How do we know what is and isn't real?

Good Wheeler quotes----which I really wanted to speak to (where did you come across them?).

In the first quote you can see that Wheeler understood that the experiment indicates that the observation effects the past. Science has a hard time dealing with the observer and therefore, like so many scientists before him, he reverts to the collapse of the potentiality wave, as in Schrodinger's Cat-----just as I explained in the Schrodinger cat thread a few weeks back.

But Wheeler's experiment adds the past---which was a whole new problem. As I stated in the other thread, I have a hard time accepting that there are so many potential universes out there, and which universe you are in all depends on which way you observed a myriad of particles. But now Wheeler proposes that there is as many past universes once again, depending on what past you observe. Conceivably the number of past universes would increase at an exponential rate just as those of the future do.

In my suggestion, since the point of Now is when everything converges to create reality, and it is this Now that is the only thing that exists, then it must also be that the the 4th Dimension converges at this point of Now with the physical 3-Dimensions. A single particle/wave of light in the 4th Dimension exists as a single infinitely small flash where all of time occurs simultaneously. At the point of Now that particle/wave collapses into a particle because its position is suddenly determined by that very interaction of Now, since it exists in the 4th dimension, then that photon must suddenly, and simultaneously exist at all points back to its last source as a particle. The Now, in this sense is our peek into the 4th Dimension. In Wheeler's experiment, the delayed observation takes place, and it appears to be affecting the past, but it is only the Now that is changed, but for those particles within the matrix of Now, the change occurs in the 4th dimension and therefore 'appears' to be in the past.

This explanation takes away the relativism of the past, because it doesn't change the past. The past happened with a different set of Nows, and anything outside of those Nows did not physically exist by definition of my second principal. The form that created the phenomena of those past Nows continued to produce light in the 4th dimension, which was percieved in later Nows by later observers. But because the source is form existing in the 4th dimension, and everything there is simultaneous--the past must affect the present just as much as the present affects the past.

Our own existential freedom must therefore exist at the center of a delicate balance between the form and forces (light energy) of the past affecting the present, and those of the present affecting the past. In reality it is all just one great massive, yet infinitely small, instant----and mind, even as it manifests at the individual level, as it thrusts itself into the three dimensions of physical reality (in other words, into the realm of sub-light speed) must transcend the past and present in order to give us the freedom to manipulate the future. The paradox is that since it is a single instant in the 4th dimension, the past and present are already set by the future we are creating. We still have the existential risk of destroying our lives or enriching them---we are free to make the choices----but the result of those choices are already set in the world of form that is the 4th dimension beyond the Now, as the past; and as the present beyond the Now.

 

This reminds me of a book I have by Gary Schwartz, Ph.D., and Linda Russek, Ph.D., titled, The Living Energy Universe. They speak of a universal living memory where even particles themselves retain memory. In one part of the book they talk about various transplant patients who experience personality changes in line with the person whose organ they received, and a medical doctor/widow who met the recipient of her deceased husband's heart. She could feel her husband's living presence within this individual. When she asked him how he was doing, he used a nonsense word---a code word---that her husband (also a medical doctor) and her always used to say that everything was OK.

 

I'm having difficulty visualizing this. I understand if we look out at a star in the sky, we are seeing it in the past. Are there any examples on the macroscopic level of the universe where it's not going to take time for that light to travel, which would lead you to believe this?

 

What if the universe has already ended and we just haven't seen it yet. 0.o

 

Considering we are part of the universe, we know it hasn't ended yet.

Perhaps it could collapse in on itself or some type of destructive force could take time to envelope the universe. I think scientists have measures which suggest the universe is still expanding though.

 

Oh alright professor. What if the universe is ending.

 

Ha, I don't know? I guess the observations made would be off then. I doubt there is much we could do at this point. I think scientists primarily rely on redshift as well as the observations of galaxies moving apart from each other to suggest it's still expanding.

I guess it's hypothesized the universe may cool down to a point near absolute zero sometime, which would basically make all forms of life impossible, stars could not manufacture energy and the whole thing crashes in on itself as a Big Crunch.

Dark Matter and Dark Energy compose most the universe though and there is alot of uncertainity in what it actually is and does, so perhaps things are not as grim as The Big Crunch scenario.

 

"we'll just kiss and say good bye..."

lol

 

i would go so far as to say that it's been ending since the big bang but that depends on what you call the "end" ... in something like a googel years (10^100 years) the universe will probably consist of mostly black holes and eventually the black holes will evaporate through hawking radiation but at that point it gets really tricky on exactly how you treat entropy in a system so that in a way, at that point it could almost be like a new beginning.

 

gotta watchout for those black holes.....working on a painting of an octopus tentacle arms trying to suck in every thing in its path, but some have been strong enough to fight it and not be sucked in......

 

All that suggests is that time moves slower depending on your speed of travel. I have no issues visualizing a hyper space craft where say you age 3 years time as where everyone on Earth has gone through a decade.

I don't follow the deterministic claim you made though, where an observer can know our future.

 

We know that species have gone extinct which at one point had not yet occured, so from their perspective their extinction represented their future. In that sense in looking into the past we had seen their future.

 

Huh?

 

You asked how an observer can know our future and I suggest in the same way as we know the future of the species that had gone extinct. We could from our vantage point if we could communicate with those species tell them of their future demise.

 

I think that confused me even more now lol. I can only conceptualize this stuff as I'm not good with the math.

So if we and an alien were on the opposite sides of the universe in static positions, I can see how the alien riding the bicycle one way or another would effect the angle to which it experiences us. However light travels at a fixed speed, so I'd think that when the light reaches it as it moves away from us, it's our lagged position which is making it see in the past, conversely as it moves closer to us we speed up so it experiences us in our future.


As a demonstration of being able to predetermine our future, I'm not sure I am entirely on board with that, maybe it's just the fact they use a bicycle as an example. Lol

 

Sorry I didn't get back sooner---I may not be on as much for a few days as my computer decided to act up.

Yes---the 4th dimension is time, and it is the dimension of light, and form. I consider it a nonphysical dimension---and by non-physical, I am not saying that it does not exist beyond mathematical equations---I am saying that it does not exist in what we understand in a physical sense.

The observer could be the flux localized---in that it is all the same thing---a cosmic soup. Or it could be consciousness---the true subjective.

Yes, I have been relating the flux and the 4th dimension---they could be separate---I'll have to think that through. But since I think of the flux as the realm of essence and form, and going by the recent theory that states that everything is light, and the latent energy of the universe (also light) is that which creates the inertia that forms mass (i.e. is form) then I think of this in terms of the 4th dimension---I may have to think that through some more...

In the 4th dimension there is just one infinitely small now----but within that 4th dimension instant, there is a bubble of inertia----a bubble wherein everything slows down---and that would be our physical universe---the lower three dimensions. This is where time is actually experienced. But being that time is of a higher dimension, we only see an infinitely thin slice of it---the Now. This is just like a 2 dimensional world would only see an infinitely small slice of our own three dimensions----infinitely thin because there is no width (left-right dimension) only up-down and front-back dimensions. In our case the higher dimension is of time, not direction---but the Now is that infinitely small view of the higher dimension.

I see locality, and the fact that we are seeing older light from more distant objects within our own moment of Now, not as a relativistic nature of the the Now, but rather as a dynamic that gives our universe its 3 dimensional quality. Even if we look at light from a 400 million light year distant star---that light was never experienced until now---so it never physically existed per my 2nd principle----in other words, it never was in our past---only in the single moment of the 4th dimension----unitl now when it strikes my eye and is absorbed---observed as a particle---only then does it manifest in the physical sense.

Consider how Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity handles time slowing down for a fast moving object: The faster an object (or observer) moves, the shorter it becomes in the direction of its travel. This physical shortening of lenght is directly proportionate to how much time dilates or slows. In other words we are compressing the physical reality of this observer or object----its moment of Now is being compressed. As time slows for this observer or object---the universe around it (or him or her) appears to speed up). This means that an astronaut who flies off at high speed to a distant star and returns to earth having aged only 2 years even though he was gone 4 years in earth time---did not experience only 2 years of Nows while the rest of us experienced 4----he still exprienced the same number of nows---only twice as fast.

I would say that mine is speculation, but it is conspiracy theory---now that it has been labeled as such and appears on the internet---it is indisputable truth. ;-)

I've got to go---this is not my computer------I would answer more----but I am not very good at writing on my tablet...

 

I recently saw a brief video from Michio Kaku, a well known theoretical physicist. He was discussing a physics study where apparently some particles appeared to travel faster than the speed of light. He thinks that it ultimately was an error due to enviornmental factors however some key takeaways I got from the video in regards to recent posts, were that he suggested time travel (at least backwards) in the sense which I believe you are referring to MeAgain, would in principle be possible if we moved faster than light but it would still be physical communication from my understanding. What we know of the theory of relativity is what would have to be revamped or discarded in certain situations if the study were accurate.