Giulio Tononi, PhD, MD - "Consciousness and the Brain"

University of Wisconsin, Professor of Psychiatry. Distinguished Chair of Consciousness Science, University of Wisconsin. Research: Consciousness and its neural substrates and sleep and its functions. Recipient of the NIH Director Pioneer Award

To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour.

In this one-off documentary, David Malone looks at four brilliant mathematicians - Georg Cantor, Ludwig Boltzmann, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing - whose genius has profoundly affected us, but which tragically drove them insane and eventually led to them all committing suicide. The film begins with Georg Cantor, the great mathematician whose work proved to be the foundation for much of the 20th-century mathematics. He believed he was God's messenger and was eventually driven insane trying to prove his theories of infinity.

What is consciousness?

David Hirschman on September 1, 2010, 12:00 AM
What does it mean to be conscious? It's a question that philosophers and scientists have puzzled over perhaps since there have been philosophers and scientists.
In his book "Consciousness Explained," Tufts University philosopher Daniel Dennett calls human consciousness "just about the last surviving mystery," explaining that a mystery is something that people don't yet know how to think about. "We do not yet have all the answers to any of the questions of cosmology and particle physics, molecular genetics and evolutionary theory, but we do know how to think about them," writes Dennett. "With consciousness, however, we are still in a terrible muddle. Consciousness stands alone today as a topic that often leaves even the most sophisticated thinkers tongue-tied and confused. And, as with all of the earlier mysteries, there are many who insist—and hope—that there will never be a demystification of consciousness."

Flowers From The Forest Floor

Mahler Symphony No. 1 - Lorin Maazel - New York Philharmonic

I do not recall ever listening to this work before. I was not prepared for the effect it had on me. From the first note to the ending of this tender and profound symphony it connected with me immediately and completely in a way that other works which I now hold dear could not do.
Maybe it is because I am older and calmer that I can be touched so quickly.
Mahler may have converted to Christianity but his Jewish soul comes on so strong in this music, so beautifully.

Mad As Hell (Continued)

Op-Ed Columnist

Downhill With the G.O.P.

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Once upon a time, a Latin American political party promised to help motorists save money on gasoline. How? By building highways that ran only downhill.

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Paul Krugman

I’ve always liked that story, but the truth is that the party received hardly any votes. And that means that the joke is really on us. For these days one of America’s two great political parties routinely makes equally nonsensical promises. Never mind the war on terror, the party’s main concern seems to be the war on arithmetic. And this party has a better than even chance of retaking at least one house of Congress this November.

Banana republic, here we come.

On Thursday, House Republicans released their “Pledge to America,” supposedly outlining their policy agenda. In essence, what they say is, “Deficits are a terrible thing. Let’s make them much bigger.” The document repeatedly condemns federal debt — 16 times, by my count. But the main substantive policy proposal is to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, which independent estimates say would add about $3.7 trillion to the debt over the next decade — about $700 billion more than the Obama administration’s tax proposals.

True, the document talks about the need to cut spending. But as far as I can see, there’s only one specific cut proposed — canceling the rest of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which Republicans claim (implausibly) would save $16 billion. That’s less than half of 1 percent of the budget cost of those tax cuts. As for the rest, everything must be cut, in ways not specified — “except for common-sense exceptions for seniors, veterans, and our troops.” In other words, Social Security, Medicare and the defense budget are off-limits.

So what’s left? Howard Gleckman of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has done the math. As he points out, the only way to balance the budget by 2020, while simultaneously (a) making the Bush tax cuts permanent and (b) protecting all the programs Republicans say they won’t cut, is to completely abolish the rest of the federal government: “No more national parks, no more Small Business Administration loans, no more export subsidies, no more N.I.H. No more Medicaid (one-third of its budget pays for long-term care for our parents and others with disabilities). No more child health or child nutrition programs. No more highway construction. No more homeland security. Oh, and no more Congress.”

The “pledge,” then, is nonsense. But isn’t that true of all political platforms? The answer is, not to anything like the same extent. Many independent analysts believe that the Obama administration’s long-run budget projections are somewhat too optimistic — but, if so, it’s a matter of technical details. Neither President Obama nor any other leading Democrat, as far as I can recall, has ever claimed that up is down, that you can sharply reduce revenue, protect all the programs voters like, and still balance the budget.

And the G.O.P. itself used to make more sense than it does now. Ronald Reagan’s claim that cutting taxes would actually increase revenue was wishful thinking, but at least he had some kind of theory behind his proposals. When former President George W. Bush campaigned for big tax cuts in 2000, he claimed that these cuts were affordable given (unrealistic) projections of future budget surpluses. Now, however, Republicans aren’t even pretending that their numbers add up.

So how did we get to the point where one of our two major political parties isn’t even trying to make sense?

The answer isn’t a secret. The late Irving Kristol, one of the intellectual godfathers of modern conservatism, once wrote frankly about why he threw his support behind tax cuts that would worsen the budget deficit: his task, as he saw it, was to create a Republican majority, “so political effectiveness was the priority, not the accounting deficiencies of government.” In short, say whatever it takes to gain power. That’s a philosophy that now, more than ever, holds sway in the movement Kristol helped shape.

And what happens once the movement achieves the power it seeks? The answer, presumably, is that it turns to its real, not-so-secret agenda, which mainly involves privatizing and dismantling Medicare and Social Security.

Realistically, though, Republicans aren’t going to have the power to enact their true agenda any time soon — if ever. Remember, the Bush administration’s attack on Social Security was a fiasco, despite its large majority in Congress — and it actually increased Medicare spending.

So the clear and present danger isn’t that the G.O.P. will be able to achieve its long-run goals. It is, rather, that Republicans will gain just enough power to make the country ungovernable, unable to address its fiscal problems or anything else in a serious way. As I said, banana republic, here we come.

I AM MAD AS HELL AND I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY LONGER!

