Questions

This page lists articles arranged by category. Note that unwritten articles are not yet linked. If you have an idea for a future article topic or a question to tackle, please suggest it in a comment below.

Origins

Reality

Mathematics

  • Do objects in math exist independently?
  • Is math invented or discovered?
  • Where does mathematical knowledge come from?

Time

  • What is time?
  • Why does time have an arrow?
  • Is time travel possible?

Relativity

  • If spacetime is 4D, why can we only move in 3D?
  • Why are mass and energy equivalent?
  • Why does time slow down at high speeds?
  • Does relativity imply eternal life?

Quantum Mechanics

  • Does everything that can happen, actually happen?
  • How do quantum computers work?
  • Does quantum mechanics imply immortality?
  • What is entanglement?

Consciousness

  • What makes something conscious?
  • Can a machine be conscious?

Artificial Intelligence

Future

  • How will the world end?
  • What is the limit to human population growth?
  • Can medicine cure any disease and heal any injury?
  • Will life inherit the universe?
  • Can life survive beyond the end of the universe?

Technology

  • How good can technology get?
  • Why does technology improve exponentially?
  • How do computers work?

Biology

Economics

  • Can technology make us infinitely wealthy?
  • Where does money come from?

Life

Religion

Ethics

52 Replies to “Questions”

    1. Hi Mdaby Idrissa,

      Great questions. As for the phases of the moon, it’s easiest to explain this phenomenon visually. This video does a good job of showing it: https://youtu.be/wz01pTvuMa0

      As to why a year is not an exact multiple of days (a year is about 365.242 days long), this is because years and days are unrelated to each other. They measure two different things.

      A year is how long it takes Earth to loop around the sun, while a day is how long it takes Earth to spin around itself. If the Earth spun faster, it would not change the length of time in a year, but it would increase the number of days in a year, because then days would be shorter.

      Billions of years ago, the days were in fact shorter by several hours. The Earth was spinning faster than it is now. There would then have been over 400 days in a year.

      What slowed it down you might ask? It was the moon! Tidal friction from the moon slows the spinning of the Earth. This makes days longer, but it’s a gradual process and we don’t notice it on the scales of human lifetimes.

      This tidal friction also causes the moon to slowly drift away from the Earth. The moon was once 10 times closer to Earth than it is now. Imagine the moon being 10 times wider and taller in the sky, it would give us 100 times more light. It must have been quite a sight.

  1. Hello, I like your answer and content and I find it amazing, yet I have some couple of questions that you could try to answer:

    1- Does paranormality exist?
    2- Does aether exist?
    3- Is there more than one god?
    4- Is Astral Projection real?
    5- Are Near-Death Experiences real?
    6- Is there life beyond spacetime?
    7- Are there more than 3-4 dimensions?
    8-Is it possible to leave the spacetime?
    9- Is it possible to overcome the laws of physics?
    10- Are spiritual beings and nonphysical life forms real?
    11- Did gods and mythological beings really lived among humans in the ancient times?
    12- Is psychic phenomena real?
    13- Is mediumship real?
    14- Are spiritual/mystical experiences real?
    15- Does metaphysics exist?
    16- Is there things beyond matter and the spacetime?
    17- Is spiritual healing real?
    18- Why does the placebo effect exist?
    19- Is it possible to overcome the physical and become metaphysical/extraphysical?
    20- Are past life (reincarnation) memories real?

    I know that’s a lot of questions, but most of people often share those same questions, I hope you can answer one by one or even give me possible answer for them one by one.

    1. Hi William,
      This is a great list of questions! Thank you for preparing it. 🙂
      I hope to answer many of these questions in future articles.

  2. Hello man, I have some couple of questions that you might find interesting to answer: 1- Does the moon hava any effect over us? 2- Do the planets have any effect over us? 3- Do alternative medicines work? 4- Is spiritual energy real? 5- Does aether exist? 6- Do paranormal things actually exist? 7- Does metaphysics exist? 8- Is it possible to abolish private property? 9- Does socialism actually work? 10- Is it possible to overcome capitalism? 11- Can AI be stopped somehow? 12- What can we do for avoid AI to take over the world? 13- Is transhumanism inevitable? 14- Is everything energy? 15- Does energy exist? 16 – Are anecdotal experiences reliable? 17- Are pseudosciences reliable? 18- Do spiritual beings and spiritual life forms exist? 19- Are there more than just 3 dimensions? 20- Is astral projection real? 21- Are heaven and hell real? 22- Are we more than just matter? 23- Do souls and spirits exist? 24- Can technology overcome the spacetime and the laws of physics? 25- Are there more than just 2 genders? I know some questions are quite controversial somehow, but try to answer them if you have time.

