That is the answer I thought I was going to get from you, George, but definitively more eloquent than I could have written it.
I follow a different approach, which does not deny everything you said, but should clarify it in a fundamental manner.
I think I was ten years old when I wrote my name on an envelope, my address, city, country, Earth, Solar System, Milky Way and right when I was writing the word Universe I realized that there was no function associated with Universe.
Had I given the envelope to a postal person, 7 out of 8 items would have been helpful, but the 8th item was of no use. There is no function to the word universe.
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Many working with a multiverse postpone the inevitable structural truth.
In a multiverse, the description of (our) universe would have a function on the envelope then indeed.
However, the word multiverse would then have taken in the non-functional position.
So, working with a multiverse declares that the brain did not recognize the non-functionality of the word Universe in the normal setting and desired a special setting. Yet in the subsequent setting, the non-functional level (i.e. the largest level) is then discovered still. That is, unless the brain refuses to recognize this negative as the truth, and continues ad infinitum conjuring up larger and larger (and more fantastic) levels to reality.
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In your case, you have a very smart answer, but you are still working with the word Universe as if it has some kind of function.
We can investigate this, because in reality we must realize there is no relationship between matter and the universe. That should surprise you given what you wrote. You think there is an active relationship between matter and the universe.
Not so. The largest setting that matter is involved in (in a self-sustained manner) is a galaxy. There is no larger setting for matter that is solid.
We can work with the Great Attractor as even larger, but we must then realize that there is no solid nature here. For instance, the great Attractor may be a temporary outcome that changes outcome after one billion years or more. We cannot witness it and that declares once more that there is no solid spatial grounding to this reality.
Even with a galaxy, there is no solid spatial grounding, except that all this matter in the galaxy grounds itself onto itself. The galaxy is maintained while collectively, as is, all is moving through space.
Back to the universe, because there is absolutely nothing there (other than the negative) about a collective relationship of matter with the universe. In the Big Bang (and in the Big Whisper) theory, the outcome is a negative one: outbound motion.
Outbound motion is the same as saying that there is no relationship between the universe and matter, that matter's relationships are at their largest with galaxies (and the Great Attractor the attempt to find a larger setting, after which level we are done for sure).
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I'd appreciate your reply once more, George (I will be off-line for a week). I want to see if you understand how your reply was nevertheless a conformation that in your mind the universal level contains a function applicable to all matter in the universe. Obviously, I am stating that there is not. This is the final piece of the human mind still containing an egg. It is time to break that egg.
Thank you, sir, for letting me say all this. Plus, I really appreciate your smart understanding of scientific history.
