• Philosophy and Stuff
    42 replies, posted
So I'm super stoned and want to talk physics, metaphysics, philosophy with you all. It'd be cool if we didn't shoot down each other's ideas, just threw out our own crazy theories about things that there is no scientific way to prove at the moment. This could be fun and very revealing/eye opening. I'd like to start off suggesting people give their ideas of what time is. I tend to think of time as not a single directional line, but rather a non-existent plan that allows our mind to exist, essentially the fourth dimension. Like the ability to think and imagine and create is all made possible by time. It's the processing of actions via your brain, which of course everything takes X amount of time to process much like a computer. Time stops existing when you stop thinking, which is impossible unless dead. Does your "soul" (Assuming you believe in us having one in one way or another) still exist outside of the confines of our mind, thus freeing us in a way of the restrictions of time. Everything just is, everything already happened, is happening and will happen all at once, in a way we can't understand in any possible way as a human, because it's outside of our realm of imagination. Maybe I'm just crazy...
Too much honors for you. And shouldn't you be in bed? [editline]04:48AM[/editline] Also, you're going along the lines that time can be seen as a point which is more or less a common theory. A typical one is that our perception of time is just our mind's way of interpreting the 4th dimension, and of course I mean the 4th dimension as in time being a single point. The 10th dimension series talks a lot about these kind of concepts. [editline]05:42AM[/editline] I did a decent thinking about what creatures in other dimensions would see, I can't at all imagine the 4th for obvious reasons, but I can imagine the first and second. A second dimensional creature would simply lines with no height obviously, which is hard to imagine. A better way to describe it, is it would be able to see an infinite string of points, individual points could be thought about, but would not be possible in the world, just as completely 2d or 1d objects are not possible in our world. Now a second dimension being would only be able to tell depth from the width of an object, and whatever the object was would take up as much space in the creatures field of view. [img]http://filesmelt.com/dl/2dex.png[/img] Imagine the circle is a 2d creature and the red line is its field of view. The black lines are objects. What the create would see is just black. There would be no way for the creature to determine that what it is seeing is not a continuous segment but instead lines by simply observing. It would literally have to feel the walls. A 2D create looking at a spherical shape will just see a line. Because of this, there would essentially be no way for the creature to tell other creatures apart based on appearer apart because they'd all appear to have a similar form. Color would be one way to differentiate objects visually (or at least that I can think of). [img] http://filesmelt.com/dl/2dex1.png[/img] So imagine that this black line is miles and miles away from the creature and the creature can only move at human walking speed. This creature would have no way of telling how far the black line was away simply by looking at it straight on. But one method it could use to tell how far it is away would be by going closer to the object and rotating and seeing where the black object ends. The more rotation needed, the closer the creature is, to the point where the creature would know that it was really close if it had to turn almost 90 degrees to stop seeing the object. Another simple scenario is that a creature placed in a black colored circle would only ever see black in that circle as long as the circle was bigger than the creature itself. The size of the circle would not impact this. Now imagining what a 1 dimensional creature isn't too difficult. It would only be able to see a one dimensional point which would encompass its whole vision. I need to stress that we can't don't know what seeing just a point would be like, but we can imagine it as one color taking up our whole vision. Now, this creature's position is fixed, it cannot rotate and will always be seeing in a straight path, and in a 1 dimensional universe, all objects would be contained in this straight path. The creature would either be a point or a line, only two possible options. If an point or a line was in front of this creature, that is all the creature will ever see. The distance away does not matter. If a black point is in front of the creature and it is 1 trillion miles away, that one point will be the only thing the creature can see. The creature could come into contact with the point (it could only touch a point on a line) by traveling towards it and it would affect that point or line's position. That point that lies in front of the it is all the creature will ever see no matter what. If there is nothing in front of the creature, the creature will never see anything and will never come into contact with anything. One must ask themselves with this situation, how would this creature know if it was traveling towards something? I don't believe it could based on sight. I believe these thoughts are pretty accurate. It is impossible to visualize what the lower dimensional creatures would truly see as we can't imagine what a string of points or a single point would look like (all of our representation for it are in three dimensions), but we can good a good grasp on our own interpretation of what they would see.
Think about this: The only reason time moves forward is because we only remember the past.
Our memory of the past has nothing to do with the direction of time. When we are dead and have no memory, time will continue.
[QUOTE=Pepin;24913403]Our memory of the past has nothing to do with the direction of time. When we are dead and have no memory, time will continue.[/QUOTE] Time is a purely relative concept, you can't prove that time moves continually in a specific direction except relative to our own frame of perception. Just a thought experiment: If time moved backwards, would you be able to notice, let alone prove it? Remember, the same rules of nature apply, and you can still only remember your past (which would be your present). Assuming that time is linear, one could observe any still point on the timeline and people would still believe that time moves forwards (if they exist). In short, time is conceptual and is useful but not universal.
