The final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation played with this concept [1].
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Good_Things..._(Star_Trek:...
A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
141–150 of 455 posts
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
If we reverse time and this implies running everything backwards in physics, do we include gravity in the set of things that are reversed? Then everything would fly off the face of the earth in reverse-time.
Let's check. F = ma F = m dv/dt u = -t dv/dt = -dv/du - F = m dv/du If you stop there it looks like you're right, but you also must change the definition of velocity to account for the new time. v = dx/dt = -dx/du +F = m dx/du So the direction of gravity (the force F) stays the same when you flip time. I can explain that without the math by pointing out that if you took a video of a ball being thrown up and caught an…
If we change the analogy of throwing a ball to firing a gun into the air - does the analogy still work? Since when we fire the gun up, the bullet will travel faster up than it will travel down due to terminal velocity in forward time. How is that phenomenon explained in reverse time?
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#143This would perfectly explain deja vu.
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's check. F = ma F = m dv/dt u = -t dv/dt = -dv/du - F = m dv/du If you stop there it looks like you're right, but you also must change the definition of velocity to account for the new time. v = dx/dt = -dx/du +F = m dx/du So the direction of gravity (the force F) stays the same when you flip time. I can explain that without the math by pointing out that if you took a video of a ball being thrown up and caught an…
If we change the analogy of throwing a ball to firing a gun into the air - does the analogy still work? Since when we fire the gun up, the bullet will travel faster up than it will travel down due to terminal velocity in forward time. How is that phenomenon explained in reverse time?
Instead of predominately striking the bullet in a way that causes it to slow down, the molecules in the air will predominately strike it in a way that causes it to move faster, in what looks like an unbelievable (but still physically possible) run of good luck.
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#145Another point for my favorite minority quantum mechanics interpretation, two-state vector formalism (TSVF).
Where can I read the report?
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#146When you flip that dx/dt so it becomes dt/dx...
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#147I used to believe that the world is lazily loaded. That means the first moment I see something (e.g., a world map) is the point where all the past history to consistently explain the observation gets "locked in".
Was coming to say something like this. Gets to some fun conclusions - ex. paleontologists invent dinosaurs by looking for them. Another angle on it would be showing that the universe has multiple possible levels of detail - that objects behave like newtonian point masses most of the time, that digestion is replaced by a simple hunger meter when nobody's paying attention. From this direction, time's main function is c…
This thought experiment implies that humans, or conscious agents, represent a highly concentrated source of entropy, currently (mostly) confined to planet Earth. Meanwhile, in the vastness of space, most of the mass has settled into some relatively deterministic equilibria, with no conscious agents to alter the course of its future. Yet we're down here on the blue planet messing everything up.
Coupling this thought with the simulation theory, it makes me wonder how the simulation would respond to increasing entropy over a larger volume than just our local system. That is, if we send a bunch of biological/artificial agents in all directions throughout the cosmos and let them wreak havoc, would it crash the simulation? Or what if we just smash a bunch of asteroids out of their stable orbits and let their disruption cascade throughout the system? Or maybe we've already messed everything up by broadcasting highly entropic radio waves throughout a spherical volume with a radius of ~100 light years?
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Was coming to say something like this. Gets to some fun conclusions - ex. paleontologists invent dinosaurs by looking for them. Another angle on it would be showing that the universe has multiple possible levels of detail - that objects behave like newtonian point masses most of the time, that digestion is replaced by a simple hunger meter when nobody's paying attention. From this direction, time's main function is c…
That would also mean that when I don't see or hear other people, they don't "exist" as physical things that can be seen or heard until I encounter a situation in which they would be. It's the same as "If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" But then again, that information has to be stored somewhere right? Like, if a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around, sure you…
> But then again, that information has to be stored somewhere right?
As a collection of probabilities stored as a wave.
If a bank account has a 50% probability earning a penny every second, the bank doesn't need to store all of the intermediate values for every "clock tick", but instead calculate how much has accumulated since the last time someone checked the account and store that value with a timestamp.
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#149Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#150> It may seem eerie to our brains, which process events sequentially, but the history of science is also littered with examples of human biases leading to bad conclusions, such as the Earth-centric model of the solar system. Slow down. Assuming that time moves in one direction is not comparable to geocentrism.
The comparison is bad all around. Geocentrism actually had decent reasoning and was not a superstition. It's just we couldn't see the parallax with then-current instruments. As soon as instruments allowed, humanity changed rather quickly.