Post Your Random Thoughts Thread!

[pandabear]

He's a random thought, and I actually asked this amongst my Physics friends who were just a dumb founded as I was ...

The past can be measured with time. We can say something has happened seconds ago, minutes ago, hours ago, days ago etc. The future can also be measured as time. We can say "It's my birthday in 3 days". Or, "I'm going to bed at 3am".

But, how do you measure now? What time interval defines the now ... the present? What's happening now will be the past in a seconds time. By the time we realize what's happening now it becomes the past.

So this leads me onto the next part. The past doesn't exist, it's happened. The future doesn't exist, it's not yet happened. This is agreed in science. We only have memories of the past, and expectations of the future. Those points in time do not exist though.

So, here's the thing. Does the present actually exist? If we can't define the present, how do we know it exists? As I said, by the time you realize something is happening now, it's already happened and becomes the past. Logically, the now does exist, but how can you prove it?

René Descartes famously quoted "l think, therefore l am". But even his viewpoint is purely philosophical.

Think about it a little bit. Then attempt to answer.

Are you out of jail?

And to answer your philosophical rhetorical question, I feel the existence of the present when I have to perform an action where it requires the manipulation of time but I am unable to (i.e. waiting - for the bus, for BF's text/call, to get another life from Candy Crush). The act of waiting, for me, is the present. Also, when I want time to move faster or slower. Maybe those philosophers never had to wait so they never felt the present, or they had headphones and music playing. Earlier, I experienced the present because there was a long ass line at the checkout. So, I put on my headphones, next thing you know, I was in the future.

[GV1]

He's a random thought, and I actually asked this amongst my Physics friends who were just a dumb founded as I was ...

The past can be measured with time. We can say something has happened seconds ago, minutes ago, hours ago, days ago etc. The future can also be measured as time. We can say "It's my birthday in 3 days". Or, "I'm going to bed at 3am".

But, how do you measure now? What time interval defines the now ... the present? What's happening now will be the past in a seconds time. By the time we realize what's happening now it becomes the past.

So this leads me onto the next part. The past doesn't exist, it's happened. The future doesn't exist, it's not yet happened. This is agreed in science. We only have memories of the past, and expectations of the future. Those points in time do not exist though.

So, here's the thing. Does the present actually exist? If we can't define the present, how do we know it exists? As I said, by the time you realize something is happening now, it's already happened and becomes the past. Logically, the now does exist, but how can you prove it?

René Descartes famously quoted "l think, therefore l am". But even his viewpoint is purely philosophical.

Think about it a little bit. Then attempt to answer.

Are you out of jail?

I was released on February the 27th.

[Laszlo]

GV1 - you should look into Zen.
I know that's a bit of a cop-out reply but I cba getting into some deep philosophical/metaphysics discussion (fruitless argument)

[Genevieve]

"The future doesn't exist, it's not yet happened. This is agreed in science."

Is it really? I don't believe any scientist claims to understand the concept of time fully.

If the big bang is the the start of the universe as we know it and where the 'rulebook was written', then everything that should've happend happened, and everything that will happen.. will happen, because one things leads to another and if nature works according to any kind of systematic, then every minute thing that was going to happen after the big bang has been calculated to happen in the big bang. Not with conscious predetermination, mind you, but with something that humans would try to understand with something we commonly call 'logic'.

So then, isn't every moment in time "just" one image in a film reel? And if everything is in an already completed movie reel, doesn't that mean that the past, present and future are all 'real' in this very moment?

[wilson]

BBC 6 Music, DJ Yoda live audio/visual thing on now til 12

[GV1]

"The future doesn't exist, it's not yet happened. This is agreed in science."

Is it really? I don't believe any scientist claims to understand the concept of time fully.

Time didn't exist at the time of the big bang. There's no such thing as time. Time is a man made measurement that started it's life as a sun dial (well actually I believe measuring the sun rise, and consolation placement, was used before the sun dial). Time isn't a part of nature or the universe it's just something we use to measure intervals of time.

For fuck sake ... I can't not use the word time to try to define things that happen at a certain point in time. Fuck time. It's pretend.

Throw a wormhole into the equation and then you really screw up the man made concept of time.

[Genevieve]

Time didn't exist at the time of the big bang.

No no, I know, but it was constructed then. (lolthen) OR WAS IT?!@?!?

There's no such thing as time. Time is a man made measurement that started it's life as sun dial. Time isn't a part of nature or the universe it's just something we use to measure intervals of time.

I've heard that. The 'time as a human construct' argument, but I don't know. Time might be very real, but our understanding of it just might be flawed.

Orrrrrrrrrrr..........

our concept of time is the one most suited for our survival and we are evolutionarily hardwired by nature to not grasp it because it's detrimental to our survival =D

[Phigure]

He's a random thought, and I actually asked this amongst my Physics friends who were just a dumb founded as I was ...