Yes, if time were to go into reverse we'd know, astronomers would most definitely know because the universe which is expanding at a predictable rate would have somehow changed. What defines time? I'm making the argument that the spacial locations of the elementary particles with relation to each other define a unique instance of time. There can never be two instances of time that are the same because the universe is in a constant state of expansion. Yes, I'm arguing that time is dependent on position. To be more precise about what I mean by position, the unique three dimensional location of the elementary particles with relation to other particles. What may make it easier to say is the location of all particles with respect to the location of the big bang as all particles are started from that point.
So what if every day was the same day in time just different actions and what has already happened stays that way. Thus making time only an illusion =o
[QUOTE=Pepin;24913925]Yes, if time were to go into reverse we'd know, astronomers would most definitely know because the universe which is expanding at a predictable rate would have somehow changed. What defines time? I'm making the argument that the spacial locations of the elementary particles with relation to each other define a unique instance of time. There can never be two instances of time that are the same because the universe is in a constant state of expansion. Yes, I'm arguing that time is dependent on position. To be more precise about what I mean by position, the unique three dimensional location of the elementary particles with relation to other particles. What may make it easier to say is the location of all particles with respect to the location of the big bang as all particles are started from that point.[/QUOTE] I totally agree, what I'm talking about is that if time was reversed, sped up, slowed down, or changed to a completely different point in time, that still would not change our human frame of perception in any given instant, and so "time" as something continuous with a certain speed and relative value is something that is relative to how our brain perceives reality. If time was to instantly jump forward 2 hours, for example, you would still remember everything that happened in between, even if it never happened. That is, assuming a deterministic universe (if you even need to assume that, but some people don't like the idea). [editline]09:02PM[/editline] [QUOTE=acer8;24921687]So what if every day was the same day in time just different actions and [b]what has already happened stays that way.[/b][/QUOTE] Well then there's really no point in calling it "the same day", because it's different.
[QUOTE=Pepin;24913925]Yes, if time were to go into reverse we'd know, astronomers would most definitely know because the universe which is expanding at a predictable rate would have somehow changed. What defines time? I'm making the argument that the spacial locations of the elementary particles with relation to each other define a unique instance of time. There can never be two instances of time that are the same because the universe is in a constant state of expansion. Yes, I'm arguing that time is dependent on position. To be more precise about what I mean by position, the unique three dimensional location of the elementary particles with relation to other particles. What may make it easier to say is the location of all particles with respect to the location of the big bang as all particles are started from that point.[/QUOTE] Well I believe that if time were to stop for everyone, everywhere, and then start again, it would not be able to be noticed by humans. Does this make sense?
god why the fuck are all the stoners here armchair-whatevers, do we have nothing better to do?
[QUOTE=FoodStuffs;24926809]god why the fuck are all the stoners here armchair-whatevers, do we have nothing better to do?[/QUOTE] :irony:
what if god was one of us?
time can't go "backwards". the universe has a constant velocity in the dimension of time, and time is constrained by the laws of physics just as much as physics are constrained by the laws of time.
[QUOTE=Poo Monst3r;24927360]what if god was one of us?[/QUOTE] Would he be a stranger on a bus, trying to make his way home?
[QUOTE=Lenni;24927151]:irony:[/QUOTE] if you read over my posts i admit to being an armchair pharmacist that commentary included myself as well
I'm an [i]armchair armchair[/i]. :c00lbert:
im an armchair gnome. i live in your armchair. and sit on your arm when youre sitting in your chair when youre not looking
[i]Get off me!!![/i]
Why and how were we the species that created all artificial things that are present today? [editline]09:22PM[/editline] If a human 100,000 years ago was able to think coherently and non-instinctively, would he be able to imagine what we have accomplished today?
[QUOTE=Kyle v3;24928313]Would he be a stranger on a bus, trying to make his way home?[/QUOTE] ...just a slob like one of us...
[QUOTE=Meader;24925698]Well I believe that if time were to stop for everyone, everywhere, and then start again, it would not be able to be noticed by humans. Does this make sense?[/QUOTE] Yes because if you are to think about it, if time were to stop, all of the elementary particles will have remained in their same exact position, and upon the continuation of time nothing would be noticed because nothing had changed. Imagine someone made some contraption to stop time, so he stopped time and he didn't think it through and he was stopped in time as well. Life would not go on, any living being would not noticed time stopped, it would just be a snapshot of one instance of time. Speaking of stopping time, I'm going to argue that the act of stopped time would require a device capable of applying a force to all elementary particles in the opposite vector they are traveling in with the same magnitude (this will make everything stop and freeze, the universe would be at a complete state of rest). How this device would unfreeze time would be simply getting rid of the force.