  3. Your blog is good, but still, you should consider to unite more scientists and create an anti-scientism and an anti new atheism fron inside science, it would be amazing to have it and to have people working on it, but yet, it’s something only can decide, you should create a scientific movement that opposes scientism and new atheism, but yet, only you can decide that and only if you can do that.

    1. Thank you Joshua. By sharing these ideas broadly I hope to reduce the usual lag time between when a scientific discovery or insight is made, and when it can be adopted and applied for the benefit of humanity.

      Rather than view the progress of science as a battle between camps of scientists, it may be more useful to view it as a battle of ideas, which win or lose by evidence. It may be overly idealistic, but it is possibly more pragmatic, as it is difficult to change minds that have settled in on a particular position.

      This is described well by “Planck’s principle”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle

  4. Evening Jason, from Birmingham, UK.

    More a thank you than a question.

    Since a young age I have been fascinated by consciousness, cosmology and physics.
    It was depressing the way it was portrayed by popular science as a dead dumb and meaningless accident.
    Your videos have been invaluable to me, I cant thank you enough.
    They point to the idea it could actually be a profoundly meaningful, intelligent, creation…from what I don’t have an opinion, but I feel the truth is more beautiful than what we are taught.

    Thank you again.

    1. Dear Rob,

      Hello, I too have been fascinated by these topics. I am currently working on an article on consciousness, and it is taking so long both because it is a difficult subject and there is so much that could be said. You are right that these subjects are far richer, and deeper than many have made it out to be. I believe reality, and the range of possible and existing conscious experiences, are each infinite, and all conscious experiences are interconnected in subtle and complex ways. I hope to finish this next article and video on consciousness in the next month. I am glad the videos have been helpful to you. Thank you for writing me.

  5. The simulated multiverse is like Max Tegmark level 4 multiverse with different fundamental equations of physics such as thermodynamics work differently, and reality is just some mathematical computer code if the simulation hypothesis is right would there be simulations where the freezing point of water would be set at a different (if water existed in those other simulations where the other fundamental equations of physics would be different temperature let’s say 10 degrees or minus 10 degrees instead of 0 degrees? Meaning would it be possible to simulate the freezing point of water at a different temperature let’s say 10 degrees or minus 10 degrees instead of 0 degrees and life to still be possible. Also, would there be other simulations where the boiling point of water would set a different temperature let’s say 110 degrees or 90 degrees instead of 100 degrees? Meaning would it be possible to simulate the boiling point of water at a different temperature let’s say 90 degrees or 110 degrees and life to still be possible.

    Simulation 1 (our simulation)

    Freezing point of water 273 degrees kelvin (0 degrees Celsius)
    boiling point of water 373 degrees kelvin (100 degrees Celsius)

    Simulation 2 (different set of fundamental equations of physics where water or something like water would exist)

    Freezing point of water 263 degrees kelvin (minus 10 degrees Celsius)
    boiling point of water 383 degrees kelvin (110 degrees Celsius)

    Simulation 3 (different set of fundamental equations of physics where water or something like water would exist)

    Freezing point of water 283 degrees kelvin (10 degrees Celsius)
    Boiling point of water 363 degrees kelvin (90 degrees Celsius)

    Simulation 4 (different set of fundamental equations of physics where water or something like water would exist)

    Freezing point of water 263 degrees kelvin (minus 10 degrees Celsius)
    Boling point of water 363 degrees kelvin (90 degrees Celsius)

    Simulation 5 (different set of fundamental equations of physics where water or something like water would exist)

    Freezing point of water 283 degrees kelvin (10 degrees Celsius)
    Boiling point of water 383 degrees kelvin (110 degrees Celsius)

    if the chemical properties are NOT simulated down to this level of accuracy such as electron mass or strength of the electromagnetic field, then could you have different freezing and Boiling points of water in another simulation?

  6. I’m AlwaysAsking myself , how does evolution actually works, especially human evolution. I know it’s not like The March of Progress but more like a tree with many branches but how does the morphology of the body can change from an australopithecus afarensis to an homo sapiens?

    1. Hi Jon,

      Thank you so much for your article suggestion. I am actually sketching out an article that will touch on the subject of evolution, in particular on how physical constants determine many of the properties of life as we know it (and would apply to life elsewhere in the universe), and also some of the accidents of history, things which happened here which may not have happened elsewhere.

      I will have to put some more thought into your specific question as it relates to humans. In the meantime, you might appreciate this live visual demonstration of evolution, which shows to mutations emerge at random, and how descendants of those with successful mutations grow to become some or all of the remaining population: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plVk4NVIUh8

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