A Temporal Paradox ..... Science Fantasy

[Graybeard]

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Galileo Galilei: By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox.

This thread is not to be taken seriously. It contains a paradox, and therefore a premise, or a postulate, somewhere, somehow, is incorrect. But I have tried and tried to find the catch, to find a rational and reasonable explanation but I can't, perhaps you can ? I invented the story/idea but the paradox appeared all by itself ...

(of course, I am leaving out the effects of the Weak Force for the moment)

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INTRODUCTION:

Once upon a time there was a small blue planet on an outer spiral arm of a rather insignificant galaxy in an unknown and almost forgotten corner of the Universe.

This planet had a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.

The people living on the planet were consumed by the idea of 'time'. Time meant money, and money meant happiness, and the pursuit of money took up nearly everybodys time. The people on the planet had what they believed to be a good grasp of time.

They had constructed an amazing theory, and even tho it was totally wrong in its detail, it was undetectable from the real workings of time.

Even tho it was totally wrong in its detail, it accounted for all that they saw and observed in a perfectly self explanatory manner.

They were wrong about their most fundamental of beliefs .... the arrow of time.

Their theory of time went like this: ..... times always moves on ... we are born, grow up, grow old, and die in a sequential manner .... and time cannot move backward any more than a frog can take a flying jump at the moon. Time has an arrow, and that arrow points, always, irrevocably, towards the unknown future. Behind it lays the remembered past.

To the citizens of the Planet it was unthinkable that time could work in any other fashion. We remember the past because we live thru it, we await the future because we have yet to live thru it

But the Arrow of Time was in reality, pointing the other way, towards what the people called the past. But strange as it may seem, this did not disrupt or even contravene anyone's perceptions and had no noticeable effect on anyone's pursuit of happiness.

This is how it actually worked:

What they saw as the future was actually the real past. (that they had lived thru and forgotten .....)

What they saw as the past was actually the real future (yet to come, yet to be lived thru, but already known. )

Why didn't the people notice this ? How is it that, they, after all their observations and sophisticated measurements got it so totally wrong.

The reason they had it all wrong was because of a very simple memory effect. At any given 'now' or 'present' point their memory only held information on the future (what they called the past) and the past (what they called the future) was erased from memory.

Each day they grew younger, from very old and ancient citizens, towards childhood and ultimately death (they called this birth)

They had made a basic mistake in their initial assumptions of the universe ... they believed they only retained memory of what had occured, and what had not occurred was unknown .... when in fact, due to a remarkable Natural Selection of Evolution, the exact opposite was correct. They only retained memories of what had not occurred, what had occurred was always unknown.

Example 1: So at age 21 a citizen may look back with fondness and nostalgia to their first kiss at age 17 ... but in reality, because they only remember the future that kiss is still 3 years away .... and when it arrives there will be no recollection of the 21 year olds thought ... they will all have been erased, moment by moment, as they were lived ..... and so the first kiss at 17 comes as a total suprise.

Example 2: Picture a movie where the hero gets the girl and celebrates in bed in triumph ... and as he lights that post-coital cigarette he remembers when he first kissed her .... (if he is sensitive .. other wise he is thinking of how to get rid of her now so he can play Playstation).

Lets call that particular frame, the post-coital frame, number 5000. But he first kissed the heroine back in frame 2000, the Kiss frame.

Now sure we can all follow the movie... forward ... and its self explanatory .... but lets play it backward .... and, strangely, its still self explanatory

At frame 5000 we know we kissed the heroine in frame 2000 but in frame 2000 we have no memory of this .... and so we kiss the heroine in all virginal innocence ... unaware that in the distant past (frame 5000) we, the heroes, have already had sexual relations with her.

In other words, time may run either way for these people ..... forward or backward .... they have no way of telling .... and whichever perception they choose to accept as their viewpoint ... it will also have no effect on their lives and the sequence of events they live thru.

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If any one has got this far, and understood what I am trying to say ..... can you see a flaw in the paradox ... ??

Is there a way, using the Laws of physics to determine which way the arrow of time points in their world. Which way do they actually live, forward or backward ?

Which way, by showing proof, does the sequence of time run for these people ?

If time ran backward ....the opposite way to which they believe .... What physical effect would they be able to point to .... HOW WOULD THEY KNOW ???

Would a citizen, noticing some oddity, be able to say, 'Hey, somethings wrong here, according to this observation time must be running backward ?'

In fact if time was to jump, willynilly, erratically ..... leaping over vast tracts of time in any direction, forward and backwards with no detectable pattern, the fact that the people are only aware of the current moment (and its attached memories) prevents them from knowing ...... HOW WOULD THEY KNOW ?? They're only human.


cool bananas ... greg

[austintorn@aol.com]

Ah, good, my first kiss will be coming back. That would be with my cousin, Cathy, in sixth grade. It just sort of happened when we were looking at each other. It was magic.

