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What If Time Really Exists? (2008)

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Re: What If Time Really Exists? (2008)

#121

Post by ianai »

kabouseng wrote: post #97
Noughmad wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is wrong, very wrong. There is a big fundamental difference between science and religion: Scientist can invent new theories and change their mind when new evidence is discovered. Religious people stick to their beliefs no matter what.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Max Planck himself said: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." [1] [1] - https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Planck

As a human institution, science won't ever be perfect. The fundamental notions of science (reduction, documentation, reproducibility, etc) are drastically different from the fundamental notions of religion.

Re: What If Time Really Exists? (2008)

#122

Post by sigmaml »

Santosh83 wrote: post #81
Noughmad wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is wrong, very wrong. There is a big fundamental difference between science and religion: Scientist can invent new theories and change their mind when new evidence is discovered. Religious people stick to their beliefs no matter what.

Both are not inherently true. Just commonly the case. In my experience (with Eastern polytheistic religions) a lot of "religious" people are perfectly fine with science, while conversely many people who swear by science and logic seem viscerally contemptuous of anything not falling within the bounds of their worldview. No doubt religion by and large is detrimental (at least at this point in human evolution) and it ha…

But, limiting debates to the observable, testable (falsifiable) and repeatable subset has helped us improve our understanding of the nature of physical reality.

Wouldn't you agree?

Re: What If Time Really Exists? (2008)

#123

Post by oh_teh_meows »

retreatguru wrote: post #43
oh_teh_meows wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or that there really is only one unchanging state, and what you perceive to be the passage of time is really just a very particular configuration of your 'memory' through which you 'remember' a different state, and that hasn't really changed at all.

Is there not just one ever present now in which all thing change?

Theory of relativity would say that there are many 'nows', which one you're in depends on which frame of reference you're in :)

To a photon traveling at c, the birth, growth, and death of the universe happen simultaneously; so to a photon, there is no now. From its perspective, it dies just as quickly as it comes into existence.

> Is there not just one ever present now in which all thing change?

Sure there may be; but going by the hypothetical possibility I raised, there really isn't a now. The passage of time could be an illusion due to your memory being in a particular unchanging state that has existed 'forever'. Who's to say the 'now' that has just passed wasn't just you remembering it?

Re: What If Time Really Exists? (2008)

#124

Post by logicallee »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #117
logicallee wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>leading technologists agreeing that we're almost certainly in a simulated reality Just to elaborate, this is really easy to show. Just take two pieces of paper, and scribble all over one of them for 10-15 minutes. Then crumple them up and throw them to the ground. The blank one will fall to the ground smoothly. But the one that has a lot of image information will tax the Universe's GPU, because it isn't able to comp…

If you're talking about a VR-type simulation where observable reality is simulated, but our consciousness resides in a 'higher' level, then yes, something like what you describe could be an example of falsifiable evidence of simulated reality. But in the case where we, ourselves reside entirely within a simulation (or whatever) then we're tied, lock-step, with the universe's time, and any jitters or pauses (even outr…

your second paragraph is exactly my point: which is why it's an absurd claim that anyone is saying "we're almost certainly" living in a simulated environment. there's no way to know.

Re: What If Time Really Exists? (2008)

#125

Post by k__ »

padobson wrote: post #111
byebyetech wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole idea that Universe is a simulation vs real is absurd to me. What if the Universe is a simulation running in a computer no one actually built but just fluctuated into existence. Does that make it more real or still a simulation?

>a computer no one actually built but just fluctuated into existence It's reasonable to argue that all computers are these kinds of computers.

It seems to happen quiet often, that people invent things that are turing complete, without even trying.

Re: What If Time Really Exists? (2008)

#126

Post by Tenoke »

stale2002 wrote: post #10
monktastic1 wrote: post #2

Between modern physics suggesting time and space may be illusions, leading technologists agreeing that we're almost certainly in a simulated reality, and many ancient traditions being certain that this is all an illusion, I may have to have to go ahead and take this seriously....

