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The Universe-where did it come from?


That's also another context. Both ways of looking at the issue are equally valid.

No. They are not.

That's my point. What you are promoting is called Solipsism, and it's bull crap which has been used for the last 100 years to justify every manner of horror and violence.

"In my world angels from heaven feed old people when they become too old to earn money for food".

"In my world buggering little boys in the rump until they bleed is a legitimate pastime".

"In my world the entire universe popped into existence from nothing".

When you see someone promoting Solipsism, even unwittingly, it needs to be called out.

Promote Clear Reasoning instead, ...please.
 
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No. They are not.

That's my point. What you are promoting is called Solipsism, and it's bull crap which has been used for the last 100 years to justify every manner of horror and violence.

"In my world angels from heaven feed old people when they become too old to earn money for food".

"In my world buggering little boys in the rump until they bleed is a legitimate pastime".

"In my world the entire universe popped into existence from nothing".

When you see someone promoting Solipsism, even unwittingly, it needs to be called out.

Promote Clear Reasoning instead, ...please.

Solipsism ( closely related to subjective idealism ) has nothing to do with my reasoning. What does have relevance is context. Specifically, your objection ( posted here ) does not take into account the same context as illustrated in my explanation ( posted here ). More specifically, you're looking at the creation of the construct ( the virtual universe ) after the fact ( after the program has been launched and virtual matter has been introduced ), when I'm not, and are therefore running your analysis on a different set of criteria, leading to a different conclusion. If this was done intentionally in order to substantiate your position it's called moving the goalposts. The context I'm using is a priori ( prior to the virtual universe coming into existence ). At that point we are only dealing with possibilities, not realities. BTW your point on "clear reasoning" is well taken. Personally I'm an advocate of critical thinking ( described here ).
 
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Me in this thread
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Don't feel alone in this !

I would just toss into the semantic salad the observation that, when using verbal thought experiments to model processes by which our universe may have come into existence, that we are incorporating also our anthropocentric modeling of the phenomenon of time. We seem incapable of conceiving hypotheses a-causally as opposed to expressions of cause and effect. The process of cause and effect, a cornerstone of traditional science, relies unavoidably on time as a one-way function. It's my understanding that the mathematics of physics has been unable to derive an explanation for why time, regarded as the fourth dimension of our universe, should flow only one way.

This is my personal take-away and perhaps someone here better versed in the mathematics of physics might correct or elaborate.
 
I would just toss into the semantic salad the observation that, when using verbal thought experiments to model processes by which our universe may have come into existence, that we are incorporating also our anthropocentric modeling of the phenomenon of time. We seem incapable of conceiving hypotheses a-causally as opposed to expressions of cause and effect. The process of cause and effect, a cornerstone of traditional science, relies unavoidably on time as a one-way function. It's my understanding that the mathematics of physics has been unable to derive an explanation for why time, regarded as the fourth dimension of our universe, should flow only one way. This is my personal take-away and perhaps someone here better versed in the mathematics of physics might correct or elaborate.

When speaking of time as a fourth dimension, it is in the context of a mathematical model ( e.g. Minkowski Space ), where it's used as a variable for making predictions. But in reality there is no evidence that time is an actual fourth dimension, and there are other approaches that take change into consideration instead ( related article ). Because the concept of change is at the heart of what time is, I think it makes sense to seriously consider a non-dimensional approach to time rather than continuing to confuse people by referring to it as a dimension.

By eliminating the idea of time as a dimension, and seeing it as a function of change instead, we can also see more easily why the arrow of time flows only in one direction. So far as we can tell, all change in the universe is initiated by the fundamental forces of nature, which act in causal ways. For example when dealing with gravity, it always works to pull objects toward the center of a mass. Therefore the change in position of a falling object will always be in one direction ( down ). For time to go backwards, somehow the position of the falling object along with all its atoms and subatomic particles, would literally have to retrace every change in position along its path. However because gravity makes it physically impossible for that to happen, it never can happen unless gravity itself changes it's direction of pull, in which case all the big stuff in the universe would suddenly fly apart.

That's the basic reasoning of why from a physical perspective, time can only flow in one direction. I would assume that the physicists know this, and that the problem you mention is more abstract and based on mathematical models where time can be warped in all kinds of creative ( but impossible ) ways.
 
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Time is what we measure entropy with. ;)

It's a unit of measurement, like a mile or a pound. If time travel is possible at some point, It has nothing to do with actual time I'd imagine, but rather the placement and arrengement of neutrons and electrons.

At least that's what I think. Don't mean to sound authorative or anything haha.
 
