Time travel time! [Archive]

Xinos

8 Aug 2006, 18:40

I want to know what time travel theory people have, since I got in an argument today regarding just this.
Note that this is mostly about fictionous time travel, and not weather or not it is possibly in the real world; I for one think it's to crazy to ever work.

There seem to be two general ways of looking at time travel. (that I've noticed)

The first is the typical endless loop scenario. If you go back in time to punch yourself then that will repeat itself infinitely.

1) At age 20 a much older version of you appears runs up to you and smacks punches your face. When you get older you will travel back in time and punch your younger self in the face. There is no escaping this.
Side note: Time will probably not continue since it is stuck in this loop.

The second way of looking at it is that there is a first time for everything.

2) You grow up well past 20 without ever having been punched in the face by your older self, since this is the first time time itself has gotten to this point. However when you get older you get the opportunity to go back in time. Assuming you do this you go back and punch your younger self.
Think if it as a roller coaster track with one single loop in it and then just continues.

In the movie 12 Monkeys, the main character is sent back in time to investigate a catastrophe that he himself causes. The theme of the movie is that you can't change anything when time traveling, meaning this will loop forever. The problem with the movie is that this could not have happened if they did not send him back in time in the first place =P

Plasma

8 Aug 2006, 18:48

If I ever do get my time machine running, I'll let you know.
:p

I'm still serious.

AndrewTaylor

8 Aug 2006, 18:54

The secret third way exists: Time travel is impossible. There's a huge body of fiction where that's true.

I think the first version works better in fiction, because it forces writers to be clever about it. Oh, and time will continue -- a road continues even if you never travel further than halfway.

Paul.Power

8 Aug 2006, 18:58

For some reason, the second feels more workable to me. I'm not sure why. But coupled with a certain amount of historical inertia (i.e. in the majority of cases, a small change will not affect the course of history), it feels nicer as a storytelling device.

TintinWorm

8 Aug 2006, 19:27

Hmm...kinda confusing. I don't really know. Darn it, where's K^2?

Xinos

8 Aug 2006, 19:47

This site is what got me started on this whole thing really;
http://mjyoung.net/time/index.htm

Though the Donnie Darko article is the only one I've read. Very interesting though..

vmanc

8 Aug 2006, 20:28

I've found it's not in my best interest to think too long or hard about time. Or time travel. Especially time travel :p

bonz

8 Aug 2006, 20:45

Wikipedia has lots of info and links as usual:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timetravel

I really like how Fry in Futurama travels back in time and impregnates his own grandmother, resulting in being his own grandfather. :D

Also, Dexter's Laboratory has a few nice time travel episodes.

And of course Back to the Future.

MtlAngelus

8 Aug 2006, 20:59

You can't meet yourself in the past unless you manage to create another paralel universe while time-traveling and end up there.

Plasma

8 Aug 2006, 21:17

The secret third way exists: Time travel is impossible. There's a huge body of fiction where that's true.
Wrong! It has already been proven that time travel is possible!
I'm not going to tell you though. Probably because I'm a jerk.

Horigan

8 Aug 2006, 21:19

I personally hate time travel in stories, it's too confusing. But if we assume it's possible, then I'd have to say that what would happen, is that if you met yourself, and influenced yourself in some way, it would create a paradox. The easiest way to resolve this, for fictious purposes, is to assume the endless branching universe idea. In which case you'd have a universe in which you start time traveling, and in fact when you time-travel, your presence necessitates a branching of reality, and you are non longer in your starting universe.

Off-topic note: I just saw MtAngelus sig, that's the first time I've ever seen myself in someone's sig. You guys never are gonna forgive me for that incident are you? ;)

pilot62

8 Aug 2006, 21:25

I dislike theory 1, surely cause and effect would make that impossible. There must have been a first cause, i.e. a time when you grew up without being punched in the face, and surely your younger self, after being punched in the face, would develop differently. This means that, if you are the one who got punched, even if you still got the chance to go back and punch your younger self (which wouldn't be certain at all) it wouldn't be exactly the same as when you got punched, so thus your younger self's life would develop slightly differently to how yours did, even though you both got punched. Therefore the loop couldn't go on forever, because eventually your life would be different enough that you wouldn't go back.

To make a very poor analogy, imagine when there's mirrors on two opposite walls, and you look into the mirrors; you don't see an infinite amount of mirrors, the line trails off or after so many.

In the scenario, it's much more likely the one who got punched wouldn't ever get the chance to go back anyway.

AndrewTaylor

8 Aug 2006, 22:53

I dislike theory 1, surely cause and effect would make that impossible. ...
Ah, but does it? I mean, as long as the timeline is self-consistent, there's no reason why it can't exist. You might call into question how it can come about, but then, where did the universe come from? If you rely on cause and effect, something must have caused the universe, and something else must, in turn, have caused that. Pretty soon, it's just turtles all the way down. So evidently, a cause isn't always required.

