To: K-list
Recieved: 1999/10/25 01:56
Subject: Re: [K-list] RE: fate, destiny, subtle body and soul
From: Martin Thompson
On 1999/10/25 01:56, Martin Thompson posted thus to the K-list:
20:08:38 Sun, 24 Oct 1999
at PokimontazATnospamaol.com writes:
>Besides memory there are other proofs that the past did occur. Physical
>evidence...whereas the memory is just a mental aspect and subject to
>influence (i.e if someone tells me something enough I may begin to "remember
>it" myself...like something that happened when i was 5). Once the present is
>behind us it becomes the past. The present is like a conveyor belt of time,
>as time passes we ride the present and place things in the past. A foot
>print in the sand can only occur if someone stepped there in the past.
The theory of time I am talking about would suggest otherwise. Not that
the footprint is simply spontaneously present without cause, but that
the entire Universe is spontaneously present - complete with evidence of
a supposed past, because that is a quantum-mechanically "probable"
configuration of particles, for some reason.
Funnily enough, this is the same ridiculous argument that the
creationists use to try and debunk evolution: God could have made the
fossils too. And here I am advocating an argument of the same form.
Sigh.
Anyway, it certainly seems like the past was there, but we shall have to
await the outcome of experiment to see if time is a property of the
Universe or not (experiments are planned, apparently (according to New
Scientist magazine a couple of weeks ago)).
>But even if we didnt comprehend the measurements we would know that
>something that did not happen today happened in the past, which was before
>today.
The knowing is in the mind; the past is not. All we "know" is the
present.
> I know that I have this paper ive written in the past, its sitting
>right here in front of me...granted i dont know how old the paper is but i
>know i wrote it in the past because it is my hand writing, and i'm not
>writing it in the present, and i couldnt have written it in the future
>because the future has yet to occur.
>
You certainly have that knowledge - fake though it may be.
><<The theory of time in physics is more like: it all exists
>simultaneously, but the future may well be able to influence the past
>and therefore the present as well as the present influencing the future
>(and maybe the past too).>
>
>How can something that has not occured affect soemthing that has already
>occured?
This is an apparent consequence of the famous two-slit experiment in
physics. A version of the experiment showing the time paradox
particularly clearly goes as follows:
You have two telescopes lined up pointing at either side of a distant
galaxy. Beyond that galaxy is a quasar or other bright object that we
would not normally be able to see because the galaxy is in the way.
However, the light from the quasar passes the galaxy on either side and
is bent by the galaxy's gravity so it winds up heading towards us rather
than elsewhere (the galaxy acts as a gravitational lens in this
instance): we see a ring of light or a couple of smudges on either side,
depending on how exact the alignment is (gravitational lenses are
actually quite common).
Now we choose a quasar that is so far away that on average we see say
only 1 photon per second from it - they come in one at a time, in other
words. We look through the left-hand telescope and we see on average a
photon per second. We look through the right-hand telescope and we see
on average a photon per second.
Spot the problem? How did the photon, a billion or more years ago when
it left that quasar, know which side of the galaxy to pass so it would
be seen through the appropriate telescope? And no, they are not passing
both sides of the galaxy: if you look through both telescopes at once,
you see a photon arriving one at a time in either one telescope or the
other but not both. If you look through just one, they all arrive
through that one - whichever one it is.
One possible interpretation of this is that your choice of which
telescope to look through now is determining which way that photon set
out from that quasar a billion years ago.
This is a genuine scientific result, repeatable in miniature in any
physics lab. Our everyday understanding of time strongly appears to be
simply wrong.
[Just for laughs: some other possible interpretations of the
experimental result: a) the path the photon takes determines your choice
now rather than the other way around; b) you slip into a parallel
Universe where the photons just happen to be travelling towards the
telescope you are looking through; c) reality is created by the mind,
which is inconsistent about some of the finer details.]
--
Martin Thompson martinATnospamtucana.demon.co.uk
London, UK
Home Page: http://www.tucana.demon.co.uk
Free Regular Income: http://www.virtualis.com/vr/mthomps4/vrp.html
"Everything I do and say with anyone makes a difference." Gita Bellin
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