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Because I have to be at my sister's house by 7:30am, so that I can ride with them ("them" being the sister whose house I am going to, and my other sister [out of three], in whose house I am currently living by myself and have been for the past two-plus months, because she's been staying there between December 12, 2023 and now) down to Durham for a routine monthly cancer treatment that my sister will be getting. They want me to go with them this time, because next time, my sister (the one who gets the treatments) wants me to go down there with her next month as well, due to the fact that the other sister (the one with whom the one who gets the treatments is currently staying) is not going to be able to go that time, so they want me to ride with her so she won't be just going all the way to Durham and back by herself.
I went to bed last night around 10:30pm-ish, which is many hours earlier than I usually go to bed. I slept for all of three hours, until 1:30am or so. Read some on my current book (which I got in a Humble Book Bundle a while back) for about an hour, then tried and failed to go back to sleep, until finally giving up a few minutes ago.
At some point, during that time, I got to thinking about the universe, as one does, and so, here and now, I will try to recall that train of thought as best as I can right now.
Started out with thinking about "where is the point in the known universe one could go to such that one would be the farthest possible distance from the (at that position) closest star?" I don't know where that point is, and I have little interest in finding out. I just found myself asking myself that question for some reason. That led to "Well, but what if you get to that point, and it turns out there are actually stars that are much closer, but which we just can't see from Earth, and, thus, would not be part of the 'known universe'?" Then it was "Well, I suppose if you could outpace the expansion of the universe, you could just travel forever, perpetually getting farther and farther from the closest star." This led to an entire mental skit of a teacher in a classroom explaining the expansion of the universe with a balloon and a felt-tip marker. But then I was like "But if you went far enough would you be, essentially, leaving the universe entirely?" Then for whatever reason I got to thinking about the Big Bang. It was all "Okay, so the universe, pre-Big Bang, was once this infinitely infinitesimal singularity, consisting of all matter and energy in the universe. So, it was just kind of floating there. But what does 'there' even mean in this context. In what 'medium' was the pre-Big Bang singularity universe 'floating'? So, like, I'm imagining the pre-Big Bang universe, but I'm doing so from the perspective of someone who is also floating in this 'medium' looking at it. And, if I looked around, would I possibly see other little specks of infinitely dense matter representing other universes? Or maybe even various sizes of balloons representing other post-Big Bang universes that have already Banged outward?" Then it was like "And what if this new multiversal thing itself once started as a singularity, which was itself floating in similar 'medium,' with other multiversal specks or balloons in the area?" This led to the "it's turtles all the way down" thing. But this led to me imagining a turtle with all these other turtles on his back. I called him the "biggest possible turtle." Then I imagined that this biggest possible turtle, named Jim, was standing at a water cooler, talking to another biggest possible turtle, named Bob, before they went into an office full of cubicles, each containing a biggest possible turtle. And then Jim looked at his own back and, now, instead of an infinite tower of turtles, he instead saw the outside wall of an office building that was resting on his back, and when he raised his head a bit, he was looking down into an room of cubicles, each containing one-less-than-biggest possible turtles, all of whom had similar office rooms on their backs. And then, when he turned around and looked up, instead of seeing a ceiling of the room he was in, it was instead a black void containing the head of the even-bigger-than-biggest possible turtle, on whose back he was resting, looking down at him. And behind that gargantuan turtle head was an even bigger, and farther distant turtle head of the even-bigger-than-the-even-bigger-than-the-biggest possible turtle. And somewhere in all that I was thinking a bit about that whole "the galaxy is on Orion's belt" thing and the ending from Men in Black, as well.
And that's when I said mehfuckit and tried to think of other things or nothing at all in a futile attempt to go to sleep, because I'm pretty sure that none of the above was a dream, at least not in the traditional sense. Maybe a sort of "daydream" (that just happened to happen in the deadass middle of the night), at most.
Meh. Fuck it.
Today ain't gonna be great, I don't think. Though it'll be better than December 14 was, if for no other reason than by this time (currently almost 6:20am) on that day, I'd already been on the road with my brother and third sister for almost an hour and a half by that point, but also because there should be much less (expected, anyway) stress as far as the day's events, just in general. I still don't like having to get up this early, though, irrespective of the reasons.
(Post posted at 6:50am. Gonna be walking out the door in 10-15 minutes or so. Blugh.)