Personally, I think the theory Horigan mentioned is the simplest explaination (although that said, I've had long arguments with him before about his preference for the simplest explaination). It works, in and of itself, but it does require that the many-worlds version of quantum theory is right. Which it probably is, I think, based on my limited understanding of the field.
Wrong! It has already been proven that time travel is possible!
Well, yes, I know that, but it's been proven that faster-than-light travel is possible. But it's also been proven (I think) that it's utterly and completely pointless and ineffective, so there's no reason to assume that anything practical or useful will ever come of it. I think it has to be workaboe before you can really call it "time travel" in this context.

Star Worms

8 Aug 2006, 23:18

Time travel is impossible. Otherwise history would be changing everyday. It also creates a paradox.

vmanc

8 Aug 2006, 23:21

Time travel is impossible. Otherwise history would be changing everyday.

For all you know, it could be...

Star Worms

8 Aug 2006, 23:54

Err what? One tiny thing affects everything. All it would take is for 2 of my ancestors never to meet and I'd be a completely different person living in a different era. As far as I know the writing in books haven't changed and none have mysteriously vanished.

AndrewTaylor

9 Aug 2006, 00:03

As far as I know
Well, you wouldn't, would you? Because from your point of view, they'd always have been like that.

Star Worms

9 Aug 2006, 00:08

Well, you wouldn't, would you? Because from your point of view, they'd always have been like that.Well I have a memory and nothing historically has changed.

Xinos

9 Aug 2006, 00:32

Err what? One tiny thing affects everything. All it would take is for 2 of my ancestors never to meet and I'd be a completely different person living in a different era.

No you wouldn't. You simply wouldn't exist.

Star Worms

9 Aug 2006, 00:47

No you wouldn't. You simply wouldn't exist.
I would eventually exist. As soon I exist it means I can't exist elsewhere.

Xinos

9 Aug 2006, 01:57

You would eventually exist? What YOU? Unless the same brain you have now physically exists in someone else's body as a substitute for your existance then no, you can't be someone else.

Scenario: I kill a female frog who hasn't gotten offspring yet. Then I say: "It's alright, her baby frogs will be born somewhere else later". So that means that thoose frogs, you, and any other lifeform that missen it's chance to be created is entitled to a life later on?

Everytime I choose not to make create a spoon out of wood, that very spoon I didn't make is going to be created somewhere else by a different person? Wood is organic just like you. It's not different in any way.

"Let's hurry up and make this baby before someone else steels it!"

Kelster23

9 Aug 2006, 04:20

I have a "I-don't-know-what-it's-called" about theory 1. Like Pilot said about 'cause and effect', you could change yourself from punching yourself by deciding not to be in that particular place at that time, changing everything...It would be like that because you already know, so therefor you can change it.

Star Worms

9 Aug 2006, 04:33

Pigbuster

9 Aug 2006, 05:34

I'm with the "parallel universe" line of thinking. In my mind, there are a seemingly infinite branch of possible futures from the present. Each of these futures are different combinations of different actions by everything in existence.
For instance, in one future, you decided to eat a turkey sandwich. In another future, you didn't. That's 2 futures.
Now, here's another future. You decide to eat a turkey sandwich, and on your way to the kitchen, your body follows the same exact movement as the other future, except for a single atom, which moves an infinitesimally small distance in another direction. That's 3 futures.

Now, there's another future, in which a DIFFERENT atom moves.
And another one in which TWO atoms move.
And there's futures for every single possible movement of every single atom of your body.
And there's futures for any movements of anything in all existance.
It makes up a type of time-plane, or web.
And when we travel in the past, we travel to that point in the web.

The point in time that the traveller left from isn't affected at all, as the time traveller cannot possibly go to a certain point in their past, because in that point of time, HE WASN'T THERE.
So he essentially creates an entirely new point of time in the past, which is similar to the point he wanted to travel to, except it has him and his time machine in it, and it can unfold entirely differently from the way it did in HIS timeline. It's somewhat random.
And also, this is where alternate realities come from. What about the potential futures before the Earth was created? It could've became a gas planet, and that would become an alternate reality in which Earth was a gas planet.

I could probably be a heck of a lot clearer, but it's just so much FUN to ramble on about these kinds of things.
You could say "Science proves THIS point of your argument wrong", and you may be right, but that doesn't matter, because in another future, I am 100% correct. :D

MtlAngelus

9 Aug 2006, 07:12

Well I have a memory and nothing historically has changed.
Except that if things changed your memory of it would be changed too...

Honestly tough, I don't think time travel is possible, and I would like to be pointed out to more information on the many-worlds version of quantum theory because there's something about it that just doesn't quite click.

edit: And Horigan, I just forgot to remove that a long time ago, and I'm too lazy to click the user cp button :p

AndrewTaylor

9 Aug 2006, 09:54

I as myself wouldn't be born but I would be in control of a different person/animal.
Well that's a whole nother question, right there.

Personally, I can't reconcile any kind of afterlife theory with many-worlds. I mean, ones where you get judged at the end anyway, as they tend to fall apart because you can't blame a person for every decision they could possibly have taken. The rest could mesh, but they just seem a little bit too... made up to possibly be true.
Now, here's another future. You decide to eat a turkey sandwich, and on your way to the kitchen, your body follows the same exact movement as the other future, except for a single atom, which moves an infinitesimally small distance in another direction. That's 3 futures.