The rant of the very rich that we are seeing would be humorous if many of the rest of us did not buy into the big lie which their lap dogs the Republican politicians have been spreading about how taxing these special people at a higher tax rate does damage to the nation's economic well being and recovery. Two things, this country has had a graduated income tax for some time and it works. Secondly, the Republican's theory that taxing the very rich at a higher rate does harm to the economy is flat out wrong, in fact the opposite is true. I find it hard to understand how some of my friends can buy into this stuff, they appear to be intelligent enough to think this through on their own. Read the following,

David

Fred R. Conrad/The New York

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: September 19, 2010
Anger is sweeping America. True, this white-hot rage is a minority phenomenon, not something that characterizes most of our fellow citizens. But the angry minority is angry indeed, consisting of people who feel that things to which they are entitled are being taken away. And they’re out for revenge.
No, I’m not talking about the Tea Partiers. I’m talking about the rich.

These are terrible times for many people in this country. Poverty, especially acute poverty, has soared in the economic slump; millions of people have lost their homes. Young people can’t find jobs; laid-off 50-somethings fear that they’ll never work again.

Yet if you want to find real political rage — the kind of rage that makes people compare President Obama to Hitler, or accuse him of treason — you won’t find it among these suffering Americans. You’ll find it instead among the very privileged, people who don’t have to worry about losing their jobs, their homes, or their health insurance, but who are outraged, outraged, at the thought of paying modestly higher taxes.
The rage of the rich has been building ever since Mr. Obama took office. At first, however, it was largely confined to Wall Street. Thus when New York magazine published an article titled “The Wail Of the 1%,” it was talking about financial wheeler-dealers whose firms had been bailed out with taxpayer funds, but were furious at suggestions that the price of these bailouts should include temporary limits on bonuses. When the billionaire Stephen Schwarzman compared an Obama proposal to the Nazi invasion of Poland, the proposal in question would have closed a tax loophole that specifically benefits fund managers like him.

Now, however, as decision time looms for the fate of the Bush tax cuts — will top tax rates go back to Clinton-era levels? — the rage of the rich has broadened, and also in some ways changed its character.

For one thing, craziness has gone mainstream. It’s one thing when a billionaire rants at a dinner event. It’s another when Forbes magazine runs a cover story alleging that the president of the United States is deliberately trying to bring America down as part of his Kenyan, “anticolonialist” agenda, that “the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s.” When it comes to defending the interests of the rich, it seems, the normal rules of civilized (and rational) discourse no longer apply.
At the same time, self-pity among the privileged has become acceptable, even fashionable.

Tax-cut advocates used to pretend that they were mainly concerned about helping typical American families. Even tax breaks for the rich were justified in terms of trickle-down economics, the claim that lower taxes at the top would make the economy stronger for everyone.

These days, however, tax-cutters are hardly even trying to make the trickle-down case. Yes, Republicans are pushing the line that raising taxes at the top would hurt small businesses, but their hearts don’t really seem in it. Instead, it has become common to hear vehement denials that people making $400,000 or $500,000 a year are rich. I mean, look at the expenses of people in that income class — the property taxes they have to pay on their expensive houses, the cost of sending their kids to elite private schools, and so on. Why, they can barely make ends meet.

And among the undeniably rich, a belligerent sense of entitlement has taken hold: it’s their money, and they have the right to keep it. “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” said Oliver Wendell Holmes — but that was a long time ago.
The spectacle of high-income Americans, the world’s luckiest people, wallowing in self-pity and self-righteousness would be funny, except for one thing: they may well get their way. Never mind the $700 billion price tag for extending the high-end tax breaks: virtually all Republicans and some Democrats are rushing to the aid of the oppressed affluent.

You see, the rich are different from you and me: they have more influence. It’s partly a matter of campaign contributions, but it’s also a matter of social pressure, since politicians spend a lot of time hanging out with the wealthy. So when the rich face the prospect of paying an extra 3 or 4 percent of their income in taxes, politicians feel their pain — feel it much more acutely, it’s clear, than they feel the pain of families who are losing their jobs, their houses, and their hopes.

And when the tax fight is over, one way or another, you can be sure that the people currently defending the incomes of the elite will go back to demanding cuts in Social Security and aid to the unemployed. America must make hard choices, they’ll say; we all have to be willing to make sacrifices.
But when they say “we,” they mean “you.” Sacrifice is for the little people.

Two Takes On An Eternal Truth - MONEY! MONEY!

Two takes on an eternal truth, that in this life and in this world it takes MONEY! MONEY! MONEY!

What Can I Say?

What Can I say? Brando is Brando!... even when he doesn't get the part. This screen test was done in 1947 for Rebel Without a Cause and was made three years later with James Dean cast in the role.

Why we should leave Afghanistan

By MAUREEN CALLAHAN
Last Updated: 4:48 AM, November 22, 2009
Posted: 1:02 AM, November 22, 2009

At first, Matthew Hoh didn’t think he was doing anything that consequential — maybe he’d attract some attention for the first day or two before becoming, as he puts it, a “footnote.”
But since news broke, a little less than a month ago, of his resignation from the State Department over the US war in Afghanistan — he is the first US official to publicly quit in protest — Hoh has swiftly become an influential voice, both within and outside the government. The timing of his resignation, dated Sept. 10, 2009, was fortuitous, he says: “People want to understand this.”



This week, as President Obama announced that he will soon decide how to proceed in Afghanistan and whether to escalate US troop levels, Matthew Hoh, former Senior Civilian Representative in Zabul Province, has been taking meetings on Capitol Hill and with administration officials. He was recently invited to speak with the Vice-President’s national security adviser, Tony Blinken. “It was a good conversation — they were very open and interested in what I had to say,” Hoh says. “Very inquisitive.”

From his colleagues, both military and civilian, Hoh says he has received overwhelming support. “My State Department counterparts and a lot of military officers feel the same way,” he says. “I did not have a Eureka moment. Nothing in that [resignation] letter is novel or unique.”
Public opinion sways similarly: Over the past few weeks, several polls have shown that support for the war in Afghanistan has reached its lowest point ever. A CBS News poll released this week shows 69% of Americans view the war as “going badly,” with the sharpest decline among Republicans and independents.

