The Nature of the Universe, Time Travel and More...

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Travelling at c is timeless as you state.

Einsteinian relativity implies a block universe, so the "time capsule" would remain visible. The past and the future also exist, which implies there is no free will. One might think one has free will, but one was always going to think that.

 

[Will The Serious]

One might think one has free will, but one was always going to think that.

By this, you mean the physics and dynamics of the universe had led inexorably to to formation of life, it's evolution into intelligence and the causal effects of its environment that has led us, as an example, to believe we make choices of our own, but don't really?

Pythagoras, Parmenides, Plato and others have long felt this was true, mostly. However, one proposition for free will was that, while we can not extract ourselves from the above movements of the Universe, we can choose to recognize our circumstance as subjects in a causality, or we can be asleep to the nature of our condition. Either way, we can not change anything about it. A very interesting position to hold. We have free will, but we cannot change our actions.

-Will

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

The following video puts forth a good argument for why free will is illusory. Of course, you might choose not to accept it or even watch it, but you would have done that anyway.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

For those who cite the randomness of quantum mechanics as somehow a get-out to allow free will (it doesn't as a physical object made of fundamental particles, such as a brain, cannot affect a random process), superdeterminism would mean that even quantum mechanics is deterministic. Here's another video explaining this from Sabine, who is a leading proponent:

Of course, there is no compunction to watch this video. However, it won't stop reality from being as bizarre as it already is. Unfortunately, if the assumed underlying correlations in superdeterminism have existed all the way back to the Big Bang, there is no way to test the theory. Why should we believe that the Universe should play fair?

 

[Will The Serious]

It's easy to envisage other universes, governed by slightly different laws of physics, in which no intelligent life, nor indeed any kind of organized complex systems, could arise. Should we therefore be surprised that a universe exists in which we were able to emerge?

https://www.sciencealert.com/were-e...-or-there-really-are-many-universes-out-there
If we consider a deterministic Universe governed by immutable physical laws, such as Sabine is talking about, there should be no other options to an alternate universe. An unchanged condition, exactly the same energy distributed in exactly the same way, will result in only one outcome for a newly created universe. Actually, if there was a way to prove that there are divergent alternate realities, that would be a very strong argument for Free Will.

If we next consider other possible universes that could not support our existence, the question of another universe that couldn't support life and intelligence would never have this question asked of them. Only a universe, such as ours would ever undergo such questions and scrutiny. By this perspective, our existence is predetermined, simply by the same concept as in the Two Slit experiment. Our universe is the only slit we can measure, therefore it will always be the universe that supports intelligence. It can not be any other way.

When there is nothing, no time, it is exactly the same as having infinite time, just as everything being absent, zero, is exactly the same as everything being only one thing. A cosmos that is empty, timeless, with no energy, isn't measurably or phenomenally different that a cosmos that is filled completely with only one thing, all time, and infinite energy. Nothing should conceivably happen to change its form. Yet, here we are. Organization out of formlessness.

-Will

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Superdeterminism doesn't preclude a many-worlds interpretation as slightly varying starting conditions lead to different outcomes. There is also the possibility of an anti-matter universe precisely mirroring each matter universe but going opposite directions in time relative to each other from their big bang. Denizens of each universe would perceive time in the same direction as entropy increasing in their universe. There has to be a point of minimum entropy somewhere in state space and the Big Bang seems to be it. Our brains work because entropy increases and so we perceive the arrow of time in that direction. There is no need to ask why the Big Bang arose because it is the natural origin of time. If eternal inflation is occurring, there would be infinitely many big bangs and each one would be shared by infinite universes - infinities upon infinities but all of cardinality ℵ0. However, such speculations are likely to be unfalsifiable so it's all metaphysics. People are uncomfortable with thinking that they are not unique - possibly due to the attraction of believing we're somehow special and that our existence has "meaning".

 

[Will The Serious]

Superdeterminism doesn't preclude a many-worlds interpretation as slightly varying starting conditions lead to different outcomes

This is the salient question here. Slightly varying conditions means something before a Big Bang. Of course you said as much.

If eternal inflation is occurring, there would be infinitely many big bangs

Lots of beginnings, but no one beginning of all.

There is no need to ask why the Big Bang arose because it is the natural origin of time.

As evidence by? Existence!

When we delve deeper into origins and first cause questions we begin to see it is turtles all the way down.

-Will

 

[XCV330]

dryson

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

This is the salient question here. Slightly varying conditions means something before a Big Bang. Of course you said as much.

The initial conditions could be random. They don't need to be set up and there is no need for a before. I'm thinking of something like the Hartle-Hawking model of a boundary-less universe.

Lots of beginnings, but no one beginning of all.

Perhaps, but it's likely untestable. Not sure I accept inflation theory anyway. It's a bit of a problematic hack, and alternatives have been proposed.

As evidence by? Existence!

Time did not exist for particles until the electroweak symmetry breaking. Time is likely an emergent phenomenon as the Wheeler–DeWitt equation suggests.

When we delve deeper into origins and first cause questions we begin to see it is turtles all the way down.

Well, it keeps theoretical physicists in work and off the streets. Experimental physicists, not so much...

 

[Will The Serious]

After 5 long years of studying, a student comes rushing into Einstein's office shouting...
"Sir, Sir, I finally understand your theory of Special Relativity!"
Einstein rolls his eyes, "It's about time".
https://www.boredpanda.com/long-jokes/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

-Will

 

[Will The Serious]

https://www.inverse.com/science/time-slit-experiment
Are light particles/waves capable of time travel?