Now, there's another future, in which a DIFFERENT atom moves.
And another one in which TWO atoms move.
And there's futures for every single possible movement of every single atom of your body.
And there's futures for any movements of anything in all existance.
It makes up a type of time-plane, or web.
And when we travel in the past, we travel to that point in the web.
I like to consider that if one atom is nudged and then returns back to where it was, and you end up with two futures that are in every way identical, then what you have there is one future. The two would sort of "recombine". It makes a lot more sense if you think about it in phase space. I'm basing that on nothing much, but it makes sense to me.
I have a "I-don't-know-what-it's-called" about theory 1. Like Pilot said about 'cause and effect', you could change yourself from punching yourself by deciding not to be in that particular place at that time, changing everything...It would be like that because you already know, so therefor you can change it.
Well, in that case you'd never be back there punching yourself in the first place. That's not a self-consistent timeline and therefore couldn't exist. Exactly what would stop it existing is another question, but if you view time holistically you can easily say that people simply wouldn't make those decisions. If you view time as a stream, then yes, it's a problem.

Preasure

9 Aug 2006, 12:00

Oh dear. Nothing like a discussion of time travel and advanced dimensional theory to make my brain ache. :p

So, can I go back in time and warn myself not to read it?

Xinos

9 Aug 2006, 12:10

I am going offtopic in my own thread, but bear with me. This is more interesing IMHO =P

I as myself wouldn't be born but I would be in control of a different person/animal.

Seems like you totally ignored what I said. So if I understand you correctly, you beleive there is some kind of vast "ocean" of entities that will eventually find a body to be born into? You have existed for an unknown amount of time and was some years ago placed into your body? You are probably thinking that your awareness, your sense of being "you", is to complicated and too great to be purely a property of being a human being? Why do you not want to accept that what we feel as being ourselfs only is what the signals in our brains builds or puts together? Do not forget we evolved from bacteria and our minds slooowly got more advanced and smarter. But that doesn't mean it's a seperate being.

Notice when your brain is effected by alcohol that you get dizzy and think differently? That is because you "are" your brain, and not a soul living in it.

When I was younger I was like that, I couldn't imagine that the complexity of being me was purely what being human is all about. This lump of flesh I am controlling surely can't be this smart and think the words: "I am".
Now I think that was rather naive. Too much religious philosophy fekking up my view on life.

That is what religion is all about, not understanding how our mind works. But now sience has unraveled the mystery, and yet allot of people won't accept it. But if thinking you are not your body and will live on in other lifeforms gives you a sense of meaningfullness in your life, then I guess there is no harm in beleiving so.

Plasma

9 Aug 2006, 12:33

Well, yes, I know that, but it's been proven that faster-than-light travel is possible. But it's also been proven (I think) that it's utterly and completely pointless and ineffective, so there's no reason to assume that anything practical or useful will ever come of it. I think it has to be workaboe before you can really call it "time travel" in this context.
Well I would. We're already capable of sending things from the present/future into the past/present. It's just that those 'things' are not objects.
It's also enough to be able to make a better guess at what would happen with objects. For example, it should already be able to create a loop, although I don't know what the results were.
It may also be able to prove theory 2 wrong; or it may not, depending how it works. If the information is sent into the past, then theory 2 is wrong and the past will have been affected. However, if the information was taken from the future, then we wouldn't know what would happen if something would be sent into the past.

If you ask me, a time machine for objects will require two parts to the machine. One part for the time period at which the object goes in, and the other part for the time period the object comes out.
It would also neatly explain why there was no record of a person from a different time period appearing so far.

AndrewTaylor

9 Aug 2006, 13:29

Plasma

9 Aug 2006, 13:32

AndrewTaylor

9 Aug 2006, 13:38

If I told you, you'd consider me normal.
Don't worry yourself unduly on that front.

Xinos

9 Aug 2006, 15:41

Star Worms

9 Aug 2006, 16:35

I am going offtopic in my own thread, but bear with me. This is more interesing IMHO =P

Seems like you totally ignored what I said. So if I understand you correctly, you beleive there is some kind of vast "ocean" of entities that will eventually find a body to be born into? You have existed for an unknown amount of time and was some years ago placed into your body? You are probably thinking that your awareness, your sense of being "you", is to complicated and too great to be purely a property of being a human being? Why do you not want to accept that what we feel as being ourselfs only is what the signals in our brains builds or puts together? Do not forget we evolved from bacteria and our minds slooowly got more advanced and smarter. But that doesn't mean it's a seperate being.

Notice when your brain is effected by alcohol that you get dizzy and think differently? That is because you "are" your brain, and not a soul living in it.

When I was younger I was like that, I couldn't imagine that the complexity of being me was purely what being human is all about. This lump of flesh I am controlling surely can't be this smart and think the words: "I am".
Now I think that was rather naive. Too much religious philosophy fekking up my view on life.