Hoh, now 36, served as an officer in the Marines in Iraq in 2006. He saw a good friend die, drowning after their helicopter crashed in Anbar province. He says the trauma he suffered in combat has not affected his decision to resign and go public: “I made my peace with that a long time ago.”

From the time Hoh was young, he says, he wanted to serve his country. He grew up working-class in New Jersey; his father was a “dirt poor” high-school dropout and teenage dad who worked hard, went to night school, “did everything he could for his family and did it well.”

Hoh has also worked at the Pentagon, and at the Department of Defense in Iraq. He was assigned to Afghanistan in May; five months later, he drafted his resignation letter.

“I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end,” he wrote. “To put simply: I fail to see the value or the worth in continued US casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year-old civil war.”

US ambassador to Afghanistan Karl W. Eikenberry — himself the author a leaked memo arguing for no further increase in troop levels — and Richard Holbrooke, US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, met with Hoh and tried to keep him from quitting. (Holbrooke has conceded that he largely agrees with Hoh’s assessment.) Hoh, swayed by the old argument that one can effect more change by working within the system, agreed to stay. He lasted a week.

“Seeing the kind of stuff I did — I didn’t want to participate in this,” he says.

Our top priorities, says Hoh, should be destroying al Qaeda, killing Osama bin Laden, and stabilizing Pakistan. “Al Qaeda has not been in Afghanistan since 2001,” when the US first invaded, he says. (Last month, Gen. Jim Jones, the president’s national security adviser, said that there were less than 100 al Qaeda in Afghanistan.) “Another 60,000 troops in Afghanistan won’t make a difference,” Hoh says. “But you’ll have hundreds more dead Americans.”

Further, he says, al Qaeda is an elastic, amorphous entity, one based not geographically but ideologically. Hoh points to the logistician for the attacks of Sept. 11, who coordinated everything from a small apartment in Hamburg, Germany. Al Qaeda’s largest attacks since then have occurred in Madrid, London and Indonesia.

“Al Qaeda is a collection of ideas, of independent, autonomous cells,” Hoh says. “They don’t need a lot of funding. They need an apartment with an Internet connection.”

Hoh is also deeply troubled by the conflation of the Taliban in Afghanistan with al Qaeda; the two, he says, are unrelated. “Al Qaeda is a worldwide organization with an apocalyptic vision to establish an Islamic caliphate throughout the world,” he says. “The Taliban’s views are very local.” Though the Taliban gave shelter to al Qaeda in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, it is offering to renounce the organization should they be represented in a coalition government.
“That’s something we should look at,” Hoh says. “But whether the Taliban were complicit in or lead any of the attacks — no. They are not in cahoots. They have separate goals.”
The shadow of Vietnam, to which this war has often been compared, is long. “People [in power] are taking that seriously,” he says. “There are parallels. The idea that we’re supporting the corrupt and illegitimate [Karzai] regime — I think that troubles a lot of people. Is that an honorable thing to do, to ask our young men and women to die? For this regime?”
As with Vietnam, US forces in Afghanistan, Hoh says, are attacked only because we are there, and so it follows that an insurgency abhors a vacuum. He talks about having visited Korengal — “the deadliest area for US troops” — and the primitiveness of the inhabitants, maybe 10,000 in all, speaking their own language, living off a timber-based economy. He recalls asking the commanding officer what would happen if he pulled his troops out.
“Nothing.”
“So why are we still here?”
“Because we were here before.”
“And that goes on so much,” says Hoh, with more sadness than anger. “It’s this mindset we have: ‘We’ve been here eight years, so we need to be here a ninth.’ To borrow a phrase, it’s the march of folly.”
That said, Hoh is not advocating for a sudden and complete withdrawal. He thinks the US needs to take a far harder approach to Karzai, force him to negotiate with Pakistan by threatening to cut off funds. He thinks the US should end combat in valleys and villages, work only at the lowest levels politically, and aim to be gone within a year.
And then, he says, the US should focus on Pakistan (a state Hillary Clinton recently criticized for harboring terrorists; Osama bin Laden is believed to be in hiding there) and destroying al Qaeda. Hoh does concede that Pakistan is an imminent danger to the US and the West, but says the notion that the bulk of al Qaeda operatives are recruited and trained in that nation alone is false.
“We need a much more serious approach, using intelligence and law-enforcement,” he says. “If we go down this rabbit hole that al Qaeda is tied to a political or geographical boundary, we are never going to defeat them. We have to acknowledge them for what they are, not what we’d like them to be.”Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/why_we_should_leave_afghanistan_tYtXBFPkHSbkCNgMXFDpJM/1#ixzz0zoEOgpXi

Why We Must Stay in Afghanistan

Why We Must Stay in Afghanistan
Posted on Aug 31, 2009
By Marie Cocco
We will never forget, say the bumper stickers, which often bear the image of the smoking Twin Towers superimposed across the red and white stripes of the flag.
But we have forgotten. Or at least we have forgotten that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, demanded that we go to war in Afghanistan.

This war flares anew, and every day seems to reach some new marker—the most deaths in any year for American and international forces, a tally of U.S. casualties for August that makes it the deadliest month. Public weariness deepens. CNN recently found a precipitous drop in support for the war effort. The Washington Post uncovered a more troubling sentiment: A slim majority now says the Afghanistan War isn’t worth fighting.

This is alarming, and inexplicable. In less than two weeks, the dusty pit in Lower Manhattan that is now a construction site will again serve as hallowed ground, as families of the dead gather at what is, for most of them, their loved ones’ grave. New York will hear the doleful sound of bagpipes, and the city will fall silent as the names of the dead are called one by one. The Pentagon ceremony will be less publicized, but no less poignant.

I have often been repulsed by the politicization of 9/11, and by any effort by either political party to gain advantage from its commemoration. Maybe now, though, we need this reminder because too many forget.

They forget why we are in Afghanistan—because it was there in a faraway land of poverty, tribal animosities and historic hostility toward outsiders that a sophisticated terrorist network was allowed to take root, to flourish and plot the spectacular attack. Afghanistan today is once again such a caldron.

