I think so, yes. Maybe the Big Bang itself was such a state. Maybe it’s also the reason why it started from low entropy – low entanglement, low entropy. You could imagine some “nodes” representing space with absolutely no entanglement in between them which as soon as entanglement happens give birth to space. In this case, you see that I appeal to “time” by saying “happens”, but it could be even simpler: there is no time but instead a superposition of no entanglement/low entanglement/high entanglement states of these “nodes”, whatever their ultimate ontology turns out to be, and that’s what we call “time” – this superposition state.

I think we’re ignoring the difference in the reference frame between our frame and the black hole’s frame, for example. Like Carlo Rovelli said in a different master class, we are looking at black holes from afar. This is the reason why we think they live for 10^100 years or so (the most massive ones). But if we were to actually get close and get in their own frame of reference we could see them collapse and maybe bounce back into a white hole of sorts.

In fact, it bothers me that white holes are not taken more seriously. The Big Bang itself could be one. If you look at the properties of a black hole, you can see it is maximum entropy and it has a singularity in the future. If we look at the Big Bang, we can see it’s minimum entropy (barring the quantum fluctuations that disturb it) and it has a singularity in the past. That’s exactly the reverse of a black hole. We should seriously consider the universe as being a white hole.

As far as gravity goes, the most promising clues in quantum gravity are that gravity emerges from quantum entanglement. In this case, space is not fundamental. Time isn’t fundamental, either, if the universe is closed and has zero total energy, since its wave function does not evolve in time, it’s static.

If the question is about how consciousness seems to play a role, I think that’s nonsense. Consciousness is just a way for us to come in possession of an information and become aware of it, but that information we get has already happened “objectively” – it was given by a physical interaction.

If it’s the decay of the inflaton field, probably so. If it’s the temperature variation, probably not.

If designer babies are possible, then the richer you are the more “editable” your kid will be and the most advantages he or she will have. Therefore, the rich will win not just in this life, but in their kids’ lives and the genetic “lottery”. Basically, the rich would become more and more “perfect” due to their increased ability to edit away unfavorable genes for their children (of course, assuming this really works and it’s safe).

However, the counter argument is that it would be immoral to be able to avoid a children’s disease and not do it “due to moral reasons”. I am in favor of doing it and we should make this technology safe and cheap so that sufferring due to genetic abnormalities is minimized.

Definitely disease control/curing diseases/harvesting organs. We could also edit the genes of babies before they are born to knock out genetic diseases and lessen the potential suffering. I see no moral issue with this whatsoever; in fact, it would be immoral not to do it if you’re able to.

The other thing would be stem cell research – maybe, just like the salamander, we’ll be able to regrow amputated limbs (or amputate faulty limbs and regrow normal ones). I see no limitation in principle in doing this; it’s just very hard to understand how to do it, but in principle it should be possible, just like for the salamander.

Fascinating stuff. Imagine the kinds of therapies we could have using this technique in the near future.