That is what religion is all about, not understanding how our mind works. But now sience has unraveled the mystery, and yet allot of people won't accept it. But if thinking you are not your body and will live on in other lifeforms gives you a sense of meaningfullness in your life, then I guess there is no harm in beleiving so.I do know that we are just a brain and I've thought about it plenty in my life. All life is passive until something has a brain and it's a whole new level of life. Plants don't move to the light deliberately. You can't be born as a plant or anything without a brain. You seem to completely misunderstand me.

There's no feasible reason why I am me and not someone/thing else. There's is not 1 brain that is destined to be me, it could be any number of them. It doesn't make sense to say that I was always going to be my brain. Any number of things could have happened in the past to make that brain different or not exist at all. If it was made slightly different by 1 of my ancestors being different, would the brain still be destined for me? What if my ancestors thought a bit differently - my parents would be different (not genetically). Would the new brain still be me? What if I cloned myself? I can't control 2 bodies. I'm my line of thinking that brain wouldn't be me but by saying that my brain was always going to be me, does "my brain" mean just genetically or any other factors? Obviously it can't just mean genetically or else if I cloned myself I'd be 2 brains. I could have been any number of brains, it's just a random coincidence that I'm this one.

Xinos

9 Aug 2006, 17:09

Hmm, feels like I'm talking to myself a few years back. I can't explain how I disagree on this whole "me/I" thing, it get's to complicated and there are no good words for it all. View it as however you want =)

Phat Lewt

9 Aug 2006, 17:17

I just can't imagine time travel. I keep thinking if you go back in time, time will continue to go forward while you are in the past. I think the only way that time travel would work is if time itself were to be 'stopped' while you were in the past.

But say you walk around in the past and punch yourself. Would you have a bruise when time started back up? And what happens if you don't travel back to the present when time starts up again?

This is all very kunfoozang.:(

Pigbuster

9 Aug 2006, 17:28

I hope you don't imagine I'm going to believe some guy on the internet who tells me that we already have the capability to build a working time machine without offering me any hint as to how this story might be corroborated. I'm much more likely to believe you've written "TIME MASHINE" on a shoebox and made yourself a hat out of tinfoil.
Why, it's easy. All you need is some orange juice cans, a flashlight, and some tungsten.
http://www.superdickery.com/science/18.html

That is what religion is all about, not understanding how our mind works. But now sience has unraveled the mystery, and yet allot of people won't accept it. But if thinking you are not your body and will live on in other lifeforms gives you a sense of meaningfullness in your life, then I guess there is no harm in beleiving so.
I used to suffer mental breakdowns when I was 10 or so because I was scared about the possibility of no afterlife.
So I do believe in the soul and sin and all that stuff, but I accept science, too, and how it has observed and found out about how the mind works. IMHO, religion and science don't have to be so separate as everyone thinks they should be.

AndrewTaylor

9 Aug 2006, 20:05

I just can't imagine time travel. I keep thinking if you go back in time, time will continue to go forward while you are in the past. I think the only way that time travel would work is if time itself were to be 'stopped' while you were in the past.
Ah, the Bill And Ted model.

Time would't stop while you were in the past -- that makes no sense. There is no "while you are in the past" -- first off because anywhen you are is by definition the present, and secondly, because the amount of time that passes "while you are in the past" is determined solely by taking the time you left away from the time you went back to. Presuming your time machine works properly, that is whatever period you want -- even a negative time.

Xinos

9 Aug 2006, 20:43

Why, it's easy. All you need is some orange juice cans, a flashlight, and some tungsten.
http://www.superdickery.com/science/18.html

I used to suffer mental breakdowns when I was 10 or so because I was scared about the possibility of no afterlife.
So I do believe in the soul and sin and all that stuff, but I accept science, too, and how it has observed and found out about how the mind works. IMHO, religion and science don't have to be so separate as everyone thinks they should be.

When I was 10 I was more worried about when the universe started and what was before then etc... if humans would be able to escape our solar system before the sun would go supernova on us, and naively hoping that by the time I grew up medicine could keep people imortal =P

What is meaning? If there is no god, and therefor no devine rules, then there is no meaning, no reason for our existans. If there is no meaning, then I have nothing to loose when I die anyway. The only things that can deserve to be called meaningfull are the events in my life. We all want there to be a bigger truth, but I don't think there is any. And since everything is meaningless, it is compleatly pointless to be depressed about it. So I'll just try to live life as happily as I can, without making up excuses.

Sure it's fun to live, and I want to be alive forever, but I will care about being dead just as much as I once cared about not being born yet ;)

Phat Lewt

12 Aug 2006, 19:17

What is meaning? If there is no god, and therefor no devine rules, then there is no meaning, no reason for our existans. If there is no meaning, then I have nothing to loose when I die anyway. The only things that can deserve to be called meaningfull are the events in my life. We all want there to be a bigger truth, but I don't think there is any. And since everything is meaningless, it is compleatly pointless to be depressed about it. So I'll just try to live life as happily as I can, without making up excuses.Hopefully this doesn't turn into a theological argument.

