In physics, when we consider a particle and its past, present and future path throughout the universe, we call its definite path a ‘’worldline.’’ A particle will always try to move in straight lines throughout spacetime, but because space and time are curved into each other, most of the time, they follow curved paths through space.
This is what we mean by a warped space, or distorted spacetime. We find that these distortions are in fact just gravity, or curved spacetime. And gravity is the presence of matter itself. Even light cannot escape the wrath of gravity at very strong levels, but usually, a tiny photon traveling in empty space will almost definitely travel in straight lines.
But there really isn’t just one straight line, or worldline for any particle. We find that according to Feynman’s Sum Over Histories, a particle actually has every possible path to its disposal – these path’s are of both times past and times to come.

We find that these paths have themselves a statistical element about them and will variably shape how a particle will end up in any state given upon measurement. Take a photon traveling from the past: It will take every known possible path, even those improbable paths through a black hole (but as you can imagine, the statistics for this are so vanishingly small, we can nearly neglect them, but Hawking shows that it is possible for allowing a particle to travel at superluminal speeds using the uncertainty principle), and upon arrival at Earth, we can measure the photon, and all the paths its could have taken, according to the wave function, suddenly collapses into a single probability!

For Feynman’s Sum Over History to apply to physics, one must use imaginary time, rather than the concept of real time. Imaginary time is the same thing as real space, whereas real time is the same thing as imaginary space. The two concepts are pivotal to understanding how we contemplate different ways to look at our universe at large, and even at small scales.
Granted, the concepts themselves are purely mathematical, but they play an enormous part in relativity and quantum mechanics. You need to first gather up all the possible path a particle can take, bundle them together so-to-say, and then we need to measure those statistics against real time, and the result is the real conditions of the particles history; but even those results have a slight statistical aura about them.

In the case of the universe at large and gravity, Feynman would need to have analyzed all possible histories of a curved spacetime, and this at large affects everything that has a worldline in this universe. There would indeed be a finite number of possible outcomes, but one would need to chose which outcome best fits this universe today.
Hawking reminds us, that if this is indeed the case, the class of curved spacetime that determines the universe today (including those spaces and times which are blown into unimaginable proportions, or singularities), the probabilities of such spaces cannot be determined by the theory. However, he says it is possible if we calculate them in some arbitrary way. Dr. Hawking is very cryptic this way, but what he means is that science cannot predict any history for the universe if there is a singular past. So any attempt to learn how a universe with a singularity would result, is really a disaster for science.

Now, since this study is about time and space at large, let’s consider CTC’s or ‘’Closed-Timelike-Curves.’’ This is a worldline describing a physical system which is ‘’closed’’. This means something physical in fact returns to original starting point. We call such movements ‘’sinusoidal’’.
The idea of CTC’s was in fact developed by Willem Jacob van Stockum in 1937 and later by the infamous Kurt Godel in 1949. There is indeed a lot of controversy over their existence, but if they do, it could revolutionize relativity including our ability to create machines capable of a global causal violation; in other words, a path that twists in space and moves through time.

Worldlines and of course Feynman’s Sum Over Histories is best described in terms of ‘’light cones’’, which is really a more specified term that is timelike in nature. It will probably be more recognized than the last two concepts. Light cones describe every possible future of a physical object in spacetime, given a current measurement during the present time. This can seem a bit strange, because not only does one deflate all possibilities of the past events to a single value upon measurement (the collapse of the wave function), but one can now calculate all possible path’s in the future in real time.
Because of the standard arrows of time, (there is something like several known, such as the Cosmological, Radiative and even Psychological Arrows), the light cones are always depicted to move forward in time. As explained earlier however, a particle doesn’t move constantly in a straight line. Therego it must also tilt into space, as it does through time in curved spacetime, so it is best to refer to these cones as timespace, or spacetime, depending on how one wished to see it. Because of this, one can have in special conditions, a particle which experiences a timespace and spacetime that is so heavily curved, it can return to place it began. Simple basic rotations through space and through time, which are conveniently called, ‘’closed-timelike-curves’’, so just think of a loop that twists in space and moves through time back into its original starting point.

Frank J. Tipler, Prof. of mathematics and physics at Tulane University in New Orleans, developed an ingenious idea involving such closed-timelike-curves. I have read his article… it’s a good read. He explains that classical relativity does in fact predict pathological behavior. The exact nature of the pathology, or, CTC’s, are however very debatable, since the predictive nature of relativity has itself many outcomes.
His design is quite old now, but it is still a probability in physics creation of time machines today. His design is to create a huge rapidly rotating cylinder (possibly in space – I assume), and the spacetime around the cylinder will be warped to such an extent, that even time itself becomes sinusoidally warped so that instead of flowing in the correct direction… that is forwards, it in fact varies in an oscillating manner. Of course, one might think that such a spacetime would rip a spacetime traveler apart, but we aren’t talking about black holes here. If this machine, entered carefully, could avoid being turned into spaghetti and experience a dilated time frame. Perhaps this is the time machine of the future?

Is Our Universe Retrocausal? - will be a paper i'll write tommorrow. In effect, my idea is that the big bang is in fact a retrocausual event, allowed via closed-timelike-lines.

I'll let you stew on it until i write it and post it tommorrow.

Paper 2/4

Is Our Universe Retrocausal?

There is something very fixed in the universe: This is the observer…
She observes the universe in all its glory, and there is a specific directionality to this phase. This is of course, the psychological arrow of time. This arrow allows the psyche to adapt to a certain flow within the universe… This flow is forward. Because the human is intrinsic to such properties, we find that in the Copenhagen Interpretation that time is actually relative to the observer… Indeed, it states that if the observer was not here, there would be no such thing as time!! We say the same thing about energy-matter and space, since according to relativity, all are deeply connected and somehow the same thing.
If things where going backwards, things would seem very strange indeed… According to Dr. Hawking, if time is reversed, then so must the entropy contained within the universe. This means, everything that has evolved into today’s present states, would suddenly begin to de-evolve, and the plate that fell onto the floor would suddenly reassemble on the table! Counterintuitive? Perhaps, but this what we should expect, since the entropy reverse on the microscopic scale would indeed drag even the components it makes ‘’macroscopic objects’’ to the their previous states…

Something more can be seen in this though. The human mind, according to my theory, and understanding of the Copenhagen Interpretation would not allow us to know that the plate had reassembled on the table. Why? Because one must assume that even ‘’secret knowledge,’’ or personal knowledge is also dragged along with the matter…
For those who believe that mind is bound by the matter of the brain, then mind too must experience the same flow of time, and same consequences. This means that personal knowledge that was increasing as time passed, now begins to decrease! So I propose, even though Hawking explains that if time went back and in result we would see the proverbial plate reassemble, we wouldn’t know! He doesn’t explain this. But it makes logical sense… since to the observer now, time is still flowing in the correct manner… In short, we wouldn’t know. He may have proclaimed this before though, but I do not recall him mentioning this in his book, ‘’A Brief History of Time.’’

So, what should we expect if time does move back? Should it move back at all??
According to the Omega Theory of Cosmological Evolution, everything will reach an end singularity. A singularity which halts all known forward laws of physics, and inexorably forces everything to move backwards; but this depends on a steady balance of matter against the ratio of spacetime…There are existing theories right now which currently goes against such a point, against such a symmetry in time, such as the known acceleration of the universe, which seems to be indicating that our universe is ‘’Open,’’ meaning it will continue forever to expand. If it does, this can lead to Armageddon visions such as a Big Freeze or even Big Rip.

However, such a symmetry in time leads to exciting proposals that makes us realize that in subtle ways, the end and the beginning are somehow the same thing. It is easier to understand this, by using Hawkings analogy that if the universe sprung from a singularity, it would end in a singularity… both are somehow points which oscillate in imaginary time.
Reversing time allows us to find these strange results predicted, and if we could watch a reversed time frame of the universe, we ask the question, ‘’would it look the same as it did going forward?’’

Take a jar of gas. Any gas, with about a billion, billion, billion atoms. As time moves forward, the atoms in the jar become more and more disordered, and more and more less like the original state they had evolved from. How long would we need to wait, until all of those atoms reached the same states as they begun? It’s very difficult say, but in the long run, it should take trillions of years… maybe even longer…

Now, this so far, has explained in very pragmatic terms what energy-matter is subjected to in this universe; a constant disorder which should never reach a state which it had begun, unless everything is suddenly reverted back to whence it came via an Omega Singularity, or a Big Crunch.
But what about this notion that the beginning is somehow very much like, if not the same as the end? How can one come to such a conceptualized view of the universe?
The answer turns out to be very dubious indeed. The answer might lye in closed- timelike-curves… In short, just to get a very quick picture of what is being said here, is that the beginning of the universe might be a state which eventually curves back onto itself so that that there is what appears to be, a superb intrical Gordian’s knot.