That George W. Bush botched the effort there is tragic. The then-president duped the nation into believing that an invasion of Iraq was necessary to the fight against terrorism, and devoted far more resources to war there than we expended in the crucial war in Afghanistan—a historic blunder.

But it is no excuse for making another calamitous mistake now.

The flagging public support for the Afghanistan effort, Georgetown University terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman says, is a consequence of the Iraq distraction and public fatigue with that war. “Combine that with the economic downturn, the fact that there hasn’t been a serious attack since 9/11, and a sense of complacency sets in—which to me vitiates the lessons of 9/11,” he said in an interview.

President Barack Obama pledged during his campaign to redirect American resources from Iraq to the effort to wrest Afghanistan from the Taliban’s tightening hold and from the grip of the poverty, corruption and regional lawlessness that enabled al-Qaida to make the country a haven. To abandon Obama’s nascent strategy there before seeing if it can work is folly.

And it would be a betrayal. The activist, liberal Democrats who powered Obama to the Democratic presidential nomination last year based on his opposition to the Iraq war are the ones who are souring most quickly on Afghanistan, polls show. In May, an early indicator of liberal discontent emerged when the House voted on a war spending measure that 60 members—most of them liberal Democrats—opposed. “I don’t think the president can assume that he is going to have the support of the American people in Afghanistan,” says Lee Hamilton, president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a former member of Congress from Indiana. The dissent in the House, Hamilton says, is a “clear danger signal.”
Obama has been hearing much grousing—some of it from me—from core supporters who are upset at the course of health care legislation, his detainee policy and other issues. These troubles fade when seen in the context of a failure in Afghanistan and a more problematic Pakistan that could emerge from a precipitous American withdrawal.“

You can make the argument that we’re in way over our heads, that we’re in a quixotic quest—except that there is still al-Qaida,” Hoffman says. “If we don’t succeed—and success for me is stabilizing Afghanistan and fixing Pakistan—we’re looking at another 9/11.”Obama needs to jolt us out of our complacency, and soon. The Bush administration’s fear-mongering was distastefully political. But sometimes we really do have something to be scared about. If we’ve learned anything from 9/11, we should understand that time is now.

Marie Cocco’s e-mail address is mariecocco(at)washpost.com. © 2009, Washington Post Writers

A Response To A Friend

If we had gotten out of all the fucking undeclared wars that we have been waging these many years, dinners and talks about the lack of miletary cemetery space would be unnecessary but the responsibility this country has to the servicemen/women injured by these actions will remain.

It is time we end such fucking wars for good, the sooner the better. They do more harm than good.

David

What I Was Thinking About Last Night and The Power of Google

I have spent some time recently learning about physics and cosmology. Some of the talks that I have listened to stressed the idea that the universe is infinite, both in time and in space, always was always will be and continues forever. Some other talks considered the concept of a multi-verse of many universes existing side by side.

These ideas raised questions for my untrained mind. Just an aside observation, I went to the search engine Google and wrote a question, "What is the difference between the multi-verse vs an infinite universe?" The search engine returned a large amount of good information concerning the question. It seems that just a year or two ago this powerful tool to obtain knowledge was not available. I wish I were younger so I could have lived in this age of information longer. Here is an interesting consideration to my question, I will not know if it truly satisfies the question until I think about it longer.
David

Journal of Cosmology, 2010, Vol 4, pages 641-654.
Cosmology, December 28, 2009
Different Routes to Multiverses and an Infinite Universe
B.G. Sidharth, Ph.D.1, and Rhawn Joseph, Ph.D.2,
1International Institute for Applicable Mathematics & Information Sciences B.M. Birla Science Centre, Adarsh Nagar, Hyderabad - 500 063, India
2Emeritus, Brain Research Laboratory, Northern California.
Abstract

The debate over a finite vs infinite universe has raged for thousands of years. It is now generally believed that our observable universe is one amongst a very large number and there maybe 10+500 or even an infinite number of parallel universes. Thus universe, in its totality, may be infinite. We briefly examine various approaches and theories that lead to this conclusion.

Key Words: big bang, universe, multiverse, cosmic inflation, expansion, parallel realities, parallel dimensions

1. The Finite Vs Infinite Universe

The Newtonian universe was one in which there was an absolute finite space in which the basic building blocks of the universe, such as stars, were embedded. This view was a quantum leap from the earlier view, based on the Greek model in which stars and other celestial objects were fixed objects attached to transparent material spheres, which prevented them from falling down. Indeed, until the time of Newton, the Ptolemaic-Aristotal universe was the dogma of the day, and it was believed by most scientists that Earth was the central sphere around which seven transparent spheres circled, carrying the moon, the sun, and the five known planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The the fixed stars were attached to the outermost, eighth sphere which circled around Earth, the Sun, and the five planets. The Earth, itself, was motionless, and thus day and night were caused by these rotating spheres. However, whereas Earth, as taught by Aristotle and the Catholic Church, was corruptible, the circle itself was perfect, divine, and thus unchanging.

When Einstein (1915) proposed his General Theory of Relativity some ninety years ago, many still believed that all major constituents of the universe were fixed, stationary, and finite, and that there was only one galaxy, our Milky Way which constituted the universe. The revolution ushered in by Corpernicus and those who immediately followed in his wake (until Kepler), was still rooted in the ancient past and Biblical teachings. Although Corpernicus placed the sun in the center of the solar system, and rearranged the planets, he retained the closed system of outer circles in which were embedded the fixed stars. Further, even though the universe was finally endowed with fluidity following the discoveries of Galieo and Kepler, it nevertheless remained finite.

However, if this view were correct, Einstein reasoned, then the gravitational pull of these constituents should make the universe collapse. Therefore, Einstein introduced his famous cosmological constant, essentially a repulsive force that would counterbalance the attractive gravitational force.