-Will

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Maxwell's equations yield both retarded (forward in time) and advanced (backwards in time) solutions for EM wave propagation. The reasons given as to why we only detect the former are quite hand wavey and not terribly convincing.

 

[Will The Serious]

The reasons given as to why we only detect the former are quite hand wavey and not terribly convincing.

It may be that once a direction was picked, that remains the one perceived, like choosing a slit in a two slit experiment to measure. We read the past, but we perceive the future. Either way, we don't experience either. Only the now moment.

-Will

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

The thing is both directions are allowed mathematically but all the energy emitted by an accelerated electron as EM radiation only appears to go in one. I don't know why other than to state that it seems energy/information is not allowed by our universe to travel backwards in time. Your explanation certainly sounds plausible, but it might contain a circular logic flaw - such arguments about time often do. I'm also not a fan of participatory universe or observer effect explanations as there is nothing intrinsically special about any human and I see no evidence that state vector reduction aka wave function collapse is a real thing. I've given up attempting to consider such matters deeply as I fear it might make me feel as depressed as Ludwig Boltzmann became considering them and he was an actual genius.

 

[Will The Serious]

Your explanation certainly sounds plausible, but it might contain a circular logic flaw - such arguments about time often do.

The most plausible explanation might be, we defined forward in time based upon our existence in time. What would it look like to us if we actually perceived time in reverse? Our actions would still be based upon a history, so those moments in time that have passed, for us. Cause and effect would still reign, never effect then cause. Excepting in the exceptions of perception.

-Will

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

We experience a universe where entropy increases and our cognition requires processes where entropy increases. However, the correlation of the perceived arrow of time with increasing entropy is just a correlation. The second law of thermodynamics is statistical - on rare occasions it does not apply. Physical laws are otherwise time reversible. I suspect some form of mathematics where a directional arrow is built into one dimension might be a suitable tool to describe our universe but it would not explain why we find ourselves embedded within it - perhaps it's another example of the anthropic principle.

Considering such matters possibly drove Boltzmann to commit suicide because he could not resolve the inherent paradoxes. Natural language is definitely inadequate for describing such things. It reminds me of Janeway's comment on Voyager about time travel.

"Since my first day on the job as a Starfleet captain I swore I'd never let myself get caught in one of these godforsaken paradoxes - the future is the past, the past is the future, it all gives me a headache."

 

[XCV330]

from a cynical point of view forward-time progression could be seen as a bit of exposed framework in a holographic universe wherein it is necessary for the creators to glean useful data.

If you were setting up a virtual world and could control all the primary parameters of a universe in its initial moment, you might only want to observe causation from what we would naturally regard as "forward". This happens because that happened. There might be other reasons to observe time as a flat tableau (where any suspected "time' is an observer effect, only, spherical, multi-arcing, super-convex etc. And we may have it totally wrong just by, as Asbo says, the limitation of our brains.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I suspect all pasts and all futures exist and what we experience as consciousness threads its way through those possibilities. Now, as to whether there are multiple threads of our consciousness, I couldn't say. I also suspect consistent history interpretations of quantum mechanics are not quite right. My instinct is that the consistency is probabilistic at best. This could be an explanation for the oft-reported Mandela effect that I have experienced personally several times:

• Dolly, Jaws' girlfriend in Moonraker, having metal braces on her teeth - but apparently not even though it was a good joke as a reveal
• The Duchess of Kent having died - she's still alive
• Bill Beaumont having died - he's still alive
• The Flixborough explosion happening on a Friday and causing many deaths - it happened on a Saturday and caused fewer
• The Fruit of the Loom logo depicting a cornucopia (horn of plenty) - apparently, it never has
• Rich Uncle Pennybags, the Monopoly man, sporting a monocle - he doesn't
  
• Pikachu’s tail having a black tip - it doesn't
  
• Darth Vader saying "Luke, I am your father" - actually, "No, I am your father"
  
• C-3PO being all gold in Star Wars - he has one silver leg
  
• The wicked Queen in Snow White saying, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?" - actually, “Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?" so where did the Star Trek episode title originate?
  
• Queen sing "We Are the Champions… of the world" at the end of We are the champions" - actually ends "We are the champions"

For myself, I find it hard to put every one of these down to a failing or bad memory, especially when other people share these memories. However, it's not science unless conflicting physical records exist.

 

[Will The Serious]

There are certain social archetypes, that get built into a culture's mind, that have an effect upon the models we build of our world. These things are probably the best evidence of a common mental mechanism outside of a physical structure to our brains. People think in the same way. Therefore, the same experiences lead us all to the same models (I really should say, the same experiences lead us all to the same models. Therefore, people think in the same way).

As strongly social creatures, we also take our cues from each other. An idea put forth by one person gets embraced by others until that meme circles back around and we begin getting multiple reinforcing sources for a single thought.

-Will

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Yes, memory is unreliable, but some of the things I remember so clearly that I feel shocked when I encounter the "truth". The Moonraker example is strong with me as I found the scene particularly memorable in 1979. However, I don't experience the archetypal Mandela effect - I don't remember him dying in prison in the 1980s. I suspect some fundamental aspect of reality underlies some reports of this effect, but it's rendered implausible by the lack of evidence and the limitations of human cognition.