As explained earlier, a CTC (Closed-Timelike-Curves) are states of a physical system which twists through space and time, and ends up exactly where it began. Is this the nature of the universe? It begs the question.
Let us view the universe like an atom, as described by Hawkings principle of Quantum Cosmology… and then assume that this particle/universe reaches a state which is so heavily curved upon itself, it is forced to end up where it began… then it turns out that the end is in fact the beginning, and vice versa… (This idea could be related intimately to pulsating universe theory).

But something even more sinister can arise from all of this, I speculate. If the beginning is the end, and the end is the beginning, (as I believe some old wise religions and philosophies state), then there might be room for some retrocausality – but first, what is a retrocausality in physics?

It is when the effect precedes the cause… We postulate this from interpretations of general relativity, and some interpretations of quantum mechanics. In fact, Dr. Wolf reminds us that the uncertainty principle, which governs our inability to predict all that there is to be known at the very small scales of quarks and protino’s, that cause and effect breaks down!!! This is very true, and since we know that physics predicts this, we can say that retrocausality must happen everyday in our lives; we are not concerned with this strange action though, because we exist on levels which are not normally affected by such a principle.

I ill submit the third paper tomoz.

If anyone likes talking about physics, i should expect some reply at all?

Reiku---

I will give you the benefit of the doubt here, untill I feel that your work has left the realm of physics altogether.

There is something very fixed in the universe: This is the observer…
She observes the universe in all its glory, and there is a specific directionality to this phase. This is of course, the psychological arrow of time.

Specifically, why should there be a ``psychological'' arrow of time? Presumably, if there were no humans, or consciousness, there would still be a second law of thermodynamics. So why should we not understand the fact that we perceive time to travel in one direction as a simple consequence of the fact that we evolved in a universe where the second law applies?

Ben, are you equating increase in entropy to Eddington's "arrow of time"? It looks like, but there seems to be something fishy here.

As I recall Boltzmann's statistical treatment of the 2nd Law, one had rather say that, given arbitrary boundary conditions, the probability that the final state of a system will be "less organized" than it's initial state is overwhelmingly high. This tells us a) this probability is non-zero and b) gives no information about intermediate sates, whatever these boundary conditions are.

I can't convince myself that's what meant by the "arrow of time". Or have I got it all wrong?

Indeed, it states that if the observer was not here, there would be no such thing as time!! We say the same thing about energy-matter and space, since according to relativity, all are deeply connected and somehow the same thing.

I don't agree with this. Time is an intrinsic property of space-time. The only thing needed for time to exist is a time direction.

This is a big leap, and you must justify this.

Steven Hawking first used the Time arrow analogy in his public lectures:
The Beginning of Time. {read the book } He also goes back to it in other lectures. Reiku you should REALLY mention stuff like that, it is easy to argue with YOU, not so easy to argue with Hawking. Huw Price did and it is still being debated to see who is right. {READ} Cosmology, time's arrow, and that old double standard, by Huw Price



closed time-like curves DO occur in in microparticles

The methods of the quantum theory of computation are used to analyze the physics of closed time-like lines. This is dominated, even at the macroscopic level, by quantum mechanics. In classical physics the existence of such lines in a space/time imposes "paradoxical" constraints on the state of matter in their past and also provides means for knowledge to be created in ways that conflict with the principles of the philosophy of science. In quantum mechanics the first of these pathologies does not occur. The second is mitigated, and may be avoidable without such space/times being ruled out. Several novel and distinctive (but non paradoxical) quantum-mechanical effects occur on and near closed time-like lines, including violations of the correspondence principle and of unitarian. It becomes possible to "clone" quantum systems and to measure the state of a quantum system. A new experimental test of the Everett interpretation against all others becomes possible. Consideration of these and other effects sheds light on the nature of quantum mechanics.

Quantum mechanics near closed time-like lines

David Deutsch
Oxford University Mathematical Institute, 24-29 St. Giles, Oxford OX1 3LB, England

So unless I am understanding this wrong, Time/Space is observing Time-like curves all the time, at the smallest scales. That being the case, as I see it the laws of nature { not man } show that this happens at the core of the expression of reality. The thought being that the smaller you go into the make up of "everything" the closer you get to what it really is. { not how WE observe the little we CAN see }

A particle traveling faster then light is said to be traveling BACK in time so who is to say what direction is the "normal" flow of time to begin with?

A particle traveling faster then light is said to be traveling BACK in time so who is to say what direction is the "normal" flow of time to begin with?

Well, there certainly is a notion of arrow of time macroscopically, which is what Reiku is referring to, I think. Microscopically, I have much less intuition for what arrow of time means. But the fact that their is a time direction is in no way dependant on the fact that there are observers or matter or anything.

And particles which travel faster than light (except tachyons) are not observable. Their effects tend to cancel out---they are called ``virtual''. It is (kind of) easy to show that their effects are not measurable.

Their are most likely Planck-scale effects which cause closed timelike curved to form momentarily and then disappear, with a time scale on the order of the planck time. This is expected from general quantum gravity arguments.

No... Ben if you removethis thread from here, i will not contribute any more science.

First, all the Copenhagenists, which far outweigh any of the other members of any other interpretation of physics, states that the observer collapses the wave function, and that means to make something real... so without an observer, according to this particular interpretation, matter is intrinsic to observation. Without an observer, matter is said to exist in a ghost of probability.

''Well, there certainly is a notion of arrow of time macroscopically, which is what Reiku is referring to, I think.''

Not at all. Granted, the entropy on microscopic levels actually give rise to a directionality in macroscopic objects. This cannot be denied.

As for the psychological arrow of time, it is intrinsic to understanding the observer effect, and how time has any focus to one direction. One might even say it is one of the most important arrows known.

''And particles which travel faster than light (except tachyons) are not observable. Their effects tend to cancel out---they are called ``virtual''. It is (kind of) easy to show that their effects are not measurable.''

See... this is what i don't get about you... I make one mention of Hawking demonstrating that a virtual [particle] can travel faster than light for a very short time... you ignore everything else i have mentioned... in fact, do you not see why i mentioned this at all? I was being thorough in the work.

Now seriously Ben, this is pure quantum mechanics. Cut me some slack. A lot please.

Ben, are you equating increase in entropy to Eddington's "arrow of time"? It looks like, but there seems to be something fishy here.

As I recall Boltzmann's statistical treatment of the 2nd Law, one had rather say that, given arbitrary boundary conditions, the probability that the final state of a system will be "less organized" than it's initial state is overwhelmingly high. This tells us a) this probability is non-zero and b) gives no information about intermediate sates, whatever these boundary conditions are.

I can't convince myself that's what meant by the "arrow of time". Or have I got it all wrong?

I always get myself into trouble when I talk about these things.

But, take a star forming. That happens regardless of wether there are people watching it, right?

I understood Reiku's comments to be that conciousness was somehow tied to the arrow of time, and that's obviously not right.

It is in Copenhagen. There are actually several arrows Ben, and if conscioness isn't linked to the psychological arrow, please tell me why. Please don't let any illogical answer fly in the face of everything i have learned.

[Edit] please don't spam this thread. You have done it with each and every thread i have ever made here. If you do, i will have to resort to a complaint. I don't want to do that.

First, all the Copenhagenists, which far outweigh any of the other members of any other interpretation of physics, states that the observer collapses the wave function, and that means to make something real... so without an observer, according to this particular interpretation, matter is intrinsic to observation. Without an observer, matter is said to exist in a ghost of probability.

But there is always some ambiguity about the definition of ``observer''. ``Observer'' doesn't necessarily mean the same thing as ``consiousness''.

As for the psychological arrow of time, it is intrinsic to understanding the observer effect, and how time has any focus to one direction. One might even say it is one of the most important arrows known

Well, words like ``psychological'' have no meanings if there are no intelligent observers in the universe. And clearly there is still an arrow of time if this is the case. So I don't know how the ``psychological arrow of time'' is so important.

See... this is what i don't get about you... I make one mention of Hawking demonstrating that a virtual [particle] can travel faster than light for a very short time... you ignore everything else i have mentioned... in fact, do you not see why i mentioned this at all? I was being thorough in the work.

Reiku---your work is never thourough. You are making a bunch of claims which are confusing me (which is, after all, not that hard to do), and you are refusing to explain yourself.

It is in Copenhagen. There are actually several arrows Ben, and is conscioness isn't linked to the psychological arrow, please tell me why. Please don't let any illogical answer fly in the face of everything i have learned.

There is only one arrow of time that I have ever heard of, and it doesn't have anything to do with conciousness.

You could start a census here arguing that thing evolve normally as we understand them Ben without an observer - but then you would need to be ignorant of the principle of collapse and Copenhagen. I am a Copenhagenist.

Start off then Ben, with the Radiative Arrow, then the Cosmological Arrow, then work your way through to the Psychological Arrow. You'll find them all interesting.

