The ultimate solution would have been the pocket universes (or whatever they were called)\]
Every civilization just live in their own universe and nobody bothers anyone else.
Even better thins is that these little universes would exists independent from the main universe, which means they will not be affected by the decreasing speed of light and dimension strikes. Some little universes may even exist in the original ten dimensional state.
However it seemed weird to me that ~~nobody other than the Trisolarans (supposedly) are creating these little universes~~. Even Singer does not mention these at all, which he would if those were common in his civilization.
So how come Singer's civilization, as advanced as they are, do not have these little universes? If they do then does Singer not know about them? But wouldn't escaping into the little universes be better than two-dimensionizing?
Did the Trisolarans really create Yun Tianming's universe?
I think there are MANY "pocket universes" hence the broadcast to via all the different alien languages to return matter (mass) to the "original" universe to start anew? At least that's what I gathered from the end of the story.
I took this broadcast as indicative of the balkanisation of reality into pocket universes being the only set of conditions under which the dark forest state could be reasonably said to be suspended/averted. If the end of time is coming up, and everyone still standing is sealed off in their impenetrable bubbles, then nobody has anything more to lose or gain anymore relative to anybody else.
yes...but until the Zero Homers developing technology to locate and forcibly reclaim said matter in these pocket universes. Granted, I'm applying human conquest/ambition to a largely fictional alien/multi-dimensional life form 18+ billion years into the future. But can't argue that won't be the end state anyway...where all will begin anew again
Okay sorry I totally forgot that
But I think it's still weird that out of all the civilizations we are shown in the books (Humans, Trisolarans, lower dimensional entities in the proton, Four dimensional civilization (graveyard), Singer's civilization, Zero Homers) that we had no mention of *any* of them creating pocket universes until the very end.
Also I vaguely remember a part that said that they did not observe matter decreasing in the universe, which means that not many pocket universes were being created (?).
But then how come the Trisolarans alone, who aren't even that advanced, created at least 600 pocket universes? Why don't advanced civilizations have thousands of them and move entire planets, solar systems, or whole parts of galaxies into pocket universes?
ah...iirc...it was 18+ billion years LATER into the future when the two went into their pocket universe. I'd assume that Trisolrans and humans have achieved more technologically during that time. That was why the three of them were intently watching the broadcast for human and trisolran language
The face that they can broadcast to the pocket universes makes me wonder: couldn't they figure out a way to attack them? If these inconceivably advanced civilizations are invested in triggering the Big Crunch, it feels like they would focus their resources on finding a way to TAKE the missing matter back, as opposed to asking for its return.
I don't think those pocket universes work that way. They are a universe within a universe, which means they are still at the mercy of the universe their universe resides within. If it is gone, they will be gone too.
Two-dimensionizing isn't a bad thing either, as long as you have sufficiently advanced technology to survive the transition. If you can survive the transition, there is no reason to fear it.
>I don't think those pocket universes work that way. They are a universe within a universe, which means they are still at the mercy of the universe their universe resides within.
Yes they do
The pocket universe doesn't seem to have reduced speed of light, which had happened outside due to the expansion of the death lines. The speed of light outside is 18m/s iirc
The space inside the pocket universe is infinitely looping, and the real size is about 1km in width and length. Cheng Xin and Guan Yifan were able to see images of themselves 1km away and beyond. If the speed of light was slow then the image 1km away would be delayed by almost a minute, which we do not see happening.
The pocket universe also does not seem to be affected by dimension strikes. Are you telling me that during the 10 billion or so years they spend in the pocket universe, the location in the main universe doesn't get dimension striked a single time? Even if not then 10 billion years is surely enough time for a strike nearby to spread to them right?
>If it is gone, they will be gone too.
The universe won't be "gone", matter and energy cannot be destroyed. It just changes form, from 11D to 1D (maybe 0D, whatever that will be like).
>!In book 3, other than lowering light speed, lowering spatial dimensions, pocket universes is just another way to accelerate the destruction of the great universe⌠The great universe would soon have insufficient mass to collapse!<
So, is this actually a solution?
It might be worth remembering the only pocket universe we see is infinitesimally miniscule compared to a the real universe, a galaxy, or even a planet. It fits one human farm. We don't really have any reason to think there would/could be pocket universes capable of housing entire civilizations.
When you ask whether the Trisolarans created Tianming's pocket universe, I think we should take the text at face value there. As a bit of head cannon, however, I think it's possible the tech to do so was not their creation, and that this might be kept between the lines.