(EDIT made at 5:10pm)
Got back around 1:00pm, though I immediately crawled back into bed for about two and a half hours. I felt mostly okay going down there, felt sort of okay while there, and felt marginally okay on the way back, but by the time we got back to my sister's house, that roughly three hours of sleep last night was starting to catch up to me. I had enough left in me to drive the 10-15 minutes or so back here, but that was about it.
(/EDIT)
I went to bed last night around 10:30pm-ish, which is many hours earlier than I usually go to bed. I slept for all of three hours, until 1:30am or so. Read some on my current book (which I got in a Humble Book Bundle a while back) for about an hour, then tried and failed to go back to sleep, until finally giving up a few minutes ago.
At some point, during that time, I got to thinking about the universe, as one does, and so, here and now, I will try to recall that train of thought as best as I can right now.
Started out with thinking about "where is the point in the known universe one could go to such that one would be the farthest possible distance from the (at that position) closest star?" I don't know where that point is, and I have little interest in finding out. I just found myself asking myself that question for some reason. That led to "Well, but what if you get to that point, and it turns out there are actually stars that are much closer, but which we just can't see from Earth, and, thus, would not be part of the 'known universe'?" Then it was "Well, I suppose if you could outpace the expansion of the universe, you could just travel forever, perpetually getting farther and farther from the closest star." This led to an entire mental skit of a teacher in a classroom explaining the expansion of the universe with a balloon and a felt-tip marker. But then I was like "But if you went far enough would you be, essentially, leaving the universe entirely?" Then for whatever reason I got to thinking about the Big Bang. It was all "Okay, so the universe, pre-Big Bang, was once this infinitely infinitesimal singularity, consisting of all matter and energy in the universe. So, it was just kind of floating there. But what does 'there' even mean in this context. In what 'medium' was the pre-Big Bang singularity universe 'floating'? So, like, I'm imagining the pre-Big Bang universe, but I'm doing so from the perspective of someone who is also floating in this 'medium' looking at it. And, if I looked around, would I possibly see other little specks of infinitely dense matter representing other universes? Or maybe even various sizes of balloons representing other post-Big Bang universes that have already Banged outward?" Then it was like "And what if this new multiversal thing itself once started as a singularity, which was itself floating in similar 'medium,' with other multiversal specks or balloons in the area?" This led to the "it's turtles all the way down" thing. But this led to me imagining a turtle with all these other turtles on his back. I called him the "biggest possible turtle." Then I imagined that this biggest possible turtle, named Jim, was standing at a water cooler, talking to another biggest possible turtle, named Bob, before they went into an office full of cubicles, each containing a biggest possible turtle. And then Jim looked at his own back and, now, instead of an infinite tower of turtles, he instead saw the outside wall of an office building that was resting on his back, and when he raised his head a bit, he was looking down into an room of cubicles, each containing one-less-than-biggest possible turtles, all of whom had similar office rooms on their backs. And then, when he turned around and looked up, instead of seeing a ceiling of the room he was in, it was instead a black void containing the head of the even-bigger-than-biggest possible turtle, on whose back he was resting, looking down at him. And behind that gargantuan turtle head was an even bigger, and farther distant turtle head of the even-bigger-than-the-even-bigger-than-the-biggest possible turtle. And somewhere in all that I was thinking a bit about that whole "the galaxy is on Orion's belt" thing and the ending from Men in Black, as well.
And that's when I said mehfuckit and tried to think of other things or nothing at all in a futile attempt to go to sleep, because I'm pretty sure that none of the above was a dream, at least not in the traditional sense. Maybe a sort of "daydream" (that just happened to happen in the deadass middle of the night), at most.
Meh. Fuck it.
Today ain't gonna be great, I don't think. Though it'll be better than December 14 was, if for no other reason than by this time (currently almost 6:20am) on that day, I'd already been on the road with my brother and third sister for almost an hour and a half by that point, but also because there should be much less (expected, anyway) stress as far as the day's events, just in general. I still don't like having to get up this early, though, irrespective of the reasons.
(Post posted at 6:50am. Gonna be walking out the door in 10-15 minutes or so. Blugh.)
(EDIT made at 5:10pm)
Got back around 1:00pm, though I immediately crawled back into bed for about two and a half hours. I felt mostly okay going down there, felt sort of okay while there, and felt marginally okay on the way back, but by the time we got back to my sister's house, that roughly three hours of sleep last night was starting to catch up to me. I had enough left in me to drive the 10-15 minutes or so back here, but that was about it.
(/EDIT)
