The Quantum World

[ChiefaRoo]

[FAX]

Originally Posted by mcan

I've actually never studied "Newtonian" time, nor have I heard of M-Theory. Obviously I know about Newtonian Physics and gravity and all that macro stuff that the people in this movie seem to ignore or dispute or even laugh at indignantly. I do try hard not to be rigid in my world view and give any and all thought an equal opportunity to pass my bull-shit test. My intuition tells me, however, that since time is measured in units that are indistinguishable and undefinable except by movement, that really what we are measuring is movement. When we say someone runs a 4.4 second hundred meter dash, what we really mean is that person goes this distance in the same amount of "time" that a clock's second hand moves that distance. So, we can give the illusion of time travel by manipulating distances, but the "past" and the "future" are nothing but conceptual. In fact, the whole notion of "time" is just a simple way of conceptualizing a ratio of two movements. I secretly laugh inside every time I hear someone conceptualize time with some kind of linear structure.

"Newtonian" time is basically a method of thinking of time as a "container" which holds events and stuff, Mr. mcan. Nothing to it, really. But, when you describe your view that time is measured in "units" that is very much like Newtonian time. It's all based on our perception of change ... sun, moon, dick size, etc. As change occurs, we think of the events as being "contained" in a unit of time. I did that then. I'll do this next, etc.

As for M-Theory, this is not the thread to go into all that because Mr. Simplex3 will most likely steal all my ideas (read Beryllium Spheres) and make a whole new thread anyway. Nevertheless, the basic concept of time as a body of water might go something like this ...

Imagine a big water planet. Big oceans and lots of rivers, creeks, and streams and stuff. The water is time. The water is the same in all the lakes and rivers and so forth. The only difference is that some water is in one place and some water is in another. Now, imagine that there are giant beavers who are constantly building dams and tearing down dams and changing dams all over the planet. We will call these our "Time Beavers".

Whenever a Time Beaver changes the flow of water, time itself is modified ... it flows a different direction, or stops flowing, or becomes agitated and eddys are created. The Time Beaver bastards are hard at work making changes, because that's what they do. We live in one of the streams that just so happens to run fairly smoothly in a particular direction so we "perceive" and "observe" time as coming from somewhere, existing in the "now", and moving past us down the stream. As long as we don't have to face the horrible possibility of Time Beavers, that's all we know and all we care to know. Beware the Time Beavers.

FAX

[KC Jones]

The Movie was produced by a new age cult. The lady with the husky voice was actually channeling a warrior priest from 25,000 ago from the lost continent of Mu or some shit like that.

[mcan]

Originally Posted by FAX

"Newtonian" time is basically a method of thinking of time as a "container" which holds events and stuff, Mr. mcan. Nothing to it, really. But, when you describe your view that time is measured in "units" that is very much like Newtonian time. It's all based on our perception of change ... sun, moon, dick size, etc. As change occurs, we think of the events as being "contained" in a unit of time. I did that then. I'll do this next, etc.

As for M-Theory, this is not the thread to go into all that because Mr. Simplex3 will most likely steal all my ideas (read Beryllium Spheres) and make a whole new thread anyway. Nevertheless, the basic concept of time as a body of water might go something like this ...

Imagine a big water planet. Big oceans and lots of rivers, creeks, and streams and stuff. The water is time. The water is the same in all the lakes and rivers and so forth. The only difference is that some water is in one place and some water is in another. Now, imagine that there are giant beavers who are constantly building dams and tearing down dams and changing dams all over the planet. We will call these our "Time Beavers".

Whenever a Time Beaver changes the flow of water, time itself is modified ... it flows a different direction, or stops flowing, or becomes agitated and eddys are created. The Time Beaver bastards are hard at work making changes, because that's what they do. We live in one of the streams that just so happens to run fairly smoothly in a particular direction so we "perceive" and "observe" time as coming from somewhere, existing in the "now", and moving past us down the stream. As long as we don't have to face the horrible possibility of Time Beavers, that's all we know and all we care to know. Beware the Time Beavers.

FAX

The Wiki I just read about Newtonian time explained it a bit differently, but I think I get it. (they said that Newton saw time the same way we think of it on a timeline) Events are "contained" between a beginning and an hypothetical end and are infinately divisable much like space is infinately divisable on a line. But he saw "real" time as very much an entitity that all events had to pass through flowing from the future through the present and funneling into the past.

My personal belief is that this is an illusion at best, and is just plain stupidity at worst. That's how film works... Not life.

As for the Beaver analogy. The idea that there are more dimensions to ANYTHING, whether it be space or time is interesting for sure. It's tough to take thought like that out of the conceptual (spiritual?) and into the practical though. Basically, it could never be a valid theory because it's not falsifiable. You'ld just have to wait for some revalation to come along and prove it.

[mcan]

Originally Posted by KC Jones

The Movie was produced by a new age cult. The lady with the husky voice was actually channeling a warrior priest from 25,000 ago from the lost continent of Mu or some shit like that.

Not really produced by those people. It was concieved, and put together, and funded by three different people who were interested in finding out more about these wacky aspects to science... You're right though, that lady is out there. In the movie, they don't show her talking about her invisible friend, but she comes off as spooky and just taking herself a bit too seriously. But then you watch the full interview on the disc, and about 2/3s of all of those guys come off as crazy people with a new age religion to sell me.

BUT! Even those people do have a few cool thoughts bouncing around in there, and the other 1/3 are great to listen to.

[tiptap]

The observer in Quantum theory is NOT an intelligence that directs existence. And to borrow from the water analogy from Fax, time does flow and you might get back eddies, when time runs backward. And at very small scale this is more likely to find volumes that this is the case. And the wave characteristics of matter is not found in intensity but is related to the wavelength. The observer was the interception of the wave function and asking for information such as which slit the particle went through. One had set up an experiment that ascertained by collapsing the wave function for its position. Not the scientist that set up the experiment.

As far as the example given between the cortical and finger stimulus example, most brain response to stimuli is cascaded and a single stimulus at the brain does not duplicate the input from the nerve stimulus in the finger.

[Groves]

Get ye to a video store and rent this: PRIMER

[ChiefaRoo]

My God there are some intelligent and thoughtful people on this board. I knew it! Good read fellas (even you tip toe).

[Extra Point]

Dr. Quantum's no Trip Fisk!!!!