The past can be measured with time. We can say something has happened seconds ago, minutes ago, hours ago, days ago etc. The future can also be measured as time. We can say "It's my birthday in 3 days". Or, "I'm going to bed at 3am".

But, how do you measure now? What time interval defines the now ... the present? What's happening now will be the past in a seconds time. By the time we realize what's happening now it becomes the past.

So this leads me onto the next part. The past doesn't exist, it's happened. The future doesn't exist, it's not yet happened. This is agreed in science. We only have memories of the past, and expectations of the future. Those points in time do not exist though.

So, here's the thing. Does the present actually exist? If we can't define the present, how do we know it exists? As I said, by the time you realize something is happening now, it's already happened and becomes the past. Logically, the now does exist, but how can you prove it?

René Descartes famously quoted "l think, therefore l am". But even his viewpoint is purely philosophical.

Think about it a little bit. Then attempt to answer.

pathetic tbh

this is just esoteric, psuedointellectual mental masturbation

just think of time in the same way you might think of coordinates on a number line. you can divide time into intervals (seconds, hours, etc) just like you can with numbers on a number line. in regards to your question of "which time interval defines the now?"... "now" isn't an interval, now is a point on the number line. just because you can't necessarily perfectly describe the point doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. irrational numbers like the number pi or the square root of 2 are never ending decimals that you can never truly "pinpoint" either, but that doesn't mean they don't exist either.

So this leads me onto the next part. The past doesn't exist, it's happened. The future doesn't exist, it's not yet happened. This is agreed in science

well, no, it's not really "agreed in science". how do you define if it exists or not? it may very well exist, it's just that as far as we currently know, we can only move through this "number line of time" in one direction, at a constant rate (as opposed to being able to skip forward).

general relativity (which as far as we currently know is accurate) includes things called "closed time-like curves", where, theoretically, spacetime could be curved in such a way that an object moving through that region of spacetime would loop back into itself within the 4 dimensional space, ie, travelling back into the past.

So then, isn't every moment in time "just" one image in a film reel? And if everything is in an already completed movie reel, doesn't that mean that the past, present and future are all 'real' in this very moment?

this would be a correct description if nature was deterministic. but based on our current understanding of quantum mechanics, nature is not entirely deterministic. sometimes random things happen.

[syrup]

Bunch of fucking hippies ^^^

[Genevieve]

this would be a correct description if nature was deterministic. but based on our current understanding of quantum mechanics, nature is not entirely deterministic. sometimes random things happen.

Yeah, I consciously reasoned from that standpoint without full confidence. But how do we know these things are 'random'? An honest question, not like.. a point I'm making that you need to refute.

[GV1]

He's a random thought, and I actually asked this amongst my Physics friends who were just a dumb founded as I was ...

The past can be measured with time. We can say something has happened seconds ago, minutes ago, hours ago, days ago etc. The future can also be measured as time. We can say "It's my birthday in 3 days". Or, "I'm going to bed at 3am".

But, how do you measure now? What time interval defines the now ... the present? What's happening now will be the past in a seconds time. By the time we realize what's happening now it becomes the past.

So this leads me onto the next part. The past doesn't exist, it's happened. The future doesn't exist, it's not yet happened. This is agreed in science. We only have memories of the past, and expectations of the future. Those points in time do not exist though.

So, here's the thing. Does the present actually exist? If we can't define the present, how do we know it exists? As I said, by the time you realize something is happening now, it's already happened and becomes the past. Logically, the now does exist, but how can you prove it?

René Descartes famously quoted "l think, therefore l am". But even his viewpoint is purely philosophical.

Think about it a little bit. Then attempt to answer.

pathetic tbh

this is just esoteric, psuedointellectual mental masturbation

just think of time in the same way you might think of coordinates on a number line. you can divide time into intervals (seconds, hours, etc) just like you can with numbers on a number line. in regards to your question of "which time interval defines the now?"... "now" isn't an interval, now is a point on the number line. just because you can't necessarily perfectly describe the point doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. irrational numbers like the number pi or the square root of 2 are never ending decimals that you can never truly "pinpoint" either, but that doesn't mean they don't exist either.

So this leads me onto the next part. The past doesn't exist, it's happened. The future doesn't exist, it's not yet happened. This is agreed in science

well, no, it's not really "agreed in science". how do you define if it exists or not? it may very well exist, it's just that as far as we currently know, we can only move through this "number line of time" in one direction, at a constant rate (as opposed to being able to skip forward).

general relativity (which as far as we currently know is accurate) includes things called "closed time-like curves", where, theoretically, spacetime could be curved in such a way that an object moving through that region of spacetime would loop back into itself within the 4 dimensional space, ie, travelling back into the past.

