Where does the past go? Or does it "go" anywhere?

[raccoon]

Are time and space inexorably linked, like flesh and bones?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. I believe scientists say

that time and space are really concepts; mystics (with whom I'm much better acquainted) say everything happens in the omnipresent NOW. There is no time, no space.

[SnowGoose]

2. Wouldn't "where does the future come from" be the same question?

Likewise, where were you before you were born.

While the question appears to make sense at first glance, when I think about it, I'm not sure what it actually means.

[Warpy]

3. Then again there's geometry

that says the fourth dimension (time) is a line perpendicular to the other three.

[Orrex]

8. And that leads to a rephrasing of the original question:

Suppose that an object is moving parallel to the X axis of a two-dimensional X-Y axis. Where in Y is he object going?

The answer? Nowhere. At least, its position in Y isn't changing as it moves along X.

If the time-as-fourth-dimension formulation is correct, then the question of "where" the past (or present) goes is fundamentally meaningless.

But it's still a fun mental exercise!

[BattyDem]

11. Sounds like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (Quantum Mechanics)

It says that it is possible to know the momentum or the position of a particle, but not both. So that means you couldn't measure both the movement along the X-axis and the position along the Y-axis at the same time. :crazy:


Interesting bit of trivia:
Because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, the transporters on Star Trek would not be possible, so the show "invented" something called "Heisenberg Compensators" which "explain" how the transporters are able to work. I think it started with "The Next Generation". On the show, whenever there was a problem with the transporter, you'd often here Geordi or some other "yellow shirt" mention the "Heisenberg Compensators". Of course, they never explained how those compensators actually worked! :P

[Orrex]

12. Heisenberg Compensators are only needed at the sub-atomic level, I think

Star Trek posits that human-grade Transporters maintain a "quantum" level of resolution, so that the guy at the receiving end is identical to the guy who left the departure point, down to the quantum level. But that's not really necessary. If you can get someone exact down to the atomic level (or maybe even the molecular level), that's plenty close enough to the original guy (unless we assume that "identity" or a "soul" requires quantum-exactness between the original and the destination guys).

I should think that a person reproduced to the level of atomic precision would be sufficiently indistinguishable from the original. Heisenberg uncertainty is less a factor at that scale (though still not irrelevant).

Of course, I was an English major, so don't expect me to step onto any Transporter pad that I've designed!

[BattyDem]

13. "plenty close enough to the original guy"

Let's hope so! I wouldn't want to be the person to test that theory, LOL! ;-)

I always got a kick out of the way Star Trek tried to stay true to real science, even when they had to "invent" scientific theories to do it. :-)

[Orrex]

14. Very true!

In fact, one of the weakest points of the second trilogy was the introduction of "midichlorians" in an apparent effort to add science-ish mumbo-jumbo to the Star Wars universe.

Nuts to that, I say! The story is much more interesting and effective when we don't get bogged down in the mundane physics of how a light saber works or how fast a Hyperdrive is (compared to Warp drive, for example).

[BattyDem]

15. You're right ... science never really fit with Star Wars

but Trek had a lot more time to deal with it in a subtle, yet efficient and effective way because it had hundreds of hours to do so. There's no way Lucas could fit all the "mumbo-jumbo" into a 2 1/2 hour movie AND keep things interesting. He should have avoided the midichlorians - we didn't really need a biological explanation of The Force. ;-)

[Odin2005]

17. I will NEVER step foot inside a teleporter.

what comes out on the other side is not you, it's a copy of you that thinks it's you, which is an important distinction. You are distroyed when you step in a teleporter.

[Orrex]

18. Eh. Close enough for me.

what comes out on the other side is not you, it's a copy of you that thinks it's you, which is an important distinction.

As far as I'm concerned, "I" am just a walking sack of chemicals that thinks that it's "me," so there's no big difference between that state of affairs and the Transporter scenario you describe. If "I" am destroyed and the guy who comes out the other side of the Transporter can be distinguished from "me," even by himself, then who am "I" to say that he isn't "me?"

[Odin2005]

22. He isn't you because...

...he and you are to different entities. Walking into a teleporter is equivalent to suicide, IMO.

[bananas]

23. That's right - it would be like cloning yourself, then killing yourself

the clone would think it was you, but it would be somebody else.
There was a movie or twilight zone episode like that,
people would walk into the teleporter, after their copy was made at the other end, they would be killed. It was kept a secret, because otherwise people would be afraid to use the teleporters.

[Orrex]

30. Well, that's just metaphysics, isn't it?

What's an entity? You're basically saying that Orrex v1.0 and Orrex v2.0 aren't the same because they don't have the same soul, but that's meaningless to me.

I've never seen evidence that a "soul" exists or that one's "identity" is distinct from one's neurochemistry, so I can't object to Transporters on those grounds.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

4. Oh. geez. holy moly

I get out of my gifted technology middle school class and sit down at my computer to have a little fun with DU and what do I read?

"Where does the past go?"


You must have been in a gifted class yourself and I'll bet you made your teacher nuts.

Now, I used to have a stock answer for these questions "ask your mother" but now I say "google it and let me know."


Teasing you...it is a fascinating concept. In my case, my past is living on my hips, my butt, my upper arms..every ice cream I ever ate is still with me.

tg

[raccoon]

25. Thank you, thank you.

"You must have been in a gifted class yourself and I'll bet you made your teacher nuts."

