Prepare to have your mind blown as we explore groundbreaking scientific theories that could revolutionize our understanding of existence. From quantum mechanics to consciousness, these fascinating hypotheses challenge our fundamental beliefs about reality, life, and the nature of the universe itself.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00What happens at the beginning of the universe when the entire universe was the size of an atom?
00:04Whose rules are in charge?
00:05Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for 10 modern scientific theories
00:10and hypotheses that, if true, could change everything we know about the universe we inhabit.
00:16It's also possible that life on Earth didn't start on Earth at all.
00:21Number 10.
00:23Morphic Resonance
00:24What if memory wasn't just stored in your brain, but backed up in a metaphysical version of the cloud?
00:30Morphic resonance is a connection across time from the past to the present.
00:36And it's a process that occurs between organized patterns of activity on the basis of similarity.
00:42That's the idea behind Morphic Resonance, a theory by biologist Rupert Sheldrake.
00:47He suggests that once something is learned, like rats solving a maze, it becomes easier for others to learn it too.
00:55If rats learn a new trick here in London, then rats all around the world should be able to learn the same trick quicker,
01:01just because the rats have learned it here.
01:03Even, he says, if they're on the other side of the planet.
01:06The more it happens, the easier it gets, because nature remembers it.
01:11Experience is somehow encoded into the fabric of the universe, like a cheat sheet.
01:15Scientists have called it pseudoscience.
01:18But if it's right, we're all tapping into a cosmic collective memory bank, without even knowing it.
01:24Morphic resonance works through morphic fields, the organizing fields of chemicals and biological systems.
01:30Number 9.
01:31The heat death of the universe
01:33If you're feeling too upbeat, here's one to bring you back down.
01:36Eventually, the universe might just fizzle out.
01:39So we think that the matter inside black dwarves, the last matter in the universe, will eventually evaporate away
01:48and be carried off into the void as radiation, leaving absolutely nothing behind.
01:56According to the theory of heat death, entropy is the most powerful force in existence.
02:01Since the Big Bang, everything has moved further and further away from each other, slowly winding down.
02:06The universe will be nothing but a sea of photons gradually tending towards the same temperature
02:14as the expansion of the universe cools them towards absolute zero.
02:19Over trillions of years, stars will burn out, energy will spread too thin, and the universe will hit maximum entropy.
02:27At that point, there will be no more heat, no more force created between matter.
02:31The universe will be cold, quiet, and endlessly still.
02:34The whole of existence would just slowly fade to black.
02:38Cheery, right? Scientists say it's one of the most likely possible endings of the universe.
02:42Of course, it could be worse.
02:45In a lot of ways, the heat death is the best-case scenario.
02:48It's slow, it's gentle, and by the time we get to it, everything interesting in the universe has already happened.
02:55But depending on what dark energy is, other possibilities could arise.
02:59Number 8.
03:00Time crystals
03:01Now, these may sound like something straight out of a Marvel movie, but they're very real and very weird.
03:06Just like ordinary crystals repeat themselves in space, time crystals repeat themselves in time.
03:12Discovered in 2012 and created in labs not long after, time crystals are a new phase of matter.
03:19What makes them special is that somehow they can move without using energy.
03:22Their behavior changes with time, even if all other conditions are the same.
03:26Their atoms flip between states in a repeating cycle, basically oscillating forever, without burning fuel or winding down.
03:34Scientists say they essentially break all the rules of thermodynamics we thought we knew.
03:39We're still figuring out how to use them.
03:41In theory, time crystals could someday change how we think about memory, computing, and time itself.
03:47Time crystals could also help bridge the gap between quantum mechanics and general relativity.
03:53Number 7.
03:53A thinking universe.
03:55What if consciousness isn't just something we have, but something the universe is?
04:00What if that photon or particle is making an actual conscious choice?
04:04Because everything is conscious.
04:08Some scientists and philosophers are exploring the idea that consciousness might be a fundamental feature of reality, like space, time, or gravity.
04:16It's not about brains floating in space.
04:19It's more like the fabric of the universe has awareness built in at some level.
04:23This theory overlaps with panpsychism, which suggests that even particles might have the tiniest sliver of experience.
04:30Dark matter and dark energy don't exist.
04:33And we only think that they do because the stars and the galaxies choose to act a certain way.
04:37It's still super controversial, and not everyone buys it.
04:41But if they're right, then we might not just be in the universe.
04:44We are the universe.
04:45Pieces of its collective mind broken off with different perspectives to help it understand itself.
04:51If the universe thinks, what is it thinking?
04:55Does it know of us?
04:56Does it answer prayers?
04:58Is dark energy just the universe's way of trolling us?
05:01Number 6. Post-mortem neurogenesis
05:04Here's one for your, I'm sorry, what? file.
05:07Your brain might keep going after you die.
05:10We found signs of normal brain electrical activity that is consistent with the types of things that we all have when we're fully conscious.
05:19Recent research has found that for hours after death, certain brain cells, particularly in the neocortex, don't just survive, they actually grow.
05:28In one study, glial cells sprouted new tentacle-like extensions long after the heart stopped.
05:34Contrary to the way that doctors have been taught, that after the heart stops, the brain does not die.
05:40It hibernates, and it shows the ability to recover even an hour longer afterwards.
05:45Other researchers have observed organized brain activity during the early stages of death.
05:50That activity included wave patterns linked to memory and consciousness.
05:53This doesn't mean you're secretly alive or trapped in your own body after death.
05:58It does mean that death may not be the clean, instant shut-off we've always assumed.
06:04It appears that even though people have gone beyond that threshold of death and their brain has shut down,
06:09that entity that we call consciousness, the mind, the psyche, whatever you want to call it, does not seem to become annihilated.
