Welcome Guest! | Sign Up | Log in

Forum Sections > Spiritual > Techno spritual


JackSparrow
Man as soon as people start chatting on about the "big bang" and the birth of the universe I start to lose all interest in hearing anything else they have to say.

They said here about maybe we can figure out how the laws of physics were set / tuned at the start of the universe... arghhhh.... presumptions piled on ideas built on hypothesies. I know I can't prove my point of view but I can say I believe with a probably unfoundedly deep depth of certainty that the concept of physical laws being "tuned" at the "start" is utter and complete garbage memetics created and compounded by ignorance and the lasting vestiges of superstitions still present in the minds of our scientific thinkers.

Saying such invites the question, well then how did the laws of physics get to be how they are? And once again the only answer I can give is ;

ARGGGGHHHHH

I can't even begin to use these clumsy representations of verbal communication to explain the subtle sublimity of the timeless eternity I perceive. I can only hint at it, give clues and share facts in the hope that someone who really wants a copy of the meme I have is capable of building it in their own mind for themselves. It's probably a futile persuit, since even if someone has it, they can't prove it by speaking it for the same reasons I can't explain it verbally in the first place.

Eye to eye
The Eternity Encapsulated
Face to face
You have only to look in the mirror

What you see, is only a reflection of what you can see
The perfect mirror sees absolutely nothing,
In absolute darkness it reflects everything.
Webmaster of AhoyNoob Apr 6 2012 at 07:18:49 GMT


JackSparrow
The hills quietly echo the sound of the moonlit towers bell.

Garbage in -> Garbage out.

Big bang? Yet another, if somewhat more refined, creation myth. Imho.

It's not that I can't tolerate other view points or ideas or anything, it's just that having been through the experiences and formation of ideas and world views that I have, when I hear people talking about concepts which belong in what I call the classical linear time model of physics/reality it feels like listening to a science show written for an audience of children.

Imagine watching a science show from the 18th century, where the voice over is loudly and proudly suggesting that eventually we might be able to the bottom of the mystery of phlogiston, and we will be able to determine how much it weighs, and who knows what we can do with it, perhaps we can harness it to power rocket ships to take us to the stars, or maybe knowledge of the fundamental particles of phlogiston will cure all diseases of the body etc. It's non-sense because the base concept itself is non-sense, and therefore any speculation on the subject is non-sense.

Have a look at this;



As far as I can tell Dr Barbour is on the right track, but even he fails to reach the ultimate conclusion of the line of thinking he is following and falls back to talking about the big bang. Perhaps he did it to try and regain some of the mainstream credibility he lost by straying too far from the kosher realm of theoretical physics or perhaps he has other reasons. I really don't know but I believe a future scientist will not only follow on from his work and prove it's core tenets, but will also in so doing disprove the big bang and with it _all_ creationist myths.

To put it poetically, the acorn, the mighty oak and the withered burnt out stump all exist simultaneously in the universal super-position, they are one and the same, and only a linear processing experiential being like a human sees them as different and distinguished from each other.

A while back I made some youtube videos on my old channel where I suggested starting a religion called Radical Anti Creationism, it was a tongue in cheek suggestion however there was as serious point behind it.
Webmaster of AhoyNoob Apr 6 2012 at 11:46:36 GMT


JackSparrow
Ok, I'm going to try and address each point based on what I understand of this model. Incidentally I arrived at my own view prior to hearing of Dr Barbour, and was quite relieved to hear that someone so learned (and well respected by quite a few), has arrived at something very similar.

For the purposes of the response I'm going to phrase things in absolute terms, just for simplicity and clarity rather than trying to convey "superior knowledge" TM.

RebootRage said :

4 minutes in: "At each second I am a different person"
I'm sure he meant that at each plank time length moment, I am a different person.


I think he meant exactly what he said, at each tick of a wall clock, every particle within the body has changed position and energy level millions of times, and if you zoom in close and took two snapshots at a one second interval, you would not consider them to be snapshots of the same thing unless you could see the whole picture and how the differences blur out into a recognisable similarity.

As for a plank length of time, how would we define this?

Perhaps it should be considered as the length of time it takes a photon travelling at C, to traverse a single plank length?

A quick google search reveals that that is actually the correct definition :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_time

I'm sure Dr Barbour is fully aware of this measurement unit, don't forget he is a recognised and respected PHD holding theoretical physicist who is not afraid to step away from the mainstream to preserve his reputation. I admire his integrity and I find it unlikely he would not know about units of plank time. Remember also that the video was made for the pulp audience and has consequently been dumbed down a lot.