I agree, but still there's that nagging feeling that i have about heaven and hell. Although it seems like any third-grader could have just gone on a opus and written up most of the 'sacred' books, i don't want to have to roast in hell for eternity because of being headstrong and cocky about religion. I think we should all just live as good and sensible a life as possible. All this psychodrama about praying and the esoteric gibberish found in most religions is, i think, the main reason people are confused about religion, if at all.
Just felt like saying that.:confused:

Sure it's fun to live, and I want to be alive forever, but I will care about being dead just as much as I once cared about not being born yet ;)You weren't able to care about living before you were born.

Plasma

12 Aug 2006, 20:08

You weren't able to care about living before you were born.
Yes, but you also wont be able to care about living when you're non-existant, or dead.

vmanc

12 Aug 2006, 20:11

I can't wait to find out what happens when we die... the suspense is almost too much, I might just decide to end it all right here right now.... :p

... BUUUT on the off chance that nothing happens, I won't.

Xinos

12 Aug 2006, 21:14

You weren't able to care about living before you were born.

Yes.. that was the whole point.

philby4000

12 Aug 2006, 21:43

As I'm currently writing a comic that involves a lot of time travel this is quite an interesting issue for me.

Personaly, of all the theorys about time travel the one that makes most sense to me is the model employed in back to the future. the second case xinos gave.

I.E, that when you alter the past you create an alturnate timeline. The original timeline still exists, but you are unable to return to it.

It is, however possible to create another alturnate timeline that is almost identical to the timeline you originated from, like marty does in the seond film by retrieving the almanack from Biff.

This way you end up with three separate timelines:

The Original (The one Marty starts the first film in)
The Hellish alturnate future (The begining of the second film)
The similar to the Original, but with an altured past (The end of the second film)

Of course, some of the time travel in Back to the future doesn't make sence, for instance the picture of the gravestone in the third film. As an item from a future timeline it would not change when the alturnate timeline where Marty doesn't die is created. Just as Marty doesn't change when he ends up in the alturnate future timeline in the second film.

Who the hell would take a picture of an empty patch of ground anyway?

In anycase, the theory is sound (despite a few silly details in the films) and it ties in rather nicely with the whole parralel dimensions thing.

...

I'm sorry if I just screwed up a perfectly legitimate disscussion about the possibility (or lack) of timetravel with my ramblings about Back to the future.:p

Slick

12 Aug 2006, 21:44

EDITED:
First off I don't see how you can get matter into the past in the first place. It would be impossable to do so. The stuff that Plasma said can go back in time is "anti-matter" stuff which can't be proven excists. And because of that you can't prove that it isn't real. It's just like saying that some time before July 5 2007, you will die. You can't prove it as of now, but you can't say it wouldn't happen. But still the only way to travel in time is to go into the future.That is by slowing yourself down so time seems to go faster. The freezeing method comes to mind. Although you would still excist in the same time line, time itself would seem to move faster. But there is no way to get into the past. If that was possable you would be able to take...lets say a stick back in time and give it to yourself. Then your past self would have two sticks and he could give both of them to yourself when he goes back in time. Then you would have three and then so on. It wouldnt be possable because energy cannot be made or destroyed. Even though it's only a stick, the atoms and such are made out of energy charges. Think you can still go back in time by moving very fast? Wrong. The faster you move the slower everything goes. Simple as that. Stuff would just seem to "freeze", and if you go faster and faster the reaction time would just get slower and slower.
So pretty much you can't just zap some-when and have stuff be that easy.
But say this stuff is possable, I'd have to say that that it would be impossable to tell welther the looping theory or the diffrent time lines would be real. :p It all depends on wheather or not you think you have free will. If you do, and you are suppost to kill a thousand people with a bomb when you turn 30, then you can choose not to or kill yourself to provent that. But if you don't have free will you can never be killed untill you do what your future holds...even if you should choose to not do it, somthing would end up makeing you do it.
Bah...this is only my OPINION.

Plasma

12 Aug 2006, 22:03

First off I don't see how you can get matter into the past in the first place. It would be impossable to do so. The stuff that Plasma said can go back in time is "anti-matter" stuff which can't be proven excists. And because of that you can't prove that it isn't real.
Do you mean "they can't define what it is"; because if something works, then it must exist.

But still the only way to travel in time is to go into the future. Obviously because of Einstein's theory of relativity. Which you can all looke up for yourselfs if you want.
The world around you was not created by people's theories about the world.

But there is no way to get into the past. If that was possable you would be able to take...lets say a stick back in time and give it to yourself. Then your past self would have two sticks and he could give both of them to yourself when he goes back in time. Then you would have three and then so on. It wouldnt be possable because energy cannot be made or destroyed. Even though it's only a stick, the atoms and such are made out of energy charges.
But the energy wasn't made at all. When the person has two sticks, bith sticks are the same stick, but from different time periods.
However, you can't tell what happens at the end, because the stick is stuck in a paradox.

Think you can still go back in time by moving very fast? Wrong. The faster you move the slower everything goes. Simple as that. Stuff would just seem to "freeze", and if you go faster and faster the reaction time would just get slower and slower.
I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about whatsoever.

