Fumfer Physics 50: Durable Cosmic Structures, Information, Intelligence, and the Future of Human Cognition

In this interview, Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner examine durability, information, and intelligence across physics and cognition. Rosner identifies collapsed matter, black holes, and the universe itself as ultimate durable structures, then reflects on microscopic gravitational collapse, the particle zoo, and context-dependent information. He also discusses aging intelligence, the Flynn effect’s reversal, technological outsourcing, and humanity’s uncertain cognitive future. The exchange links cosmology to everyday meaning-making and social adaptation with speculative scientific caution throughout.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I asked you something related to this a while ago, but I want to frame it differently. If you think about the most durable minimal structures in nature, a triangle, a pyramid, or some other simple geometric form, what would be the equivalent in Newtonian physics, in Einsteinian relativity, and in quantum mechanics?

Rick Rosner: The most durable structures are probably forms of collapsed matter.

You take a star and let it exhaust its fuel. Depending on its mass, it may end its life as a white dwarf, a neutron star, or a black hole. Those remnants are extraordinarily durable.

If it turns out that the universe is older than its currently estimated age, we may discover structures that have persisted for tens of billions of years. Collapsed objects possess immense gravitational binding forces and are difficult to disrupt.

Many of these objects probably contain highly complex internal structures that emerged during or after their formation.

There is also a concept known as black-hole cosmology. The idea is that regions of extreme spacetime curvature may effectively contain their own internal domains. In some speculative models, those domains could even contain "baby universes."

Now, if durability means remaining unchanged, then such universes are not durable because they are constantly evolving. But if durability means having a high probability of persisting over extremely long periods of time, then they are durable.

In that sense, the most durable structures are those possessing intense gravitational fields and their own effectively self-contained regions of spacetime.

By that logic, the most durable structure in the universe may simply be the universe itself. Under certain cyclic or recycling cosmological models, the universe could persist far longer than its apparent age through processes of continual renewal.

So the most durable structure in the universe may be the entire universe.

Jacobsen: If spacetime emerges from more fundamental processes, and if curvature occurs on large scales through gravitational lensing, then curvature should also exist at increasingly smaller scales. What is the tightest possible gravitational U-turn? How small can a gravitational structure become while still curving in on itself?

Rosner: I do not know. Someone has probably performed the relevant calculations, though not necessarily correctly. Essentially, you are asking how much matter must be compressed before something approaches black-hole conditions.

That is related to discussions that arose around CERN and the Large Hadron Collider. Some people worried that high-energy collisions might accidentally create microscopic black holes that would somehow consume the Earth. Those concerns turned out to be unfounded.

But conceptually, it is the same question: what is the minimum amount of matter required to generate that degree of gravitational collapse?

I do not know the answer. Someone could calculate it. It is certainly not a trivial amount of matter. Could you create a black hole with the mass contained in a brick? I honestly do not know.

Jacobsen: What is the least interesting thing about the universe to you?

Rosner: I like that question.

I have never really thought about it before.

Earlier versions of my IC framework led me to what I jokingly called "Bland Universe Theory." Those earlier iterations removed the dramatic Big Bang-style explosion and many other catastrophic events common to standard cosmology.

Paradoxically, the universe's relative boringness may be one of its most interesting features. A self-recycling universe is less dramatic, but perhaps more elegant.

As for things that interest me less than other topics, I would probably point to the particle zoo.

The Standard Model contains dozens of particles, but I am more interested in what I think of as the "big five": protons, neutrons, electrons, photons, and neutrinos. Those particles do most of the visible work of the macroscopic universe.

The other particles are important because they provide the underlying structure and consistency that allow the major particles to behave as they do. They are essential components of the overall framework.

Still, I find pions and many of the other exotic particles less inherently fascinating than the particles that dominate everyday physical reality.

So yes, perhaps that is my answer.

Jacobsen: Consider the compactness of information in a book, on paper, or on a screen.

Physically, it is just patterns reflecting light. Yet to human beings those patterns become meaningful and can generate entirely new worlds inside the mind.

What is the difference between the raw physical information and the mental realities that emerge from it?

Rosner: We have talked about something like this before, and I am going to default to the same answer.

Information is only information within a context.

We are so accustomed to immediately understanding context that we rarely think about it unless we are forced to. At the macroscopic level, we still do not fully understand how information actually works.

Our understanding remains incomplete.

Information runs the universe, and we do not really know how.

Some people, including me, suspect that gravitation and the geometry of space may themselves emerge from informational relationships. The reason spacetime takes the shape it does may ultimately be a function of information.

The problem is that we do not yet understand how that information functions at the deepest level.

That is something we need to discover.

Jacobsen: Intelligence is not a single thing. It emerges through development as different systems come online. It changes over time through the interaction of genetics, epigenetics, experience, and environment.

As people age, setting aside severe cognitive decline, what changes do you notice in the overall shape of intelligence?

Psychometricians often discuss declines in fluid intelligence and increases in crystallized intelligence, but I am interested in something broader than that.

Rosner: Stereotypically, people do a great deal of abstract intellectual work when they are younger. As they age, many become increasingly occupied with practical concerns and administration.

Theoretical thinkers often become managers over the course of forty years. That is a common trajectory.

At the societal level, something else is happening as well.

We know about the Flynn effect. For roughly fifty years after World War II, average IQ scores increased as education expanded and information became more widely available.

Over the last decade or two, however, that trend has stalled or reversed in many places.

As we outsource more thinking to technology, we become more distracted. We become less disciplined in how we acquire and analyze information because many cognitive tasks are now performed by our devices.

So there are individual life trajectories, and then there is the trajectory of humanity combined with technology.

Humanity-plus-technology is becoming smarter in many ways, while individuals may be becoming less cognitively engaged at a granular level.

We are at a precarious point where increasingly capable technology is disrupting almost everything.

Will we eventually reach some stable equilibrium, whether utopian, dystopian, or some combination of the two, or will things remain permanently chaotic?

I do not know.

Jacobsen: Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Rick.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is a blogger on Vocal with more than 200 publications on the platform. He is the Founder and Publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978–1–0692343; 978–1–0673505) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369–6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018–7399; Online: ISSN, 2163–3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), Humanist Perspectives (ISSN: 1719–6337), A Further Inquiry (SubStack), Vocal, Medium, The Good Men Project, The New Enlightenment Project, The Washington Outsider, rabble.ca, and other media. His bibliography index can be found via the Jacobsen Bank at In-Sight Publishing, comprising more than 10,000 articles, interviews, and republications across more than 200 outlets. He has served in national and international leadership roles within humanist and media organizations, held several academic fellowships, and currently serves on several boards. He is a member in good standing in numerous media organizations, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20–0708028), and others.