The simulation argument comes from the fact that there a quite a lot of physics effects that are both surprising, and look an awful lot like dirty hacks that a programmer might put it. Quantum physics looks a lot like lazy evaluation (State doesn't exist until "observed"). The speed of light seems like a hack to prevent an n squared problem of everything in the universe effecting everything at the same time.

>The simulation argument comes from the fact that there a quite a lot of physics effects that are both surprising, and look an awful lot like dirty hacks that a programmer might put it.

Err, while this might be used to support the hypothesis, the popularized and most discussed version of the simulation argument doesn't even really mention this [0].

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis

Re: What If Time Really Exists? (2008)

#127

Post by Chathamization »

ebbv wrote: post #22
monktastic1 wrote: post #2

Between modern physics suggesting time and space may be illusions, leading technologists agreeing that we're almost certainly in a simulated reality, and many ancient traditions being certain that this is all an illusion, I may have to have to go ahead and take this seriously....

There is no serious evidence for the simulation theory. It is more of a religious belief than a scientific theory since it poses more problems than it answers (who is running the simulation? How did they come to exist? What is their reality like? Etc.)

Yeah, it seems to be a rehash of the old "maybe this is all a dream" idea. Which I suppose can be a fun thought experiment in highschool, but it's a little unsettling to see people to take it so seriously.

Re: What If Time Really Exists? (2008)

#128

Post by tomphoolery »

stale2002 wrote: post #10
monktastic1 wrote: post #2

Between modern physics suggesting time and space may be illusions, leading technologists agreeing that we're almost certainly in a simulated reality, and many ancient traditions being certain that this is all an illusion, I may have to have to go ahead and take this seriously....

The simulation argument comes from the fact that there a quite a lot of physics effects that are both surprising, and look an awful lot like dirty hacks that a programmer might put it. Quantum physics looks a lot like lazy evaluation (State doesn't exist until "observed"). The speed of light seems like a hack to prevent an n squared problem of everything in the universe effecting everything at the same time.

To me, it seems like evolution. Because when you get down "to the metal" of the universe, it's really just a bunch of dirty hacks that are thrown together and give off the illusion of uniformity and grace. The way things work at a macroscopic level seem so grand and ultimate, but on the microscopic level of all that it's utter chaos. Random acts of chemical bonding happened to create the life forms we interact with every day, including each other.

The universe is a giant hack job, and I think it evolved that way. I'm a big believer in the "multiple nested universes" theory that our universe began as an offshoot of another, parent universe, and that some of the larger/heavier black holes in our universe could be gateways to other child universes.

Re: What If Time Really Exists? (2008)

#129

Post by phkahler »

baytrailcat wrote: post #54
Jizzle wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The appearance that quantum effects might be attributed to 'hacks' probably has more to do with the hackish nature of the Copenhagen interpretation. For instance, there is no stated physical explanation for the collapse of a wavefunction--it is only an extremely convenient way of explaining many experiments. A crude analogy--you can describe the flipping of coins with simple probability, but this is a non-physical ye…

Are you entirely sure about that? There has been some solid efforts to explain collapse - like Ghirardi–Rimini–Weber theory

Nothing changes at the time of "wave function collapse". When you measure one particle of an entangled pair, nothing actually happens to the other one. But you don't need to listen to me, check this out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc

Re: What If Time Really Exists? (2008)

#130

Post by jschwartzi »

sigmaml wrote: post #122
Santosh83 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both are not inherently true. Just commonly the case. In my experience (with Eastern polytheistic religions) a lot of "religious" people are perfectly fine with science, while conversely many people who swear by science and logic seem viscerally contemptuous of anything not falling within the bounds of their worldview. No doubt religion by and large is detrimental (at least at this point in human evolution) and it ha…

But, limiting debates to the observable, testable (falsifiable) and repeatable subset has helped us improve our understanding of the nature of physical reality. Wouldn't you agree?

But it's not very helpful in understanding the nature of ourselves, which is where science remains a weak tool.
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