Slick

12 Aug 2006, 22:07

Some people have a theory that if you move fast enough, you can travel back in time. (Like in SuperMan 1)
And I realized what I said about Einstein, and changed it.

Plasma

12 Aug 2006, 22:18

But say this stuff is possable, I'd have to say that that it would be impossable to tell welther the looping theory or the diffrent time lines would be real. :p It all depends on wheather or not you think you have free will. If you do, and you are suppost to kill a thousand people with a bomb when you turn 30, then you can choose not to or kill yourself to provent that. But if you don't have free will you can never be killed untill you do what your future holds...even if you should choose to not do it, somthing would end up makeing you do it.
As I said (I think), we already can do that stuff. But I don't know any of the results.

Speaking of which, does anyone know of a good way to detect protons or electrons?

AndrewTaylor

12 Aug 2006, 22:19

"anti-matter" stuff which can't be proven excists.
Sure it can. We've seen it. We've made it. We use it in hospitals.
But there is no way to get into the past. If that was possable you would be able to take...lets say a stick back in time and give it to yourself. Then your past self would have two sticks and he could give both of them to yourself when he goes back in time. Then you would have three and then so on. It wouldnt be possable because energy cannot be made or destroyed. Even though it's only a stick, the atoms and such are made out of energy charges.
That argument doesn't really work, because once you allow time travel it's no longer a closed system. If you travel in time, you're moving things, not destroying them in one place and creating them in another. Energy can't be created or destroyed, but that's not to say that the total amount of energy in the universe is constant.
Think you can still go back in time by moving very fast?
Ah, the Superman model? No. I'm not sure anybody really thinks that.
So pretty much you can't just zap some-when and have stuff be that easy.
Agreed. We can't do that in space, so why should we ever manage it in time? Time travel, maybe, one day, but time teleportation just isn't going to happen.

Paul.Power

13 Aug 2006, 08:21

Sure it can. We've seen it. We've made it. We use it in hospitals.I think this is a matter of semantic confusion. Anti-matter is real enough: it's just conventional matter with the same mass but opposite charge, like the positron (same mass as an electron, but opposite charge). It's things like anti-gravity and negative energy we're less sure on.

MtlAngelus

13 Aug 2006, 09:28

I keep thinking how fun it would be if Earth went all antigravity on us. :p

Xinos

13 Aug 2006, 11:40

I keep thinking how fun it would be if Earth went all antigravity on us. :p

If gravity flips huh?
If your inside or under a structure like a bridge when it happens you will most likely die from braking year neck when falling up on it, or get very hurt. That is if the structure is strong enough to stay on the ground, but most likely you will hit the roof before the building can tare itself from the ground and start falling.

Actually you probably wouldn't fall straight up, the earth spins and travels fast, so if gravity flips and your outside I think you will be thrown into things like trees, walls, cliffs or whatever foundation is close by. Like an apple hitting a baseball bat. And if you somehow survive that you proably will get hit by other debree. And vast bodys of water from the lakes and oceans will soon be all over the place.

So if you survive the jolt, and somehow you don't get shocked and find the experience extreamly scary, and then for some reason start enjoying this sudden mayhem. Then yes, it might be fun... untill you sufficate and freeze to death some minutes later in space. =P

## I have however since I was little played with the idea of me being the only one who has flipped gravity. Walking on ceilings etc.
I would plot and plan how I would go at getting to school, what things I could stand on etc.. But not only inverted gravity, but like sideways gravity, which is more fun. Standing on walls, constantly moving around in the buss to not get killed when it makes a turn =P

AndrewTaylor

13 Aug 2006, 11:43

When they had antigravity in Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, the way around it was to cling on to something heavy, because everyone knows they're harder to lift than light things, which the antigravity could move with ease.

Horigan

13 Aug 2006, 11:59

I am going offtopic in my own thread, but bear with me. This is more interesing IMHO =P

Seems like you totally ignored what I said. So if I understand you correctly, you beleive there is some kind of vast "ocean" of entities that will eventually find a body to be born into? You have existed for an unknown amount of time and was some years ago placed into your body? You are probably thinking that your awareness, your sense of being "you", is to complicated and too great to be purely a property of being a human being? Why do you not want to accept that what we feel as being ourselfs only is what the signals in our brains builds or puts together? Do not forget we evolved from bacteria and our minds slooowly got more advanced and smarter. But that doesn't mean it's a seperate being.

Notice when your brain is effected by alcohol that you get dizzy and think differently? That is because you "are" your brain, and not a soul living in it.

When I was younger I was like that, I couldn't imagine that the complexity of being me was purely what being human is all about. This lump of flesh I am controlling surely can't be this smart and think the words: "I am".
Now I think that was rather naive. Too much religious philosophy fekking up my view on life.

That is what religion is all about, not understanding how our mind works. But now sience has unraveled the mystery, and yet allot of people won't accept it. But if thinking you are not your body and will live on in other lifeforms gives you a sense of meaningfullness in your life, then I guess there is no harm in beleiving so.