[Graybeard]

Mine was in the Gaythorne Cinema, canvas dual seats, with a girl whose name I have forgotten, if I ever knew it .... I was 10

It was magic

cool bananas ... greg

[Graybeard]

Mine was in the Gaythorne Cinema, canvas dual seats, with a girl whose name I have forgotten, if I ever knew it .... I was 10

It was magic

cool bananas ... greg

whooooa .... Actually, I'm 56 now ...... so that means I have another 46 years to look forward to that kiss, which will be my last ... as yours was Austin ... lol .... and when I get it, I will have forgotten all of this .... sigh

cool bananas ... greg

[austintorn@aol.com]

The next thing I know, she is sitting on my lap at my Grandmother's funeral—and my mother is wondering why.

I considered writing to the Pope to ask an exception for marrying a first cousin.

[austintorn@aol.com]

"'Tis the doom of Man that he forgets" — Merlyn

[austintorn@aol.com]

ALL THAT LIES BETWEEN

It is a beauty and a brilliance
Flashing up in its destructance;
For, everything isn’t here to stay its “best”;
It’s merely there to die in its sublimeness.

Like slow fires making their brands, it breeds;
Yet, ever consumes and moves on, as more it feeds,
Then spreads forth anew, this unpurposed dispersion,
An inexorable emergence with little reversion,
Ever becoming of its glorious excursions
Through the change that patient time restrains,
And feasting upon the glorious decayed remains,
In its progressive march through losses for gains.

We have oft described the causeless—
That which was always never the less,
As well as the beginnings of our quest,
And, too, have detailed, in the rarest of glimpses,
The slowing end of all of “forever’s” chances;

So, then, we must now turn our attention keen
To all of the action that’s here in-between—
All that’s going on, and has gone before,
Out to the furthest reaches “ever-more”;
For, everything that ever happens,
Including life and all our questions—
Meaning every single event ever gone on
Of both the animate and the non—
Is but from a single theme played upon.

This, then, is of the simplest analysis of all,
For it heeds mainly just one call—
That of the second law: dispersion,
The means for each and every occasion,
From the closest to the farthest range—
That which makes anything change.

These changes range from the simple,
Such as a bouncing ball resting still
Or ice melting that gives up its chill,
To the more complex, such as digestion,
Growth, death, and even reproduction.

There is excessively subtle change, as well,
Such as the formations of opinions tell
And the creation or rejections of the will.

And, yet, all these kinds of changes, of course,
Still become of one simple, common source,
Which is the underlying collapse into chaos—
The destiny of energy’s unmotivated non purpose.

All that appears to us to be motive and purpose
Is in fact ultimately motiveless, without purpose;
Even aspirations and their achievement’s ways
Have fed on, and come about through, the decay.

The deepest structure of change is but decay;
Although, it’s not the quantity of energy’s say
That causes decay, but the quality, for it strays.

Energy that is localized is potent to effect change,
And, in the course of causing change, it ranges,
Spreading, and becoming chaotically distributed,
Losing its quality but never of its quantity rid.

The key to all this, as we will see,
Is that it goes though stages wee,
And so it doesn’t disperse all at once
As might one’s paycheck before a month.

This harnessed decay results not only for
Civilizations, but for all the events going fore
In the world and the universe beyond,
It accounting for all discernible change,
Of all that ever gets so rearranged;
For, the quality of all this energy kinged
Declines, the universe unwinding, as a spring.

Chaos may temporarily recede,
Quality building up for a need,
As when cathedrals are built, or forms,
And when symphonies are performed;
But, these are but local deceits,
Born of our own conceits;
For, deeper in the world of kinds
The spring inescapably unwinds,
Driving its energy away—
As ALL is being driven by decay.

The quality of energy meant
Is of its dispersal’s extent;
When it is totally precipitate,
It destroys; but when it’s gait
Is geared through chains of events
It can produce civilization’s tenants.

Ultimately, energy naturally,
Spontaneously, and chaotically
Disperses, causing change, irreversibly;
Think of a crowd of atoms jostling,
At first as a vigorous motion happening
In some corner of the atomic crowd;
They hand on their energy, loud,
Inducing close neighbors to jostle, too,
And soon the jostling disperses, too—
The irreversible change but the potion
Of the random, motiveless motions.

And such does hot metal cool, as atoms swirl,
There being so many atoms in the world
Outside it than in the block metal itself;
Entropy’s statisticals average themself.

The illusions of purpose lead us to think
That there are reasons, of some motive link,
Why one change occurs and not another,
And even that there are reasons that cover
Specific changes in locations of energy,
The energy choosing to go there, intentionally,
Such as a purpose for a change in structure,
This being as such as the opening of a flower;
Yet, this should not be confused with energy
Achieving to be there, in that specific bower,
Since, at root, of all the “power”,
Even that of the root of the flower,
That there is, is the degradation by dispersal,
This being mostly non reversible, and universal.

The energy is always still spreading, thencely,
Even to some temporarily located density—
An illusion of specific change
In some region rearranged,
But, actually, it’s just lingering there, “discovering”,
Until new opportunities arise for “exploring”,
The consequences but of random opportunity,
Beneath which, purpose still vanishes entirely.