RebootRage said :

5 minutes in: He talks about the two nows. I agree that if we look at anything we have to consider two nows. My now, and the now of the thing I'm looking at ( pendulum clock in the case he mentions ).


Indeed, your always looking at an object as it was in the past when the photons left it's surface to travel to your eyes.

RebootRage said :

6 minutes in: I agree that the real version of time is not equal to the Newtonian version of time.


That's a good start. Now factor into your understanding that in terms of mainstream quantum mechanics, Netwonian style time is assumed, but not accounted for.


RebootRage said :

6:10 "How long does a now last?"
The guy says it has no duration, but now does have a duration, now has a planck's time length, a time pixel if you will.


I believe he is correct in that assertion. He's talking about a "now" as being an infinitely thin slice of time, a frozen universe, but he's not suggesting that the universe is made of such things, rather he's using it as a convenient tool to aid understanding a greater picture. I'm struggling to find a suitable analogy as I'm only just capable of grasping that larger picture to start with. Perhaps we could talk about the ocean being made up of an infinite number of infinitely small droplets of water, but in reality it is continuous (but not linear).

RebootRage said :

6:30 minutes in: I don't agree or understand what he means by nothing changes from one moment to another.


Your comment here implies your lack of comprehension, that's OK, this concept is incredibly hard to grasp, but once you do you can see a universe that is trillions orders of magnitude greater than the narrow limited linear time-scape of classical thinking. Infact once you do get it, you will be able to see how the good Dr can see it too, but is struggling immensely to explain it in a way that is accessible. You have to look through what is being said to the truth behind it.


RebootRage said :

I guess that since he thinks that time can be divided by zero and that the length of time of now is zero that he can claim that nothing changes in zero time and that nothing is different from one instant to another, but physicists don't believe in infinities or dividing anything real by zero, so that claim seems to be nonsense.


No, that is not what he is saying. He's not claiming time can be divided up, he's claiming time to be an illusion created by the sensory perceptions of humanity. When you can grasp that distinction you will see how his claim is far from nonsense, even if it appears to be so through when inspected through the lens of classical thought.

RebootRage said :

7 minutes in he shows that there is no difference by showing you one snap shot photo in any order, but reality doesn't allow you to rearrange events like that ( in the macroscopic world at least ).


What we call reality is electrical impulses in our brain. As far as I know all quantum interactions are considered time reverse-able, and in Dr Barbours model, all "nows" (once again a now being only a hypothetical tool to explain with), exist simultaneously in the superposition. It's a function of our own physical make up as a linear experiential biological organism that makes us believe in the arrow of time, and an order to events along a single line with a beginning and an end.

RebootRage said :

7:50 he says there is no reason to say that one snap shot should be in front of any other snapshot, but in reality it is proper to say that there will always be more helium in our sun as time goes on, and less hydrogen as time goes on. So an arrow of time does exist in that context.


Again, your referring to your perception of reality as if it is reality, and yet in other conversations you've indicated that you are aware that there is something greater than that. Dr B is working on the physics of that greater reality. Your right though, inside your linear experience track the arrow of time implies the rules of thermodynamics. It's like humans have tunnel vision, and it's difficult for us to see beyond our blinkers.

RebootRage said :

12 minutes in he agrees with a theory that states that time has no place in the Universe. I would agree with this if I was a mathematician that lived outside our Universe, but since I am an observer of it and I observe time all the time, I can not accept the fact that time does not exist.


Exactly, you just said it yourself, as an observer of the universe, INSIDE the universe, INSIDE your perceptions, you see a linear narrative with a strong distinct arrow of time. No one in their right mind would ever suggest that that perception is faulty, but it takes brilliant minds like Dr B to dig at the physics underneath that and make what he sees there accessible to others.

RebootRage said :

Relativity doesn't comply with quantum mechanics if you say there is no time at all??? According to this guy, 4D space-time can only exist if there is only 3D space and no time, 4D space-time doesn't exist. What? That makes no sense to me.


Perception of time, is the 4th dimension of space, your own brain and mind are fundamentally part of the fabric of reality. Space has the ability to curve into the state of conciousness.

RebootRage said :

13:45 minutes in he explains that an instant of time is like three points, what? huh? what does three points have to do with time, I'm getting really lost now.