[QUOTE=stupid10er;24930708]Why and how were we the species that created all artificial things that are present today? [editline]09:22PM[/editline] If a human 100,000 years ago was able to think coherently and non-instinctively, would he be able to imagine what we have accomplished today?[/QUOTE] Well, two things. One, no. Two, yes. No, he himself would not be able to imagine EVERYTHING that we have now. It takes one invention (such as electricity) to imagine other inventions (Such as the computer, ext.), that require them. He might be able to imagine one thing, but it would probably take other minds (Like what really happened) to really figure out each thing. So if they had billions of people back then, all thinking scientifically and all sharing ideas, then it would be plausible in an extremely hypothetical way. [editline]10:13PM[/editline] [QUOTE=Pepin;24931529]Yes because if you are to think about it, if time were to stop, all of the elementary particles will have remained in their same exact position, and upon the continuation of time nothing would be noticed because nothing had changed. Imagine someone made some contraption to stop, so he stopped time and he didn't think it through and he was stopped in time as well. Life would not go on, any living being would not noticed time stopped, it would just be a snapshot of one instance of time. Speaking of stopping time, I'm going to argue that the act of stopped time would require a device capable of applying a force to all elementary particles in the opposite vector they are traveling in with the same magnitude (this will make everything stop and freeze, the universe would be at a complete state of rest). How this device would unfreeze time would be simply getting rid of the force.[/QUOTE] :worship: Pepin, you are a genius sir.
[QUOTE=stupid10er;24930708]Why and how were we the species that created all artificial things that are present today? [editline]09:22PM[/editline] If a human 100,000 years ago was able to think coherently and non-instinctively, would he be able to imagine what we have accomplished today?[/QUOTE] I don't think I quite understand what you're confused about. According to evolutionists humans were given much larger brains through a genetic flaw that allowed for a more complex thought patterns. It gave us the ability to make intricate languages and skill of reasoning. Through this, we are able to rationalize and discover the principals of the universe, and exploit them. As far as your second question, no, because what we have accomplished in this day in age isn't anything fathomable to those that who do not have knowledge. A being can come to understand the different aspects of science and understand how they are applied through being taught with being knowledgeable.
Wow I was just schooled. :eng99:
[QUOTE=Pepin;24931793]I don't think I quite understand what you're confused about. According to evolutionists humans were given much larger brains through a genetic flaw that allowed for a more complex thought patterns. It gave us the ability to make intricate languages and skill of reasoning. Through this, we are able to rationalize and discover the principals of the universe, and exploit them. As far as your second question, no, because what we have accomplished in this day in age isn't anything fathomable to those that who do not have knowledge. A being can come to understand the different aspects of science and understand how they are applied through being taught with being knowledgeable.[/QUOTE] We didn't get bigger brains, just ones with more wrinkles and more abilities. Size is irrelevant when talking about brains. Actually, there's a study out there proving that human brains are shrinking in area. Some people attribute this to us becoming stupid (Such as in Idiocracy if you've ever seen that) and others say it's a good thing because it's like we're taking all this information (and people are getting smarter and smarter, especially this next generation and the current one with the introduction of the internet and readily available information so easy to access), and we're putting it into a smaller space. Much like a computer chip, we'll shorten our think time, as the pulses have less space to travel (much like shortening the bus time on a computer chip).
The human brain can almost always be compared to a computer, and it works as a good nerd-analogy. I mean, think of the biggest computers back when they first came out. They were basically room-sized calculators. Now we have those Acer laptops that can do so many functions and are tiny tiny, or calculators inside a watch! A larger size doesn't mean more complex thought patterns, just means it's larger. It's the ability, not the size (wait, are we still talking about computers and brains?).
Computers are nothing like brains in my opinion. If you've looked at neural networks you can see the massive difference.
[QUOTE=Dan The Man;24982164]Computers are nothing like brains in my opinion. If you've looked at neural networks you can see the massive difference.[/QUOTE] I'm not saying they are the same thing. I'm saying they have similarities and are comparable in a lot of ways. Most people will understand a computer analogy over a brain analogy. I do know they are very different, I mean the brain uses chemicals and talks to it's other parts in very different ways than anything else in the world. I was simply using an analogy.
I know. The analogy is appropriate to explain either in a simple way but I was just clarifying how much more complex the brain is. For example, they recently discovered that the same neuron can be looped in a message in the brain more than once. This further complicates neural traffic.
[QUOTE=Pepin;24894404] I did a decent thinking about what creatures in other dimensions would see, I can't at all imagine the 4th for obvious reasons [/QUOTE] I can. You can see the front, sides, AND back of something, in a way we can't perceive. Think about it. A 2D creature wouldn't be able to perceive the 3rd dimension, as it would only see the front of something. No sides, no third dimension. It COULD however say "What if we could see the side of things too?" It wouldn't know what it would look like, but it could come to that conclusion as an idea.
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