In the time and place I grew up, gifted classes were a thing unknown.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

28. How about making the teacher nuts?

Want to admit to that???

[raccoon]

29. Now I might have to take that under consideration....nt

[dweller]

5. in the recycle bin ...

thought everybody knew that.
dp

[raccoon]

9. Man, I wish we could just dump selected memories into the recycle bin. nt

[valerief]

6. Someone ought to explain boned chicken to you

The flesh and bones are not inexorably linked. (nyuk, nyuk)

[BattyDem]

7. Time is relative to the perspective from which it is viewed

"The distinction between past, present and future is only an illusion, however persistent." - Albert Einstein, 1955

:-)

[raccoon]

10. Some good and interesting responses here. This is a subject

I used to ponder in my younger days, particularly when I was---in an altered state.

[htuttle]

16. I remember a somewhat bewildering theory about time

...I read about sometime in the last 5-10 years, that postulated that 'time' was actually a whole series of 'freeze frames' of quantum states, etc... and the real illusion (created by our minds) was that time was 'smooth'.

I'm probably not characterizing it well. In any case, I'm not even sure that theory is still considered valid or possible, based on some fairly recent Hubble experiments by Dr Richard Lieu and Dr Lloyd Hillman (I think?).

[phantom power]

19. A theory of quantum gravity would almost demand quantized time.

at least, it would if we stick with the "gravity is curved space-time" model.

[Occulus]

20. But how does one divide a concept into indivisible units?

I wonder if one quantum unit of time is the amount of time it takes for a quantum particle to move from one point to another- but then again, that would depend on the energy of the particle, its momentum, etc.

What does time mean to a quantum particle? Can "it" measure time as moment a, b, c, etc?

If time, however, is infinitely divisible, how is it that we perceive it to exist? If time is infinitely divisible, how is it that we perceive it at all?

Is it us that impose an unnatural set of divisions unto time, or does time itself posess inherent divisions?

If the former, time is a concept; if the latter, time is a thing, a force, and something we could perhaps manipulate.

A singularly frightening distinction.

[htuttle]

21. I'm not sure that this is true

I wonder if one quantum unit of time is the amount of time it takes for a quantum particle to move from one point to another- but then again, that would depend on the energy of the particle, its momentum, etc.

But isn't that the whole weird thing about quantum particles? That we can tell where one of them moved, or when one of them moved, but not both at once? (or something like that). I'm relatively sure that momentum doesn't apply on the quantum level as well.

I think I've read that there are 'indivisibly small' units of time, such as when electrons hop from one orbit to another. It appears to happen instantaneously without traversing the space in between, doesn't it?

I may be entirely confused on this. :shrug:

[NNadir]

24. I have it in my garage. It's piling up. Can you come over and pick up

the part that belongs to you?

It concerns me that all of this wasted time may have to go to a landfill. Can't we just recycle it?

[raccoon]

26. "Can't we just recycle it?" If only! nt

[rman]

27. the best i can make of it

is that "now" goes to the past - the past doesn't go anywhere.

[izzybeans]

31. We leave the past behind and historians

run to fetch it. But that is only partially true. They just remind us of our constitution.

If you take your conundrum about an object traveling parellel to X, you'll notice the dimension left out of this puzzle is that introduced by the observer; hence the follow up on Heisenberg.

The observer introduces the time dimension, and that observer can compress it, decompress it, construct and deconstruct like any other abstraction.

If you want to know where the past goes, just look in the present. You can see both past and future right here. Look at the objects before you and introduce yourself to your unconscious (a resident of the past), a subject only constructable with the use of a concept called time. Watch your fingers type and see the past propell the present state into the future. This is made possible only when you discover what constitutes the present state. If you can see the waves of history crashing the shores of your present, you'll discover that the source of erosion is the linkage between past and future; found only in the present. Perfect knowledge of the present requires perfect knowledge of the past, and this is the only thing that allows an accurate forecast into the future. My forecast is that this person will never materialize; and uncertainty will remain to rule the order of things. And we are right back with the pondering again.

Looking for a time dimension is to confuse the dimension introduced by the observer for something other than a carnival mirror. Time and Being are one.

[depakid]

32. Time's arrow is entropy

It only runs one way. In that sense the past is truly gone, notions of space/time and odd ball quantum results not withstanding-

(figure maybe that's what NNadir was alluding to with all that stuff piled up in his garage).

Georgescu-Roegen (one of the founders of ecological economics) even posits a "4th law" of thermodynamics- matter entropy, which I guess when it comes down to it, also reflects time, because there can never be perfect recycling (or what some might call "upcycling). All things end up "scattered" and "useless"

There ain't no going "back in time" to fix them.

[Dead_Parrot]

33. Have you looked down the back of the fridge? nt

[benburch]

34. So...

That means time is green and fuzzy, right?

[jonolover]

35. No, the past doesn't go anywhere.

We go away from it, move forward - in time.

[Quakerfriend]

36. Real life experience seems to say TIME is irrelevant.

When I was 25 I went, for the first time, to a hypnotist to have a past life regression done.

The hypnotist kept trying to take me back and forth in time to a point that I could recall.

I will just tell you that it was as if someone was fanning thru a large phone book. Every time she would go forward or backward in time I would experience time going by- 100s and 1000s of years- like a breeze across my cheek.

I later learned that this is what those who have gone thru near-death experiences relate.

Funny thing is, I now feel VERY certain about what time is.