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What is "now"

Lost Ego said:
Ohh, ok. Was my theory on how relativity works practical?

To be honest I had a bad acid trip last year and I'm just trying to find solidity in the world around me. I now see my vibration theory isn't feasible... I was just thinking about how matter vibrates, our brain waves "vibrate" or oscillate, how our sight and hearing is based upon vibrations and the frequency at which they vibrate determines how we percieve the world... but i suppose none of that was at all relevant lol. Oh wait were you still referring to the relativity thing? I'm not exactly sure what i meant with that, the whole "room for vibrations" thing was the first thing to pop into my head at the time. How exactly does it work? Why do particles moving faster decay slower? Do we even know that answer?
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For the same basic reason I explained... something going fast has a proper time that seems slow to an observer which is not going as fast. So, since the particle is going at ultrarelativistic speed, its proper time [i.e. its "subjective" time] is dilated, or slower then the proper time for the detection apparatus. So it experiences a half-life of 1 unit in its frame of reference, but in the particle detectors frame of reference, that might be a 1000 units of time.If the apparatus was co-moving with the particle, they would have the same frame of reference, and it's half-life would match up with the apparatus's clock. It's actually a PERFECT, real life, example of observer variant time and time dilation.

See, I think the brain would have consciousness as a quantitzed thing, and not as a analog thing because, well, most obviously would be, you can not form discreet memories of things below a certain time scale. I challenge you to remember what happened yesterday, to a resolution of pico-seconds. Your memories, and your general thought processes seem to occur in chunks, and do not resemble a continuous flow that goes down to arbitrarily small time scales.
 
Lost Ego said:
How exactly does it work? Why do particles moving faster decay slower? Do we even know that answer?
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... weird.

Maybe because the slower moving particles are being utilized more at the place they are in at that moment, which should require more energy to be used to move across a given space.

?

_________
this reminds me of a boxing match i watched the other day,
between a 165LB man and a 600LB man...
 
rangrz said:
^

As I was explaining, it is due to relativistic effects of time dilation[experienced by the detection apparatus]/ length contraction[observed by the particle].

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/relativ/muon.html
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Um.

You know they came down and confused our language so that we might not understand each others speech?

might as well of have posted up Sumerian "heiro/pharaoh-plane" hieroglyphs.
NSFW:

2ivzguo.jpg



;)
 
rangrz said:
^

As I was explaining, it is due to relativistic effects of time dilation[experienced by the detection apparatus]/ length contraction[observed by the particle].

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/relativ/muon.html
Click to expand...
This is still so hard for me to wrap my head around. When i think of time i still think of it as experienced collectively the same. Not in seperate frames. I'm still struggling to grasp it... What if we use the sun as the observer? This is my line of thought and where im stuck. Lets say i get in a super fast, heat resistant rocket ship and fly around the sun a million times while my gf waits at home. No matter how fast i move the sun will still remain in the same position for the both of us will it not? Is the sun's position irrelavent? When i think of time, i think of a clock, the time of day. At the time 12:30 the sun will be in the middle of the sky relative to the earth in california. My clock would read 12:05 and my gf's would read 12:30 but the sun would still be in the middle of the sky? I think you see where i'm going with this. I don't think now is relative to your frame. Even if i come back to earth and i'm 20 and she's 40 and i talk to her, that's still now, she's not recieving the message 20 years in the past due to my frame being so different. Now is the moment we're experiencing, the plane we exist in, and as long as we're within reach of each other we can never leave this now. Frames have nothing to do with time (progression of now), frames have everything to do with our lifespan and how many gray hairs i get and how soon.

Edit: one more question. Say i'm flying around the universe in my super fast rocket ship and during this time i'm still able to talk to my gf on my cell phone during my whole trip and it takes no time for my cell phone's waves to reach my gf. If i talk to her constantly throughout my entire trip will my speech seem sped up to her? They can't or shouldn't because like i said before we are locked in the same moment, the same now, the same plane. Or will I indeed experience 20 years worth of moments (the same amount she experiences and the same amount of telephone conversation) but i will age by 1 year? If so we could live 10x longer via hyper space travel xD and 10x shorter if we slowed down the rate at which the earth moves lol. And DMT! The time distortion! 15 minutes on earth feeling like an eternity, perhaps because we really are traveling through hyperspace :D.
 
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Now is just a second, so since I started typing this out Now has passed but yet I am already in 'another' now.
So how can now be of any importance when it is been & gone before you even notice it has passed.
 
This is still so hard for me to wrap my head around.
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Relativistic and quantum-mechanical models are notoriously difficult to communicate to laypeople in the English language without recourse to diagrams and technical terminology. One thing of which I am certain is this: Without the requisite training in mathematics, one can never truly comprehend the vast majority of modern physics (even Newton's classical mechanics require some knowledge of trigonometry and calculus). At any rate, I'm not entirely sure how much physics has to say about most philosophical issues, since I consider physical science to be more in the business of model-building and approximation rather than the ultimate explication of universal truths.

I had a hard time (philosophically) grasping relativity as well, but after receiving some mathematical training, I began to grudgingly accept much of what I saw at face value. Our discovery of the 'time-dilation' that occurs near light-speed is the result of many hours of painstaking mathematical inquiry, not a lengthy academic discussion composed of words. As difficult as that fact (and the bizarre physics that it has produced) may be to accept, it is the real reason that these concepts are so ineffable for scientists and so baffling to the lay public to whom these theories are admirably being communicated as effectively as possible. There is ultimately a limit to how much can be said about a world as thoroughly strange as ours. Think of an emotionally poignant scene from your past; then try to fully express it in all its intricate detail in a few short sentences. You will find your rich experience reduced to a mere slogan, a blurb. That is, in a sense, what happens to these physics when we try to succinctly communicate them to non-specialists as well. I'm aware that this wasn't much of an answer, but I'm not a physicist, and cannot purport to offer any useful commentary on the subject of relativity proper. I do feel justified, however, in urging you to deeply consider the relationship of science to the world in which we live and the particular kind of philosophy that you're trying to do.
 
