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Nature of Time

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Nature of Time
Post by MAD-4A   » Thu Mar 30, 2017 10:16 am

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On another board I was discussing the movie The Final Countdown about the USS Nimitz finding itself back on December 6th 1941 and trying to stop Perl Harbor. Everyone began spouting off "Parallel Universe" ideas, Nuking Hitler etc...

The question here is:
What is the nature of Time?

The point I made is that there is no empirical evidence that any timeline other than ours exists. There are no known cases (I'm aware of) of someone who 'just appeared from no-where' with no known history and did something to change historical events. According to space-time theory, time is just another dimension of space (the "4th"), which means it only has 2 directions forward and backward there is no "sideways in time" think of a piece of paper - it is 2 dimensional you can go 1) up and down or 2) left and right, or both (diagonal) there is no way to move on the 1) Up-Down dimension except up and down, you can't move side-to-side in the 1) Up-Down dimension, you would be moving in the 2) Side-to-Side dimension. So, if time is a "4th" dimension then you can only move 2 direction in it 4) forward and backwards - not 5) side to side. Does this mean there are no "parallel universes" "beside" us in time? or is time the "2nd" super-dimension with Space (all 3 directions) being the "1st" super-dimension and the 2 overlap? or is there a 5th 'side-to-side-in-time" dimension, in which case it would stand to reason that there is also a 6th 'up-down-in-time' dimension as well.
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Re: Nature of Time
Post by The E   » Thu Mar 30, 2017 11:23 am

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Here's some necessary reading material for you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worl ... rpretation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel

There are basically three parts to your question. One, do parallel worlds exist, two, do parallel worlds interact, and three, is movement through time reversible.

There is a whole bunch of very deep and profoundly weird science on this matter, basically, and some of it suggests that parallel universes do exist and that there are interactions between them (albeit on a subatomic level; none of that "transport one whole human from one world to another" business).

As for time travel, well. There are interpretations of the theory of relativity that allow backwards time travel, but until we have a theory of quantum gravity that bridges the gap between quantum effects and relativity, we won't know for sure.
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Re: Nature of Time
Post by MAD-4A   » Thu Mar 30, 2017 1:40 pm

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My question is regarding the actual nature of time, what do we know about the actual nature of time, is it linear or multi-dimensional?

The E wrote:There is a whole bunch of very deep and profoundly weird science on this matter, basically, and some of it suggests that parallel universes do exist and that there are interactions between them (albeit on a subatomic level; none of that "transport one whole human from one world to another" business).

exactly what evidence?
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Almost only counts in Horseshoes and Nuclear Weapons. I almost got the Hand-Grenade out the window does not count.
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Re: Nature of Time
Post by The E   » Thu Mar 30, 2017 3:15 pm

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MAD-4A wrote:exactly what evidence?


Have you read the articles I linked to? One interpretation of the double-slit experiment (which is one of the core experiments regarding the particle/wave duality of photons) is that the observed results are due to interferences between the various variants of a photon that exist in parallel universes.

But it's very much a theory that is way out there and not exactly easy to confirm one way or another. Point being, we do not know anything about whether or not interactions between universes are possible; however, if they are, they're going to happen on scales unusable for the sci-fi trope of a person suddenly being in a parallel universe.

I mean, if many-worlds is true, parallel universes would be basically indistinguishable from each other anyway, with most alterations being on the subatomic level.
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Re: Nature of Time
Post by Michael Everett   » Thu Mar 30, 2017 11:45 pm

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MAD-4A wrote:My question is regarding the actual nature of time, what do we know about the actual nature of time, is it linear or multi-dimensional?

Yes.
And no.
At the same time.
(Probably)
~~~~~~

I can't write anywhere near as well as Weber
But I try nonetheless, And even do my own artwork.

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Re: Nature of Time
Post by MAD-4A   » Fri Mar 31, 2017 10:16 am

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The E wrote:Have you read the articles I linked to?
Those weren't articles they were wikis - not considered scholarly.

The E wrote:One interpretation ...
But it's very much a theory that is way out there and not exactly easy to confirm one way or another...

Hypothesis rather than theory (people misuse that word a lot)
The E wrote:we do not know anything about whether or not interactions between universes are possible...
or if they exist at all. If they don't exist then there can be no interaction.

The E wrote:I mean, if many-worlds is true, parallel universes would be basically indistinguishable from each other anyway, with most alterations being on the subatomic level.


No, the point is that IF they do exist, then anything that can happen will happen somewhen. So there would be an infinite number of universes exactly like this one, even down to the sub atomic level - where everybody has a double exactly like them doing exactly the same things, there would also be an infinite number of universes where the Earth never formed - no Earth, no Sun, no humans absolutely everything we know, does not exist - completely alien. There would also be an infinite number of universes existing with every possibility in-between, and beyond, each and every one having an infinite number of exact replicas, stretching out into the infinite time to each "side" and "above/below" in the 5th and 6th dimensions.
Point is - either there is only 1 dimension of time forward/backward and only 1 time-line - ours - or there are an infinite^2 number of paralleled universes (infinite possibilities an infinite number of times) "beside", "below" and "above" us in the other 2 (yet undemonstrated) dimensions of time running "parallel" to us.

An odd irony - if that is the case then even though an infinite number of universes will be (as you say) identical to ours, which is a big number (the biggest) it is actually a miniscule % of the total (infinite) number of universes that would exist - infinite=I & (this exact universe)=E1 so E1=(I/(I^2))=(1/I) or infinitesimal
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Re: Nature of Time
Post by The E   » Fri Mar 31, 2017 10:35 am

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MAD-4A wrote:
The E wrote:Have you read the articles I linked to?
Those weren't articles they were wikis - not considered scholarly.


Dude, if you want to get scholarly articles, there's a master's degree in quantum mechanics you need to acquire first.

Point is - either there is only 1 dimension of time forward/backward and only 1 time-line - ours - or there are an infinite^2 number of paralleled universes (infinite possibilities an infinite number of times) "beside", "below" and "above" us in the other 2 (yet undemonstrated) dimensions of time running "parallel" to us.


Uhhhh, yes? That's the basic theory here, why are you restating it?
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Re: Nature of Time
Post by MAD-4A   » Fri Mar 31, 2017 10:38 am

MAD-4A
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Michael Everett wrote:
MAD-4A wrote:My question is regarding the actual nature of time, what do we know about the actual nature of time, is it linear or multi-dimensional?

Yes.
And no.
At the same time.
(Probably)

Sorry - It's either 1 dimensional or multi-dimensional - it can't be both - you can't have exactly 1 donut and multiple donuts at the same time, and it is time so it can't be "at the same time" either.
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Almost only counts in Horseshoes and Nuclear Weapons. I almost got the Hand-Grenade out the window does not count.
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Re: Nature of Time
Post by robert132   » Fri Mar 31, 2017 3:28 pm

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What is time?

I dunno, I'll let ya know when I get to the end.
****

Just my opinion of course and probably not worth the paper it's not written on.
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Re: Nature of Time
Post by dscott8   » Fri Mar 31, 2017 5:29 pm

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I think of time as a process. At any given time, all sorts of things could happen, some more probable than others. In the next 1 second, Scarlett Johansson could knock on my door looking for a hot date.

One second is up. No Scarlett. But in that second, a bird did tweet outside my window, which is another of the things that could have happened. That action persists, and the non-happening possibilities see their probability function for that second in time collapse. They do not persist, and I see no reason to believe that in some alternate timeline, Scarlett Johansson came looking to jump my bones. Probably will not happen in the next second either..... nope.
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