What if we're asking the wrong question?

Consider the following:

There came a point at which humanity had figured out that the Earth was not the center of everything, but rather that it orbited around the sun along with a number of other planets. And we called that arrangement The Solar System.

It then came as something of a surprise to learn that our sun was basically the same thing as all of those other lights up there in the sky at night, many of which were similarly surrounded by an array of planets. And that all of these stars were huddled together in a spiral-ish arrangement around a central force of unknown origin. And we called that arrangement The Galaxy.

It then came as something of a surprise to learn that our galaxy was merely one of several tens of billions, all scattered about in a seemingly random pattern, the overall shape of which seems to be sort of spherical-ish, and that the galaxies all seemed to be moving away from a central point, causing the sphere to grow larger over time. And we called this arrangement The Universe.

But what if many such universes exist? Not parallel universes in the sci-fi sense, but merely many different "universes" in the sense that there are many such clusters of galaxies, each one held together by some unknown force, and located sufficiently far apart that they are either not observable from each other because not enough time has passed since their formation for the light to travel the distance between them, or because universes, by their nature, tend to clear the space within them of some force or material which blocks such observation, much as Congress is surrounded by an unknown force or material which blocks those inside of it from being able to observe reality.

Perhaps universes cause such cleared matter or force to condense into something akin to black holes, which are in turn responsible for more or less holding the galaxies together in the shape of a universe? It could well be that after some period of time, all of those galaxies which are still carrying the inertia which flung them away from the central point at the previous Big Bang will run out of energy and be drawn back into the central point by the unknown force again, causing another Big Bang to occur, after which things like gravity and light and hydrogen and cats eventually come into existence again. And so on.

In other words, what if the expansion of our universe is not the same as the expansion of space itself, but merely the product of our galaxies drifting apart from one another and thus increasing the radius of space which they occupy? Space itself, therefore, being an abstractly large thing able to contain billions of such universes?

It might then turn out that a cluster of billions of universes gets named some other thing (multiverse?), and that there are billions of such clusters of multiverses. And so on...



This is just me daydreaming. I don't pretend to be in possession of some secret knowledge. Most of my knowledge of physical cosmology comes from the back of cereal boxes.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...759797de75.png

The universe illustrated above contains a finite but unbounded number of shitcan drift cars.

For shame, Joe. Are you getting political in the RPT?

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ad7fee826a.png

So, all expansion arguments aside, what is outside the universe then?

In other words, where is the universe located?

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...62e7c8584.jpeg

It's turtles, all the way down

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...adbeeae6ee.png

Yes, I know those are tortoises.

That's not political, that's just factual, or if nothing else, less conjecture then his previous paragraphs.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...37b5ac1f94.jpg

Golden bullet...

5/7 writeup will read again LOL

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2988648617.jpg

is there ever a bad time to listen to the pale blue dot speech?

our boy's -- icantdo55 -- car made it to snoop dogg's insta.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/An...-no?authuser=0

And here I thought people were just illiterate when they referred to "the truck of my car"...

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...a20e80972b.png

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...bb8e9c4a6f.png

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c34d8558ad.png

Pictures or it didn't happen.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...54244ea0f4.jpg

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e94862b1bd.png

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c802c07967.jpg

It takes at least 3 crows to make a "murder" (group of crows), based on old English folklore, referring to the "Three ravens" folk tale, where three crows plot to devour the corpse of a dead knight. Then they are thwarted by the knight's hawk, hound and mistress.

From the ERJ 175 I took into Rapid City, SD today. (Yes, direct from ORD. I was astonished.)

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...0cb022f8d5.jpg

I like how there's a picture of an airplane in the multifunction display. Like, to remind the pilots of what they are doing.

"Are we on a boat today? Oh, no, I can see that this is an airplane."

No Uber in Rapid City, as it turns out. Also no taxi stand at the airport. I wasn't prepared for that.

You were almost close enough to the pilots to hear them say, "Pew-pew-pew!" as they played that video game.


Pic unrelated. Barbados cherries. Not related to standard cherries.