Shortly thereafter there were two dramatic discoveries which completely altered the picture of a single unified universe. The first was due to Astronomer Edwin Hubble (1929, 1937), who discovered that the basic constituents or building blocks of the universe were not stars, but rather huge conglomerations of stars called galaxies. The second discovery was the fact that these galaxies appeared to be rushing away from each other--the universe was expanding. In an expanding universe there was no need for Einstein's counterbalancing cosmic repulsion and Einstein dismissed his "cosmological constant" as his greatest blunder.

Not all scientists have accepted the concept of a finite universe (e.g., Hoyle et al., 1993, 1994; Joseph, 2009, 2010). The debate between finite vs infinite has in fact raged for thousands of years. The Greek philosopher Democritus, for example taught that the cosmos was eternal and had undergone cycles of order and disorder for all eternity. By contrast, Aristotle believed the universe was fixed, finite, and had a beginning, and this theory was accepted as part of Catholic Church dogma and became the accepted view within the scientific community. Therefore, in the 16th century when Giordano Bruno proposed the Universe was infinite and that there were an infinite number of worlds, just like Earth, the Roman Inquisition burned him at the stake for heresy.

The debate continued well into the 20th century, with esteemed scientists such as Sir Fred Hoyle, Herman Bondi and, and J. V. Narlikar championing what has been called the "steady state" theory of an infinite universe (Hoyle et al., 1993, 1994). An expanding universe, and later, the discovering of the Cosmic Microwave Background, nearly spelled the death to the steady state theory of the cosmos.

Hubble's (1929) discovery of an expanding universe, however, was predated by a few years earlier by Monsignor Georges Lemaître (1927), a high ranking Catholic Priest, who had come to similar conclusions. Lemaître seized upon Hubble's findings as additional proof of a finite, expanding universe that must have had a beginning, and thus a creator (1931a,b). Lemaître called his theory the 'hypothesis of the primeval atom" and described it as "the Cosmic Egg exploding at the moment of the creation." Hoyle ridiculed the idea, and sarcastically called it "the big bang." According to Hoyle, the universe may be expanding, but it is doing so in the act of continual creation; that is, it expands as new matter is continually created (Hoyle et al., 1993).

The debate may have continued to this day if not for the discovery, in 1964 by radio astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, of what has been interpreted as a cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). The consensus is this radiation was produced by a big bang, before the formation of stars and galaxies, and that the current CMBR is a relic from the past (Ohanian 1994, Wheeler 1973).

2. The Big Bang Controversy: Expansion and Dark Matter, Dark Energy

Not all cosmologists accept the big bang theory. However, if cosmology were a democracy, then the big bang has the most votes. Therefore, it is believed that anywhere from 13 billion to 15 billion years ago, all the matter and energy of the cosmos was compacted into a point of singularity, which resulted in a tremendous release of energy (the big bang) and the birth of this universe, followed by galaxies, stars, planets, and then life on Earth. The force of this explosion also created momentum where all matter is being pushed outward, such that galaxies are also rushing outward. The universe, therefore, is expanding.

A finite, expanding universe, however, raises, again, age old questions. Will the universe continue to expand, or will it collapse in a "big crunch"? The various answers offered depend upon assumption about the material content or density of the universe. If there is too much matter, then the expansion would halt and reverse and then collapse back into a point of singularity, and, presumably, undergo yet another explosion--and this view is reminiscent of the position of Democritus; i.e. the universe is eternal and undergoes cyclic periods of order and disorder. If this cycle has been ongoing for all eternity, then, the universe is not infinite in size but infinite in age. A cyclic, infinite, eternal universe, however, does not require a "creator" and this view is not compatible with Western religious or Catholic Church teachings and is therefore not popular with most scientists.

Therefore, the consensus at present is that there is insufficient matter to halt the expansion. Thus, the universe was created once, and will expand forever, and this view is consistent with Western religious teachings. In consequence, some cosmologists have ridiculed these theories as "religion masquerading as science" (Joseph 2009, 2010) and have pointed out numerous flaws as well as what is claimed to be disconfirming, or at least, inconsistent evidence (Eastman 2010; Ratcliffe, 2010).

Problems with the big bang theory have not gone unnoticed among supporters and supplementary theories have been proposed to explain what appears to be discrepancies. For example the velocities along the edge of a galaxy, instead of sharply falling off has fattened out. Then there is the problem of gravitational lensing; i.e. the bending of light, and explained gravitational influences which suggest that much of the matter of the universe has not yet been detected. This has led astronomers to invoke "dark matter" which, for reasons not well understood, exists but cannot be detected.

Some astronomers have suggested that this "dark matter" might be related to supermassive black holes within the center of galaxies, tiny black holes which have been expelled from galaxies, or other black bodies or brown dwarf stars which are too faint to be detected, or even massive neutrinos which were otherwise thought to be massless.

However, if "dark matter" exists, then there may be sufficient material content to halt, and even reverse the expansion of the universe, again resulting in a big crunch, and perhaps a repetition of the cycle.

Mass bends space-time. Therefore, according to Einstein, due to the material content in the universe, space should be curved or roughly speaking bent. Yet according to the models developed by some cosmologists, the universe appears to be flat, like a pancake.

There are yet other problems with the big bang theory which also raise interesting questions. Consider, for example, the problem of an event horizon. If the Big Bang was an uncontrolled random event and blew different parts of the universe in different directions, then some of those parts may have no connection to the other parts, as they were disconnected in the earliest stages of the creation event. This raises the possibility that these disconnected parts might be completely different from one another, having developed independently, just as ancient people from different and vastly distant parts of the world might develop their own language, culture, and style of dress. Yet, many astronomers claim the universe is by and large uniform, though this view has also been challenged, most notably, by string theory and the multiverse hypothesis.

If the universe were uniform, that is, the same everywhere, this implies interconnectedness and direct, instantaneous communication between all the different regions of space-time. As an analogy we can look at how people from vastly distant parts of the world are now able to communicate almost instantaneously such that culture, architecture, and style and manner of dress become increasingly similar and where news can be shared simultaneously with people all over the globe.

