What if a demon crept after you into your loneliest loneliness some day or night, and said to you: "This life, as you live it at present, and have lived it, you must live it once more, and also innumerable times; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy... — Vaskane
The emperor's new clothes. Innocence and frankness is a lost quality in the way we think.What are your favorite thought experiments and why? — Captain Homicide
In reference to the last question I’d say no because I think animal exploitation is wrong and we can still have pleasure, convenience and entertainment without them. — Captain Homicide
Once citizens are old enough to know the truth, most, though initially shocked and disgusted, ultimately acquiesce to this one injustice that secures the happiness of the rest of the city. However, some citizens, young and old, walk away from the city after seeing the child — Down The Rabbit Hole
Time doesn't exist for a freely moving photon. But when they are slowed down to a snail's pace time catches up. — jgill
Do you think that if a human travelled at light speed ( I know that human 'mass' currently makes that impossible) then the human would not age? — universeness
Do you still contribute to the animal farming industry though, or have you walked away from Omelas? — Down The Rabbit Hole
From memory, I think you're exactly right about that.I think that is the basis of the thought that is supposed to have started Einstein on his quest for answers, when he tried to imagine himself. 'hitching a ride on a photon.' — universeness
But if QFT is correct then there is no such an object as a free particle, there are only field excitations/disturbances. Which for me, suggests that we must be constructions of field excitations, yes? — universeness
Do you think that if a human travelled at light speed ( I know that human 'mass' currently makes that impossible) then the human would not age? — universeness
There would be no concept of time, and aging requires the existence of time it seems to me. This takes one back to a previous thread on change and time: does a physical change require a passage of time? For our little scamp, the photon, one has to ask if it changes other than position? — jgill
This is true, but I think in this context, the existence of "you" requires the sustained existence of those excitations, which are generally constricted to follow the rules of special relativity (sorry, but I have avoided talking about the Reeh–Schlieder theorem because I do not entirely understand how well it acts as an analogue for quantum entanglement), unlike the field itself which has much more wiggle room in terms of relativistic causality. — Jaded Scholar
SR is pretty clear that your local time would pass more and more slowly as you accelerated and would stop entirely at v=c. At that velocity, everything within your timeframe would effectively stop - the entire lifespan of the universe (even if it's infinite) would zoom past you. You're not wrong in saying that you would continue aging, just in a different temporal reference frame, but "continue" is maybe an ambiguous term in a reference frame where time has reached the limit of not passing at all. — Jaded Scholar
does a physical change require a passage of time? For our little scamp, the photon, one has to ask if it changes other than position? — jgill
This is fascinating. I have heard this book in audio on youtube, but I have always fallen asleep to it in the past, perhaps I should buy a paper copy and read it properly :blush:I haven't done the maths myself, but I actually read about some practical estimates on this exact thing in Bill Bryson's "A Short History of (Nearly) Everything" (my favourite book): I'm not sure what portion of a body generally gets dispersed to become part of another human or any other organism, but for anything short of a hermetically-sealed chamber, the amount is always nonzero. Whether you are buried, cremated, etc., it only takes a few centuries before a substantial portion of the atoms that comprised you have gotten into the atmosphere and circulated through various physical processes, ultimately distributing very far and wide, including into the atomic makeup of every other human that currently lives. At least a few dozen of the atoms in your body were once part of Isaac Newton, a few dozen were part of Socrates, Cleopatra, Ghenghis Khan, and even the long-forgotten hominid who first artifically kindled fire. But, to continue (roughly) plagiarising Bill Bryson, the process does require a few centuries - you are not yet one with, say, Elvis Presley. — Jaded Scholar
Yes, especially when it's so 'intuitive' (I realise this is a problem when it comes to my own thinking,) to assume that heavier (or more dense) objects would fall faster, especially when it is true that heavier/more dense object do create 'more' gravity.And it was beautiful to learn that the astronauts who went to the moon on the Apollo 15 mission actually brought a hammer and a feather with them, to televise them falling at the same rate, vindicating Galileo's hypothetical claim, 300 years later. :') — Jaded Scholar
I have no knowledge of the Reeh-Schlieder theorem, but, after I have finished this post, I will start to learn about it, until my current physics grasp gets overwhelmed again, but I am sure my efforts will expand my understanding a little, so thanks for directing me to the theorem. — universeness
Using this argument we can never have a reason to believe in the world becuase we can’t ever escape our senses short of omnipotence and even then you wouldn’t know if it wasn’t just another simulation.Yet we do assume both, quite strongly, yet we don't have good reasons for doing so. — Manuel
Where do you get off the train? (meaning, at what point do you hit the 'its now a futile endeavour' line in your enquiry?) — AmadeusD
how do you know you are not the doppelgan — Apustimelogist
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