I have made this thorough. Stop spamming my work Ben. I mean it.

The Psychological Arrow is the perception of the flow of time as we know it from active consciousness.

But you have defined ``observer'' in a very specific way. Your definition implies that there would be no ``observation'' if there were no intelligence to ``observe'' it.

Do you disagree?

Dr. Wolf

''Space is a physical realm which requires consciousness to allow it to have any definate form..''

''In fact, we learn that somehow, if there was no observer, time would also disappear.''

''We find in special relativity, that time is relative not only to motion, but an observer.''

''Space is a physical realm which requires consciousness to allow it to have any definate form..''

Simply not true. One can find perfectly happy solutions to Einstein's equations without any matter---anti deSitter and deSitter spaces, actually. If there is no matter, then there is no observer. But both dS and AdS are perfectly good solutions to Einstein's equations.

The contradiction is how you've defined observer.

Now... let's albe intelligent about this. I have a few questions to see if any has understood me properly.

1. Do you understand by my linking of quantum cosmology and timelike-curves?

2. Has anyone understood where i am going with retrocausality?

3. Does anyone see how this interpretation could go against the Multiple Universe Theory, and why?

You can argue with Dr. Wolf, but you can't argue with the fact that the observer effect is:

1/ The collapse of something which is ghostly in appearance to something with a definate worldline.

Which is more real? Something in a superpositioned state, or something collapsed with a definate value of 1.

Which is more real? Something in a superpositioned state, or something collapsed with a definate value of 1. Things that are found with values with 50/50 are not exactly real. Therego, things reduced to a value of 1, is more real. This is acheived through observation on a physical system.

Reiku I'm not arguing about wave-function collapse, I'm arguing about your definition of observer. And in the three posts above, you're skirting the issue.

If your definition of observer is not important, i.e. you don't use the fact that you need conscious observers in the future, then why not say so and we can move on.

How difficult then is it to understand, an observer that is capable to collapse the wave function? Dr Hawking even reminds us that before the first observer, the universe is found to be in a terribly mixed state.

The definition is, as found is very important. It is a system, capable of analysing a matter to reduce it to a single value - the leading and contending theory right now, is that only observers aware of what they are observing can do such a thing. Does this help?

Does this help?

Not really. The definition you gave could be preformed (and indeed IS preformed) everytime a photon interacts with an electron.

Yes. This is called decoherence Ben. What is your point? Because physicists all around the world knew that decoherence couldn't answer for everything solid.

I guess I should have read past the first paragraph of your second long post.

Something more can be seen in this though. The human mind, according to my theory, and understanding of the Copenhagen Interpretation would not allow us to know that the plate had reassembled on the table. Why? Because one must assume that even ‘’secret knowledge,’’ or personal knowledge is also dragged along with the matter…

See this thread (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=42756).

5. Threads which are blatantly unscientific, which push ideas which are unfalsifiable (at least in principle), will be immediately moved to the Psuedoscience forum. Ideas which have been widely rebutted elsewhere, such as "pyramid power", alien visitations and so on, will be moved, as will discussions which are primarily religious in nature.

Reiku---

I'm going to bed now, but it looks to me like this thread should be moved.

Take this for an example.

In the beginning of cosmological theories, we started the universe around the size of a blood cell. This turned out to be, even though as small as it was, was still far too big to reconcile the background temperatures, in its homogenous nature.

Thergo we started it off smaller, about the radius of a proton. However, we now know that some starting conditions wouldn't be wiped out completely... so we reverted to multiple universe theory... saying that the wave function of possibilities was in fact real probabilities acted out in a different universe.

Yes. This is called decoherence Ben. What is your point? Because physicists all around the world knew that decoherence couldn't answer for everything solid.

The point is that it doesn't require an intelligent observer...

If you move it, i'll report you. I know this is all scientifically accurate. Even someone without a degree could tell that obvious fact. I still have three other papers to submit, so your not exactly giving me a chance at all.

Go to bed please. Wake up in a better mood to.

The point is that it doesn't require an intelligent observer...

You're right. Not each and every collapse requires an observer. This is well known. But on large scales, we are required. I'll post a comment on this BY DR. WOLF.

A dog cannot collapse an atom to a single state - we can - hence the intelligent part. Now stop this B. You are trolling all of this hard work.

How difficult then is it to understand, an observer that is capable to collapse the wave function? Dr Hawking even reminds us that before the first observer, the universe is found to be in a terribly mixed state.
If the universe was in such a terribly mixed state, where did the first observer come from?
The definition is, as found is very important. It is a system, capable of analysing a matter to reduce it to a single value - the leading and contending theory right now, is that only observers aware of what they are observing can do such a thing. Does this help?
No, the definition is arbitrary and antropocentric. Matter exists in the same states all over the universe even where there are no intelligent observers.

(2INQIUS) - I'll answer your question very soon.

Cause and Effect, or the Effect Causes the Cause

In this section, I want to explore the foundation of how macroscopic objects capable of knowing their surrounding (us) is not an intrinsic direction at all. In fact, the very rise of macroscopic intelligence does indeed come around through tiny objects that defy a directionality in compared with what we call ‘’forward time flow.’’
The retrocausality is best described as what can inexorably happen in the future affects what we call the present, and what we call the present can indeed affect the past…

Such affects don’t defy the rules of physics… in fact, they SHOULD be intrinsic properties happening all the time, as I have explained so far. What we call the past, might be a loop in time, or a ‘’time loop,’’ which confines everything within its own existence. The past can therefore be the future, as much as the future can be the past; that intrical Gordian’s knot I spoke of.

It actually allows ‘’things’’ – whether that be of an energetic or even a corporeal nature can move back through time… but for this to be possible, we need to make sure the mass is imaginary…
Such matter is called tachyonic in nature, but as I have shown, tachyonic doesn’t necessarily mean a particle traveling constant at v>c… instead, it can mean for a very short period, that a particle can travel at superluminal speeds… such as a photon. If the universe can be seen as a single particle, then we might assume it has affects and a velocity which can travel at faster-than-light speeds… And if this is true, and this is purely speculation at my own accord, might the accelerated universe be a product of an eventual time-curve? Just a thought…

According to Dr. Cramer and his Transactional Interpretation, such backwards through time-travel is very possible. In his theory, there is two types of time waves. A time wave that moves forward in time, called an ‘’Offer Wave,’’ and an ‘’Echo Wave’’ which moves back in time.
Every time an observation is made in the present, he predicts that these two waves, one coming from the past, and another moving back from the future meet up in the present… the original wave, the Echo Wave, meets up with its complex-conjugate, and they multiply. The creation is said to be a collapse in the wave function… when a superpositional system is reduced to a single value which equals exactly 1.

What are these waves?
According to this very smart physicist, they are in fact time waves. They move at superluminal speeds, and because of this, they can travel freely throughout the time dimension, spending very little time in real time.
These waves create everything solid and defined. They are the result of everything we call ‘’tangible,’’ and they might even give rise to consciousness itself, according to Dr. Wolf and many other psychophysicists.

Retrocausality can now play a new part in all of this… According to one specific interpretation of relativity, ‘’All Time’’ or all that is past, present and future, in fact all happens in one go…!! Why?
This is because time is not fixed. The psychological arrow shows us that we have a definite position during the present, and creates the true illusion that we are living in only one present time. In other words, the past and the future are happening right now! This is very difficult to imagine, but it has been found to best analyzed by saying that the human consciousness creates this defined existence here and now, and without it, time as we know it would all happen in one swift go!

Again… hence… time is only relative to the observer… Without the observer, the past and future, including the present, are all present. This is what allows time travel and superluminal speeds to exist… but this might not be true for macroscopic systems, even though they are themselves made up by systems that seem to defy the normal macroscopic constant of cause and effect. Instead, what we call normal procedure of cause and effect, is an effect, of an effect before the cause.

If the universe was in such a terribly mixed state, where did the first observer come from?

No, the definition is arbitrary and antropocentric. Matter exists in the same states all over the universe even where there are no intelligent observers.


1. Your first quest.

The first observer is the first homosapian, or intelligent creature that arose from the depths of evolution.

2. Your second quest.

Not actually true at all. Matter is found to be affected by the observations we make today. This is the truth of the Transactional Interpretation. If you argue this, i cannot help you. It would be nothing more than a dogmatic view.

There is in short, nothing of an anthropecentric vision in all of this, other than what we do today, defines exact qualities such as, the radius of the early universe. I have definate proof this is what is expected from modern physics.

I now have two more papers to submit. If you deny the work i show, you simply deny basic physics... I'll leave you all to have the wisdom that friggin begs the question of a restrocausal universe.

1. Your first quest.

The first observer is the first homosapian, or intelligent creature that arose from the depths of evolution.

and you know this how?

I don't. I actually believe in AN ALPHA OBSERVER - A God.