Your running up against two barriers;

1) the immense difficulty in conveying this understanding
and
2) your own lack of understanding of the concept

When you get it, as I'm sure you will if you think hard about it, you will see how much the Dr is struggling to grasp and explain it himself, and how his analogies are falling short of the sort of clarity you will be able to explain to yourself inside your own mind, but will struggle just as much to explain to others.
Webmaster of AhoyNoob Apr 6 2012 at 19:54:53 GMT


JackSparrow
RebootRage said :

14:30, okay, then he turns that triangle that represents the three axis of space, I mean time of three dimensions, but then he turns it into an equilateral pyramid that is kind of related to the triangle, but not really. The triangle was a 2D object, and now he coverts it into a 3D equilateral pyramid for some reason.
Then they fade and skip forward through his explanations of why that is.


I really don't like his triangle thing and I believe he's going down the wrong track with that analogy and confusing himself and others through it. My concept is more, hrm, 'crystalline'. Like a diamond of nows each different yet similar, the more different the further apart they are in the crystalline matrix.

RebootRage said :

So, the alpha point, which I guess is some instances in time, which is equal to all other instances of time goes out into infinities which are also equal to the alpha point. I just don't know what he is saying.any more.


Again, I find his analogy faulty, the result of the difficulty of even grasping let alone conveying the concept.

RebootRage said :

Then he shows a clothes line to resemble what others consider a river of time. I don't mean to nit pick, but what does a clothes line with hanging clothes have to do with a series of events, or a river of time? I think everyone would consider that the clothes are all put out on the line all at once, and pulled back all at once. I don't get the analogy.


The clothes line analogy is a commonly used analogy when discussing the nature of time, at least I've heard the same thing from other sources. The line represents a linear track, one end of it is the big bang, the other end is the end of time, lets say the big crunch or heat death. The clothes represent events which happen in a linear sequence along the length of the line.

RebootRage said :

17 minutes in he uses his unexplained equilateral pyramid to explain how at one point could be the bing bang, and one area can be our now. I thought he was saying there is not difference from our past to our now or our future. Oh man this is getting confusing.


Your confusion is entirely understandable, the analogies are weak and tbh I feel they miss represent the idea. Don't forget Dr B is quite old now, I believe it's going to take a younger mind to bring this model into the sharp focus needed for the explanation to be readily accessible. I believe that when such an explanation in words does come along, it will be readily apparent why the very concept of a big bang is utter non-sense, and eventually it will take it's place with other ridiculed ideas like the flat earth and phlogiston.

RebootRage said :

So he believes in an eternity and a big bang, but I am still at a lost how that works.


I'm not sure if he has added the concept of big bang in to try and make it more open to people who still believe in that concept or whether he has just narrowly missed the ultimate conclusion his work leads to.

RebootRage said :

17:55 "If the world is really timeless". what does timeless mean?


Do you know any Java?

An Eternal Public Static Void Main which implements a hyper-dimensional lattice / crystalline framework of objects, some of which have an abstract tangential existence known as "being alive" and experiencing a linear arrow narrative called "time".

RebootRage said :

"Then there will be many instance", if timeless, don't you mean infinite instances?


I'm not sure I understand this question properly. As massive as the model is, it would still not be infinite because there would only be a finite number of possible combinations of position, velocity and energy level of the non-infinite set of particles the universe contains.

RebootRage said :

"Each will be self contained", as in each infinitely small amount of time is equal to the infinitely large amount of time? That really doesn't fit with observations of one moment being different than an other. Maybe I missed the point, what does he mean by every instance being self contained?


I believe that is an artefact of how he is struggling to comprehend and explain the concept.

RebootRage said :

"it will all be like what we experience precisely now, but in very different ways" what does that mean? So it will be exactly like what we experience but very different, ah.... does anyone else see the problem with that statement?


Again, your taking a fuzzy explanation of a crystal clear concept and naturally misinterpreting it by examining it through a lens of previously understood models.

RebootRage said :

19 minutes in he says that because quantum mechanics has this thing called quantum super position, that everything is in a super position, including the past and future with our present. My understanding is that super position is not common, and is actually a hard thing to accomplish.


The sort of super-position and entanglement which is scientifically induced is hard to accomplish using technological means, however nature itself has no problem at all doing it all the time everywhere, if it could not do that then the universe could not work. He is referring to the universal wave function, which was introduced by Hugh Everett in his Everett Interpretation of Q.M, which is the basis of Dr B's work and is now widely accepted as the most probably correct interpretation currently known.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_wavefunction


RebootRage said :

To suggest that everything, including time is in a super position to itself seems to be a little too simple. I thought you would have to first entangle the particles before they could be in a super position or do something like the double slit experiment to see the multi positions of a particle which kind of reflects off of the same particle with it's anti-time particle.


