wu :: forums
        (http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi)
      

        riddles >> easy >> Back to the Future 5
        
(Message started by: alien2 on Jun 20th, 2017, 3:32pm)
Title: Back to the Future 5
Post by alien2 on Jun 20th, 2017, 3:32pm
What lasts longer, the past, or the future?
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by rmsgrey on Jun 21st, 2017, 7:56am
[hideb]The one with more letters or the one with more syllables.[/hideb]
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by alien2 on Jun 21st, 2017, 8:35am
That is the intended answer. After all, this is in the Easy. It sounds more like quick fix though. Any insight likewise deep thoughts I just might use in my upcoming science fiction though not necessarily ingenious book?
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by rmsgrey on Jun 22nd, 2017, 5:16am
The past is of fixed length (assuming you don't go back before the Big Bang) while the future is uncertain but, barring collapse of the false vacuum, it should last significantly longer than the past has.

On an individual level, again, the past is of a known length (though increasing) while the future is uncertain, but, barring premature death, should go at least the fourscore-and-ten...
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by alien2 on Jun 22nd, 2017, 6:05am
My thoughts exactly! So, where are we now!? Nowhere! 'We're on a road to nowhere. Come on inside.' Actually, your reply will more than suffice. Much obliged.
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by towr on Jun 22nd, 2017, 1:27pm
It used to be now, it is now and it will be now, so now lasts longest. There's just never a time when you can truthfully say "it's not now".
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by dudiobugtron on Jun 22nd, 2017, 7:08pm
Is it currently the past?  Well, it was before, but [hide]it's not now[/hide]. ;)
And what counts as the past, anyway?  One thing's for sure: [hide]it's not now[/hide]! :o

PS: I'm sure there are some interesting relativity tricks you can do to make the past, or future, seem to take longer than it otherwise would.
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by alien2 on Jun 23rd, 2017, 4:58am
For a moment there I thought this was a shot at towr which is unthinkable and totally unrealistic and w/o merit. Furthermore, my hands were shaking and a thought crossed my mind that I acquired Parkinson and that I will co-star in Awakenings 2 with De Niro and receive $5.000.000 check. All right!  
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by Grimbal on Jun 23rd, 2017, 9:25am
I'll believe there is a future when I see it.

I'm sure it is a plot by the government and banker to get money from you that you will get back with interest "in the future" (with the quote-with-fingers gesture)
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by rmsgrey on Jun 23rd, 2017, 2:54pm

on 06/23/17 at 09:25:08, Grimbal wrote:
I'll believe there is a future when I see it.

I'm sure it is a plot by the government and banker to get money from you that you will get back with interest "in the future" (with the quote-with-fingers gesture)


And yet you believe there's a past? Sure, you have memories, but you, as you exist now, have never been in the past...
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by alien2 on Jun 24th, 2017, 1:21am

on 06/23/17 at 14:54:54, rmsgrey wrote:
And yet you believe there's a past? Sure, you have memories, but you, as you exist now, have never been in the past...

Surely Grimbal has a counter statement or some photos of him and his 'better' half that ought to prove you wrong. All that we are is the result of what we have thought in the past. In a sense, our mind travels into the past and also into the future. Ever heard of Jules Verne? 
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by rmsgrey on Jun 25th, 2017, 4:47am

on 06/24/17 at 01:21:39, alien2 wrote:
Surely Grimbal has a counter statement or some photos of him and his 'better' half that ought to prove you wrong. All that we are is the result of what we have thought in the past. In a sense, our mind travels into the past and also into the future. Ever heard of Jules Verne? 

How do you tell the difference between a fake photo and a real one? Have you ever seen Total Recall? The Matrix? The Truman Show? The world we perceive (including any history we have presented to us) could be faked up to support the (equally fake) memories we have.

If we're in an ancestor simulation (or similar simulation) then there's no reason the simulation has to start in the distant past, and any humans "alive" at the start of the simulation would have this sort of fake history...
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by alien2 on Jun 25th, 2017, 5:07am
I like this! On the other hand, there is no way for us to tell whether or not this is a simulation forwhy we are in it. I doubt there is an independent variable, consciousness, that is, that is aware that this is a simulation, excepting, of course, me. You are all in my computer. Prove me to be wrong!
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by Grimbal on Jun 26th, 2017, 3:29am

on 06/23/17 at 14:54:54, rmsgrey wrote:
And yet you believe there's a past? Sure, you have memories, but you, as you exist now, have never been in the past...

Since this question was asked in the past, it kind of questions its own existence.  Doesn't it?  Is there a point answering it?
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by towr on Jun 26th, 2017, 8:46am
You could try answering it in the future ;)
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by alien2 on Jun 26th, 2017, 9:25am

on 06/26/17 at 03:29:09, Grimbal wrote:
Since this question was asked in the past, it kind of questions its own existence. (...)

