Jim

You are right, there could be a connection between inflation and primordial black holes(PBH's).

The MACHO surveys in the early 1990's looked for massive objects (planets, black holes)that might explain the missing matter. They didn't find nearly enough, but the dark matter could still be loads of mini black holes somewhere between lunar mass and asteroid mass.

The negative results of underground direct detection attempts and supercolliders suggest that WIMPs are also unlikely.

There is another line of evidence to watch for the PBH argument. The growth of supermassive black holes in the early universe seems to exceed all models that involve standard gas cloud collapse to supernova to black hole to supermassive black hole. The options would therefore seem to be supermassive stars that collapse to form supermassive black holes, or mergers of smaller PBHs. Although no supermassive stars have been seen in the early universe, we do not have strong enough telescopes to rule them out. If they are there they should be detectable within the next 12 months. If not seen, PBHs are the prime candidate.

There is no known mechanism by which PBHs would form, so we may need new physics. Inflation is also not understood, suggesting new physics. Some kind of inflation that expands some chunks of space but not others may result in PBH's

If you scroll up to my comments to Giovanni Prisinzano there are a couple of links. One is to a paper containing my theory on this problem wherein the universe begins with two different types of dark energy that separate from each other. Because like types of dark energy units don't separate, there is potential for the nuclei of PBH's to form during inflation.

Given all this, it will be interesting to see if there is any evidence of supermassive stars in the next 12 months, and also the data coming out in relation to the expansion history of the universe (see the other link I gave Giovanni to the New York Times article).

Cheers

Gavin

    Hi Gavin,

    Thanks for your attention.

    The MWI (again an acronym) is different from my proposition. MWI is splitting up at each choice (in two realities) like mine but my proposition is not splitting up in two coexisting realities, it is splitting up in one ongoing life-line and one that is "becoming" an eternal availability (probability). I will make an illustration for my next article.

    The many Minds that you indicate are the many available minds outside your own. YOU are experiencing one of them, the others (an infinity of them) are available as probabilities in Total Consciousness that is essentially the total YOU.

    I am now thinking about the so called "availability" of all other "YOU's" in Total Consciousness. These availabilities are experienced as flows of reality by other YOU's. This could be because each Eternal Now Moment is the "cause" of the memory of a specific YOU. As an Eternal Now Moment is a pointlike entity in Total Consciousness and Total Simultaneity (both Time and Spaceless) this could mean that every YOU is experiencing its own reality (a FLOW because it is outside TC and TS) eternally. What we are experiencing as the FLOW of our reality in Time and Space is just an excitation. I would like to compare this thought with the hologrphic principle, a n dimensional entity can be the cause of an n+1 dimensional emergence. In this case an n+2 dimensional emergence.

    It is a very difficult question you are asking me there about the unity of TS and TC. Total Consciousness is like a field in Total Simultaneity. The Total Consciousness I introduce is the totality of ALL forms of Consciousness. If we have Total Simultaneity without Consciousness it is just a complete set of information (data) without any goal a chaos of data. It is only there. The to be or not to be has only a reason with consciousness.

    When we accept Consciousness as afield it could be the counterforce of entropy.

    Dear Gavin,

    Thank you very much for reading my essay and your comment. I have read with interest your deep analytical essay, executed in the Cartesian spirit of doubt. It is this spirit of radical doubt that gives impetus to the search for a way out of the crisis of understanding in fundamental science. Fundamental science, including cosmology, needs today a wide competition of ideas, concepts, theories .

    These thoughts and conclusions are very important for overcoming the modern crisis of understanding in fundamental science and global society:

    «Plato regarded his "form of the Good" as synonymous to truth, order and virtue. Plato's Good is an organising principle of the highest order, since it is "what gives existence to things."»