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Time is what we measure entropy with. ;)
Actually, in Thermodynamics, the " T " in the equation for Entropy is for Temperature. Time doesn't appear to be a factor.
It's a unit of measurement, like a mile or a pound. If time travel is possible at some point, It has nothing to do with actual time I'd imagine, but rather the placement and arrengement of neutrons and electrons.
You imagine correctly on both accounts. The units of measurement in time are based on change. In the case of our familiar clocks that measure time in seconds, hours, days, months etc. here on Earth, that change is based on the position of the Earth as it orbits the Sun. However the internal workings of such clocks might be dependent on changes at a molecular level, such as the vibrations that take place in a quartz crystal when excited by electricity.
At least that's what I think. Don't mean to sound authorative or anything haha.
It's OK to sound authoritative provided you're right ;) . I make a sincere effort to do both so that people can trust what I contribute to the forum. That doesn't always mean I'm right or that people will always like what I have to say, but at least they know I'm not just BSing them.
 
Actually, in Thermodynamics, the " T " in the equation for Entropy is for Temperature. Time doesn't appear to be a factor.

Yeah, what I meant was that we use time as a distance between point A and point B when measuring entropy. Like, for example, where the Earth was X amount of minutes ago in relation to the Sun.

EDIT: It's hard to explain my meaning on such topics with my incredibly limited scientific literacy.
 
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The Beginning of Time - Stephen Hawking

I think what Hawking means at the end is, time wont end when the universe stops expanding, time will not go backwards as the universe contract's back to a singularity, we will just keep getting older until space time ends, and then begins again instantly with a new 'big bang', but time itself never ends.

I.E.
Time itself is infinite.
Space time last's from one big bang to the next big bang.

It's all abit to deep for me.
 
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Yeah, what I meant was that we use time as a distance between point A and point B when measuring entropy. Like, for example, where the Earth was X amount of minutes ago in relation to the Sun.
The distance between two points A and B would typically be represented by " D ". Perhaps you were trying to get across something more like the relationship between distance and gravity where distance and time are components of acceleration ( e.g. 32.1740 feet per-second squared ).
EDIT: It's hard to explain my meaning on such topics with my incredibly limited scientific literacy.
Not to worry. I'm certainly no Ph.D. either :D.
 
It's all about context. I'm using the word "real" as a convenience term to differentiate between the virtual world ( the construct ) and the world that created it ( the real world ). In another context ( the bigger picture ), both environments ( realms or universes ) are real in the sense that they both exist. So a virtual existence is still a real existence. The subtleties of usage do take a little getting used to.

I'm still trying to parse out what you're saying here and not getting anywhere. The 'real world' gives way to the virtual world (what you seemed to be saying in the earlier post) or the virtual world produces the real world? Is the virtual world composed of information?
 
I'm still trying to parse out what you're saying here and not getting anywhere. The 'real world' gives way to the virtual world (what you seemed to be saying in the earlier post) or the virtual world produces the real world? Is the virtual world composed of information?

Assuming that our universe isn't a construct created by system in another universe, and that we become capable of creating a construct ourselves that is of comparable complexity to our own, we would refer to our universe as real and to the created universe as virtual. The reality experienced by those living within such a construct would be a simulated reality, while ours would be actual reality. Now suppose that those living within the simulated reality come to suspect that they are living in a virtual universe. What might clues might they expect to find?
 
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Assuming that our universe isn't a construct created by system in another universe, and that we become capable of creating a construct ourselves that is of comparable complexity to our own, we would refer to our universe as real and to the created universe as virtual. The reality experienced by those living within such a construct would be a simulated reality, while ours would be actual reality. Now suppose that those living within the simulated reality come to suspect that they are living in a virtual universe. What might clues might they expect to find?

I'd love to know, but I should say at the outset that I don't believe any conscious entities could live in a virtual universe.
 
How does that explain why conscious entities could not live in a virtual universe? Please elaborate.

No time to say much, but to begin with it is clear that our consciousness, as it has evolved and as we presently know and experience it, is embodied. We are thus reliant on the local natural and cultural world to provide the sustenance -- both bodily and mental -- provided in the mileau in which we live, feel, think, and act. I do not believe that a consciousness so constituted can successfully be removed from a living individual's body and 'hooked up' to a virtual reality machine.

This is not to claim that it's impossible that some type of virtual consciousness could not live in a virtual universe if there were such a universe.
 
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No time to say much, but to begin with it is clear that our consciousness, as it has evolved and as we presently know and experience it, is embodied. We are thus reliant on the local natural and cultural world to provide the sustenance -- both bodily and mental -- provided in the mileau in which we live, feel, think, and act. I do not believe that a consciousness so constituted can successfully be removed from a living individual's body and 'hooked up' to a virtual reality machine.
In the situation we're talking about, we haven't talked about the idea of being " 'hooked up' to a virtual reality machine" yet. We're talking about the creation of a universe of sufficient complexity to evolve conscious beings within it in the same way as our universe evolved us, ( by using the same rules of science that we have identified that operate in our own universe ). If you review the video again in this context, what you are seeing is that we have already modeled large scale features such as galaxies, so the idea is that that given sufficient processing power to handle modeling down to the molecular level, that evolution on smaller scales should be expected, and such evolution would not preclude the possibility of creatures within the system that are as complex as we are.
This is not to claim that it's impossible that some type of virtual consciousness could not live in a virtual universe if there were such a universe.
Maybe we're getting to be closer to being on the same page there :) .
 
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