Earlier quoted context omitted.
Zeno's paradox assumes space is infinitely divisible.
can you profe to me that the physical space between everything isn’t?
Planck length.
A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
401–410 of 455 posts
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#402Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#403Earlier quoted context omitted.
And yet doesn't it defy probability that such raw physical determinism would lead to us having this discussion? And if not, is it not amazing that simple subatomic physical applied to a gaseous soup leads to us discussing these questions?
To the first question, not in the least. This discussion is also superdetermined, including the illusory sense of a "me" who "chose" to write these comments. To the second question, yes. It's beyond comprehension and wondrous. It's maximum novelty and total absurdity.
Might be worth it to brush up on computationally reducible phenomenon and computationally irreducible phenomenon. Breaking determined systems into these constituent parts lets you conjecture with respect to intelligent agents. Critically it shows that arguments from observed inability to successfully model the self are evidence for, not evidence against, the presence of an intelligent agent. The enlightenment view misattributes the evidence for agents as evidence against agents.
An anti-enlightenment koan could be: The student came to the master and asked, “Why are tigers green?” The master responded, “The deer they are hunting can’t see orange.” The student then asked, “It is not therefore it is? How mysterious and inscrutable your answers!” But from that moment onwards the master was de-enlightened.
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#404Earlier quoted context omitted.
Biology has nothing to do with it. We can't construct any manner of machine that measures time going in the other direction.
Maybe all that quantum nonsense we can't explain is due to some type of time travel we don't comprehend.
If only we had Tony Stark to help build some sort of a “quantum GPS”.
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#405Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's basically a semantic issue but I don't think the negation of an undefined proposition is true, I think it is undefined. (Thankfully the universe does not run in JavaScript, where !undefined is true.)
That I agree with. But, Earth.x = 42 (in some arbitrary coordinate space), if I understand correctly there isn't a sub-light coordinate space in this universe where Earth.x = undefined.
Positions are defined, but they're different in every coordinate system, which makes "the center of the universe," by itself, undefined.
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#406Earlier quoted context omitted.
So I think I understand this argument and it makes sense to me (at the moment). To me the (to paraphrase), "increasing as we move away from the big bang" stuff seems to lead right to the idea that the expansion of the universe is what we perceive as the passing of time, but I never hear any one knowledgeable say that. Is there some obvious reason that it's not that succinct?
No, the expansion of the universe isn’t the same thing as increasing disorder of particles. It is possible that that the original expansion, inflation, and even dark energy are also driven by thermodynamics, but we just don’t know that.
I see, I was conflating the expansion with disorder. Thanks.
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#407Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, entropy can decrease, just with low probability, which you can calculate using the Fluctuation Theorem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluctuation_theorem Perhaps given infinite time, we will randomly get back to a low entropy state infinite times, but I don't know enough about the math to say for sure.
You can, but that inevitably leads to far more Boltzman brains than things like the universe, and that's disastrous because then you should expect to be a Boltzman brain yourself, but they're configured randomly so if you are a Boltzman brain you can't trust any belief you have about reality including the maths that says you should be a Boltzman brain. It's basically a softer version of Russell's paradox but for cogn…
Carroll did a great solo podcast about this last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B40PRvLtiec
Hard to summarize, but it's well worth anyone interested in this topic. There's a good bit where he ties the sleeping beauty thought experiment with Boltzmann Brains and consciousness; it blew my mind trying to understand the whole thing.
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#408Earlier quoted context omitted.
That I agree with. But, Earth.x = 42 (in some arbitrary coordinate space), if I understand correctly there isn't a sub-light coordinate space in this universe where Earth.x = undefined.
Positions are defined, but they're different in every coordinate system, which makes "the center of the universe," by itself, undefined.
That's not the reason why the centre of the universe is undefined.
By analogy, while spherical coordinates are arbitrary, latitude is defined. Arbitrary, but defined.
But the centre of the Earth has an undefined latitude, and a topological subspace consisting of just the surface of the Earth can't hand-wave past that by pointing out that's just a coordinate singularity that can be safely ignored — there isn't a center of the Earth anywhere in that subspace. If the universe is flat and finite (looping), this problem still exists.
And if the universe is unbounded (infinite), that has a different problem because you can't properly define a median of an infinite set[0], so no center exists.
If it just stops suddenly after a certain amount of space, then we get to have a center, but there's no sign of that.
[0] I think. Infinity is easy to get messed up with.
Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#409Re: A growing number of scientists are convinced the future influences the past
#410Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that one thing to keep in mind is that we are only capable of observing the passage of time along one vector because our perception relies upon entropic biological processes. We cannot observe in any subset of possible universes where entropy is not present or is working backwards-Ergo those possibilities are wholly out of our direct perception. That does not mean that causality cannot run in reverse, however…
Biology has nothing to do with it. We can't construct any manner of machine that measures time going in the other direction.
Wouldn't questioning those pre-existing notions be the first step towards constructing such a machine? It sounds silly to dismiss the idea time could go backwards because we don't have any machines that work that way, since that typically how all ideas work before we implement them.