Not at all... it's far from simple! I suggest based on what you've said here so far that you dig into the work of Everett and understand that before trying to tackle Dr B's work.

RebootRage said :

20 or so minutes in he shows a series of photos, says it doesn't matter what order you put them in. Well, it does matter if you want to show them in chronological order, the newer ones are of him being older, and the older photos will show him as being younger, but I guess it all depends on what he means by it doesn't matter.


You said it yourself right there *if* you want to show them in chronological order. But whose chronology are we talking about? You know from relativity that the chronological order of events can be different for different observers depending on their relative positions and velocities.

RebootRage said :

22 minutes in he says that he doesn't care about the passage of time because he only cares about the now, sure, alright, but does that nullify the past or future?


No, the past and the future are equally part of the crystalline structure, but not just the past and future of your own linear tunnel... we are talking about every possible past and every possible future. In this system the moment of NOW your experiencing this moment, has many histories which lead up to it, and many futures that come from it.

RebootRage said :

At the end of this show about how time doesn't exists, I am left wondering how I could reclaim the time I spent watching it. lol It was alright, but very strange and somewhat pointless in my view.


You do yourself dis-service with these comments.
Webmaster of AhoyNoob Apr 6 2012 at 20:20:37 GMT


JackSparrow
RebootRage said :


I really don't mind debating any topic, but I do find debating if time exists or not be a little pointless, we all experience it, but mathematically we can't express it physically. We can argue the math, but we must all come back to our observations, and that is what is actually reality to us.


Understanding the fundamental structure of reality is going to open up incredible ways of using that information, I expect the understandings started by Everett and continued by Dr B, to be the foundational cornerstones of universe wide transportation and possibly an equivalent of time travel, without any chance of a grandfather type paradox occurring.

You just lol'ed at and dismissed what might be some of the most important insights in theoretical physics ever to have been expressed.... repeat after me...

DOH!
Webmaster of AhoyNoob Apr 6 2012 at 20:23:37 GMT


JackSparrow
RebootRage said :

DOH!

.... wait a minute, why am I saying that again? oh yeah, I'm an idiot.


No your not, an idiot would have no chance at all at grasping such a subtle concept!

RebootRage said :

Come on man, dull down your sword, it's a little too sharp for play.


Sorry if it came across like that, but I did say at the start;

For the purposes of the response I'm going to phrase things in absolute terms, just for simplicity and clarity rather than trying to convey "superior knowledge" TM.

I learnt a while back when dicussing these things that if you phrase things in absolute terms it's a lot clearer and quicker to explain and to understand, rather than saying things like "in this framework, if the framework is right then", etc etc.


RebootRage said :

I apologies for my pushed bad joke at the end, I guess it was in bad taste. It doesn't reflect that I was laughing through what Dr B was saying.


No need to apologise, this is AhoyNoob the comedy rebellion arena; comic rudeness, frivolity and trollish behaviour are all actually encouraged here for the lulz :)

RebootRage said :

I think it is cool that he is trying to explain time from a non observer frame. I agree that without an observer, time has no meaning. The super position thing is a good way to view the Universe and its time slices figuratively piled on top of each other when we want to view it timelessly. It fits in with my idea that matter only seems to be 3D, but in reality it is 2D particles rotating on their axis in 3D space, and it changes orientation of its 2D cross section fast enough for us to experience it as 3D. Kind of like if you spin a coin fast enough, it will start to look like a sphere.


I see, and of course the coin could be absolutely flat (true 2D), and it would still work.


RebootRage said :

At the end of the show I was left feeling that I didn't learn anything. I don't agree that time or space can be sliced infinitely small or large, and the whole concept requires that belief.


No that's a misunderstanding, the concept actually has nothing to do with slicing space-time, Dr B is simply trying to use that abstract analogy to dig at explaining the actual underlying model. If anything what you saw there was a very crude and slapdash oil painting with a 10meter wide brush, trying to paint a picture of a something so sharp it would make a laser scapel look dull.

RebootRage said :

Infinites cause too many anomalies in physics and usually means there is an error. I wasn't convinced that time doesn't exist, even though that seemed to be the point of the show. I will look up Universal wavefunction and Hugh Everett and his Everett Interpretation of QM.