However, the uniformity of a vast universe and thus an instantaneous form of intercommunication is in direct violation of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, according to which no signal can travel faster than light. Instantaneous communication and interconnectedness is impossible, if according to standard cosmological models different regions of the cosmos are at least 13 billion light years apart. In fact, this is a gross underestimate. The observable region of the cosmos that we can observe and which we inhabit is believed to be almost 100 billion light years in diameter. So why should the universe be uniform, and flat, even after 13 billion years have passed and with distances of 100 billion light years separating the most distant, observable galaxies?

The answer might lie in how we define "uniform." Further, if after the "big bang" the expansion of the universe was faster than the speed of light (Sidharth 2003; Zee 1982), then the super fast expansion in the initial stages might smoothen out any distortion or curvature effects in space, leading to a flat universe. However this view is also problematic. A Euclidean flat universe is indicative of a non-expanding universe (e.g., Montanus, 2005).

Certainly in terms of the dispersion of matter, the universe is not uniform, but clumpy; galaxies often clump or string together, creating what have been called "great walls" and "rivers of galaxies" with vast empty spaces separating different "walls" and "clumps." This leads to the question: why? This has been explained in terms of density fluctuations resulting in more matter being present in a given region and then the increases in gravity drawing in yet additional matter. Density fluctuations would also effect the cosmic background radiation and this explains why it is not uniform but variable and anisotropic.

Then there is the problem of expansion. Doesn't cosmic expansion violate the conservation of energy (Baryshev, 2008)? Further, data based on red shifts has been challenged (Joseph 2009), and considerable evidence has been presented indicating non-expansion redshifts (Ratcliffe, 2010). In fact, redshift stars have been identified with ages far greater than current estimates for the age of a Big Bang universe (Jain and Dev, 2006).

Compounding these problems, recent observations appear to indicate the expansion is speeding up. Specifically, in 1998, Perlmutter and co-workers, and Schmidt and co-workers after carefully observing very distant supernovae came to the conclusion the universe was not slowing down, but was actually accelerating; indicating that the universe may continue to expand eternally, presumably propelled by dark energy. How can an explosive event from over 13 billion years ago cause the universe to suddenly speed up 13 billion years later?

To answer these question, some cosmologists have proposed the existence of "Dark Energy" which is fueling the surge. Dark energy is an unknown and mysterious form of energy that brings into play repulsion, over and above the attractive force of gravitation. All this is reminiscent of Einstein's greatest blunder namely the cosmic repulsion itself. However there is a problem. What is dark energy?

Physicists speak of such an energy from what is called the Quantum Vacuum. The idea here is that there cannot be a background vacuum with exactly zero energy as exact values of energy are forbidden by Quantum Theory. Only the average energy could be zero. In other words energy would be fluctuating about a zero value. This is called a Zero Point Field. Theoretically, what happens in the vacuum is that electrons and positrons are continuously created, out of nothing as it were, but these pairs are very shortlived. Almost instantaneously they annihilate each other and release energy, which in turn again manifests itself as electron-positron pairs. These effects could lead to a cosmic repulsion. The problem, however, is that the value of the cosmological constant, and the strength of the cosmic repulsion would be much too high, and this is contrary to observation; the so called "cosmological constant problem" (reviewed in Sidharth 2002a).

And like an "evil twin" another dark force has been hypothesized to fill the missing gap in the universe, i.e. "dark matter." However, what exactly "dark matter" might be is unknown. In fact, these dark entities, in order to exist, require non-baryonic physics (Capistrano, 2009). In fact, after over 25 years of searching, there is no conclusive evidence for the existence of dark matter (e.g., Freeman and McNamara, 2006). Although Clowe et al. (2006) claim to have proof, it has been pointed out that this "proof" consists of extremely questionable assumptions (Eastman 2010).

Yet another dramatic discovery since 1998 has been made with the help of the SuperKamiokande experiment in Japan (reviewed in Sidharth 2002a). This facility observed solar radiation, in particular for the very strange, maverick supposedly massless particles, neutrinos. It turns out that these particles now possess a miniscule mass, about a billionth that of an electron. The discovery explains one puzzle, what has been commonly called the solar neutrino problem. The point is that we seem to receive much less than the theoretically expected number of neutrinos from solar radiation. But the theoretical prediction was made on the basis of the assumption that neutrinos were massless. Even with the tiniest of masses, the problem disappears. However these observations challenge what has come to be known as the Standard Model of Particle Physics, which takes the masslessness of the neutrino for granted. Could these massive neutrinos be the elusive dark matter? The answer is no--the mass of this matter is still much too small to stop the expansion, which is very well in view of the latest ever expanding universe scenario.

Another iconoclastic dramatic observation regards the fine structure constant, which has been considered to be a sacrosanct constant of the universe. However, based on recent observations, the fine structure constant has been slowly decreasing over billions of years (Webb 2001, Webb 1999). Webb and co-workers have come to this conclusion based on the spectrum of light from the distant Quasars and comparing this with spectra in the vicinity. As the fine structure constant is made up of the electric charge of the electron, the speed of light, and the Planck constant, this would mean that one or some or even all of them are not the sacred constants they have been taken for, but are slowly changing with time. The implications are quite dramatic.

For instance this would mean that atoms and molecules in the past were not the same as their counterparts today; which means these changes will continue into the future, effecting not just the universe but life. If the values of these constants change, so would atoms and molecules and the narrow limits for life get narrower in time.

Therefore, with the aid of supplementary theories, such as "dark matter," "density fluctuations" and "dark energy" (which is believed to serve as a repulsive force that might be speeding up the expansion), the big bang model has been saved and the universe behaves according to theory; so long as we ignore that these are theories and not established facts, and that these theories and the patchwork of hypothesis which support them are not, at present, compatible, or mutually predictable.

The answers to these various problems may lie in quantum mechanics. As noted, Hoyle (1993) proposed that matter is being continually created. In fact, as also proposed by Sidharth (Sidharth 1997, 1998a,b; Sidharth 2005a) matter might in fact be continually created at random from a background Quantum Vacuum or dark energy. This model, coupled with a small cosmological constant, can account for an ever expanding accelerating universe, the radius of the universe, the number of particles in the universe, the mass and size of a typical elementary particle, the universal gravitational constant, the speed of light and so on, thus solving some of the problems pointed out by Dirac (1928, 1933, 1939) years ago, and which had been dismissed as freak coincidences.

