An Explanation of why TIME TRAVEL does not work

by Terry 110 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Mall Cop

  Lots of good conversation here on time travel. All of us use language to explain what we think we know at the present. We then use language again to change our thinking on time travel as we get more information on energy and matter. And so, Bluesapphire is right when she says it is all a matter of semantics.

  Steven Pinker addresses "The Stuff Of Thought, language as a window into human nature." The Blank State, Words and Rules, the ingrediants of language, How the mind works. the language instinct."

  On this topic that Terry has posted we use words to explain in simple terms and sometimes complex words to try explain what we think we know about time travel, i.e. Our use of prepositions and tenses taps into peculiarly human concepts of space and time, and our use of nouns and verbs tap into mental models of matter and causation.

  Like Terry, I'm not saying I'm right and you are wrong,for what do I know about anything including time travel, space, energy, matter ,causation,etc. I'm not a scientist, I just read about science and other interesting subjects.

  I have a shirt, on it, it reads, "Think, it's not illegal yet." Certainty, topics like this one that Terry has posted and all of you have responded to, gives us pause and makes us think....I think.

  Blueblades
• 

  Terry

  So what? It's a matter of semantics. If I want to call it God then who cares? If I want to call it a soul then who cares? I could call it a soul and God and you could call it the empty hole of the unknown.

  Using my mind to understand my mind? What else am I supposed to use? What do scientists use? What are you using? Are you suggesting we NOT try to understand what our mind is?

  If we separate discussion into two different categories:

  1.Discussions of fact

  2.Discussions of opinion

  ...we can't refute opinion by employing opinion. That would be like insisting one chocolate cake tastes better than another. Subjective opinion is entirely personal. It is beyond "proof."

  But, judging from your post (quoted above) you may not really be saying that none of the discussion on this topic is anything more than opinion.

  You may be saying "relatively speaking" that there is only God at source ___no matter what we call it___behind ALL of our mystery and unknowns.

  That is certainly your opinion. Nobody would deny you your opinion.

  However, what I'm saying is that "god" is a handy bit of spackle we smear in the cracks of our information to fill-in the gaps WHEN WE FAIL TO EMPLOY a testable premise.

  Sort of like, "I don't know, so, it must be God!"

  I'd like to say something about that strictly from my own point of view.

  Using God to fill in the blanks actually STOPS INTELLIGENT INQUIRY. It compels ignorance. (I realize that sounds harsh. I don't mean it to sound that way.)

  Think of it this way. You lose your car keys. How long will you search for them? Certainly you'll continue to seach until YOU FIND them!

  The same thing is true of any search. When we THINK we HAVE FOUND what we are looking for we stop searching.

  God is not information. God is not data. God is not understanding. God is brain spackle. It is the little boy's finger stuck in the Dike to stop the leak.

  We don't KNOW anything at all if we say we know God and that "He did it" (whatever it was.)

  That's all I'm saying.

  Failure to use information, inquiry, hypothesis using testable methods (in short: the scientific method) leaves us where mankind was PRE-ENLIGHTENMENT! All we have is Authority.

  The Church was Authority.

  All we needed to know was what Church Authority told us we needed to know.

  Guess what? The Church was wrong.

  Same with being a JW. The Governing Body tells us NOT to be curious or to do "outside" research or to contradict what they say.

  It is all the same Authority fraud.

  Using our mind to understand our mind (without resorting to a testable methodology outside of mere thought experiment) leaves us open to self-delusion and complacency.

  That's all I was saying.

  Your mileage may vary.
• 

  Terry

  There is nothing inherently UNCERTAIN about an electron. A thing is what it is. A=A.

  Not exactly true.

  You are correct in that our act of measuring can actually change things and lead to uncertainty, but there is also an inherent uncertainty to the quantum world not related to an act of measurement or observation.

  Okay, but what DO YOU MEAN when you say "there is also an inherent uncertainty"? Why do you say this? What makes you think this is so?

  A thing itself cannot BE uncertain. A thing is what it is. Uncertainty can only be framed in our understanding of the thing itself. So, I'm not really understanding you. What is the "inherent" part of your statement?

