Christian Gründlinger-Prockl: Why do we despair of the idea of the universe? You mentioned last time that we think one-dimensionally.
Wolfmeyer: Humans are not made to think in several dimensions. The majority of people imagine the universe as a carousel that has the sun as the center and we revolve around this sun.
If I told you that the universe has a center of gravity somewhere that is constantly changing in dimensions, you would ask me where. However, we do not know where that center is and whether we are below, above, or to the right of it. Presumably in all these positions at the same time.
Let’s take the earth, which revolves around the sun at a certain speed and rotates itself on its own axis. Now, if that distance gets smaller, which it does, the earth will orbit the earth faster and faster until it’s so fast that we’re thrown out of gravity.
There is also this center of gravity of the universe and there are 2 states that the earth and the planets can take
1.) We are moving towards the universe gravity
2.) We have already been thrown out of universe gravity and are moving away from it.
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Christian Gründlinger-Pröckl: How fast would we move if we were thrown?
Wolfmeyer: Last time I tried to explain that we can never know, because we have no fixed point to which we can orientate ourselves.
You often read in the newspaper that an asteroid is heading towards us. If we’re ejected, we’re moving past an asteroid that’s traveling slower than we are. All media are therefore speculating that we are the fixed point and not the asteroid.
We’re also afraid that we’ll have to realize that we’re rushing through the universe with hundreds of thousands of km/h and don’t know what could hit us.
For example, we could crash into a planet 10 times the size of the Sun and obliterate us 2 milliseconds after we spotted it in front of us because it was shot our way from another universe. He would then be just as fast or faster on the way. No one would want to accept the mere knowledge that we could not end our lives as usual until death, but it is part of this universe and its rules.
Christian Gründlinger-Pröckl: Could we end up in another universe if we are shot out?
Wolfmeyer: If the speed is sufficient, maybe. However, this also depends on whether there is not another gravitation of the common universes, which is also located in our universe. We could either leave the universe, or we would circle around again until we reach one of those centers that eject us again.
Christian Gründlinger-Pröckl: So as long as no planet or anything else chrash us, we would be on the move in this universe forever and could never get anywhere else?
Wolfmeyer: Or so many planets fly past us with life on the surface, but for us being unable to reach them because we fly too fast in this universe.
Christian Gründlinger-Prockl: But we can’t actually start with this knowledge, can we?
Wolfmeyer: Exactly, because we are not made to understand this. And here we are back at the beginning of the conversation.
Christian Gründlinger-Pröckl: Will we ever be able to understand this or be able to prove it?
Wolfmeyer: We will be able to deal with it, but nobody will ever be able to understand or prove it.
Jogy Wolfmeyer
Austrian Philosopher