Dr. Hwing shows us that without an Alpha Observer, there is no collapse in the beginning, without resorting to some SuperIntelligence.

'Time' is just an arbitrary measurement, like a 'meter'. In fact, a second is defined as the duration it takes light to travel exactly 299,792,458 meters. A meter is defined as the distance light will travel in 1/299,792,458 second. The smallest defined distance is a Planck length. The shortest defined duration is Planck Time. Are there negative Planck lengths and negative meters on the reverse side of positive planck lengths? So tell me, if 'time' flows backwards, does light also travel backwards, back to its source? Does 'time' flow backwards at the identical rate it flows forward, keeping the speed of light the same? Would the brain of a person travelling 'backwards' in time systematically lose all the knowledge of the future she just left as the photons her eyes had recieved over positive time travelled back to their orgins? If she travelled back to a 'time' before she was born, would her brain be blank with no knowledge of speech or anything she had learned over the 'time' she had existed?

Not at all....

Time is not ARBITRARY if the observer is a part of what is observed. This is, beleive it or not, a prediction of special relativity.

You cannot have a movement in time, withot the observer specificating that movement.

Plnck Lengths (1.616 x 10^-33) or a planck time (5.88 x 10^-44) have nothing to do with this, if we are resorting timelike-curves.

Edit? Unless we resort to the same values predicted.

You can easily say that a time is ''c'' if there is someone there to ascribe the value of ''c''. If there isn't, then there is no such thing as ''c'', or even v<c or even c>v... Everything is relative to the observer.

Light doesn't actually travel anywhere. Time is as much as photon experiences no time or space:

...0000
N=0000
...0000
...0000

1. Your first quest.

The first observer is the first homosapian, or intelligent creature that arose from the depths of evolution.
So, the universe was in a terribly mixed state until Homo sapiens evolved, as none of the prior creatures, such as Homo erectus, could collapse the wavefunction, correct? What was the distinguishing feature to evolve between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens? Both were intelligent.

Not actually true at all. Matter is found to be affected by the observations we make today. This is the truth of the Transactional Interpretation. If you argue this, i cannot help you. It would be nothing more than a dogmatic view.
But I am trying to help you. Matter in the quantum realm seems to be affected by the measurements we make of it, not observation. As an anology, we can stick a pin into the ocean and separate a drop from the ocean when we pull the pin out. We have affected both the ocean and our pin by our activity. When we interfere with the wavefunction by our measurement, we collapse the wavefunction into a particle.

Yes. Matter, even though i would presume that at least 40% of reality had collapsed due to normal decoherence, would still require a large chunk of reality to be defined via observation.

Dr. Wolf explains, that when the 1st observer came into the picture, reality was very lame. Even Dr. Hawking, admits this fact. I have nothing more to say.
If you are trying to help me, then don't. I am very adiment about what i am saying. I am very sure about this reality being profound to reality of percpetion.

But you are right... We collapse a single particle, then we must be able to collapse entire systems.

Reality is the sake of progress for progress.

By the way... observation means everything... especially when observation is coupled to natural homo-collapses.

Sorry Reiku---this isn't science.

What isn't science. I've been trapped into a little corner by your lackies. They keep asking me what's this, and how about that... I wasn't discussing any of those things. I want to talk about time-travel and CTC's.

Put my work back please. I've asked nicely, and delete any posts that are off-topic. Couldn't you have at least done that?

I am asking nicely.

Reiku:

You asked me to look at this thread to see whether it is appropriate for the Physics forum. I will stick to reviewing your first post for now:

But there really isn’t just one straight line, or worldline for any particle. We find that according to Feynman’s Sum Over Histories, a particle actually has every possible path to its disposal – these path’s are of both times past and times to come.

It is not clear to me whether you are talking about the Lagrangian "action" here or quantum mechanics.

Take a photon traveling from the past: It will take every known possible path, even those improbable paths through a black hole (but as you can imagine, the statistics for this are so vanishingly small, we can nearly neglect them, but Hawking shows that it is possible for allowing a particle to travel at superluminal speeds using the uncertainty principle), and upon arrival at Earth, we can measure the photon, and all the paths its could have taken, according to the wave function, suddenly collapses into a single probability!

What is your source for claiming that a photon "travelling from the past" takes every possible path?

Also, please cite the source in which Hawking says that a particle can travel at superluminal speeds.

For Feynman’s Sum Over History to apply to physics, one must use imaginary time, rather than the concept of real time. Imaginary time is the same thing as real space, whereas real time is the same thing as imaginary space.

Please cite or link to a source which says this.

Dr. Hawking is very cryptic this way, but what he means is that science cannot predict any history for the universe if there is a singular past. So any attempt to learn how a universe with a singularity would result, is really a disaster for science.

Please cite or link to the source where Dr Hawking says this.

Now, since this study is about time and space at large, let’s consider CTC’s or ‘’Closed-Timelike-Curves.’’ This is a worldline describing a physical system which is ‘’closed’’. This means something physical in fact returns to original starting point. We call such movements ‘’sinusoidal’’.

Who calls it "sinusoidal"? Please link to or cite a source for this statement.

Light cones describe every possible future of a physical object in spacetime, given a current measurement during the present time.

It appears you don't exactly understand what a light cone is.

Because of the standard arrows of time, (there is something like several known, such as the Cosmological, Radiative and even Psychological Arrows), the light cones are always depicted to move forward in time.

On the contrary, a light cone doesn't move in time at all. In fact, in the relativistic picture, time doesn't flow.

Frank J. Tipler, Prof. of mathematics and physics at Tulane University in New Orleans, developed an ingenious idea involving such closed-timelike-curves. I have read his article… it’s a good read. He explains that classical relativity does in fact predict pathological behavior.

Pathological in what way?

I'll assume tat if i answer all of these questions and give source, you will agree this is physics-worthy.

1. ''It is not clear to me whether you are talking about the Lagrangian "action" here or quantum mechanics.''

The wave function of quantum mechanics can answer how a thing must attentively sort through all conditions before one actually emerges. In other words, a particle that travels across the galaxy in a mixed state, and upon arrival here on earth, the wave function collapses, and a definate worldline is created.

2. ''What is your source for claiming that a photon "travelling from the past" takes every possible path?''

There is, to answer this question, the famous work known as the 'Wheelers Choice Experiment,'' which proves that an action made in the present (such as an observation) determines the past state of a system. Again, in short, the collapse.

Ref. Dr. Wolf ''Parallel Universes: The Search for Other Worlds,'' pg 225

Ref. ''Delayed Choice Experiments and the Bohr-Einstien Dialogue'' paper read at a Joint Meeting of The American Philosophical Society and the Royal Society, June 1980, London.. Cat. card no. 80-70995, 1980

3. ''Please cite or link to a source which says this.'' and
''Please cite or link to the source where Dr Hawking says this.''

Prof S Hawking. ''Black Holes and Baby Universes: and other essays'' - Bantam Press 1993

(You'lll find both comments)

4. ''Who calls it "sinusoidal"? Please link to or cite a source for this statement.''

Ref. Dr. Wolf ''Parallel Universes: The Search for Other Worlds,'' pg. 235

5. ''It appears you don't exactly understand what a light cone is.''

I do. But for arguements sake, i'll say i don't right? That way you can't hold a tiny thing like that against the work i have provided.

6. ''On the contrary, a light cone doesn't move in time at all. In fact, in the relativistic picture, time doesn't flow.''

You can argue that time does have a flow however: A double flow, as found in Johns Transactional Interpretation. In this interpretation, time flows forward as there are wave that also move backwards.

7. ''Pathological in what way?''

Neither have i ever fully understood the true pathology. Dr. Wolf says that the pathological behaviour, (which is what we call CTC's), is found to be a path that moves through space and time. Even Tipler refers to it as a pathological nature or prediction of relativity.

Now - that should be more than what is needed to see i know what i am talking about. Not only that, but being stuck in psuedoscience takes away the essence of what could potentially be discussed here.

In fact, nothing about it is pseudoscientific at all from a relativistic picture.

I'd agree however the cones don't move in time at all, but are in fact maps that are depicted with a forward directionality.

Better?

James did a fine job of dissecting your first post, and I will dissect your second one while having my coffee.

Paper 2/4
There is something very fixed in the universe: This is the observer…
She observes the universe in all its glory, and there is a specific directionality to this phase. This is of course, the psychological arrow of time. This arrow allows the psyche to adapt to a certain flow within the universe…

I am not familiar with the ``psychological'' arrow of time, and have already made my objections about these points. Specificaly, you seem to define an ``observer'' in terms of humans. But this is clearly not the case, as there are still observations made in universes without any intelligence. Indeed, if this definition were true, then no animal on earth could see---the photon's wave-function cannot be collapsed by some animal which is not ahuman, by your definition. But clearly monkeys and dogs and snakes can see.

