Why dark matter is SO boring

[Magical Realist]

Neil Degrasse Tyson lays it all out for us:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/6378238135637665

[Yazata]

It just gravitates.

(Pokes it with a stick)

Do Something!

The thing is that if it interacts with "us" ("normal" matter) gravitationally, wouldn't we expect it to interact with itself gravitationally? Which as Tyson suggests, would make it clump up.

The idea that it only interacts one-way ('normal' matter feels its gravitational effects, but it is oblivious to its own gravitation) just seems wrong to me.

I still suspect (but don't claim to know) that dark matter is really a mistake. It might not really exist, but is the result of our conceptualizing the mass/gravity relationship wrong for 'normal' matter.

In other words, the way we calculate the mass/gravity relation, there seems to be more gravity present than can be explained by the mass. Which might be the result of some new kind of undetectable mass being present that nevertheless produces gravity ("dark matter"), or it might just be the result of astrophysicists calculating things wrong.

I kinda suspect the second of those. Physicists might have to revisit the equations they use to model the mass/gravity relation.

[Yazata]

Dark matter might not make sense another way:

If gravitation isn't mass A pulling on spatially distant mass B (or inducing it to move under its own power or something) but instead is mass distorting spacetime around it, then...

How can dark matter distort spacetime for 'normal' matter such that 'normal' matter behaves as if it was experiencing a gravitational force...

but doesn't distort spacetime for the rest of the dark matter, such that the rest of the dark matter appears oblivious to gravity?

Isn't there just one spacetime?? Isn't it curved or not curved, however General Relativity conceives of that??

[confused2]

'Normal' matter forms clumps because its sticky. Even if it isn't sticky it loses energy when it collides .. like a tennis ball bounces lower each time. Dark matter (they say) isn't sticky and doesn't lose energy when it collides with anything (it passes straight through) so doesn't form clumps. It can (they suggest) stay in orbit or oscillate about a centre of mass forever.

[stryder]

If we exist in a multiversal state that we observe as a "Universe". It can be hypothesised that should a paradox (parallel) occur, that a branching of universe could produce dark matter as a side effect. (The branch would require matter to back it up, otherwise it would just be holographic.)

The problem is of course if it's a bit like Schrodingers cat, where the universe isn't in a set state until it's observed. (in this cause the observation would require being empirical) So it would mean that an observation of dark matter could dissipate as it's localised effect is lost to entropy over time.