  Thanks.
• 

  Terry

  At the level of the very small, all we have are probabilities. This allows very bizarre things to happen. Objects can be two things at once (double slit experiment). Objects can be in two places at the same time.

  When popularizers (writers) get ahold of quantum physics and start writing about it for the "layperson" an agenda creeps in. Mystics like to pretend that there is a mysterious quality, a spiritual element to anything "uncertain". This is dishonest rhetoric. I'm talking about writers such as Fritjof Capra, Deepak Chopra. These men have an agenda to link religious and scientific thinking into one web of approach.

  Religious thinking has been destructive to mankind throughout history. Rational thinking has contributed all the advancements in medicine, science, chemistry, technology and such.

  Only by examining and quantifying real things (actually existing things) do we come to understand them. Spiritualizing real things and making them illusory defeats the process of inquiry and debilitates the mind.

  We live in a practical world the problems of mankind are practical problems. Religious illusion/delusion sidetracks our efforts and weakens our resolve to tackle problems in the here and now. Just look at Jehovah's Witnesses how they neglect higher education, carp against medical technology, ignore real world problems and put off all hope for a better society by postponing everything til after Armageddon.

  Remember, what is "mysterious" is only what we are unable to see. If you close your eyes the world does not actually disappear.

  If we measure a phenomenon and cannot quite understand the implications of our measurements we can fall into the trap of semantic description.

  Something which is "in two places at the same time" is not accurate. It is the measurements which seem to imply a duality of location. What this actual "means" has yet to be determined.
• 

  JWoods

  I have read the idea that a quantum object is in a "superposition of states". No single state appears until a measurement is taken.

  In that sense, the quantum state of the object is really just a statistical probability even when it is not measured.

  Most of these sources claim that the uncertainty is "already there", in other words - the uncertainty is not caused by the measurement, and the uncertainty is not a result of any limitation of the accuracy of the measurement.
• 

  bluesapphire

  Think of it this way. You lose your car keys. How long will you search for them? Certainly you'll continue to seach until YOU FIND them!

  Actually, I DID lose my car keys once. I searched everywhere (or thought I did). Eventually, I gave up, thinking I must have thrown them out in the trash or something. They seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Then a whole year later I used a sweater I hadn't used in an entire year and low and behold the keys were in the pocket of that sweater. The answer was found!!!

  I think you think I employ stop-think when I don't. I'm not into physics at all. In fact a lot of this thread just went over my head. I'm sure I could force myself to understand it but it bores me to death. And I'm sure I'm not alone here either.

  The point is I know there are answers out there and someday people a lot smarter than I am (physicists, scientists ....) will find those answers. But probably not in my lifetime. And if so, then I'll be glad. the more we know the better. For me, believing in God doesn't put me in a corner. I continue to accept facts and data and learn. But there IS empty space of unknown.

  So if I want to call the empty hole of the unknown God, who cares? I know it's my opinion. And it doesn't mean I am hoping beyond all hope that no one finds any answers so I can keep believing in God. It's the exact opposite of that, actually.
• 

  Terry

  I have read the idea that a quantum object is in a "superposition of states". No single state appears until a measurement is taken.

  In that sense, the quantum state of the object is really just a statistical probability even when it is not measured.

  Don't you love that word : "Superposition"! Dr. Ruth might want to study it.

  It is difficult to hold in one's mind firmly the difference between "the thing being measured" and the "statistical probability" which represents the "thing being measure."

  Sort of like the average American family as 31/2 members. Statistically possible--but--what exactly is the reality of a 1/2 person??
• 

  JWoods

  Well, is that damn Shrodinger cat DEAD or ALIVE?
• 

  SixofNine

  Don't you love that word : "Superposition"! Dr. Ruth might want to study it.

  I don't understand; what would that (or any of this) have to do with Dr. Ruth?
• 

  Terry

  Dr. Ruth is a sex therapist. The word superposition sounded vaugely sexual to my ears. In other words, I was waxing funny. But, not much apparently.