This flow is forward. Because the human is intrinsic to such properties, we find that in the Copenhagen Interpretation that time is actually relative to the observer…

This is not correct because your definition of observer is not valid, as I have shown.

Further, the Copenhagen Interpretation, as I understand it, doesn't say anything about time. The interpretations of quantum mechanics deal with the nature of the wave function and the nature of measurements.

Finally, the fact that there is some notion of the arrow of time in no way implies that time is relative to the observer. Perhaps you are more inteligent than I am, but I cannot see the connection.

Indeed, it states that if the observer was not here, there would be no such thing as time!!

Again, the Copenhagen interpretation says no such thing. If this were true, then the universe didn't exist before humans existed. This implies that some observation must have been made by an intelligent observer at the beginning, which is what you call an ``alpha'' observer, or God. But this clearly is not a scientific conjecture. Again, this is all based on your (wrong) definition of ``observer''.

We say the same thing about energy-matter and space, since according to relativity, all are deeply connected and somehow the same thing.

This is just not true. The presence of a non-trivial energy density causes space-time to warp. But, as someone in another thread has pointed out to you, one can have a perfectly consistent solution to Einstein's equations with zero energy density---it is just D dimensional Euclidean space.

If things where going backwards, things would seem very strange indeed… According to Dr. Hawking, if time is reversed, then so must the entropy contained within the universe. This means, everything that has evolved into today’s present states, would suddenly begin to de-evolve, and the plate that fell onto the floor would suddenly reassemble on the table! Counterintuitive? Perhaps, but this what we should expect, since the entropy reverse on the microscopic scale would indeed drag even the components it makes ‘’macroscopic objects’’ to the their previous states…

On the face of it, I agree with these statements. It would be very strange indeed if the second law were reversed.

Something more can be seen in this though. The human mind, according to my theory, and understanding of the Copenhagen Interpretation would not allow us to know that the plate had reassembled on the table. Why? Because one must assume that even ‘’secret knowledge,’’ or personal knowledge is also dragged along with the matter…

You assume some coupling between ``knowledge'' and matter. Aside from not being testable, EVEN in principle, you have made absolutely no argument for this correlation, other than ``Believe me it is true''. I think I was more or less ok with your essay, untill I got here. This is what convinced me that this thread should be moved.

For those who believe that mind is bound by the matter of the brain, then mind too must experience the same flow of time, and same consequences. This means that personal knowledge that was increasing as time passed, now begins to decrease!

This is an interesting thought, except you have assumed that your brane obeys the second law of thermodynamics. What I mean by that is this---the second law is actually an aggregate statement. Let's assume that your brane works like a hard drive on a computer, by organizing spin states of magnets. Well, if the magnets are randomly ordered, then you ``learn'' something, you decrease the entropy of the system. But the act of ``learning'' takes energy to do.

What seems more likely to me, is that if the second law were different, one would actually ``remember'' the future. But I don't know.

So I propose, even though Hawking explains that if time went back and in result we would see the proverbial plate reassemble, we wouldn’t know! He doesn’t explain this. But it makes logical sense… since to the observer now, time is still flowing in the correct manner… In short, we wouldn’t know. He may have proclaimed this before though, but I do not recall him mentioning this in his book, ‘’A Brief History of Time.’’

Again, the conclusions don't follow the assumptions. You have misunderstood the Copenhagen interpretaion, and drawn conclusions which don't logically follow.

So, what should we expect if time does move back? Should it move back at all??
According to the Omega Theory of Cosmological Evolution, everything will reach an end singularity. A singularity which halts all known forward laws of physics, and inexorably forces everything to move backwards;

I don't know what the ``Omega Theory of Cosmological Evolution'' is, but it actually predicts that time will begin moving backwards at the crunch?

Also, it is not clear that there will be a Big Crunch. The current epoch of expansion (which is observed by, for example, WMAP and SDSS) doesn't seem like it will be reversed, and it looks like we are headed for more of a Big Rip.

Either way, you should explain why the cosmological constant will go from positive to negative at some point in the arbitrary far future.

but this depends on a steady balance of matter against the ratio of spacetime…There are existing theories right now which currently goes against such a point, against such a symmetry in time, such as the known acceleration of the universe, which seems to be indicating that our universe is ‘’Open,’’ meaning it will continue forever to expand. If it does, this can lead to Armageddon visions such as a Big Freeze or even Big Rip.

The reason for this is the small and positive cosmilogical constant.

However, such a symmetry in time leads to exciting proposals that makes us realize that in subtle ways, the end and the beginning are somehow the same thing. It is easier to understand this, by using Hawkings analogy that if the universe sprung from a singularity, it would end in a singularity… both are somehow points which oscillate in imaginary time.
Reversing time allows us to find these strange results predicted, and if we could watch a reversed time frame of the universe, we ask the question, ‘’would it look the same as it did going forward?’’

Take a jar of gas. Any gas, with about a billion, billion, billion atoms. As time moves forward, the atoms in the jar become more and more disordered, and more and more less like the original state they had evolved from. How long would we need to wait, until all of those atoms reached the same states as they begun? It’s very difficult say, but in the long run, it should take trillions of years… maybe even longer…

One would have to wait on order of the age of the universe for this to happen. We can calculate it, if you like.

Now, this so far, has explained in very pragmatic terms what energy-matter is subjected to in this universe; a constant disorder which should never reach a state which it had begun, unless everything is suddenly reverted back to whence it came via an Omega Singularity, or a Big Crunch.

So far you haven't explained why any of this is plausible, other than to quote Hawking and this other Wolfe fellow.

But what about this notion that the beginning is somehow very much like, if not the same as the end? How can one come to such a conceptualized view of the universe?
The answer turns out to be very dubious indeed. The answer might lye in closed- timelike-curves… In short, just to get a very quick picture of what is being said here, is that the beginning of the universe might be a state which eventually curves back onto itself so that that there is what appears to be, a superb intrical Gordian’s knot.

Well, no. Closed time-like curves are the results of very specific geometries that come in special solutions to Einstein's equations. I will try to make this point very explicit. Suppose you have a universe, and in that universe there is a place where a closed time-like curve exists. One can travel along that curve and end up back in the same place and time that he started. So, a closed time-like curve pres-supposes some space-time.

But when it comes to our universe, we don't expect that there is such a concept of space-time at the big bang---that is, it is expected that GR breaks down there, so it doesn't make sense to talk about geometry there.

As explained earlier, a CTC (Closed-Timelike-Curves) are states of a physical system which twists through space and time, and ends up exactly where it began.

See the previous statement. A CTC presupposes a time direction, and at the instant of the big bang or the big crunch, there IS no time direction.

Is this the nature of the universe? It begs the question.
Let us view the universe like an atom, as described by Hawkings principle of Quantum Cosmology… and then assume that this particle/universe reaches a state which is so heavily curved upon itself, it is forced to end up where it began… then it turns out that the end is in fact the beginning, and vice versa… (This idea could be related intimately to pulsating universe theory).

But you still haven't explained how the cosmological constant turns around, or even mentioned that it should...

But something even more sinister can arise from all of this, I speculate. If the beginning is the end, and the end is the beginning, (as I believe some old wise religions and philosophies state), then there might be room for some retrocausality – but first, what is a retrocausality in physics?

No. There is no concept of time at the big bang and the big crunch, so there can be no idea of causality.

It is when the effect precedes the cause… We postulate this from interpretations of general relativity, and some interpretations of quantum mechanics. In fact, Dr. Wolf reminds us that the uncertainty principle, which governs our inability to predict all that there is to be known at the very small scales of quarks and protino’s, that cause and effect breaks down!!! This is very true, and since we know that physics predicts this, we can say that retrocausality must happen everyday in our lives; we are not concerned with this strange action though, because we exist on levels which are not normally affected by such a principle.

This is ok, but you are extrapolating this to the early universe. As I showed you earlier, at the big bang and big crunch, there is no concept of time, and so there can be no concept of causality.

I think I would have been fine with these essays if you hadn't have made connections between, say, matter and thought, or ``observer'' and intelligence. And, since your ideas seem to depend on these definitions in a critical way, they cannot be classed as science.

James did a fine job of dissecting your first post, and I will dissect your second one while having my coffee.



I am not familiar with the ``psychological'' arrow of time, and have already made my objections about these points. Specificaly, you seem to define an ``observer'' in terms of humans. But this is clearly not the case, as there are still observations made in universes without any intelligence. Indeed, if this definition were true, then no animal on earth could see---the photon's wave-function cannot be collapsed by some animal which is not ahuman, by your definition. But clearly monkeys and dogs and snakes can see.



This is not correct because your definition of observer is not valid, as I have shown.

Further, the Copenhagen Interpretation, as I understand it, doesn't say anything about time. The interpretations of quantum mechanics deal with the nature of the wave function and the nature of measurements.

Finally, the fact that there is some notion of the arrow of time in no way implies that time is relative to the observer. Perhaps you are more inteligent than I am, but I cannot see the connection.