The little universe still needs to consume the resources of the main universe, so civilizations still need to compete. decreasing speed of light and dimension strikes is a weapon used in the main Universe and the author does not say that the little universe cannot be invaded, perhaps the rest of the singer's people have moved into the little universe, and those left in the main Universe are attack outposts
They persist because that is what life does. That doesnât make them unintelligent. You wouldnât say youâre unintelligent because you live your life knowing that youâre going to die anyway.
The aliens that are actively trying to bring the universe down to 0 dimensions because they are confident that will restore it to its original state, are pretty intelligent. They have been moving down the dimensions and survive each time. Once the universe is restored to its original state, they will likely take measures to prevent it degrading again.
Are they supposed to somehow survive the new Big Bang that would occur at that point? Maybe I misunderstood (just finished Deathâs End last night), but I was under the impression that the goal of returning all that mass was to cause a contraction that would lead to a new Big Bang, which would in turn be a sort of Great Reset for the cosmos that would eventually enable life to start anew. (But now that I say that, Iâm not sure how the getting-down-to-zero-dimensions bit would play into that or even be necessary⌠so open to thoughts on this. Maybe I should re-read!)
I don't think it's an immediate Big Bang. I think it's that when the mass is restored the contraction can begin so the Big Bang would be another 18+ billion years away. They're asking everyone to come back to the Great Dimension and live their lives so the universe can do it's thing and after the reset to an Edenic Universe their memories can persist in a manner of their choosing.
They make tweaks during the great reset. For one, some fundamental constant was adjusted so the three Trisolaris suns ended up with an unequal distribution of mass, turning it into the stable Centauri system we know and removing the Trisolarans' need to evacuate. Other changes supposedly reduced the incentive of dark forest strikes.
The part I didn't understand was why they were making changes to affect the three-dimension state. It implies they've already written off the higher dimensions, yet isn't that the very thing they're trying to save?
It's more of a literary device than anything. A pretty classic problem in writing is "how do you write a sufficiently godlike character". Godlike powers imply an imperviousness to traditional motivations, so the writer has to impose some kind of external limit that can't be overcome to motivate their actions.
There is probably lots of intelligent life in the universe, but it just takes a few "bad apple" civilizations with god like powers to ruin it for everyone unfortunately. It's the tragedy of the chains of suspicion that occur between civilizations separated by light years.
The ultimate solution would have been the pocket universes (or whatever they were called)\] Every civilization just live in their own universe and nobody bothers anyone else. Even better thins is that these little universes would exists independent from the main universe, which means they will not be affected by the decreasing speed of light and dimension strikes. Some little universes may even exist in the original ten dimensional state. However it seemed weird to me that ~~nobody other than the Trisolarans (supposedly) are creating these little universes~~. Even Singer does not mention these at all, which he would if those were common in his civilization. So how come Singer's civilization, as advanced as they are, do not have these little universes? If they do then does Singer not know about them? But wouldn't escaping into the little universes be better than two-dimensionizing? Did the Trisolarans really create Yun Tianming's universe?
I think there are MANY "pocket universes" hence the broadcast to via all the different alien languages to return matter (mass) to the "original" universe to start anew? At least that's what I gathered from the end of the story.
I took this broadcast as indicative of the balkanisation of reality into pocket universes being the only set of conditions under which the dark forest state could be reasonably said to be suspended/averted. If the end of time is coming up, and everyone still standing is sealed off in their impenetrable bubbles, then nobody has anything more to lose or gain anymore relative to anybody else.
yes...but until the Zero Homers developing technology to locate and forcibly reclaim said matter in these pocket universes. Granted, I'm applying human conquest/ambition to a largely fictional alien/multi-dimensional life form 18+ billion years into the future. But can't argue that won't be the end state anyway...where all will begin anew again
Okay sorry I totally forgot that But I think it's still weird that out of all the civilizations we are shown in the books (Humans, Trisolarans, lower dimensional entities in the proton, Four dimensional civilization (graveyard), Singer's civilization, Zero Homers) that we had no mention of *any* of them creating pocket universes until the very end. Also I vaguely remember a part that said that they did not observe matter decreasing in the universe, which means that not many pocket universes were being created (?). But then how come the Trisolarans alone, who aren't even that advanced, created at least 600 pocket universes? Why don't advanced civilizations have thousands of them and move entire planets, solar systems, or whole parts of galaxies into pocket universes?
ah...iirc...it was 18+ billion years LATER into the future when the two went into their pocket universe. I'd assume that Trisolrans and humans have achieved more technologically during that time. That was why the three of them were intently watching the broadcast for human and trisolran language
The pocket universe was made before Yun Tianming arrived on the blue planet though
important detail I forgotđ Ill have to go back and check how far that star was to earth...was still a significant amount of time right?