In the present model, all these relations follow from the theory, rather than being accidental. Apart from the fact that this model provides an explanation for the puzzling time variation of the fine structure constant, it also gives a mechanism for reconciling the two great irreconcible theories of the twentieth century, namely Einstein's General Relativity and Quantum Theory. The key to this is the fact that, in both these theories, space and time were taken to be continuous and smooth, whereas in this model this is no longer true, though these subtler effects can only be detected at very tiny scales or high energies (Sidharth 1997, 1998a,b; 2005a).

3. Different Routes to Multiple Universes

According to consensus, the universe was born over 13 billion years ago in a big bang. Yet, although theories abound, the edge, or horizon for where the first stars are believed to reside, has not yet been found. Presumably, this failure is due to the vast distances and the limitations in current technology and the relative power of the Hubble and other space telescopes. The theoretical horizon and the light from the most distant stars may be too far away or to dim to see.

Another possibility is there is no horizon; or, there is a horizon beyond the horizon, and the universe may extend into infinity. Or yet, another possibility is that our "known universe" is but an "island universe" and each island is separated by vast distances.

This implies that even if we were to detect the most distant stars in this universe, there may be yet another "island universe" at a distance as great as our universe is across. Thus, there may be trillions upon unknown trillions of "island universes" with galaxies, stars, planets, and humans just like those of Earth.

If these "island universes" are identical to our own, they could be considered "parallel universes." Yet another way of conceiving multiple universes is via dimensionality; that is, universes, which exist in parallel but in dimensions outside of those dimensions within which are own universe can be found.

4. In the Beginning

Why should there be more than one universe? Why should there be any universe? How did it all begin, or did it even have a beginning?

Most cosmologists, astrophysicists, astronomers, and theologians believe the universe had a beginning. Theologians tell us that god created the universe. The consensus in the scientific community is that it all began with a "Big Bang." What started or caused the "Big Bang" is unknown. The field of physics is at a complete loss and unable to provide any reasonable explanation, and as such, we can only say that if there was a Big Bang, the laws of physics did not yet apply and this is because these laws had not yet been created. Thus, the only answer is that the "Universe was self-creating" and as pointed out by Joseph (2009, 2010), this smacks of theology and the Judeo-Christian religion which uses similar terminology, i.e. "god the creator became god the creator at the moment of creation, and thus god is self-creating."

However, another way to put it (and thus to satisfy vehement Big Bang critics who instead embraces an infinite universe), it could be said there was no beginning but instead a quantum sea of potentiality whose properties are not yet known though we can make educated guesses.

Perhaps this quantum sea of potentiality has been in fluctuation for all eternity. It is from this potentiality that emerge all the electromagnetic waves and elemental particles which will comprise matter and thus the universe. Initially, therefore, this sea may have consisted of an infinite number of singularities and potentialities.

Again, we cannot say what happened at the moment of the big bang, because there were no observers and no laws of physics. These laws emerged after what is called "Planck Time" (approximately 10-43 seconds after the Big Bang). It is only after "Planck Time" has elapsed and when the emerging universe reaches the size of the Planck scale, that physics became law and can thus be applied to what happened next.

According to some versions of String theory during the Planck era the Universe was little more than "quantum foam" which had 10 dimensions and then collapsed into 4 (within dimensions curled up inside dimensions), signaling the end of the Planck era. However, prior to the dimensional collapse, space time was being twisted and contorted and very small black holes, each no larger than a Planck length were being continuously created and annihilated. However, not all black holes were destroyed and some became the building blocks of matter.

Implicit in this scenario is the possibility that numerous bubbles emerged from the cosmic foam, and each bubble became a universe. These "bubbles" have been likened to bubbles gushing out of a bottle of an aerated drink that has just been opened (Geller 1989) with each bubble corresponding to a single universe.

However it must be mentioned that a more recent development, that of decoherence could make the many worlds interpretation redundant (Sidharth 2009). To put it simply, decoherence argues that in a sense the universe itself is an observer and every wave function is being continuously observed in that it is being bombarded with some form of an interaction.

5. Many Worlds: Multiverse

Everything is possible. If it has not happened, it will happen, or it has happened in another universe.

In 1957 Everett proposed that quantum potentiality and an infinite number of quantum possibilities results in "many worlds" and maybe an infinite number of possible worlds. Certainly some possibilities prevail in this reality or universe/world, whereas all other possibilities which have supposedly been snuffed out actually do take place but in other worlds. This has been called the "many worlds" interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, and according to Everett this obviates the need for invoking the collapse of the wave function as dictated by the Copenhagen school. So in the simple act of, let us say an electron going from one point to another point, a centimeter away, there are millions, or maybe an infinite number of hidden acts that have taken place, each in its universe.

The many worlds interpretation has inspired a number of scientists, including the Oxford Physicist David Deutsch to propose the multiverse or parallel universes theory. In a sense this collapsed actually realized wave function or universe is one of a conglomeration of any number of other universes which in truth have not collapsed, according to this line of thinking (Deutsch 1997). There is yet another route to this conclusion. When a star collapses into a black hole, at the very center there is what is called a singularity. A singularity can be thought of as a junction or crossroads of infinitely many different roads. Only in our case it is the junction of infinitely many universes each legitimate in its own right, and moreover each with its own laws of nature.

At singularity, all laws of nature breakdown. Each of the black holes in the universe, conceals the singularity which, without any Quantum Mechanical argument itself throws up any number of possible universes (Rees 1997). As Rees (1997) puts it, "Our universe may be just one element - one atom, as it were - in an infinite ensemble: a cosmic archipelago. Each universe starts with its own big bang, acquires a distinctive imprint (and its individual physical laws) as it cools, and traces out its own cosmic cycle. The big bang that triggered our entire universe is, in this grander perspective, an infinitesimal part of an elaborate structure that extends far beyond the range of any telescopes."

Of course, each of these multiple universes may have its own distinct physics, with different laws, and in consequence, life may be impossible in some of these other universes.

So let us say that there are this practically infinite number of universes each with different values of the physical constants. We can then invoke an anthropic argument (Sidharth 2009): In our universe the physical constants have the value they are observed to have (unlike in many of the other universes) because if any of these values had been even slightly different, our universe in the form in which it is, including life on the earth would just not be possible!

To quote Rees (1997), "If nuclear forces were slightly weaker, no chemical elements other than hydrogen would be stable and there would be no nuclear energy to power stars. But, if the nuclear forces were slightly stronger than they actually are relative to electric forces, two protons could stick together so readily that ordinary hydrogen would not exist, and stars would evolve quite differently."

Some scientists have also come to a similar conclusion from yet another view point: that of Superstring theory. It is reckoned that there would be 10500 universes! (Conlon 2006). How does such a conclusion follow? The point is Quantum Superstring Theory or M-Theory, has that many number of different possible solutions; each describes a different universe. Quantum Superstring Theory throws before us a landscape of universes (Susskind 2005). It is noteworthy, however, that this theory doesn't come up with a sensible value for the cosmological constant, which is very small. In fact the value of the cosmological constant in this theory is several orders of magnitude higher than what can be amenable to stable universe formation, such that these universes would have almost immediately exploded into oblivion.

6. Infinity and The Micro-Macro Cosmos

In 1584, Giordano Bruno a Dominican priest, published his book "Dell Infinito, universo e mondi" ("Of Infinity, the Universe, and the World"). Bruno was a visionary whose conception of the universe was more advanced than Corpernicus or Galileo. Without the aid of a telescope Bruno determined that the Earth was not the center of the universe, stars were also suns, planets must orbit those stars, and that there must be an infinite number of stars and planets upon which lived sentient beings just like ourselves.

An infinite universe made up of "many worlds" is supported by quantum physics and string theory. However, whereas Bruno proposed worlds that continued forever and separated only by immense space, "many worlds" theorists see parallel worlds and multiple universes which are separated by branes and dimensions which may range in number from 7 to 11 to infinity (see Robles-Peréz, 2010; Vaas, 2010; Wang 2010). Therefore, what these views have in common is belief in "infinity." However, whereas Bruno rejected a creation event and saw the universe as eternal and infinite and one with god which was everywhere, most multiverse scenarios implicitly and explicitly accept and promote the idea that every universe has a Big Bang beginning (reviewed by Vaas, 2010).

Joseph (2009, 2010) rejects all cosmologies which require beginning and endings, and has explicitly rejected the "Big Bang" calling it "religion masquerading as science." Although accepting the multiverse scenarios of multiple dimensions, Joseph (2010) like Bruno, Hoyle and others, embraces a cosmology where the cosmos is infinite.

According to Joseph (2010), the infinite cosmos extends from the subatomic to the macro-atomic, and that from the point of view of an infinite cosmos, even the "macro-atomic" is a microcosm. Space is infinite, and if we were to repeatedly subdivide the empty spaces that exist between the smallest elementary particles, be they quarks, leptons, bosons, or hypothetical gravitons, it would be a journey into infinity; but not a one-way journey, as these infinite spaces are punctuated by infinitesimally small holes in spacetime, passageways which may pass between "dimensions" and through which gravity, energy, and mass are continually exchanged or recycled (Joseph, 2010). He proposes that supermassive black holes do not merely bend space-time, but puncture holes in space time, and that they interact with holes formed in space smaller than a Planck length, thereby recycling gravity, energy, elementary particles and possibly maintaining dimensional equilibrium between this space-time, and those dimensions comprising other worlds. Black holes, according to Joseph are the source of hydrogen in the universe.

What we call "subatomic" however, is relative to the observer (Joseph 2010; Sidharth 2006). So too is what is described as macro-atomic, i.e. planets, stars, galaxies, the known universe, which from the POV of an infinite cosmos, are molecular in size. And this relatively micro-macro-atomic universe is also peppered by holes, black holes. That is, just as there are holes in spacetime smaller than a Planck length, and supermassive black holes in the center of galaxies, there are also super-supermassive black holes with the compacted mass of entire galaxies and around which swirl and orbit regions of galactic space the size of the known universe. Therefore, just as the stars closest to a black hole have a greater velocity than those on the outer-rims, those portions of the known universe which are closest to these super-supermassive black holes also have a greater velocity thereby giving rise to the illusion of an accelerating universe.

Joseph (2010) then asks us to take a "god's eye view" of the infinite universe (while cautioning the reader to avoid hysteria because of the metaphorical use of the term "god"). Relative to a "god's eye view" what we call the macro-atomic world and the known universe, becomes a microcosm of an infinite number of infinitesimally small objects, e.g. galaxies, which grow smaller in size, i.e. suns, planets, molecules, atoms, quarks, leptons, bosons... What we see as a "galaxy," or a "universe" is itself infinitesimally tiny and thus "subatomic" and molecular from a "god's eye view."

Joseph (2010) proposes that an infinite number of flat universes, side by side, one on top of the other, extending in all directions, from a "god's eye view", are merely the constituent elements of even greater superstructures; just as atoms and molecules form tables and chairs. However, because of our relatively infinitesimal vantage point, and due to the limitations of the human mind and brain, these infinitely huge structures are impossible for us to see or to comprehend.

7. Multiply Connected Universes

The author's own theory of the universe of universes shares some of the above features (Sidharth 2006). Thus the universe can be thought to be a blown up version of an elementary particle which is spinning. A huge number of such "particle universes" would form the analogue of a super particle universe; the analogue of let us say, gas molecules in a cubic centimeter or the level one Multiverse. And so on, possibly with increasing dimensionality of space and time at each step (Sidharth 2006). It is a bit like colonies of colonies of colonies and so on.There are very delicate tests proposed which can provide a clue as to the nature of this supracosmic reality and these are described in a second paper (Sidharth 2010) published in this volume of the Journal of Cosmology.