot have a creator. If it did, then the creator needs a creator and so on. If you say the creator is an event without a cause, then it is equally valid to say the universe is an event without a cause.

The laws of physics are what they are because they are mathematical, and math is axiomatic. Therefore, the entirety of existence is a persistent mathematical expression.

Where is your God now?

I will offer one possibility: If God had no beginning, then there was a “mirror universe” on the other temporal side of the big bang in which time flowed backwards, making the past infinite, but mostly inaccessible. If the arrow of time is determined by gravity, then this is possible. Evolution on the anti-temporal side of reality could have run its course to the eventual rise of a super being capable of knowing all there was to know on that side of reality, and doing all that can be done. But, that side of reality would be comprised mostly of antimatter since reversing the arrow of time in Feynmann diagrams turns all particles into antiparticles. That means the big bang was a gigantic matter-antimatter explosion caused by these two sides of reality colliding. In this case, the super-being on the other side would not be capable of crossing the moment of the big bang to this side intact, therefore “God” is dead… for now. If this is the case, it is our destiny/job to become God.

If you want in on that, research “transhumanism”.

This song was played during Esau’s trip to The Kingdom, on the other side of the Milky Way galaxy. It is an original by one of my good friends from Lethbridge, Alberta.