Past, Present and Future

[--Pete]

Hi,

This has always bugged me as well. I've never understood why, say, killing your father so that you were never born, an event important to you or to humans, involves creating a "contradiction", whereas just moving around other particles such that they are in different locations does not. Either you can alter events, or you can't - it makes no sense to me to say you can alter them only in ways that humans don't find counter-intuitive.

Excellent. That is exactly the point most people don't get about either time travel or multiple universes. All the popular literature speaks of things like the grandfather paradox or universe bifurcation when someone makes a decision. Few understand that it is not just the macroscopic events that matter. As you point out, changing the position of a single air molecule is no different, in principle, from killing your grandfather. In a similar fashion, whether a specific uranium atom fissions at a particular instance bifurcates the universe just as much as your decision to have waffles instead of eggs for breakfast.

Note that, in this post, I am only speaking of multiple universes in the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. A number of the other multi universes that have been proposed seem to me to be possible, even probable.

--Pete

[kandrathe]

Excellent. That is exactly the point most people don't get about either time travel or multiple universes.

Agreed. This is where most people get lost, in envisioning dimensionality beyond what they've experienced.

Note that, in this post, I am only speaking of multiple universes in the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. A number of the other multi universes that have been proposed seem to me to be possible, even probable.

I agree most with M-theory.

[Vandiablo]

... bifurcates the universe just as much as your decision to have waffles instead of eggs for breakfast.

From now on I plan to have Bifurcation Waffles for breakfast.

Note that, in this post, I am only speaking of multiple universes in the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. A number of the other multi universes that have been proposed seem to me to be possible, even probable.

Multi-universe theories make my brane hurt. :P

-V

[Jester]

I agree most with M-theory.

Now if only it agreed with itself more often. :lol:

-Jester

[--Pete]

Hi,

Now if only it agreed with itself more often. :lol:

It's a DID theory. They often argue but sometimes do agree with themselves. :whistling:

--Pete

[Jim]

Hi,
It's a DID theory. They often argue but sometimes do agree with themselves. :whistling:

--Pete

Hi, ;)

IMHO, IF you talk to yourself your OK, IF you answer yourself your OK, Any other voices you may hear, I suggest you get help. :wacko:

Wikipedia: DID is a controversial diagnosis and condition, with much of the literature on DID being generated and published in North America, to the extent that it was regarded as a phenomenon confined to that continent
Sybil is a 1976 drama film that originally aired as a made-for-television miniseries. It was based on the book of the same name.

NETFLIX: Director Daniel Petrie's riveting drama stars Sally Field in an Emmy-winning turn as New York City teacher Sybil Dorsett, who has developed multiple personalities as a result of physical and emotional childhood abuse. To blot out memories that continue to haunt her, Sybil manifests more than 16 distinct personas. Joanne Woodward portrays the compassionate psychiatrist who helps Sybil come to grips with her harrowing past.

http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Sybil/7005036...mp;trkid=222336

[--Pete]

Hi,

Pete did you see "Frequency" ?

Got it today, just finished watching it. As a movie, it was pretty good. A little too much 'thunder and loud noises' for me, and I don't much care for the 'realistic' unstabilized camera. Some of the exchanges were a bit over the top -- too melodramatic. But a pretty good story even if the ending was a touch sappy.

As to the science, they did it pretty well. Other than some babble about sun spots and solar activity (which degrades radio communication, contrary to what was implied in the movie) they just left it alone. They simply asked you to accept, for the sake of the story, communications over a thirty year span, and they did it without dressing it up in technobable. I was bothered by the simultaneity of physical actions thirty years apart: the burn on the desk and the carving of the message. That goes a bit beyond the scope of communication. But, at least, nothing but information went *back* in time, and in that they were pretty consistent. The bit with the wallet was well done, and stayed within their rules.

Well worth one watching. In some ways, better than Déjà Vu, in others not as good.

OK, you're two for two. Any other recommendations?

--Pete

[Jim]

Hi,

Pete did you see "Frequency" ?

Got it today, just finished watching it. As a movie, it was pretty good. A little too much 'thunder and loud noises' for me, and I don't much care for the 'realistic' unstabilized camera. Some of the exchanges were a bit over the top -- too melodramatic. But a pretty good story even if the ending was a touch sappy.

As to the science, they did it pretty well. Other than some babble about sun spots and solar activity (which degrades radio communication, contrary to what was implied in the movie) they just left it alone. They simply asked you to accept, for the sake of the story, communications over a thirty year span, and they did it without dressing it up in technobable. I was bothered by the simultaneity of physical actions thirty years apart: the burn on the desk and the carving of the message. That goes a bit beyond the scope of communication. But, at least, nothing but information went *back* in time, and in that they were pretty consistent. The bit with the wallet was well done, and stayed within their rules.