So then, isn't every moment in time "just" one image in a film reel? And if everything is in an already completed movie reel, doesn't that mean that the past, present and future are all 'real' in this very moment?

this would be a correct description if nature was deterministic. but based on our current understanding of quantum mechanics, nature is not entirely deterministic. sometimes random things happen.

A valid argument, even if you insult ones right to question.

[Laszlo]

^Innit

pathetic tbh

this is just esoteric, psuedointellectual mental masturbation.

Bare cuntish, Phig.

[Phigure]

okay maybe that was a bit mean

but the reason i said that was that it wasn't really just "questioning", there's nothing wrong with that. what irked me was that to me it just seemed really presumptuous and arrogant, as if you had just somehow toppled the very concept of time with a couple of simple propositions. like the type of stuff people tend to start jibbering about when they've had a spliff too many "dude... what even is time?!?"

this would be a correct description if nature was deterministic. but based on our current understanding of quantum mechanics, nature is not entirely deterministic. sometimes random things happen.

Yeah, I consciously reasoned from that standpoint without full confidence. But how do we know these things are 'random'? An honest question, not like.. a point I'm making that you need to refute.

nah it's a good question, and we don't actually know for sure. there's multiple interpretations of quantum mechanics, some that are deterministic, and some that aren't. the non-deterministc copenhagen interpretation is by far the most widely agreed upon though. the many worlds and de broglie-bohm interpretations are the two most popular deterministic ones, but most physicists are dubious about them

[didi]

the non-deterministc copenhagen interpretation is by far the most widely agreed upon though. the many worlds and de broglie-bohm interpretations are the two most popular deterministic ones, but most physicists are dubious about them

mumbo-jumbo designed to CONFUSE the mind and the soul

[Genevieve]

nah it's a good question, and we don't actually know for sure. there's multiple interpretations of quantum mechanics, some that are deterministic, and some that aren't. the non-deterministc copenhagen interpretation is by far the most widely agreed upon though

Yeah I'm a total fence sitter... because I don't know shit. But I hate 'appeals to ignorance', but I don't get how you can determine if something is.. deterministic or not without full knowledge? I don't know anything about quantum mechanics, mind you. So it's probs just an appeal to my own ignorance

[Phigure]

nah it's a good question, and we don't actually know for sure. there's multiple interpretations of quantum mechanics, some that are deterministic, and some that aren't. the non-deterministc copenhagen interpretation is by far the most widely agreed upon though

Yeah I'm a total fence sitter... because I don't know shit. But I hate 'appeals to ignorance', but I don't get how you can determine if something is.. deterministic or not without full knowledge? I don't know anything about quantum mechanics, mind you. So it's probs just an appeal to my own ignorance

well that's the thing, we can't entirely determine if it's deterministic or not. the multiple interpretations are just the result of discovering certain physical phenomenon that couldn't be explained by the current understanding of how the world works, so physicists came up with ways to explain them. some of these interpretations/explanations can and have been ruled out, but some remain and are yet to be confirmed/denied.

in classical physics, you know things are deterministic because they follow established rules/equations. if you throw an object at a certain velocity, you can use the laws of physics to know exactly where it's going to go. it's deterministic; if this, then that.

on the quantum scale, things don't work that way. for example, you have a photon being shot through two slits, and it passes through both slits at the same time. then you decide to measure which slit it passes through, and it randomly decides on a single path to take. in this case, there's no rules governing the behavior of the particle. even if you have all the information on the past state of the system, there's no way to predict what the final outcome will be. as far as we know, it's not deterministic.

however, there are theories proposed where there's some missing physical quantity, that, if you could measure it, would allow you to predict the final outcome, ie, they allow determinism. however most of these theories were disproved by bell's theorem / bell's inequalities. which is why it's widely believed that quantum mechanics are non deterministic

[Laszlo]

We can only hope the cat is ok

[Genevieve]

on the quantum scale, things don't work that way. for example, you have a photon being shot through two slits, and it passes through both slits at the same time. then you decide to measure which slit it passes through, and it randomly decides on a single path to take. in this case, there's no rules governing the behavior of the particle. even if you have all the information on the past state of the system, there's no way to predict what the final outcome will be. as far as we know, it's not deterministic.

The experiment where the act of observing them changed their behavior? I've seen that in a doc once yeah.

Basically, that is all on a level of quantum physics that someone who doesn't know anything about physics probs couldn't understand? Gotcha >.> Thanks for the links though.

I get what you're saying and you've been clear, but I mean, on a deeper level where I can really think about it.

[AxeD]

some girls... jesus. spennt like two hours on tis one before she tells me shes in a realitsionship

[Genevieve]

They just love yo smoothtalk dude