06:16Number 5. Brain World Theory
06:18Brain World Theory takes the whole alternate reality idea to its weirdest possible iteration.
06:23It's the idea that our universe exists on a kind of cosmic membrane, floating in a higher-dimensional space.
06:29Difficult as it is, theorists have started to work with these models, these eternal universes,
06:35where our universe, the Big Bang and everything that follows, is just one set of events in its backdrop of many events, many possible universes.
06:43According to this theory, there could be other brains out there, too.
06:47Each brain could have its own universe riding on it, like pages in a giant invisible book.
06:52We wouldn't see them because they exist in extra dimensions we can't access or observe.
06:57In theory, though, they could bump into ours.
07:00In this model, multidimensional spacetimes involving higher-dimensional worlds lead to the creation of our three-dimensional space and one dimension of time.
07:09Essentially, our universe develops from the energy released when higher-order spacetimes, or brains, collide.
07:16Some scientists have even suggested that events like the Big Bang could have been caused by two brains colliding.
07:23If true, our universe is essentially one sheet in a much weirder multiversal binder.
07:304. The Panspermia Hypothesis
07:32What if life on Earth didn't start on Earth?
07:35What if primitive life arrived on Earth after having traveled vast distances across the Milky Way?
07:42Some scientists think this may be the case.
07:45That's the question inspiring panspermia, the hypothesis that life, or at least the building blocks of it, came here from space.
07:52Microorganic life could have hitched a ride here on a comet, an asteroid, or even via microscopic dust.
07:58For a budding panspermial life form, the journey itself is simultaneously the most boring and the most lethal.
08:06Our pilgrim microbes have to contend with near-absolute zero temperatures, extreme dryness, a hard vacuum, and probably worst of all, some incredibly destructive radiation.
08:18Some versions suggest life might have come from another planet in our solar system, like Mars.
08:23Others go full galaxy brain and say it came from somewhere else entirely.
08:27Some versions even suggest that living organisms didn't need to survive the journey to spark life here.
08:33The raw biological material may have been enough to get things started Earth-side.
08:37It's not proven, but it does have a related hypothesis that many organic molecules which are fundamental to life may have come to Earth, from space.
08:46Panspermia is a plausible, but by no means accepted explanation for the origin of life on Earth.
08:513. A Holographic Universe
08:54What if everything you see, touch, and experience is just a 3D projection?
08:58And perhaps the most existentially disturbing such proposal is that our universe is just the inward projection of an infinitely distant boundary.
09:07A hologram of sorts.
09:08What if our reality was just one giant cosmic illusion?
09:11That's the mind-bending idea behind the holographic universe theory.
09:15It suggests that all of the information in our 3D reality might actually be encoded on a 2D surface, kind of like how a hologram stores a full image on a flat plate.
09:25From the point of view of outside observers, its contents are smeared into 2D on that surface, but from the POV of anyone falling in, they are definitely inside the black hole, plummeting to their doom in full 3D glory.
09:39This is the first glimpse of a holographic space-time.
09:44The math checks out in black hole physics.
09:46Some scientists think it could explain weird stuff we find in quantum mechanics and gravity.
09:51In other words, reality might be less like solid ground and more like a projection in a cosmic movie theatre.
09:57A series of mathematical clues indicate that our universe may be holographic, or at least have a dual representation in a lower dimension.
10:08Can these just be crazy mathematical coincidences?
10:11Number two, the simulation hypothesis.
10:14What if the universe isn't the universe at all, but an elaborate computer program?
10:18Imagine a day where you can simulate a world so perfectly, with life forms, humans, so well, that you can recreate every single neurosynaptic thought you could have, but now you're in the simulation on the computer.
10:33What if we are just the sims for an advanced civilization?
10:37According to the simulation hypothesis, there's a real chance that we're living inside an advanced computer program.
10:43Think the Matrix, but with taxes.
10:45I'm trying to free your mind, Neo.
10:48But I can only show you the door.
10:51You're the one that has to walk through it.
10:53Philosopher Nick Bostrom argues that if future civilizations could simulate entire realities, and choose to, then statistically, we're probably in one right now.
11:02Every coincidence, deja vu, or oddly specific dream could be just a glitch in the code.
11:08It sounds wild, but some scientists and tech experts take it seriously.
11:12And I don't want to be convinced.
11:13I didn't like it, and I was just begging for somebody to give me an argument that was cogent enough to undermine that entire reasoning.
11:25If they're right, then your whole life might just be really good CGI.
11:29Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos.
11:35You have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them.
11:39If you're on your phone, make sure you go into settings and switch on your notifications.
11:43Every time a quantum event gets decided, the universe splits so that every possible outcome really does occur.
12:01But where exactly are those worlds, and can we ever see them?
12:05According to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, you did.
12:10Just in another universe.
12:12This theory suggests that every possible outcome of every event actually happens.
12:16Every individual micro-choice splits reality into endless branching timelines.
12:21What are the rules of quantum physics telling us?
12:23They're telling us that multiple universes could be popping in and out of existence.
12:27And we are just one of them.
12:28There isn't just one universe, there's an infinite multiverse, with copies of you living out every possibility.
12:35Here's where it gets even weirder.
12:36Some physicists think black holes might be the nurseries of new universes.
12:41Each one could lead to an alternate reality, maybe even replete with its own unique laws of physics.
12:47There you have it.
12:48So, yeah, I mean, that makes perfect sense.
12:50Which one of these theories blew your brain open like a quantum piñata?
12:54Let us know in the comments below.
12:55The universe had a beginning, and it will inevitably have an end.