Again, the Copenhagen interpretation says no such thing. If this were true, then the universe didn't exist before humans existed. This implies that some observation must have been made by an intelligent observer at the beginning, which is what you call an ``alpha'' observer, or God. But this clearly is not a scientific conjecture. Again, this is all based on your (wrong) definition of ``observer''.



This is just not true. The presence of a non-trivial energy density causes space-time to warp. But, as someone in another thread has pointed out to you, one can have a perfectly consistent solution to Einstein's equations with zero energy density---it is just D dimensional Euclidean space.



On the face of it, I agree with these statements. It would be very strange indeed if the second law were reversed.

''This is just not true. The presence of a non-trivial energy density causes space-time to warp. But, as someone in another thread has pointed out to you, one can have a perfectly consistent solution to Einstein's equations with zero energy density---it is just D dimensional Euclidean space.''

If you like, we can say that since we know matter exists, then so must energy and therego, both space and time are intimately related these. If you remove any of these configurations, such as matter-energy or space-time, we find the whole lot disolve. I have provided recently qoutes by Dr. Wolf which prooved this. Please don't make me go through it again. It's very tiring.
You can also say there is no such thing as matter. If this be the case, which i am always open to new ways to envision the universe, it still holds that if you removed all the energy in the universe, spacetime would cease to exist. They are codependant.



You assume some coupling between ``knowledge'' and matter. Aside from not being testable, EVEN in principle, you have made absolutely no argument for this correlation, other than ``Believe me it is true''. I think I was more or less ok with your essay, untill I got here. This is what convinced me that this thread should be moved.



This is an interesting thought, except you have assumed that your brane obeys the second law of thermodynamics. What I mean by that is this---the second law is actually an aggregate statement. Let's assume that your brane works like a hard drive on a computer, by organizing spin states of magnets. Well, if the magnets are randomly ordered, then you ``learn'' something, you decrease the entropy of the system. But the act of ``learning'' takes energy to do.

What seems more likely to me, is that if the second law were different, one would actually ``remember'' the future. But I don't know.



Again, the conclusions don't follow the assumptions. You have misunderstood the Copenhagen interpretaion, and drawn conclusions which don't logically follow.



I don't know what the ``Omega Theory of Cosmological Evolution'' is, but it actually predicts that time will begin moving backwards at the crunch?

Also, it is not clear that there will be a Big Crunch. The current epoch of expansion (which is observed by, for example, WMAP and SDSS) doesn't seem like it will be reversed, and it looks like we are headed for more of a Big Rip.

Either way, you should explain why the cosmological constant will go from positive to negative at some point in the arbitrary far future.

[QUOTEbut this depends on a steady balance of matter against the ratio of spacetime…There are existing theories right now which currently goes against such a point, against such a symmetry in time, such as the known acceleration of the universe, which seems to be indicating that our universe is ‘’Open,’’ meaning it will continue forever to expand. If it does, this can lead to Armageddon visions such as a Big Freeze or even Big Rip.



Yes... I agree... James did a good go. I made an even better go at answering him... But since you are ignorant of a lot of physics, i doubt this will have had much affect on you so far... But just to make my points further - i will oblige to your questions.

''I am not familiar with the ``psychological'' arrow of time, and have already made my objections about these points. Specificaly, you seem to define an ``observer'' in terms of humans. But this is clearly not the case, as there are still observations made in universes without any intelligence. Indeed, if this definition were true, then no animal on earth could see---the photon's wave-function cannot be collapsed by some animal which is not ahuman, by your definition. But clearly monkeys and dogs and snakes can see.''

Is really not the point. When i spoke about the collapse, i was talking about a human observer. My defining of this observer, couldn't be any more clear. You tend to nit-pick at these small variables, and not understand at all what i am saying.
You make no sense with your parallel universe interpretation. I am basically saying a photon that travels the galaxy, can travel in more than one path, and one of those paths are chosen upon measurement; why don't you understand this? Are you intentionally trying to come across as a bit thick?
As for the animal example, this was wel known by many psychophysicists. Indeed, to this day, they still agree there is something unique about a human observation giving a system great detail, to some mere observation made by a monkey or a dog.

''This is not correct because your definition of observer is not valid, as I have shown. ''

Actually, my definition is just and correct. I said a human observer. It needs not be any more complicated than i provided. You just shoved this work of mine here so you can try nd fuck my work up. I hope James has a bit more attention about him.

''Further, the Copenhagen Interpretation, as I understand it, doesn't say anything about time. The interpretations of quantum mechanics deal with the nature of the wave function and the nature of measurements. ''

The Copenhagen Interpretation states that the observer creates reality. This is true for measurements in space, therefore, must also hold true for time. We're not really going to have another sordid debate on the duality of spacetime are we? In short, without the observer, it states that matter does not exist, and niether does the physical and non-physical attributes of spacetime. This is the Copenhagen Interpretation. Deal with it.

''Finally, the fact that there is some notion of the arrow of time in no way implies that time is relative to the observer. Perhaps you are more inteligent than I am, but I cannot see the connection.''

I am not more intelligent than you. You are merely missing a few concepts at hand. Time is relative to the observer, because time would simply disappear without the observer - or at least - defined time as we know it.
As for the arrow of time, there is a macroscopic arrow of the psyche, we call the psychological arrow, which in very short terms means that the observer knows, or feels a directionality to the flow of existence... that is forward.

''On the face of it, I agree with these statements. It would be very strange indeed if the second law were reversed.''

My God. We agree on something then? :eek:

''You assume some coupling between ``knowledge'' and matter. Aside from not being testable, EVEN in principle, you have made absolutely no argument for this correlation, other than ``Believe me it is true''. I think I was more or less ok with your essay, untill I got here. This is what convinced me that this thread should be moved.''

Actually, this is nothing short of ''the information paradox'' of quantum mechanics. Do you know this>? If not, then i will very quickly demonstrate; knowledge of something needs to be consistent to that particular time in space. If time began to move backwards, then so would even our knowledge. If you removed my thread on this tiny thing, you should have asked first, instead of your natural, ''If i don't understand, it must be wrong,'' buzz... Disappointing.

''This is an interesting thought, except you have assumed that your brane obeys the second law of thermodynamics. What I mean by that is this---the second law is actually an aggregate statement. Let's assume that your brane works like a hard drive on a computer, by organizing spin states of magnets. Well, if the magnets are randomly ordered, then you ``learn'' something, you decrease the entropy of the system. But the act of ``learning'' takes energy to do.

What seems more likely to me, is that if the second law were different, one would actually ``remember'' the future. But I don't know. ''

Most of that are far assumptions. But can we be sure that the mind isn't adapted to this flow of time, because of the second law? If it isn't, then mind isn't bound by the matter, and a reverse in all the laws of physics wouldn't affect our percpetion of what I call ''linear knowledge,'' and therego, one would need to say that the mind is outside of all the known laws. Something seems very wrong with this; IF EVERYTHING was to begin moving backwards, then we must assume even information is also a thermodynamical law. In fact, thermodynamics doesn't only mean matter and energy, space or time, but also information.

''Again, the conclusions don't follow the assumptions. You have misunderstood the Copenhagen interpretaion, and drawn conclusions which don't logically follow''

And as i have shown, this is not necesserily true.

''I don't know what the ``Omega Theory of Cosmological Evolution'' is, but it actually predicts that time will begin moving backwards at the crunch?''

Yes.

''Also, it is not clear that there will be a Big Crunch. The current epoch of expansion (which is observed by, for example, WMAP and SDSS) doesn't seem like it will be reversed, and it looks like we are headed for more of a Big Rip.''

I know nothing is clear. Hence everything is theory Ben... You need to allow a bit of slack for any theory;because physics is mostly speculation.

''QUOTEbut this depends on a steady balance of matter against the ratio of spacetime…There are existing theories right now which currently goes against such a point, against such a symmetry in time, such as the known acceleration of the universe, which seems to be indicating that our universe is ‘’Open,’’ meaning it will continue forever to expand. If it does, this can lead to Armageddon visions such as a Big Freeze or even Big Rip.[/quote]

The reason for this is the small and positive cosmilogical constant.''

I know. Point? Or are you just being thorough?

''One would have to wait on order of the age of the universe for this to happen. We can calculate it, if you like.''

The only problem i would have in any estimated calculus, is that spacetime is dilluting matter to such an extent, that reasembling the matter to an infinite density seems almost impossible.

''So far you haven't explained why any of this is plausible, other than to quote Hawking and this other Wolfe fellow. ''

Well, I hope i have done this so far. Wolf is a brilliant phsyicist by the way. You should read some of his work when you get the chance. I dote on him. He is my idol.

''Well, no. Closed time-like curves are the results of very specific geometries that come in special solutions to Einstein's equations. I will try to make this point very explicit. Suppose you have a universe, and in that universe there is a place where a closed time-like curve exists. One can travel along that curve and end up back in the same place and time that he started. So, a closed time-like curve pres-supposes some space-time.