Well worth one watching. In some ways, better than Déjà Vu, in others not as good.

OK, you're two for two. Any other recommendations?

--Pete

Hi,

Pete can you stream Nextflix? I can now with my new OS Windows 7 & Windows Media Center, a free setup. I haven't tested it yet, I put my Netflix account on hold. Do you put your Netflix return envolpe in your mail box or do you take it to the postoffice?

I don't recall the "shaky carmera" which is a handheld camera that can be a bit much when over done, some movies are now made entirely with a handheld which can give you motion sickness.

Too much shaky camera motion can make the viewer feel dizzy or sick.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaky_camera

Sign at an AMC theater warning customers about side effects relating to motion sickness due to the shaky camera technique being used in Cloverfield.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Pete can you stream Nextflix? I can now with my new OS Windows 7 & Windows Media Center, a free setup.

I can, but I don't use my computer. With TiVo, I can stream Netflix directly to the TV. The only times I've used my computer for this is if I'm previewing something while watching something else.

Do you put your Netflix return envolpe in your mail box or do you take it to the postoffice?

Magi works in a building that has a post office in it. She puts it in the mail there. They get it the next day and we get the new one the day after.

I don't recall the "shaky carmera" which is a handheld camera that can be is a bit much when over done, some movies are now made entirely with a handheld which can give you motion sickness.

Ah, thanks for the terminology. They only used it for some shots, so it didn't really hurt the film. It just happens to be on my list of "things done too often or poorly" along with fast cuts, starting in medias res, long chases of any kind, overblown sound and visual effects, and background music that doesn't stay in the background. Oh, and the Marlon Brando school of mumbling.

--Pete

[Lokishadow]

Hi,

My brother Tommy is my kid brother [age 60] this is when you know you are really old...right Pete?

Why @ 1pm on the phone today did we start to discuss time travel, is this what old men do?

a) My brother believes that there is a time period in the Past that remains, a Present where time moves on based on the future , and that the Future already happend. He added that IF the future did not happen then how come there are those who can predict the future like Nostradamus.

B)I believe there is No future beyond this point in time and at this very moment till the next moment I am making the future for me.

c) What do you think about this ???

The future is a time period commonly understood to contain all events that have yet to occur.[1] It is the opposite of the past, and is the time after the present.[2] In the Occidental view, which uses a linear conception of time, the future is the portion of the projected time line that is anticipated to occur.[3] In special relativity the future is considered to be absolute future or the future light cone.[4] In physics, time is considered to be the fourth dimension.[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future

I like to think of time in dimensional terms. Time is the 4th dimension, right? Theoretically, for both Einsteinian mass theory and quantum theory to be correct, the universe must have 10 dimensions.

All this is well and good, but really hard to describe without some pictures, and I'm just not l33t enough to post pics in my replies. In short, I like to think that time has "up, down, left, right, forward, and backward" expressions that we cannot perceive. Why can't we perceive them? I have no idea, but the first answer that springs to mind is an inability to comprehend those dimensions.

One portion of quantum theory states that everything which can happen, does happen. The result of this is the creation of multitudes of alternate timelines. I'm sure we've all seen a Star Trek episode or two where the intrepid crew clashes with duplicates of themselves from another universe. . . those universes being the "what-might-have-beens" from choices in the past (or future).

But what do I think? I think I'm sitting in front of my computer typing a reply to an interesting forum topic.

The point of that being that, as I can only perceive the reality in which I exist, why worry about the others?

-Loki

[kandrathe]

The point of that being that, as I can only perceive the reality in which I exist, why worry about the others?

I would theorize that you perceive only a portion of the reality in which you exist. There is hardly reason to worry about this reality, let alone the ones you cannot perceive.

[--Pete]

Hi,

I like to think of time in dimensional terms. Time is the 4th dimension, right?

In a certain sense, time can be thought of as the fourth dimension. It differs from the three spatial dimensions in that it gives -1 instead of 1 in the metric (or conversely, depending on representation). That is why a four-sphere in relativity is not a hypersphere but a pseudosphere. So, time is not "the fourth dimension" in the sense that it is another length.

One can concieve of multiple dimensional spaces in many ways. For a pretty simple and understandable example, consider a patient's vital signs. Usually these are the collection: (temperature, systolic pressure, diastolic pressure, pulse rate, respiration rate, oxygen saturation) and possibly others. The list that I gave is a six dimensional vector, and yet all but the two pressures are different in quality. The 'location' in this space gives a fair indication of the health of the patient.