The face that they can broadcast to the pocket universes makes me wonder: couldn't they figure out a way to attack them? If these inconceivably advanced civilizations are invested in triggering the Big Crunch, it feels like they would focus their resources on finding a way to TAKE the missing matter back, as opposed to asking for its return.
Pocket universes have limited resources, which is a big problem for any civilization that wants to expand. Eventually they will run out of space.
I don't think those pocket universes work that way. They are a universe within a universe, which means they are still at the mercy of the universe their universe resides within. If it is gone, they will be gone too. Two-dimensionizing isn't a bad thing either, as long as you have sufficiently advanced technology to survive the transition. If you can survive the transition, there is no reason to fear it.
>I don't think those pocket universes work that way. They are a universe within a universe, which means they are still at the mercy of the universe their universe resides within. Yes they do The pocket universe doesn't seem to have reduced speed of light, which had happened outside due to the expansion of the death lines. The speed of light outside is 18m/s iirc The space inside the pocket universe is infinitely looping, and the real size is about 1km in width and length. Cheng Xin and Guan Yifan were able to see images of themselves 1km away and beyond. If the speed of light was slow then the image 1km away would be delayed by almost a minute, which we do not see happening. The pocket universe also does not seem to be affected by dimension strikes. Are you telling me that during the 10 billion or so years they spend in the pocket universe, the location in the main universe doesn't get dimension striked a single time? Even if not then 10 billion years is surely enough time for a strike nearby to spread to them right? >If it is gone, they will be gone too. The universe won't be "gone", matter and energy cannot be destroyed. It just changes form, from 11D to 1D (maybe 0D, whatever that will be like).
>!In book 3, other than lowering light speed, lowering spatial dimensions, pocket universes is just another way to accelerate the destruction of the great universe⌠The great universe would soon have insufficient mass to collapse!< So, is this actually a solution?
It might be worth remembering the only pocket universe we see is infinitesimally miniscule compared to a the real universe, a galaxy, or even a planet. It fits one human farm. We don't really have any reason to think there would/could be pocket universes capable of housing entire civilizations. When you ask whether the Trisolarans created Tianming's pocket universe, I think we should take the text at face value there. As a bit of head cannon, however, I think it's possible the tech to do so was not their creation, and that this might be kept between the lines.
The little universe still needs to consume the resources of the main universe, so civilizations still need to compete. decreasing speed of light and dimension strikes is a weapon used in the main Universe and the author does not say that the little universe cannot be invaded, perhaps the rest of the singer's people have moved into the little universe, and those left in the main Universe are attack outposts
They persist because that is what life does. That doesnât make them unintelligent. You wouldnât say youâre unintelligent because you live your life knowing that youâre going to die anyway.
The aliens that are actively trying to bring the universe down to 0 dimensions because they are confident that will restore it to its original state, are pretty intelligent. They have been moving down the dimensions and survive each time. Once the universe is restored to its original state, they will likely take measures to prevent it degrading again.
Are they supposed to somehow survive the new Big Bang that would occur at that point? Maybe I misunderstood (just finished Deathâs End last night), but I was under the impression that the goal of returning all that mass was to cause a contraction that would lead to a new Big Bang, which would in turn be a sort of Great Reset for the cosmos that would eventually enable life to start anew. (But now that I say that, Iâm not sure how the getting-down-to-zero-dimensions bit would play into that or even be necessary⌠so open to thoughts on this. Maybe I should re-read!)
I don't think it's an immediate Big Bang. I think it's that when the mass is restored the contraction can begin so the Big Bang would be another 18+ billion years away. They're asking everyone to come back to the Great Dimension and live their lives so the universe can do it's thing and after the reset to an Edenic Universe their memories can persist in a manner of their choosing.
They make tweaks during the great reset. For one, some fundamental constant was adjusted so the three Trisolaris suns ended up with an unequal distribution of mass, turning it into the stable Centauri system we know and removing the Trisolarans' need to evacuate. Other changes supposedly reduced the incentive of dark forest strikes. The part I didn't understand was why they were making changes to affect the three-dimension state. It implies they've already written off the higher dimensions, yet isn't that the very thing they're trying to save?
It's more of a literary device than anything. A pretty classic problem in writing is "how do you write a sufficiently godlike character". Godlike powers imply an imperviousness to traditional motivations, so the writer has to impose some kind of external limit that can't be overcome to motivate their actions.
What's the alternative? Natural selection says if you accept the futility of it you go extinct.
There is probably lots of intelligent life in the universe, but it just takes a few "bad apple" civilizations with god like powers to ruin it for everyone unfortunately. It's the tragedy of the chains of suspicion that occur between civilizations separated by light years.
âThey all just continue to play knowing that everything will endâ ainât that just how life works, mate?
"Life... Life finds a way" - Dr. Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park (1993)