Unless, the universe was created just now and so you THINK the question was asked in the past but that is false memory. Am I right?!  
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by Grimbal on Jun 27th, 2017, 4:32am
Considering that quantum mechanics tells us that from the present point there are multiple possible futures, shouldn't it be the same for the past?  If the future gets created with every quantum state that collapses and decides which future will be, isn't the same happening for the past?  Some quantum erasure that erases the truth of the past and recreates some true randomness about what was?

From this point of view, the past is a tree of all the paths that end at the present time in the present state.  The past is just as ramified as the future.  And whether just one of them is true or all at the same time depends on whether you believe in the multiverse.
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by alien2 on Jun 27th, 2017, 6:54am
You definitely broaden my horizons. Still, I need some time to assimilate this but, being a mortal, time is running out. Unless we have an immortal soul and I'll reappear as a dog in my next reincarnation.    
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by towr on Jun 27th, 2017, 11:31am

on 06/27/17 at 04:32:00, Grimbal wrote:
Considering that quantum mechanics tells us that from the present point there are multiple possible futures, shouldn't it be the same for the past?
I don't think anyone has managed to run the universe twice yet to see in what way that might be true, or not.
"Possible futures" could mean at least two things, that we don't know which future we'll observe (even if it's "fixed"), or that it is not "fixed". If time is just another dimension perpendicular to the others, the latter might very well be true. Rewinding and replaying would show the same movie.


Quote:
If the future gets created with every quantum state that collapses and decides which future will be, isn't the same happening for the past?  Some quantum erasure that erases the truth of the past and recreates some true randomness about what was?
I think I've heard/seen it said/written that all or most laws of nature are symmetrical w.r.t. time, i.e. they hold if you reverse time. So it makes sense that uncertainty/indeterminacy of the future and the past are linked.

As an aside I'd like to add that the future gets created regardless of whether quantum states collapse, because even if they don't collapse they can still change (hence the efforts at quantum computing).


Quote:
From this point of view, the past is a tree of all the paths that end at the present time in the present state.  The past is just as ramified as the future.  And whether just one of them is true or all at the same time depends on whether you believe in the multiverse.
Or a super-positional universe.
I'm not a fan of multiverses. They always strike me as being like invisible pink unicorns. They're fun to think about, I'll grant you, but being fundamentally unobservable makes them pretty rubbish explanations, and anyone treating them as real rather than fun should maybe go see a psychiatrist.
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by alien2 on Jun 29th, 2017, 1:43am

on 06/27/17 at 11:31:35, towr wrote:
(...)
I'm not a fan of multiverses. They always strike me as being like invisible pink unicorns. They're fun to think about, I'll grant you, but being fundamentally unobservable makes them pretty rubbish explanations, and anyone treating them as real rather than fun should maybe go see a psychiatrist.

Infidel! Get him!

That's it! I am calling Michael Moorcock.  
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by alien2 on Jun 29th, 2017, 4:31pm
How 'bout something real silly? We all think that singularity was expansion of time. Here's a thought. Who's to say that singularity/Bing Bang wasn't expansion of anti-time that is analogous to the relationship that antimatter has to normal matter. So, there is no future, only past, which is growing bigger and bigger. Oh boy. Science is not my thing but.. is this at all plausible?  
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by rmsgrey on Jun 30th, 2017, 5:24am

on 06/29/17 at 16:31:40, alien2 wrote:
How 'bout something real silly? We all think that singularity was expansion of time. Here's a thought. Who's to say that singularity/Bing Bang wasn't expansion of anti-time that is analogous to the relationship that antimatter has to normal matter. So, there is no future, only past, which is growing bigger and bigger. Oh boy. Science is not my thing but.. is this at all plausible?  


Hawking has argued that the underlying reality is actually what we'd consider imaginary time - and what we consider as time is simply an illusion caused by the way we perceive it...
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by alien2 on Jul 1st, 2017, 8:42am
That explains everything. Thanks.
Title: Re: Back to the Future 5
Post by alien2 on Jul 4th, 2017, 10:16am
If you want to perceive something, or anything for that matter, perceive the fact that white people are divided as a whole. To me, that is unacceptable and breech of all fundamental values and laws of decency. Science will help make darkness grow bigger forwhy it will be used mostly for conquest, defense and possible annihilation. It always comes down to it, doesn't it. Darkness, doubt, hopelessness. Why? Ask your better half and then you will know everything, or should I say, absolutely nothing, with nothing being each and every war fought forwhy there are but few survivors of good men, or should I say, the only men.


Powered by YaBB 1 Gold - SP 1.4!
Forum software copyright © 2000-2004 Yet another Bulletin Board