Events are the manifestations
Of overriding probability’s instantiations—
Of all of the events of nature, of every sod,
From the bouncing ball to conceptions of gods,
Of even free will, evolution, and all ambition;
For, they’re of our simple idea’s elaborations;
Although, for the latter stated there
And such for that as warfare,
Their intrinsic simplicity
Is buried more deeply.

And yet, though sometimes concealed away,
The spring of all creation is just decay,
The consequence and “instruction”
Of the natural tendency to corruption.

Love or war become as factions
Through the agency of chemical reactions,
All actions being the chains of reactions,
Whether thinking, doing, or rapt in attention,
For all is of chemical reaction.

At its most rudimentary bottom,
Chemical reactions are rearrangement of atoms,
These being species of molecules,
That, with perhaps additions and deletions
Then go on to constitute another one, by fate,
Although, they sometimes only change shape,
But, too, can be consumed and torn apart,
Either as a whole or in part; so cruel,
A source of atoms for another molecule.
Molecules have neither motive nor purpose to act—
Neither an inclination to go on to react
Nor any urge to remain unreacted;
So, then, why do reactions occur, if unacted?

Molecules are but loosely structured
And so they can be easily ruptured,
For reactions may occur if the process energy norm
Is degraded into a more dispersed and chaotic form,
And, so, as they usually are always constantly subject
To the tendency to lose energy as the “abject”
Jostling carries it away to the surroundations,
Reactions being misadventure’s transformations,
It then being that some transient arrangements
May suddenly be “frozen” into “permanences”
As the energy leaps away to other “experiences”.

So, molecules are a stage in which the play goes on—
But not so fast that the forms cannot seize upon;
But, really, why do molecules have such fragility,
For, if their atoms were as tightly bound as nuclei,
Then the universe would have died, being frozen,
Long before the awakening the forms “chosen”,
Or, if molecules were as totally free to react
Every single time they touched a neighbor’s pact
Then all events would have taken place so rapidly
And so very crazily and haphazardly
That the rich attributes of the world we know
Would not have had the time to grow.

Ah, but is it all of the necessitated restraint,
For it ever takes time the scene to paint,
As such as in the unfolding of a leaf—
The endurations for any stepping feat,
As of the emergence of consciousness
And the paused ends of energy’s restlessness:
Is of the controlled consequence of collapse
Rather than one that’s wholly precipitous.

So, now all is known, of our here’s and nows
Within this parentheses of the eternal bough,
As well as the why and how of it all has come,
And of our universe’s end—but, that others become.

(The verse lines, being like molecules, warmed,
Continually broke apart and reformed
About the rhymes which tried to be nonintrusions,
Eventually all flexibly stabilizing to conclusion.)

Out of energy’s dispersion and decay of quality
Comes the emergence of growth and complexity.

[Graybeard]

How the phu****** did you write that so kwikly ...... ????????

Ok .... but in my opinion, calling upon the second law of thermodynamics .... is cheating a little .... because the 'second law' is really more derived from observation then from math.

What drives the second law ..... because after all ... the paradox stands or falls by the second law.

My poem of the second law

The Second Law of Thermodynamics

‘The second Law ’, The Lecturer said
Dutiful students dropped their heads.
Each pen scribbled on each page.
All systems undergo spontaneous change.

‘All systems of their own accord ’,
The Lecturer wrote across the board.
The students copied in perfect order.
'All systems tend to high disorder.'

‘If the free energy can drop ’.
The Lecturer came to a sudden stop.
Each student paused. Each pencil poised.
The bell had rung. A growing noise.

From each classroom students poured.
Down the corridors they roared.
Hoots and cries, a madhouse rush,
To be the first to reach the bus.

But in one classroom, order reigned.
The Lecturer ignored the change.
Each student struggled gamely on.
The pent up energy was strong

‘If a small increase in a systems order,
Results in higher total disorder,
Then ! ’.......pause.... ‘across the range,
All systems undergo spontaneous change ’

‘The amount of possible change can be,
Almost as high as infinity.
To return the system as before,
Is one such change…….. Boys……. no more. ’

Down went each pencil, closed each book.
Up their satchels, each student took.
And out to join the growing throng
Where they’d wished they were all along

The Lecturer smiled, as he had before.
He wondered about the Second Law,
And why he bothered day after day
To go against it in this way.

Gisaac20040509

[Graybeard]

Actually, I wonder what year I was born in .... ??? .... I know that I will die in 1954 ..........

cool bananas .... greg

PS: Austin, my poem above ...... I have yet to write it (iz dere a clue here ??)

[Graybeard]

I may be on to something that defines the arrow of time. If the arrow has no definition, then time goes either way or jumps sporadically.

But if the poem above is not to be written until 2004 ..... and yet it appears in the post above, today ... then the paradox has a crack .... the crack being that the poem exists before it is written

this is my craziest thread ever ...... cool bananas ... greg