But when it comes to our universe, we don't expect that there is such a concept of space-time at the big bang---that is, it is expected that GR breaks down there, so it doesn't make sense to talk about geometry there.''

I sat here a while that day, conceptualizing how the end could simply be a curve in time, resulting in everything (Matter-Energy-Spacetime-Information) to revert back to the beginning. If this is true, then a curve in the end, means a curve into the beginning. I thought this was simple enough.

''See the previous statement. A CTC presupposes a time direction, and at the instant of the big bang or the big crunch, there IS no time direction.''

I have a problem with this, because the Cosmological Arrow of Time says that Big Bang proposes a time directionality.

''But you still haven't explained how the cosmological constant turns around, or even mentioned that it should...''

A genuine question eh? Well, i would say that a reverse in the time dimension or flow of time, would, just as you would find in a single quanta of energy, flip the expected variables, such as electric charge, as a quick demonstration.
The Cosmological Constant also flips upon a reverse in time. It must, for everything to revert back to whence it came.

''This is ok, but you are extrapolating this to the early universe. As I showed you earlier, at the big bang and big crunch, there is no concept of time, and so there can be no concept of causality.

I think I would have been fine with these essays if you hadn't have made connections between, say, matter and thought, or ``observer'' and intelligence. And, since your ideas seem to depend on these definitions in a critical way, they cannot be classed as science. ''

Well, i'm affraid that quantum mechanics needs an observer to answer for how everything is as how we define it. I asked Dr. Wolf a question a couple of weeks ago. I asked, ''Do we need an observer when we finally compilate a theory of everything?''

He anwered very simply, ''yes we do.''

I can qoute several physicists who knew the importance of the observer - in fact, they plainly say that the observer sees the only reality ever in existence. This means universes devoid of life capable of observing the universe, are not really real at all... very mixed states in fact.

Now... will you put my work back>? I would be very obliged if you would.

''' '''''Well, no. Closed time-like curves are the results of very specific geometries that come in special solutions to Einstein's equations. I will try to make this point very explicit. Suppose you have a universe, and in that universe there is a place where a closed time-like curve exists. One can travel along that curve and end up back in the same place and time that he started. So, a closed time-like curve pres-supposes some space-time.

But when it comes to our universe, we don't expect that there is such a concept of space-time at the big bang---that is, it is expected that GR breaks down there, so it doesn't make sense to talk about geometry there.''

I sat here a while that day, conceptualizing how the end could simply be a curve in time, resulting in everything (Matter-Energy-Spacetime-Information) to revert back to the beginning. If this is true, then a curve in the end, means a curve into the beginning. I thought this was simple enough. ''' '''



Also to note, that there is actually an infinite curvature at big bang - therego, there is an infinite geometry.

As for the animal example, this was wel known by many psychophysicists. Indeed, to this day, they still agree there is something unique about a human observation giving a system great detail, to some mere observation made by a monkey or a dog.

Ahh silly me to think that this isn't provable by any experiments...

Actually, you might want to consider my next work. There are existing provable experiments which shows that the observer is intrinsic to this world... creating it. Follow my next paper, and get off your high ego-horse.

Wheelers Delayed-Choice Experiment

Dr. Wolf reminds us in his book, ‘’Parallel Universes: The Search for Other Worlds,’’ that we are being told by top physicists that what we do now, is in fact shaping the early state of the universe! This is very counterintuitive, but it turns out to answer for quite a lot in physics.
The state of a system, unless collapsed into a value through decoherence, is found to be in a mixed state of probability. The best way to imagine this is by understanding that a photon doesn’t travel across the galaxy via one course or path. It actually travels through all of the potential paths, and out of which one upon measurement creates a defined history for that photon.

Wheelers Delayed-Choice Experiment was first proposed as a thought experiment by John Archibald Wheeler in 1978, and it was a variation of the famous Thomas Young’s Double Slit Experiment, in which the detector screen that ‘’picks up the presence of the photon can be removed at the very last moment according to the observer who measures the experiment.
It is a choice however that is made after the photon has passed the slit, and it could have traveled as a particle, or it could have traveled as a wave and we also find it could have traveled in many varied paths regardless of the instrument being used.
However, the instrument could be set up so that we couldn’t determine which path the photon had arrived, then the two paths are superpositioned together – and just as found in the Double Slit Experiment, the two waves are found to interfere with each other so that the final state is different to what would be expected without that slight change in the instrument being used.
In short, it is we who decide, by our choice of how the set-up is performed whether the photon traveled path A or path B or both A and B. It is the very last moment to decide whether to make that slight change that determines the past history of the quantum system… The experiment was verified in 1985 at College Park by three physicists by the names of Carroll Alley, William Wickes and Oleg Jakubowicz – and confirmed again later by Yoon-Ho Kim in 2000, using another advanced experiment called delayed-quantum eraser, verifying a delayed choice and proving backwards through time travel.

Somehow, we are making the universe more and more defined through the measurements we make today… It is sending signals back through time, creating a more defined reality for us – and for the times of the universe when there wasn’t an observer present… unless one resorts to some superintelligence.
Dr Hawking and Dr Wolf reminded us that in the beginning, the universe couldn’t have had a unique radius, or any unique configuration, because no one was there to give it these unique factors. Therefore, we have had to resort to the idea that perhaps somehow what we are doing now is shaping the early universe. This is very strange, because it suggests that the beginning of what we call ‘’big bang,’’ is somehow happening right now. Time is all laid out like a fine fabric, which allows the past and future to exist alongside the present time as their own present times. Because of this prediction, Dr Cramer allowed superluminal time waves to permeate every corner of spacetime, past, present and future.

The present time in the future, is sending waves back through time, creating things here and now… But what is creating these waves from the future?
Astrophysicist, Fred Hoyle, who passed away in 2001, believed that these waves where coming back through some superintelligence located in the future. I believe he attributed this to some high-powered, Godlike machine… He was a very vivid thinker this way. Much like what he predicted for what was happening in the future sending these waves back, one must assume that we are sending waves into the past…
Dr Cramer shows in his Transactional Interpretation, the present only affects the future in a statistical sense. It is really the future which shapes up everything we call ‘’tangible’’ and ‘’material’’ here in the present. This means that the past affects our present time in a statistical sense as well. But which future send these messages to us? Great developments in black hole theory now suggest something quite different to what Dr Wolf proclaimed in his book. He stated that these messages were being sent back through time from other universes.
In a recent proposal, Dr Hawking solved what was called, ‘’The Information Paradox’’ of quantum physics. It suggested that information cannot ever be destroyed or lost in a universe… But if things where able to move into black holes and into other universes, this would suggest that even information would be squeezed out of existence.
In order to solve this, Hawking now believes that information is in fact mangled and squeezed back into the same universe, instead of moving into any other. This means that information is never lost… and this brings a boundary on the Transactional Interpretation…
When Dr Cramer developed his theory, he never designed it for multiple universes. Instead, the future which sent back these messages was in fact the ‘’most probable future.’’ Information cannot spontaneously flow from one universe and into another with physics reshaping how we define as a ‘’self-contained’’ universe.

There is a double flow in time. This flow clashes during the present time, formulating everything we know: Perhaps even consciousness itself arises out of such a collapse in the wave function, as the growing enigmatic theory goes right now. As explained earlier, the original wave needs to square with its complex-conjugate; any waves that do not manage this, simply cancel out.

Perhaps this is the time machine of the future?

Debunking the existence of a future time machine is simple: We've never seen one in the past.

Regardless of how you twist and bend and manipulate spacetime, the Universe of worldlines is going to reflect causality in the expected fashion, right?

So if I went back in time and loaded Booth's gun with blanks and Lincoln survived the attempted assassination, there would in fact be no assassination, and history would reflect this. People would say "what assassination?"

In regards to QM, I believe we are simply imposing the wrong conceptual model on very sound mathematics. Can't predict position when momentum is known? To me that suggests a fundamental ignorance of the true nature of matter. Nothing more.

Why must we construct a convoluted philosophical fairy tale to explain how our obviously flawed (perhaps wholly incorrect) view of matter and energy behave in the observed fashion?

I'm affraid the UP is well known though. We can test this using telescopes, and the more we try to pin an electron down to a certain position through a measurement, the more uncertain it paths are.

Debunking the existence of a future time machine is simple: We've never seen one in the past.

Regardless of how you twist and bend and manipulate spacetime, the Universe of worldlines is going to reflect causality in the expected fashion, right?

So if I went back in time and loaded Booth's gun with blanks and Lincoln survived the attempted assassination, there would in fact be no assassination, and history would reflect this. People would say "what assassination?"

Exactly.

