[marksnl1]

Hi Guille, thanx for your elaborate answer.
First of all, I do not necesarilly adhere to Barbour's theory. I just thought it shouldn't be left out of this discussion.
And I certainly do not deny the suffering of the Jewish people, or any people or for that matter any living creature whatsoever.

He seems to say that nothing "happens".
Everything that can happen exists in the form of a series of snapshots, as he puts it, of configurations (of particles) that together make up 'configuration space'. Each snapshot is here meant to be not a measure of time, but a unique configuration of, if I remember correctly, all particles that exist.

He states that what we percevieve as 'history' (say the history of an arrow being shot and reaching a target) is a path through a particular series of snapshots. Meaning, btw, that the arrow leaving the bow, is NOT the arrow hitting the target, they are two distinct objects. So, no movement, only configurations.
That would imply that the history of our world ( in the sense of everything around us we can experience, the universe and by proxie, its history) is also a particular path through configuration space. The overwhelming majority of configurations is too simple, meaningless or boring to be of interest here. But statistics dictates that a certain fraction would look like moments in time in wich we (eventually) exist. The sum of these snapshots is that particular path through configuration space, our world. Since there are very many paths, Barbours theory reminds one of the many worlds theories, it just explains it in a rather original way.

Now, the discussion here was superliminal speeds.
I would say there was a minimum measure in which snapshots can differ.
Hence, the impression of movement is also limited, namely to what we measure as the speed of light. Hence, no superluminal speeds.

I'm sorry for my amateurish explanation, but it's the best I can manage.
Also, again, I find Barbours thinking very interesting, but do not have the theoretical knowledge, nor am I smart enough to be able to say that I adhere to it.
Mark

[bsaucer]

Yes... I've heard rumors that neutrinos are superluminal, having imaginary "rest mass". (Of course they're never at rest, and neither are photons!). There's also "something" that seems to go faster than light in the EPR paradox.

I believe that superluminal interactions occur by "mutual adreement" rather than causality. I've always wondered about the "conflict" between "causality" and Newton's third law (action and reaction).

I've recently come to the conclusion that "causality" is actually an illusion, along with the 2nd "law" of thermodynamics, which only occurs because of the initially low entropy in the universe. The measurement problem falls into a similar category.

[austintorn@aol.com]

The speed of light may be the rpm rate that that a nucleon spins at, throwing off a blob of energy as a photon at that same rate.

As there is a limit to the spin of a nucleon, the speed of light is limited as well.

Just a guess.

[timeparticle]

I take my Time Particle Accelerator every night into the future. The planet seems to have recovered from the dark ways of the Age of Man, in the future, but the Hobbits seem to be a little cranky. I like the tall female Elves, personally. They seem to be in charge of earth. I hooked up with a couple of them ... they're very wise and strong. Coming back to present is a little depressing, but my TPA shouldn't stay in future time to long as the time strings start to vibrate... it gets really loud... so I return. The men seemed to have gotten shorter, and the women taller. Maybe that is some sort of time lord punishment for messing up the planet. I suppose they'll call that future time period, the Age of Women, but who knows....time will tell. I'm going back tonight. I'll tell them you inquired about the future and time travel. They usually laugh when I bring up the how the past times were here on earth in the Age of Man, and ponder how much better life is now. I think the Hobbits are cranky because they have not settled into the new age so well... Middle Earth was curious to them, So Late Earth must be unsettling.

Later, Tp