Most cosmologist now believe that given the existence of dark matter, the universe would not collapse upon itself. This idea would have little bearing on the question of free will, however.
Apr 30, 2009 12:44 PM
“You see, this treadmill is cosmic ray powered! And it is coordinated with radiation pulses from that cosmic ray clock! When the treadmill goes forward, positive radiation is released—and that sends me into the future!”
The Flash , “The Conquerors of Time!” no. 125, December 1961
Somewhere there exists an especially strange set of glasses. These glasses do not protect the eyes nor do they enhance the vision. No, these glasses serve to undo the workings of our minds, and they succeed until our minds eventually undo their mischief.
What am I talking about?
You see the image that our eyes project on our optic nerves is upside down or more precisely, inverted.
Our brains take these images and invert them, so we see the world correctly. By doing this, we go about our day accidentally running into tables, turning over glasses, and spilling drinks on our friends without an upside-down image of the world getting in our way.
One day in order to test this theory, someone constructed these glasses, but something remarkable happened; after wearing these glasses for some time, our minds flip the images, and we see the world correctly once again.
A few nights back I lay in bed, staring at a darkened ceiling and thinking about the implications of these glasses—not for vision but for time. Yes, time because one day, should the universe stop expanding, it might collapse upon itself. And in a collapsing universe, time might run backwards. Consider for a moment a universe – our universe – running backwards through space and time.
I wondered at the consequences, and my mind wandered to those strange glasses and the workings of our minds. And I asked myself, “Would our minds flip backwards time like it does the inverted images of the world?”
After a pause, more questions: Would our minds be free to flip time, or is our universe deterministic? Have our minds any freedom in this, our expanding universe? And if past, present, and future already exist, have we any freedom at all?
Are our minds the conquerors of time or simply, the conquered?
(C)2009 Kent Gutschke
MARTIAN DEATH RAY 