The problem with what you're saying, well one of them but I'm not gonna try to convince you you're wrong (it would probably be futile) is then that means we are all just machines. If you're right, then in the future we might be able to make exact robotic duplicates of ourselves, right down to our conscoiusness, obviously that would mean we are nothing more than machines. And that means that murder should be no more serious a crime then breaking a computer, or wrecking a car, or even a calculator or any other machine. If what you're saying is true, then you'd better be glad there are still religious people out there or we would have total anarchy. Sanctity of human life is the only thing that holds society together in many ways. If you take that away, it will be chaos.

Just in case your curious, I believe we have a soul that recides in our body, and that is tied to the brain in ways that I freely admit I don't fully understand. When the brain is too greatly damaged, the soul loses it's grip on the body, and the body dies. But the soul does not. I cannot prove that, but it cannot be disproved either, and it is certainly better than the alternative you apparently hold to.

BuffaloKid

13 Aug 2006, 12:01

Actually you probably wouldn't fall straight up, the earth spins and travels fast, so if gravity flips and your outside I think you will be thrown into things like trees, walls, cliffs or whatever foundation is close by. Like an apple hitting a baseball bat. And if you somehow survive that you proably will get hit by other debree. And vast bodys of water from the lakes and oceans will soon be all over the place.

That's wrong. With gravity being normal, we fall straight down, so if it's reversed we'd fall straight up.

AndrewTaylor

13 Aug 2006, 12:16

Well, that's not quite true. Things don't fall straight down, the Coreolis Effect drags them sideways. That effect would still be there in antigravity (and would still go the same way). Also, while the gravity was flipping there'd be some time when either there was no gravity or there was sideways gravity, in which case you might well fly sideways. But you couldn't be thrown sideways by the Earth's rotation unless that rotation stopped or changed suddenly.
The problem with what you're saying ... is then that means ... murder should be no more serious a crime then breaking a computer, or wrecking a car, or even a calculator or any other machine. If what you're saying is true, then you'd better be glad there are still religious people out there or we would have total anarchy. Sanctity of human life is the only thing that holds society together in many ways. If you take that away, it will be chaos.
Why does it? I don't believe in the sanctity of human life -- the word "sanctity" doesn't really mean anything to an atheist -- but I don't consider people to be just "machines". (Nor, come to that, do I consider computers "machines" as they are not mechanical; they are electronic. But that's hardly relevant.) It's patently obvious that people are alive -- I know because I am one. What that means exactly is not really relevant to this discussion. And it's equally obvious that computers are not alive. When someone is murdered, their life is taken from them against their will. When a computer is broken, the only crime there is that someone's computer is taken from them against their will. Murder, in my eyes, is worse than smashing up a computer by the same amount that life is more valuable than a computer.

Introducing arbitrary rules about the "sanctity of human life" is at least as dangerous as not doing -- look at euthanasia. There are many, many cases where people have wanted to die but haven't been allowed to. How is that fair? If I don't want my computer any more I can smash it up or give it to a charity shop or accidentally leave it on the train. But if I don't want my life any more I have to put up with it until it happens to expire.

and it is certainly better than the alternative you apparently hold to.
Being "better" doesn't make it any more likely, though. It's nice to believe that there's something more to life than just life, but you shouldn't confuse what's "nice" with what's true.

Paul.Power

13 Aug 2006, 12:38

Plasma

13 Aug 2006, 12:44

Actually you probably wouldn't fall straight up, the earth spins and travels fast, so if gravity flips and your outside I think you will be thrown into things like trees, walls, cliffs or whatever foundation is close by. Like an apple hitting a baseball bat.
No, you wouldn't, because as you were moving at the same speed as Earth when on the ground, you'll move the same speed when off the ground too.

Paul.Power

13 Aug 2006, 12:50

Plasma

13 Aug 2006, 12:51

Alternatively, we could treat the duplicates with as much respect as we treat ourselves, and draw a line instead between self-aware and non-self-aware beings.
The problem is that it's much too hard to draw that line, because we aren't capable of detecting self-awareness.
For me, anything that is classed as living has self-awareness. That's why I treat flies and plants with much more respect than a normal person would.

What happens if we replace the inverse square law for gravity with an inverse cube law?
Considering that I have no idea what that is, I'm gonna say that our bodies wont be able to cope with that change and we'd all die painfully.

BuffaloKid

13 Aug 2006, 12:59

Okay, fun alternate scenario to see how much physics you guys really know (obviously AT will be able to answer, but let's assume he won't):

What happens if we replace the inverse square law for gravity with an inverse cube law?
We get crushed against the ground because our bodies can't cope with the square root of gravities force upon us cubed. Oh, and we probably change the earth's orbit and the moon's orbit of earth (possibly pullng it in), and maybe drag in a few passing asteroids.

Paul.Power

13 Aug 2006, 13:27

The problem is that it's much too hard to draw that line, because we aren't capable of detecting self-awareness.
For me, anything that is classed as living has self-awareness. That's why I treat flies and plants with much more respect than a normal person would.Well, we can still make a few sensible assumptions.

