Is there a term for something being native to this universe?
Asked by
Ltryptophan (
12091)
December 20th, 2021
from iPhone
I was born here. I’m an earthling. Perhaps, some will be born on the moon, moonlets?
All born in this universe, and all things of this universe, what are they called?
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19 Answers
God’s children? Universe Prime? Great question.
I assume you mean this solar system in which we live.
Solites.
@kritiper no, I meant the universe, not the solar system and not Laniakea (our supercluster).
@Ltryptophan The universe entails the entire void and all that is contained therein.
Universites.
If the universe encompasses all things and all beings, what distinction is being made by giving them a label? It’s only meaningful when there are things of more than one kind, or in this case more than one universe, which by definition there isn’t.
Sentient Beings.
But terms not valid in most parts of Texas and Florida.
Enchiladans (from the whole enchilada)
As @Jeruba pointed out above, being from this universe is not a distinction, until and unless an alternative “universe” is proposed in some way that’s not an abuse of that word, in which case it can introduce language from being from one universe versus another.
Some lazy SF has tried to get away with invoking other “universes” without really explaining what they mean very well. Sometimes the writers don’t seem to know what they mean, and don’t understand this universe very well either. Sometimes they just start naming universes, so there’s the Hooha Universe and the Booba Universe, and then they coin names or phrases to say someone is from one or the other.
@Zaku
To be exact, @Jeruba is pointing out that universe counts for everything that exists anywhere. With that definition, no new universe can come to be, since it would automatically be a part of all that is.
For the sake of discussion, I think it’s ok to posit a “universe” separate from ours in that it does not interact with our universe in any manner.
That is, we have a timeline, and they have a different timeline, and maybe they have a different physics.
Now, since they are still conceptually part of all that is, they are not a separate universe, but they are completely outside our reality bubble, and for all intents and purposes are close to the definition of a separate universe.
Or, one might sensibly just limit the definition of universe to the observable reality we live in, and the parts of it that seem to act as a coherent whole, rather than the bigger net of all being.
@Ltryptophan I think one catch though is that you can’t just “posit” a different meaning of “universe” well enough to choose a good word to answer your question. That is, you’d also probably want to specify a bunch about what that means, how it works, how many of these universes there are, how they’re related, etc. Because there are many different types of cosmological model that could be embraced, and each might have different language to go with it.
e.g.:
Some types of multiple universes in SF and science theory do have the ability to interact with “this” universe. Some of them are even some sort of dependent reflection of this universe (e.g. in TOS Star Trek, q.v. “Mirror Mirror” and “Lazarus” just to name a couple).
Other types of multiple universes posit various types of “multiverse” where there is a large or possibly infinite number of universes with certain types of relationship to each other, such as every possible choice has its own universe and/or timeline.
Then there are holographic universe models, where the universe is some sort of projection, with all sorts of posited consequences and interactions.
There are also models where time and space are illusions and projections of consciousness. Different language for that sort of thing has been developed in various languages for a very long time by various traditions.
You can draw a distinction between the observable universe and that part of our universe that we cannot see and never will see as it is so far away in an expanding universe that its light can never reach us.
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