Gravity is very important - and the non-scientist is never really concerned with it - just taking this 'force' for granted. It turns out that the force keeping us on this very planet, also keeping the planet's in their galactic centers of rotation, is the real democratization of time, because the rotation of these planets bring with them their own set of hours in a day. First of all, what is gravity all about? We need to understand some geometry first. Is the universe flat or curved?
Back in the days of Christopher Columbas, they had believed that the earth was flat. It's not really hard to imagine that these earlier humans had thought this. After all, just look around you... You don't see a spherical reality... but rather a flat land, with the odd mountain or hill here and there. Obviously we know better today. The first time we saw earth in all it's spherical glory, was when we where able to leave the planet itself. Mind you, the earth is more an oval shape, than being perfectly spherical.
What do we say about space? Is it a flat surface, or is it a curved surface?
The question was tackled by the world-famous Albert Einstein, developed in his General and Special Relativity papers. Einstein’s general papers describe the nature of gravity as being a distortion of space and time. His papers, coupled with mathematical pillars, say's that whenever there is a distortion in space and time, there needed to be the presence of matter.
The classical way students and non-students are told to visualize such distortions, is by imagining a stretchy sheet, in which someone rolls a bowling ball upon it. The sheet itself becomes heavy around the parameter of where the bowling ball rolls. This indentation caused by the weight of the ball in the sheet is analogous to the distortions found around a large piece of matter. The earth for instance, causes a spacetime distortion, and is equivalent to gravity itself. Thus, matter distorts space and warps time. We say it bends both space and warps time, simply because space and time are according to the modern interpretation of relativity as being two sides of the same coin. We call this naturally a continuum as spacetime. This meant that both space and time are inseparable.

Einstein had problems with the current view of the geometry of the universe. At the time, the insights into spacetime geometry were influenced heavily on Euclidean and Pythagorean spacetime, describing the universe in flat dimensions. It was probably Einstein’s realization at his high school, learning about geometry, that it had later occurred to him that spacetime no longer needed to be flat. His mind was on curves.

A curved space was quite difficult for even the mainstream scientists at the time to visualize, simply because it defeated all logic. Intuitive thinking be cast aside, because in a curved space, the shortest distance between two points was no longer a straight line. It was a curved path! Strange this isn't it? It is strange because when we move from one side of the street to another, we tend to move in a straight line. The measure of a shortest path in a flat space follows what is called 'geodesics.' But in Einstein’s space, the surface was rippled with 'imaginary mountains.' I use a mountain here to describe space, (not because mountains exist in space obviously), but because i am going to ask, 'When you come to the foot of a mountain, which is the fastest path to get to the other side?'
A little thought would indicate, that instead of traveling over the mountain in a straight line, the quickest path would be to travel around the base, wouldn't it? Thus, this analogy describes space; curved lines are the quickest routes to any other point. In fact, travel far and fast in enough in Einstein’s space, and you will end up exactly where you had started! This isn't the only relativistic puzzle that evidently arises from introducing curvature in spacetime: a new notion for gravity takes a twist. It turns out that a curve in time and space was the equivalent to gravity!

Einstein was aware, that by introducing spacetime curvature, gravity could be more easily accounted for, rather than a flat spacetime arena. In fact, he may have been inspired by the curvature of the planet, and how it itself produces it's own gravitational pull. But like any source of gravity, it could be cancelled out, provided you traveled fast and far enough. To break free of the earth's gravitational pull, you need to accomplish what is called, 'the escape velocity.' To leave earth, you need a constant speed of around 25,000 miles per hour. Consider astronauts. They circle the earth in a state of 'free fall' - and they are not influenced by gravity at all.

Einstein figured that if you are in an elevator that is accelerating upwards, the elevator would push up against you. This is of course, the force of the elevators mass, pushing you up against the force of the earth’s gravitational field trying to pull you back down. This small analogy proved something. When the elevator moved upward, the force of the platform was pushing up against the mass of your body, turned out to be like the force of gravity keeping us all on this green planet! Thus, he was able to calculate that acceleration was the same thing as curvature: With this clearly in mind, knowing that gravity was the same thing as curvature, he was able to surmise that acceleration too was equivalent to gravity.

More arises from the curvature of space. It turns out that the curve of space, also curves into time... and thus time is effected by gravity... We call such effects, 'time warps,' in physics, and it may surprise you that gravity warps time in such a way, the proverbial wall on the clock will slow down, or speed up, depending on the gravitational field! And what may equally surprise you, we have already measured the presence of time warps.

The effects of time warps where first measured in 1959 by physicists R. V. Pound and G. A. Rebka at Harvard University. Their experiment was relatively easy. They set up a clock in the basement of Harvard, and another (around 70 feet) above in the buildings penthouse. Then, the two physicists figured out how to send time signals from the basement, to the penthouse. It turns out, that the signal would carry a very small time interval, which would inexorably match the clock rate in the basement; and to their surprise, the interval would not match up to the time in the penthouse...
One must respect however, that the shift in time was very small indeed: Nevertheless, the clock in the basement had a slowed down! This proved the gravitational shift to be correct, and also showed that the clock on the wall will tick slower in a strong gravitational field.

The special papers are a little harder to understand - it isn't easy when talking about relative affects. It describes what one observer sees moving at a constant speed past another observer. It shows that the equations describing mechanical and optical phenomena when seen by an observer moving relative were not the same as an observer at rest. The special papers highlight that time is not fixed, and that a space leg can be represented against a time leg. If the space leg is found to be longer than the time leg, we say that the observer is experiencing normal time.
If the space leg is exactly the same value as the time leg, we say that the observer experiences absolutely no time at all. If the space leg is shorter than the time leg, then the observer finds herself moving backwards through time. The space leg is a real leg. However, the time leg isn't. This is what we call an 'imaginary leg,' on the spacetime triangle. This might seem strange, this ''imaginal stuff''. For physicists to understand imaginary concepts, we needed to bring in ''complex numbers'' - and don't be deterred by the name - they are relatively easy to understand.
Some particles might even travel throughout spacetime when the time leg is longer than the space leg. These fast chaps are called Tachyons. These particles are made of a strange substance called ‘’imaginary mass.’’

Is the neutrino a tachyon?

Dr. Cramer quite rightly reminds us that tachyons could quite very well be a particle we already know of in physics; the neutrino... about a billion of these pass through our body in just under one second.
We have all heard of the hypothetical particles called tachyons. They have a rest mass M that also has an imaginary value (M2<0). It turns out that (E=gM), the observable mass-energy of these light weight particles, becomes ''real'' and ''positive''.
If a particle was able to defy the light-speed barrier so that v was greater than c (v>c), then both g and E would become imaginary quantities, because ß would be larger than 1 and (1 - ß2) would be negative.
When using imaginary concepts, we must use complex numbers... nothing too complex about them, so don't be scared off! We need the calculus in concepts that are imaginary - not quite existing in the realms of the real - but are ''real'' nonetheless... we use it when calculating the imaginary dimension of time, and even concepts beyond ''c'' - imaginary mass.

To understand this better, we must consider the pyhagorean theorem.Complex numbers deal with square roots. Now, you might remember square roots from high school. A number that is multiplied by itself produces the square root - thus, the square root of 4 is (2 x 2). The square root of 9 is (3 x 3). The square root of 16 is (4 x 4), ect. Note however, that the square root of 1, is (1 x 1).
Complex numbers move into the negatives; thus, it helps mathematicians work out the improbable square root of -1, for instance, which is 'i' x 'i' = -1. The 'i' stands for ''impossible'', and it helps us in calculating numbers that are not in the real world. Another example is the square root of 4, which is (i2) 2 = -4. Quantum Physics and Relativity would be impossibility, without complex numbers, and so would our ability to calculate time as an imaginary dimension of space.
In geometry at school, one will eventually learn the Pythagorean theorem. As you will probably know, the theorem applies to length of the right sides of a right triangle.

It is a simple formula, and it tells us that if one was to work of the angles on the sides of the triangle, the sums of two of those angles will equal the sum of the remanding value angle. We say that the third angle is the one raised on the hypotenuse. The formula is:

(a2+b2=c2)

The sides of the triangle are similar based to how we work out the lengths of space and time. Because time is a universal invariant, we say that the imaginary time dimension is an invariant relationship.
Now, it has come to light (mind the pun) on the mass of the electron neutrino (Ve), because it is a leading "dark matter" candidate... and we don't know the physical properties of dark matter. We have some examples of what some dark matter might be like, such as the axion particle which travels through material objects!

We can create neutrinos from the decay of tritium. The basic underlining rule is through the relativistic relation between energy and momentum;

E2 = p2 + M2

... and we find out that it is mass squared that works out the neutrino mass from tritium decay... but this mass squared can be seen in light of either a positive result or a negative result, and if it is a tachyon, containing a very light weight amount of imaginary matter of about i × 12 eV, there is the big problem that nothing fruitful will arise out of this... because the theorists do not believe its qualities would be observable or known.