A piece of music played on a piano can be represented as the amplitude, at each moment, of each piano key. The amplitudes form a vector of eighty-eight dimensions. Their variations over time form a vector function, and yet there's nothing difficult to visualize. In a somewhat similar fashion, a repetitive or finite signal can be represented as the amplitude of harmonic functions. Base frequency, first harmonic, etc., to infinity. That is the Fourier analysis, and still pretty easy to 'visualize' even though it is a vector of infinite dimensions.

Another nice exercise for visualization is the development of the tesseract. By taking the square and the cube, considering their properties, and extending those properties to higher (and lower) dimensions, one can 'understand' the tesseract and from that, higher dimensional hyper-cubes. And those are n-dimensional in the sense of having n spatial dimensions.

Theoretically, for both Einsteinian mass theory and quantum theory to be correct, the universe must have 10 dimensions.

Actually, that is more a speculation than a theory. It comes from the speculation that things are really strings, then extended to (mem)branes. A bunch of those 10D 'theories' have been, more or less, unified into an 11D M-theory. So far, all that is mathematical game, played by government sponsored philosophers who claim to be scientists. So far, that group of time wasters have failed to come up with a single supporting fact or testable hypothesis. Considering that general relativity and quantum mechanics not only fail to agree, but fail to explain or predict both dark matter and dark energy, perhaps a better use of their brains would be to search for a better theory of gravity.

In short, I like to think that time has "up, down, left, right, forward, and backward" expressions that we cannot perceive. Why can't we perceive them? I have no idea, but the first answer that springs to mind is an inability to comprehend those dimensions.

Or that it is pure speculation? That those dimensions don't exist? That the multiple dimensions are not time or length but Frisbee and strawberry (just noises, like the colors and names of quarks)? And just because we can't visualize those dimensions does not mean we cannot comprehend them. Heck, I can't visualize 57 (try visualizing exactly 57 jelly beans), doesn't mean I don't understand it.

One portion of quantum theory states that everything which can happen, does happen. The result of this is the creation of multitudes of alternate timelines.

Again, no. If anything, this is even more speculative than M-theory. There's nothing, no observation, no inconsistency, no mathematical extrapolation from existing theory to require or even indicate this. It is simply the idle musing of a person, although an intelligent one.

The point of that being that, as I can only perceive the reality in which I exist, why worry about the others?

Because they're there (or at least might be). Some people climb physical mountains, other mental ones.

-Loki

Pulled any good pranks recently?

--Pete

[Jester]

So far, that group of time wasters have failed to come up with a single supporting fact or testable hypothesis. Considering that general relativity and quantum mechanics not only fail to agree, but fail to explain or predict both dark matter and dark energy, perhaps a better use of their brains would be to search for a better theory of gravity.

I claim little knowledge and zero expertise in string theory, but isn't that what they're trying to do - come up with a coherent theory that explains gravity in a way consistent with quantum mechanics?

I'm certainly not going to give up hope for subatomic physics, but we seem to have reached a point where most theories could only be tested by either prohibitively expensive methods, or simply ludicrous ones (particle colliders the size of galaxies...) Might it not be that we are reaching a kind of limit about probing down further in the universe, such that elegant, plausible models are all we can hope for, and testing their predictions is simply beyond us?

Or maybe there's a really nice, testable theory of quantum gravity that someone's going to cook up somewhere. I certainly hope so.

-Jester

[Taem]

Before I start, you are aware that energy can never be destroyed right? Only converted. Having said this, let me continue:

1) If somehow time were like a conveyor belt, constantly moving forward, but a perpetual linear straight line, then if you did something so stupid as to go back in time and kill yourself or your dad, while it is true you will not be born in the future, you would not cease to exist in the current time you are in because it is physically impossible for your energy to simply "vanish". Scholars will argue that you wouldn't exist so it's impossible for you to have ever gone back in time in the first place thus the paradox of the situation, however this is simply untrue - yes, you would never be born, but you would still exist right then and there.