The model doesn't call for inifinites unless we assume there are an infinite number of particles in the universe in which case there would be an infinite number of infinities of possible positions those particles would occupy in the static-super-positional matrix.


RebootRage said :

You shouldn't take these comments to heart, this is your video, and you have studied the concept greatly, where I on the other hand am not giving out well thought out and argued points, they are just first impressions.


Don't worry I really don't think there is any chance of Maximus appearing over this :P

Q might stop by though if he feels like there is a comic angle he can exploit!

RebootRage said :

I find the whole premise a little strange and would be surprised to find someone smart enough to explain it in terms that someone as dumb as me can understand.


You are far from dumb!! If I thought you were dumb I wouldn't of even bothered trying to help you construct the corresponding model meme!

RebootRage said :

It is a nice mind exercise, but to conclude that time doesn't exist is like saying science doesn't exist.


Not true.

RebootRage said :

Math can exist out side of time, but science requires repeatable observations done by observers.


No, that's just how human beings apply the scientific method within their perceptual linear narrative framework of understanding. Time is a human abstraction, the plodding monotonous sequence of one event occurring after another is a function of how the human brain works by necessity. Science is on the verge of exploring and exploiting understandings which far surpass that quasi-newtonian point of view. How cool would it be for instance if we could build a computer which exploits quantum mechanics to do it's computing in the past so that it already has the answer to any calculation you require, the very instant you require it? Such a computer would have 13.7 Billion years to think about it's next chess move, whilst you have to do your thinking in linear classical mode.

RebootRage said :

Any ways;

I don't know why I couldn't see the clothes line and clothes as a decent analogy of a series of events, one peace of clothing on, move over then repeat, and when dry, do the same but in reverse. I guess I was tired.


We all have our moments of

DOH!!



RebootRage said :

I stand on the notion that an instant of time should be considered a Planck time. So when he said every second, and I then nit picked and said that he brobably means every instant or Planck time. I didn't spit that out as a way to "convey "superior knowledge" ", it completely applies to the topic of time and the lack of it consisting of infinitely small slices.


I agree with the notion of Plank Time as being the smallest possible measurement of the phonemena we refer to as time, in the same way that the Plank Length is the smallest possible measurement of the phonemena we call distance, however as a subscriber to the views posited by Everett and Dr B, I hold also that time and distance are illusions.

Within that framework I think it would be possible maybe to give someone in London some sort of appropriate quantum "pill" or something such, which would instantly re-organise their quantum state so they vanish in London and re-appear in Syndey, Austrialia instantaneously without having travelled between those points and without having violated the light-speed barrier.

With appropriate refinement the same technique could just as easily cause them to reappear on Mars in the 15th Century... or in the Andromeda galaxy the day after tomorrow. If you can understand how that could happen in a virtual reality, then you can understand that once we have pinned down the absolute framework/operating system of the machine which renders the universe we can do almost anything with it.
Webmaster of AhoyNoob Apr 7 2012 at 11:47:30 GMT


Q
Thy little centuries go by so quickly...
O.M.E... (omnipotent mischievous entity) Apr 7 2012 at 11:48:10 GMT


Wazza
time is irrelevant, it is a label mankind created and only exists inside our puny little minds as a means to explain the eternal moment which the majority of humans cannot understand,

just live your life in the now, this one moment of eternal bliss, we could and do spend years teorising over things and we totally miss the beauty of the moment, imo
Apr 7 2012 at 12:20:22 GMT


rebbonk
Wazza said :

just live your life in the now, this one moment of eternal bliss, we could and do spend years teorising over things and we totally miss the beauty of the moment, imo


Now ain't that a truth?
Miserable old f*cker (MOF) Apr 7 2012 at 15:24:28 GMT


JackSparrow
Yup, but ironically I both couldn't agree more and couldn't disagree more...

For most people yes, absolutely just enjoy the now it's all there ever was or will be, you own it, it's yours and it can never be taken from you.

For the scientists and engineers of the world, hurry up and figure it out already, we have children starving out there that need us to get our act together as a universe and quit being such a fractured head-case! Forget the warp drives, ships in space is a dumb idea... we need Quantum leap accelerators!!
Webmaster of AhoyNoob Apr 7 2012 at 22:32:49 GMT


MrData
The resources available in the immense expanse of unexplored quantum space of the earth will make what humanity has available to it right now look like a single grain of sand in a desert a trillion trillion trillion times larger than Jupiter.
Apr 7 2012 at 22:36:27 GMT


Go To Top

Please login to add reply

Username:
Password: