A really big question

[Byrd]

Byrd so nice to have you post here in. I may have been shooting from the hip 
on this one. My knowledge limited to what I've read thru many years may yield
out dated information. But to push back mildly would you agree the Earth is in
a state of decay? The universe?

And would you agree that without time there would be no way to measure 
the degrees of decay for all that is breaking down?

[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlaGrAs6HNw]

Things (from a physics standpoint) do tend toward entropy... BUT... we're not 100% sure of the fate of anything in the very long future.  So, while the universe might end with dead stars wandering alone in space, that's not the final word on this and (all things being possible) one civilization or another might find a way to change or modify this.

I wouldn't say Earth is in a state of decay -- because then you'd have to ask "what is decay?"  Erosion?  It happens all the time, but so does deposition in the formation of new dirt, sand, and rock.  Loss of planetary atmosphere?  Eh, there's lots of planets around with no atmosphere.  Cooling iron core?  That's on the scale of billions of years.

It is, however, in a state of constant change (but no, it doesn't actually "feel" us though the environment reacts to what we are doing.)  The environment reacts to anything that brings changes, from herds of buffalo migrating to plagues of locusts.  This change drives diversity, which drives evolution.

Now... I gotta admit that I'm sort of a hardcore optimist and I *am* worried about planetary sized effects (like the increasing heat waves and so forth.)  But I don't really see that the planet is dying or in decay, and I'm not sure what a dying/decayed planet would look like.



A little speculation over dinner.  And wine.  A very nice wine, in fact.  :)

[Astyanax]

From the perspective of insects, they are not living a short 2 weeks - 6 months lifespan, they are living entire decades lives of experience from their understanding, which humans may never be able to measure because we just have no comprehension on how to even measure that.

What makes you believe insects experience time at all? 

Our sense of passing time depends largely on how we interpret data from our sense organs. Animal sense organs rarely resemble ours (this is particularly the case with insects), and the way their brains process the data from those organs also differs, often dramatically. Think: what is wetness to an insect?

In any case, the experience of time and the physical entity referred to as time are not the same thing at all.
 

*     *     *

But 'c' is a constant in all reference frames. Lorentz contraction explains how this happens across all reference frames but it isn't by 'distance dilation', but by 'time dilation'.

As I said, earlier, the question has engaged physicists for decades, and the arguments continue to this day. I think we’ve taken this as far as it needs to go; I enjoyed the exchange, so thank you.
 

*     *     *

The faster one goes the slower time ticks for one as seen by others. 
The closer one gets to the speed of light the slower time ticks.

Correct.
 

And at the speed of light time stops.

Unknown. Nothing can actually travel at the speed of light except light.
 

Which means that for a photon from the big bang moving at the speed of light. When it is absorbed in your retina it is the same instant that it was emitted at the big bang 14 billion years ago. 

There aren’t any photons left over from the Big Bang. The first photons only came into existence about ten seconds after it occurred. But aside from that, well... it’s a big of a stretch to talk about a photon experiencing time. The explanation as to why is a bit complicated; it’s called quantum mechanics. You only can only ‘see’ a photon by deflecting* or destroying it. In either case, that event (or ‘measurement’) occurs at a certain time and the photon is present at that time, not fourteen billion years ago. 
______________________________________________________________________________
*And deflecting it is pretty much the same thing as destroying it and creating a new photon with a different momentum vector.

[Randyvine]

Things (from a physics standpoint) do tend toward entropy... BUT... we're not 100% sure of the fate of anything in the very long future.  So, while the universe might end with dead stars wandering alone in space, that's not the final word on this and (all things being possible) one civilization or another might find a way to change or modify this.

I wouldn't say Earth is in a state of decay -- because then you'd have to ask "what is decay?"  Erosion?  It happens all the time, but so does deposition in the formation of new dirt, sand, and rock.  Loss of planetary atmosphere?  Eh, there's lots of planets around with no atmosphere.  Cooling iron core?  That's on the scale of billions of years.

It is, however, in a state of constant change (but no, it doesn't actually "feel" us though the environment reacts to what we are doing.)  The environment reacts to anything that brings changes, from herds of buffalo migrating to plagues of locusts.  This change drives diversity, which drives evolution.

Now... I gotta admit that I'm sort of a hardcore optimist and I *am* worried about planetary sized effects (like the increasing heat waves and so forth.)  But I don't really see that the planet is dying or in decay, and I'm not sure what a dying/decayed planet would look like.



A little speculation over dinner.  And wine.  A very nice wine, in fact.  :)

Byrd to be honest I'm tempted to find a path that leads me to a disingenuous way
to keep you posting. :) But you as always explain your views so well you leave no
room for that. And for my grand daughters sake seeing your optimism amid a
better knowledge of what's actually occurring scientifically is something of great value
to me as a fatalist. I must say excellent post don't ever change.

[Randyvine]

Well I have no clue who said it, perhaps something Einstein would say,  but only because I am not really familiar with the researchers of the Physics world. Regarding the previous post I made, I rewatched most of the interview and remember exactly what he says. He says when discussing a single cell structure, that if he scaled up the nucleus to the size of his fist, the actual cell wall/membrane (skin?) would have been in Paris from where he was at, but the signal would still travel instantaneously.

So if that were the case, and a single nucleus scales up to the size of a planet, I posited this question to the AI:
See , now we are getting closer to an answer of your OP, I hope you do not mind that I used the ghost in the machine to calculate the math, because we were talking some serious scale here and I probably would have been unable to finish it in hours. Now  mind you, that is only a single cell of a universe sized cosmological entity no?? Have you ever seen Frontera Verde (green Frontier) it was a very amazing  short series I watched filmed in Colombia. It is a truly unique piece of culture, and it had me hooked with stunning visuals involving Native Americans protecting some kind of universal secret and a corrupt businessman I believe it was paying a competing tribe with weapons and wealth to attack and kill the tribes to unlock  this secret he is chasing and extreme concepts. It is in Spanish, this amazing teaser sample invokes all the concepts I believe are related to the topic which I wanted to illustrate with  the flow of energy and the scales of the universe. I think if these kinds of topics interest you, watch this series if you can get it dubbed or at least subs Closed Captions, unless you understand  Spanish  which is just  fine.
[Video: https://youtu.be/ch9aKCS0YYM]

So If the cells themselves are almost 1000 light years across based on distance from nucleus to cell walls, what is the distance between each cell, and what would an entire galaxy be composed of , a single fingernail? Perhaps a toe or an eyelid/lash? I could probably get an answer from the ghost to that as well, but I don't want to be the only one asking questions here and then answering them. I closed the conversation with this:

Woe, you gotta give this kid some time to catch up now hombre! I'm very interested
in the vid you just propped. No spanish here I have enough trouble with english. lol

But did you read carefully the quote I have great interest in seeing if it makes sense
or not? Just read and tell me if it makes sense. This is not a trap I just want to see if
my thinking is on trac or skewed or psychodelic maybe? lol

Your vid has a "Stranger Things" vibe to it but in that native setting.

[worldstarcountry]

What makes you believe insects experience time at all? 

Our sense of passing time depends largely on how we interpret data from our sense organs. Animal sense organs rarely resemble ours (this is particularly the case with insects), and the way their brains process the data from those organs also differs, often dramatically. Think: what is wetness to an insect?

In any case, the experience of time and the physical entity referred to as time are not the same thing at all.

Oh now that  just happened to be a follow up to some wild ideas I was throwing out there with the OP just to see if we were kind of on the same page with the abstract theories on his question. It was just a little exercise in umm, I don't know have the word for it, but like just im imagining me as the bug, and what it would feel like to be operating on that tinier scale with the energy distribution as it is and the filters it is equipped with relative to its size in the world as we see it but through its own filters. Gravity in relation to my size and me scaling that to a mountain. Its, we were just having fun 
Wont you come and play with us   

[Randyvine]

What makes you believe insects experience time at all? 
 

 

Unknown. Nothing can actually travel at the speed of light except light.
 

There aren’t any photons left over from the Big Bang. The first photons only came into existence about ten seconds after it occurred. But aside from that, well... it’s a big of a stretch to talk about a photon experiencing time. The explanation as to why is a bit complicated; it’s called quantum mechanics. You only can only ‘see’ a photon by deflecting* or destroying it. In either case, that event (or ‘measurement’) occurs at a certain time and the photon is present at that time, not fourteen billion years ago. 
______________________________________________________________________________
*And deflecting it is pretty much the same thing as destroying it and creating a new photon with a different momentum vector.

Agreed to all of it, I should've mentioned the person I quoted was speaking purely
from a hypothetical sense. Altho in some way you have pointed me towards a better
understanding of the quote. So it does make a tad more sense but there is still
something there I was hoping you or anyone might catch to help me verify my own
thoughts on what was being said exactly from that hypothetical.

The part where it is said that the photon is instantly seen by the retina because at
the speed of light the photon experiences no time passing because it has stopped.
But if the photon is 13.8 billion light years away that means that the photon/light
took 13.8 oh no I've gone cross eyed? We''ll be back after these messages.

The quote was from Neil DeGrasse Tyson speaking to William Shatner.

[Astyanax]

The part where it is said that the photon is instantly seen by the retina because at the speed of light the photon experiences no time passing because it has stopped. But if the photon is 13.8 billion light years away that means that the photon/light took 13.8 oh no I've gone cross eyed? We'll be back after these messages.

The quote was from Neil DeGrasse Tyson speaking to William Shatner.

That Tyson man has spread more misunderstanding and confusion about science than Alex Jones. People think he's a scientist; he’s a damn planetarium director. Look for him on Google Scholar and all you get is pop-sci articles.

Anyway, the good old photon... how do you think of one, Randy? As a little bullet flying through space at the speed of light? As a disturbance in the universal electromagnetic field? As a probability distribution collapsing to finite values when measured?

Try thinking about it like this: a photon does not exist until it is measured. And when you measure it, it immediately ceases to exist in the time and place it was measured. It’s gone, skedaddled, outta there.

This video is snipped from a lecture by Richard Feynman, one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century (and the twentieth century had a lot of great physicists). It's eighteen minutes long and I think you’ll find it well worth your time to watch it.

[Astyanax]

Oh now that  just happened to be a follow up to some wild ideas I was throwing out there with the OP just to see if we were kind of on the same page with the abstract theories on his question. It was just a little exercise in umm, I don't know have the word for it...

‘Speculation’ is the word. And yes, speculation is fun, especially when your speculations stay within the boundaries of the laws of nature. That’s challenging, fun and may even result in an increase in human knowledge. But for me, at least, there is no pleasure in magical thinking; that is, ideas that contravene the laws of nature. Because, well, then anything goes, doesn’t it? No intelligence, knowledge or imagination required for that kind of speculation.

I love this thread because we aren’t going there. We’re staying within the parameters of science.
 

I’m imagining me as the bug, and what it would feel like to be operating on that tinier scale with the energy distribution as it is and the filters it is equipped. Wont you come and play with us?

I already am, that’s why I asked you what wetness must feel like to an insect. To us, it’s an aspect of what we call surface tension, the property that makes some liquids stick to solids. To an insect, it’s a much more constraining force than it is for a large animal; how does that constraint affect its movement, and therefore its perception?

Natural selection, as we know, is a process that never attains perfection. Even as organisms adapt to their environment, the environment itself is changing. One of the consequences of this is that no organism evolves a perfect sense of reality, not even of those aspects of reality that are most important to it. ‘Good enough’ is all we can ever hope for. The ancient Hindu and Buddhist phliosophers were right: true reality lies beyond our perception. Not just human perception, but all organic perception. Every species has a good-enough sense of the relevant aspects of reality (vision for birds and humans, sound for bats and whales, smell for dogs, heat and pressure for ticks and leeches, infrared light and scent for mosquitoes, myoelectric sensitivity for electric eels and platypuses, etc). But real reality, the true stuff the Universe is made of, lies far beyond anything we can sense.

[Randyvine]

That Tyson man has spread more misunderstanding and confusion about science than Alex Jones.

That one caught me so off balance a ref would've scored it a knock down. LMAO

Spaghetti legged.

Anyway, the good old photon... how do you think of one, Randy? As a little bullet flying through space at the speed of light? As a disturbance in the universal electromagnetic field? As a probability distribution collapsing to finite values when measured?

Okay so it would be difficult for me to ever think of light as a disturbance..
A bullet would be to solid no transparencey light needs a source of energy
so it's collapse probability would be dependent. 

I'm gonna say yes I've entertained each of those ideas at one time or another.

Whadda u fuccing kidding me? The only thought I've ever had about a photon
on my own is when I turn on a flashlight in my backyard. Then I wish photons
were like little bullets. I'd be take'n out mosquitos with my flashlight to early
morning dawn. Not a great question for Randy but I did try to play along.

Try thinking about it like this: a photon does not exist until it is measured. And when you measure it, it immediately ceases to exist in the time and place it was measured. It’s gone, skedaddled, outta there.

This is the whole now ya see me, now ya don't, little game that's pulled
across every paranormal phenomana. Only on steroids. And how can you
ask me to think that way when it sounds like magic to me. Not science at all.
I mean you just said:

I love this thread because we aren’t going there. We’re staying within the parameters of science.

 And then you turn on me and throw some ass jacked magic Mike
"oh just think this way"  ya Okay Sty. I'm on it.

See when I have nothing I become a humor hero and often that even fails.

A planetary director at least it sounds important. lol

Check out your vid.

The gentleman in the vid gives such a great orientation I couldn't help
but understand. Photons aren't particles like the ones that collide at
Cern. Sounds pretty much like a phenomena all it's own. Just because
we see it in this reality doesn't mean it exists as part of this reality.

Here's a question:

Do you my good member know if there has ever been discovery that
points to or indicates or suggests that light had to be created? Any
evidence of that as far as you know? Thank you Sty

The Blackness of space seems to suggest to me it had to be created
somehow or another. By what or whom being an entirely different
question.

[worldstarcountry]

dubs by accident.