    «...idealists believe that the ultimate measure of ideas is value, and thus decision-making should be motivated by the rightness or wrongness of a decision. idealists believe that the ultimate measure of ideas is value, and thus decision-making should be motivated by the rightness or wrongness of a decision. For idealists, writes W.J .Mander, "Values are certainly as real as other objects and events, arguably more real than them and possibly all that is genuinely real." And "From Plato onward, idealists have traditionally defended the place of value right in the heart of reality."»

    «"Good, the final end of the world, has being, only while it constantly produces itself."(Hermann Lotze)»

    «I have argued that the universe could not have made a reality such as ours without a fundamental principal of constructiveness, and that this principle is best understood as a fundamental dimension comparable to space and time.»

    The modern crisis of understanding in the foundations of knowledge is a deep metaphysical crisis - a comprehensive crisis of ontology, gnosecology, axiology, dialectics. The world picture of physicists, mathematicians, poets and musicians should be united and filled with meanings of the "LifeWorld" (E.Husserl).

    Therefore, in order to overcome the crisis of understanding, it is very important to purposefully support various gnoseological paradigms and to introduce the Ontological standard of substantiation of fundamental theories

    Best regards,

    Vladimir

      Dear Gavin,

      Thank you for commenting on my essay.

      I really enjoyed reading yours. We seem to share the same simple logic in the way we try to describe the Universe. I also think that one should take a bottom up approach and not the opposite.

      I like your quote:

      "In fact, true nothingness by its very definition should have no limit or boundary, or else it would be something rather than nothing!"

      All the best,

      Patrick

        Gavin -

        Thanks for a very interesting essay! I was struck by the similarities between your "dimension of constructiveness" and the cosmic intentionality I discuss in The How and The Why of Emergence and Intention. Your allusion to our experience of flow is also, I think, an important clue to the functioning of the universe.

        The question of something from nothing is an interesting paradox, one which I explored in the prior FQXi contest (The Hole at the Center of Creation). Nothing is as troublesome a concept as infinity. Even to mention nothing is to imply that it is something (if only the abstract null set - which is, even then, a set).

        You stated - "I don't think it is necessary to delve more deeply into what the nature of this state of decision-making would be, as it would be rather speculative to do so." I think this is actually the heart of the matter. Either there is decision-making (intention) or there is not (randomness). We may not be able to observe the difference - but the it makes all the difference in how we perceive the world and how we live in it.

        Sincere regards - George Gantz

          Thanks for your comments Patrick.

          I read in one of the other essays that if the problem doesn't make sense, one should expand the available set of factors until it does. With foundational problems, I think starting from the cosmic origin gives us the best chance of including all relevant factors. And therefore, we are likely on the right track.

          Best wishes

          Gavin

          Hi George

          Glad yo got to read my essay. We seem to be thinking along the same lines...

          In what essay contest was your essay "The Hole at the centre of Creation"? i would like to read it.

          True, the question of what consciousness IS, is in a way the heart of the matter. It was really just a bit much to bite off in a 5000 word essay so I sidestepped the issue.

          Best regards

          Gavin

          Dear Gavin.

          I propose that many foundational problems would be better approached by starting at the origin of the universe and finding a process that results in our observed reality. As a part of this process, we would need to be open to questioning our assumptions.

          This is indeed true, but also very difficult. When we change one small detail the whole frame will be changed too, so we end up with the plethora of theories we see today.

          Cheers, Ulla.

            Dear Sirs!

            Physics of Descartes, which existed prior to the physics of Newton returned as the New Cartesian Physic and promises to be a theory of everything. To tell you this good news I use «spam».

            New Cartesian Physic based on the identity of space and matter. It showed that the formula of mass-energy equivalence comes from the pressure of the Universe, the flow of force which on the corpuscle is equal to the product of Planck's constant to the speed of light.

            New Cartesian Physic has great potential for understanding the world. To show it, I ventured to give "materialistic explanations of the paranormal and supernatural" is the title of my essay.

            Visit my essay, you will find there the New Cartesian Physic and make a short entry: "I believe that space is a matter" I will answer you in return. Can put me 1.

            Sincerely,

            Dizhechko Boris