I find a lot of the subjects that are discussed on this sub forum very interesting but as I didn't go to university I struggle to understand a lot of what is being said but I intend to persevere with it as a lot of what is discussed here really does get me thinking about that particular subject matter etc.
Just need to improve my understanding of the terminology that is used,which I had the natural intelligence to understand but not gonna give up.
 
^ just go to google.com and type "define: [your word you don't understand]" and press enter. you'll learn it all in no time.


P A said:
Relativistic and quantum-mechanical models are notoriously difficult to communicate to laypeople in the English language without recourse to diagrams and technical terminology. One thing of which I am certain is this: Without the requisite training in mathematics, one can never truly comprehend the vast majority of modern physics (even Newton's classical mechanics require some knowledge of trigonometry and calculus). At any rate, I'm not entirely sure how much physics has to say about most philosophical issues, since I consider physical science to be more in the business of model-building and approximation rather than the ultimate explication of universal truths.

I had a hard time (philosophically) grasping relativity as well, but after receiving some mathematical training, I began to grudgingly accept much of what I saw at face value. Our discovery of the 'time-dilation' that occurs near light-speed is the result of many hours of painstaking mathematical inquiry, not a lengthy academic discussion composed of words. As difficult as that fact (and the bizarre physics that it has produced) may be to accept, it is the real reason that these concepts are so ineffable for scientists and so baffling to the lay public to whom these theories are admirably being communicated as effectively as possible. There is ultimately a limit to how much can be said about a world as thoroughly strange as ours. Think of an emotionally poignant scene from your past; then try to fully express it in all its intricate detail in a few short sentences. You will find your rich experience reduced to a mere slogan, a blurb. That is, in a sense, what happens to these physics when we try to succinctly communicate them to non-specialists as well. I'm aware that this wasn't much of an answer, but I'm not a physicist, and cannot purport to offer any useful commentary on the subject of relativity proper. I do feel justified, however, in urging you to deeply consider the relationship of science to the world in which we live and the particular kind of philosophy that you're trying to do.
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I easily grasp the concept of relativity, the problem is the logistics. See i would just let relativity go until i had the proper education but he is indeed using it to argue against my philosophies so he needs to be able to put it in terms so that there are no holes in the logic behind it.
 
he is indeed using it to argue against my philosophies so he needs to be able to put it in terms so that there are no holes in the logic behind it
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Fair enough.

I easily grasp the concept of relativity
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Hats off to you, man. It's been difficult for me to wrap my head around the topic even with a decent background in analytic geometry. Got any protips? Or do you have any idea what you're talking about?

I mean, lots of well-trained physicists will attest to the mind-bending nature of general relativity and its bizarre cosmological implications, even to the point that many of its inherent incongruities and paradoxes remain unresolved. Perhaps you could shed some light on the matter for all those brilliant scientists in need of a mind as gifted as yours. For a guy whose chosen moniker is 'Lost Ego,' you sure do seem to - ah, fuck it, never mind. I'm too tired. Carry on...
 
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Edit: one more question. Say i'm flying around the universe in my super fast rocket ship and during this time i'm still able to talk to my gf on my cell phone during my whole trip and it takes no time for my cell phone's waves to reach my gf. If i talk to her constantly throughout my entire trip will my speech seem sped up to her? They can't or shouldn't because like i said before we are locked in the same moment, the same now, the same plane. Or will I indeed experience 20 years worth of moments (the same amount she experiences and the same amount of telephone conversation) but i will age by 1 year? If so we could live 10x longer via hyper space travel xD and 10x shorter if we slowed down the rate at which the earth moves lol. And DMT! The time distortion! 15 minutes on earth feeling like an eternity, perhaps because we really are traveling through hyperspace .
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Your cellphone signal will still take the time required for it to get earth, it will travel at the speed of light, but that is still finite. If you are say for easy of numbers, 1.5 light years away, the round trip for you saying something and her reply well be 3 years. That applies to both of you, since the speed of light, as found in special relativity, is observer Independent. But you will only experience 1 year of life, of events, of thoughts and ideas, while she will experience 20, for e.g.

With flying around the sun, yes your clock and EVERYTHING in your frame of reference will be slowed down relative to the earth. The earth and the sun are not co-moving observers to you, and noon on earth will occur at the same earth-frame proper time. But it will seem earlier in your frame.

I easily grasp the concept of relativity, the problem is the logistics. See i would just let relativity go until i had the proper education but he is indeed using it to argue against my philosophies so he needs to be able to put it in terms so that there are no holes in the logic behind it.
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I'm doing my best man, as P A said, it's really difficult to explain this properly to someone without the background in it. Like yeah, I'm doing a Masters in Medical Physics and have gotten a very good grasp on these concepts and the mathematics behind them. But to explain it in plain English is difficult as hell. I'm trying tho man,

Maxalife: If you have any questions about physics, or science in general, esp bio/medicine (thats my undergrad) go ahead and shoot me a P.M.
 
right now, not yesterday, not tomorrow
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yesterday won't be a right now anymore

but tomorrow will be a "right now" in the future
then, caring for the future is on par with caring for the now
 
The moment where all that could have been becomes fixed and mesurable forevermore. The wavefront of reality taming the chaos of infinite possibity into the barren wasteland of the known.
 
rangrz said:
False, you can decide to delay doing something into the future, of course when you actually do it, it is "now" but you need not execute a plan as soon as you think of it.
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Unless your plan was to not execute it now but execute it later, now you have executed THAT plan !
 
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