2) However I don't believe time is like a conveyor belt, but rather a ball. If you put an "X" on a ball and rolled it forward, the "X" on the ball would represent time - or forward movement through space; so long as time keeps moving forward, we continue to exist. Because time keeps moving on, writing over itself with each "roll of the ball" if you will, there is no past - only the vague perception of things that once were which we call memory. Travel wise, I don't believe there is any way to travel back or forward in time, because I don't believe there is any "back" or "forward" to travel to where we can physically exist; our entire existence is in time itself.
a) Which of course brings up the whole concept of seers, psychics, and general visions or feelings of the future - who hasn't had at least one experience where we avoided some type of serious danger simply because we "knew" something bad would happen if we did "such-and-such"? And I'm not talking about an objective that was obviously questionable, but something so simple as getting in the car to get the mail when suddenly, the feeling strikes so you hesitate in the kitchen a few minutes when BAM, your car outside gets totaled! So how do premonitions fit into the whole space/time scenario - either mine, or conventional theory? In my theory, our physical bodies can only exist in time, but our spirit has no such limitations. We as humans don't know enough about the afterlife make any scientific claims, however I think under the right conditions, we can be warned about things to come. And how is this "energy" aware of things to come while we are not? I don't know, but I've personally experienced several premonitions in my lifetime that have saved my life - similar to the car example above where there was no warning something bad would happen if I did my regular routine, but by listening to that voice inside, I avoided life-threatening injuries. To be fair, I've never seen any space/time theory explain premonitions in a very scientific way.

Hi,

My brother Tommy is my kid brother [age 60] this is when you know you are really old...right Pete?

Why @ 1pm on the phone today did we start to discuss time travel, is this what old men do?

a) My brother believes that there is a time period in the Past that remains, a Present where time moves on based on the future , and that the Future already happend. He added that IF the future did not happen then how come there are those who can predict the future like Nostradamus.

B)I believe there is No future beyond this point in time and at this very moment till the next moment I am making the future for me.

c) What do you think about this ???

The future is a time period commonly understood to contain all events that have yet to occur.[1] It is the opposite of the past, and is the time after the present.[2] In the Occidental view, which uses a linear conception of time, the future is the portion of the projected time line that is anticipated to occur.[3] In special relativity the future is considered to be absolute future or the future light cone.[4] In physics, time is considered to be the fourth dimension.[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future

[Jester]

Which of course brings up the whole concept of seers, psychics, and general visions or feelings of the future - who hasn't had at least one experience where we avoided some type of serious danger simply because we "knew" something bad would happen if we did "such-and-such"? And I'm not talking about an objective that was obviously questionable, but something so simple as getting in the car to get the mail when suddenly, the feeling strikes so you hesitate in the kitchen a few minutes when BAM, your car outside gets totaled!

This is a matter of hits, misses, and observation bias.

We remember when we had a bad feeling, and then something bad happened, because it seems exceptional. Do we remember when we had a bad feeling, and nothing bad happened? Are we tallying up the number of bad things that happen, with no "premonition" attached? I would suggest that we are not. We are also primed culturally to think of these things as "visions" or "premonitions". We confirm our ideas with examples, but we fail to test them with counter-examples.

In some cases, you may be intuitively picking up on things that are not consciously registering, giving you a justifiable feeling of unease. That is not the same thing, since it doesn't actually involve accessing future information.

Every time these phenomena have been put to rigorous tests, they have failed miserably. Nobody can predict the future, and there is no number of anecdotes which can overturn this conclusion, absent a successful, rigorous test.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

Every time these phenomena have been put to rigorous tests, they have failed miserably. Nobody can predict the future, and there is no number of anecdotes which can overturn this conclusion, absent a successful, rigorous test.

Which shows to me, as we discussed above, that whatever ability does exist is not one that is controlled. If there is a mammalian ability to have foreknowledge, of some milliseconds, or more, then it would be natural for this to be developed as a survival skill. I'm not ruling it out, just because there have been no proper validated experiments. Enough anecdotal evidence exists to warrant some investigation, which is being done by those scientists willing to tolerate the arrogant scoffers and close minded.

Many realities we accept today were inconceivable 100 years ago.

[NuurAbSaal]

Or maybe there's a really nice, testable theory of quantum gravity that someone's going to cook up somewhere. I certainly hope so.

-Jester

My vote is on Jamie Oliver. Then outraged moms are going to supply less nice and untestable theories through the school fence and all is for naught.

take care
Tarabulus

[Jester]

Which shows to me, as we discussed above, that whatever ability does exist is not one that is controlled.

While this is conceivable, it reeks of a "god of the gaps" argument. It runs: Psychic ability exists, but not anywhere that you can really pin it down. It doesn't matter if test after test fails, because the psychic can't really control it, so maybe it just didn't manifest at that particular moment. Psychic powers (or God, or whatever) might still yet be hiding under the next rock, so let's search there!

It's a silly argument, a vapid set of non-theories, and a waste of research dollars. We've searched under a hell of a lot of rocks. They've all come up empty. Randi's million is still unclaimed.

If there is a mammalian ability to have foreknowledge, of some milliseconds, or more, then it would be natural for this to be developed as a survival skill.

