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First images from Euclid are in

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Re: First images from Euclid are in

#371

Post by cbolton »

mr_mitm wrote: post #279
seanw444 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is short-sighted. Maybe not in our lifetimes. If it were 1902, you'd probably be mocking the Wright brothers.

No, I wouldn't be. The speed of light is a much more fundamental limitation than anything we have ever seen before. It's probably the single most fundamental and most sure fact that we know of, besides perhaps the quantum nature of reality. And I have heard it all before: worm holes, warp drive, etc pp. A fun exercise, but not rooted in reality at all. All you can do is to appeal to completely unknown, unimaginable m…

"Completely unknown" is the main point here. I don't think categorical statements make sense when they are based only on what we know.

The Wright brothers seem like a poor example. But consider the slowing down of time near mass, the tunnel effect, superconductors, super fluids... There are many examples of things that make absolutely no sense in the context of older theories. I don't think our theories are the final ones just because we can explain most things that we have observed so far.

Sure I find it hard to imagine how individuals could travel to another galaxy, absent something like usable wormholes. But some kind of giant world moving through space over the span of millions of years, why not?

The point of these discussions is not to find the correct answer about what will happen. It's just fun to dream and imagine the possibilities, precisely because nobody has the answer (and certainly not those who pretend to know what's possible).

Re: First images from Euclid are in

#372

Post by smaddox »

TrapLord_Rhodo wrote: post #157
smaddox wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Photocopying has little to do with simulation of the physical world. First of all, Bits != Q-bits. You can clone bits. You can't clone Q-bits: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-cloning_theorem Second, photocopies are static. The physical world is not static.

Why would their be exponential slowdown? Time can be relative, but superbroadcasting can help explain the loss of fidelity as we scale down. So you can't "Clone" but you can superentangle multiple copies in a degraded state.

The slowdown is in the simulation, not in the internally perceived flow of time. The internally perceived flow of time would of course not change.

The problem is that an exponential slowdown at each level requires discounting the probability of being in a simulation by an exponential amount per level. So instead of being able to say that the weighted odds of being in a simulation are higher than the odds of not being in a simulation, you have to say that, at best, there's a small chance of being in a simulation.

Re: First images from Euclid are in

#374

Post by tomrod »

nashashmi wrote: post #333
tomrod wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are a necessary but insufficient part of the proof of life. One cannot say "no proof" when necessary proof has been achieved. All that remains is a second example -- the first took several billion years to achieve self awareness. Like they say, the first million is the hardest.

But that is a belief that says it can happen again. It is not a proven belief. And the whole reason we are looking out in space is to prove it. But I don't think we will find it. Life is special. The earth is special. And all the planets and all the stars and all the solar systems and all the galaxies cannot make something special again. So alas, we are earth. and we are all that is out there. And the rest of the uni…

I don't think life is special. I'm interested to understand the range of its generation.

Multicellular life is certainly less common, and sapience is also less common (and may not be only an emergent property of multicellular life) than just replicating chemical structures.

Certain pushes in Earth's history likely shaped and sculpted current state, but the general factors aren't terribly uncommon (water, Goldilocks zone, somewhat stable solar systems, etc.). Moons at our size are less common, and whether that is crucial is unknown. Snowball earth and hell-phase may be common. Plate tectonics may be a limiting factor.

I look forward to humanity discovering this, then finally agreeing that perpetuation of sapience generally or humanity specifically beyond the heat death of the universe is a good goal, much better than the common banal drivel that drives our wars or religions today.

Re: First images from Euclid are in

#375

Post by alok-g »

tsimionescu wrote: post #368
alok-g wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I think it's a big randomness +1. A big randomness, following the laws of Physics that are themselves possibly rooted in something. With that big randomness, by some chance, intelligent life has happened that can wonder. Where's more to be uncovered are in the laws of Physics (and why are they what they are), and thereby better matching the probabilities of the said randomness.

I don't think there's any reason to believe that there can be an explanation for the laws of physics in this sense. Just like the laws of logic, they might just be .

I agree.

There's surely however more to uncover for Physics.

Re: First images from Euclid are in

#376

Post by alok-g »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #284
layer8 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it might be the necessary logical consequence of having anything at all.

I've always thought of it more as the logical consequence of having nothing, the need for there to be a something to oppose it.

When they applied Heisenberg principle to vacuum to bring up zero point energy, Casimir force was found, etc., I understood thtis as the principle opposing nothingness.

Re: First images from Euclid are in

#377

Post by kjkjadksj »

colordrops wrote: post #311
kjkjadksj wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there are probably an uncountable number of different turns life could have made instead to lead to dramatically different outcomes. Life iterates on itself. Mutations on top of mutations. Mitochondria could have just as easily never been enveloped by our eukaryotic ancestors and life would look a hell of a lot different today.

Having a high cardinality of permutations doesn't say anything one way or another about the probability of life arising. it's just hand waving.

I’m not arguing about life merely arising. I’m arguing about the unlikelihood of our idea of intelligence.

Re: First images from Euclid are in

#379

Post by nashashmi »

tomrod wrote: post #374
nashashmi wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that is a belief that says it can happen again. It is not a proven belief. And the whole reason we are looking out in space is to prove it. But I don't think we will find it. Life is special. The earth is special. And all the planets and all the stars and all the solar systems and all the galaxies cannot make something special again. So alas, we are earth. and we are all that is out there. And the rest of the uni…

I don't think life is special. I'm interested to understand the range of its generation. Multicellular life is certainly less common, and sapience is also less common (and may not be only an emergent property of multicellular life) than just replicating chemical structures. Certain pushes in Earth's history likely shaped and sculpted current state, but the general factors aren't terribly uncommon (water, Goldilocks z…

> finally agreeing that perpetuation of sapience ... beyond the heat death of the universe is a good goal, much better than the common banal drivel that drives our wars or religions today.

If you are looking for a goal, then you are looking for a fight or a war.

Instead, a good goal is what comes from the good lessons of religions: the idea that humanity is nothing, that you are nothing, that your plans are nothing, and all that matters is the creator and the rewards he set abound around the problems that you struggle against. Lessons like good vs evil are derived from this paradigm. And the paradigm also inspires studying the universe from obsession with the creator's enigma.

OTOH all ideas that lead to war and conflict grow from obsession with the self. If not the self, then with your people, and if not the people then with your hatred for anyone other than your self and your people.

Re: First images from Euclid are in

#380

Post by smeej »

tsimionescu wrote: post #367
smeej wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is why Christians posit that the Creator actually entered into humanity, so we could understand--or at least be as much less wrong in our speculations as we can handle, small as we are. They even got as far as describing God as "uncaused causality" centuries ago, which lined up pretty well with the translation of the name God reportedly gave one of their forbearers from a burning bush, "I am who am," or…

Sure, but it is a meaningless take. It posits into existence this being with this property, when you can just as easily posit that the universe itself has this property.

But the universe can and does change. Something that is, in that most fundamental sense, does not also have potentiality. Anything that can change, that can be "other than it is," must have some potentiality un-actualized, must not fully "be," because there are some things it is not but could be (and, indeed, later will be).
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