If there is a mammalian ability to breathe underwater, surely we would have developed that too? Except not. Evolution doesn't work like that. Just because something would plausibly be advantageous says absolutely nothing about whether it would or did develop.

I'm not ruling it out, just because there have been no proper validated experiments. Enough anecdotal evidence exists to warrant some investigation, which is being done by those scientists willing to tolerate the arrogant scoffers and close minded.

"Some investigation" has been going on for centuries into these phenomena, never with any success. They had their heyday back in the 1960s and 70s with the rise of Parapsychology departments and they failed to produce anything but shoddy experiments, vague hypotheses, and non-replicable results. After decades of this pointless meandering, the Parapsychology departments were shut down, one by one, as wastes of money and embarrassments to their universities.

They had their shot to come up with something good, and they blew it, big time. To reverse that tremendous record of failure, to make me believe this isn't just hokum we can ignore, I'm still looking for one thing: A successful, repeatable test, under controlled conditions. The closest they've come is the Ganzfeld, but even that only shows barely-significant results in meta-studies involving seriously questionable research.

Many realities we accept today were inconceivable 100 years ago.

And all of them because they followed from elegant, precise theories that made powerful, falsifiable predictions, which were backed up by the results of repeatable (and endlessly repeated) experiments. They survived after having been savaged by some of the most brilliant minds of the day.

This stuff? Where it has been tested rigorously, it has shown no results. Where it has not been tested, it is largely untestable, vague, and riddled with bias. It relies on a totally unknown mechanism which would, at least at first glance, violate practically every law of physics we know.

In short? Bunk.

Or, for a brief history, written by a a believer no less:

Dr Ray Stantz: Hey, Dean Yeager! Are you moving us to a better office on campus?
Dean Yeager: No, you're being moved off campus. The Board of Regents has decided to terminate your grant. You are to vacate these premises immediately.
Dr Ray Stantz: What?
Dr. Peter Venkman: This is preposterous. I demand an explanation.
Dean Yeager: This university will no longer continue any funding for any of your group's activities.
Dr. Peter Venkman: But the kids love us!
Dean Yeager: Doctor... Venkman. The purpose of science is to serve mankind. You seem to regard science as some kind of dodge... or hustle. Your theories are the worst kind of popular tripe, your methods are sloppy, and your conclusions are highly questionable! You are a poor scientist, Dr. Venkman!
Dr. Peter Venkman: I see.
Dean Yeager: And you have no place in this department, or this university.

-Jester

[--Pete]

Hi,

I claim little knowledge and zero expertise in string theory, but isn't that what they're trying to do - come up with a coherent theory that explains gravity in a way consistent with quantum mechanics?

Not really, it's more like they are trying to explain quantum mechanics in a way that is more consistent with general relativity. Now, that might sound like hairsplitting, but the salient point is that they are starting from the premise that general relativity is right. That may be a poor assumption. While there may, indeed, be dark matter, dark energy is strictly an ad hoc assumption. A less wrong theory of gravity may explain one or both of those phenomena and be a better candidate to quantize (or even be a quantized theory from its inception). The irritating point is that the string theorist have taken over, and have blocked the funding, in most cases, of all non string research in that field -- but that's another rant.

I'm certainly not going to give up hope for subatomic physics, but we seem to have reached a point where most theories could only be tested by either prohibitively expensive methods, or simply ludicrous ones (particle colliders the size of galaxies...) Might it not be that we are reaching a kind of limit about probing down further in the universe, such that elegant, plausible models are all we can hope for, and testing their predictions is simply beyond us?

"Why use lead when gold will do?" Look at the history of the Cavendish Laboratory where they've been doing ground breaking research with "a spoon and a bit of fish-paste" for well over a century. Historically, as we've mastered technologies, their implementation has gotten more compact and has required less energy. I think that, as we expend more effort to understanding and exploiting what we know about the sub-atomic world, we will develop techniques that will let us examine that world without the need for huge machines. Right now, we are in the "when all you've got is a hammer, . . . " mode, and the researchers are asking for bigger hammers rather than exploring the possibility of other tools. Of course, that's the optimist in me speaking.

Or maybe there's a really nice, testable theory of quantum gravity that someone's going to cook up somewhere. I certainly hope so.

Me too. And, if it happens, I hope it gets published.

--Pete

[--Pete]

Hi,

Jester's reply pretty well covered my thoughts on the matter. I have little to add except for:

Many realities we accept today were inconceivable 100 years ago.

And many superstitions and misconceptions of 100 years ago are (mostly) forgotten today. And both what we've accepted and what we've rejected has come about through less faith and more understanding.

--Pete