First up, let's assume there's nothing mystical going on and that self-awareness and consciousness are a direct - emergent, unpredictable and chaotic, for sure, but direct - result of a brain with too much time on its hands (so to speak).

So obviously you need a brain, and for a brain you need a nervous system. That rules out plants, fungi, single-cell organisms and the like. Yes, we can imagine what it might be like to be them, but that's just because we have a tendancy to do that - anthropomorphism and empathy are useful survival skills, because they allow us to outthink our opponents, but left unchecked they can run riot.

Right, what about flies and invertebrates in general? Well, when all's said and done, except for maybe a few species of octopi and squid, they just don't have the mental capacity - their entire brain is taken up with survival, either in a sensory or reactive capacity. Social insects like ants and bees are an interesting special case: although an individual ant or bee is no smarter than an equivalantly-sized fly, a colony treated as a single organism has more potential to be self-aware. It's difficult to imagine, and our intuitions break down as we try to conceive it: ironically, we find it easier to anthropomorphise a single ant than a colony, even though the colony has more going for it. Even as I write these words, I find it difficult to conceive, which of course makes it even harder to persuade you of it. So let's move on.

Large brains (relative to body size) and an advanced social structure are the two most likely progenitors of potential self-awareness. Large brains because a brain that can easily cope with all the tasks set for it by its body has some time to itself (there goes my anthropomorphic tendencies again - sorry). Social structures, meanwhile, give a drive for it: and society and mental capacity complicitly influence each other (Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen coin the term "extelligence", as opposed to intelligence, to describe this collective mind of a society/culture. Intelligence and extelligence are complicit: they recursively affect each other).

Dreaming is an interesting one. If a brain can stimulate itself, instead of relying on outside stimuli, then you may have an engine room for self-awareness right there. Interestingly, brain scans have confirmed that only animals and birds dream.

I think I'm starting to ramble and lose my point however (as usual), so I'm going to stop there and leave you with this food for thought.

Paul.Power

13 Aug 2006, 13:29

We get crushed against the ground because our bodies can't cope with the square root of gravities force upon us cubed. Oh, and we probably change the earth's orbit and the moon's orbit of earth (possibly pullng it in), and maybe drag in a few passing asteroids.Er, wrong. Gravity gets weaker, for a start. Well, at distances greater than unity (although I guess you have to define unity first): at distances less than unity, it gets stronger.

Inverse cube, remember.

BuffaloKid

13 Aug 2006, 13:40

Ah. missed the inverse bit.

Paul.Power

13 Aug 2006, 13:47

(although I guess you have to define unity first)Now I think about it, it's probably G * M1 * M2

So, for a system consisting of you and the Earth, that would be... (-11 + 24 + 1 = 14) ~ 10^14 metres.

Radius of Earth ~ 10^6 metres.

Hmm. So unless I've made an error in my calculations there, you win: it would be stronger at the Earth's surface.

Still, it's a tad academic as that wasn't the answer I was looking for. The answer is that there are no stable orbits for an inverse cube gravity law, so the Earth would either crash into the Sun or get flung off into space.

AndrewTaylor

13 Aug 2006, 14:40

It's a question of units -- if you put in an inverse cube law then the current definition of G wouldn't work because the units would be wrong. You'd just have to define a new G. I'd suggest for the sake of this discussion you rig it so that the Earth would stay in its orbit. Of course, then the moon would crash into the Earth and the Sun would implode. Also, Mercury and Venus would crash into the Sun and the outer planets would fly off into space. Also, we'd be crushed.

Alternatively, you could rig it so life on Earth could continue without being crushed or floating off into space, though that would mean the Earth would fly off into space and probably suck up most of the Kupier belt along the way. Also, the Sun would explode.

Xinos

13 Aug 2006, 18:56

The problem with what you're saying, well one of them but I'm not gonna try to convince you you're wrong (it would probably be futile) is then that means we are all just machines. If you're right, then in the future we might be able to make exact robotic duplicates of ourselves, right down to our conscoiusness, obviously that would mean we are nothing more than machines. And that means that murder should be no more serious a crime then breaking a computer, or wrecking a car, or even a calculator or any other machine. If what you're saying is true, then you'd better be glad there are still religious people out there or we would have total anarchy. Sanctity of human life is the only thing that holds society together in many ways. If you take that away, it will be chaos.

Just in case your curious, I believe we have a soul that recides in our body, and that is tied to the brain in ways that I freely admit I don't fully understand. When the brain is too greatly damaged, the soul loses it's grip on the body, and the body dies. But the soul does not. I cannot prove that, but it cannot be disproved either, and it is certainly better than the alternative you apparently hold to.

You assume that the thing that makes a human being a "human" is its soul, when it is in fact mostly its sentience. A computer or a car has no sentience, and is unable to take any actions, let alone have goals or a personality, without the aid of humans or some other creature with a sentience. Furthermore, any robots built in the future with sentience should be regarded as well as a human.

The robot, if built correctly, would still have feelings, thoughts and goals, it would just be based on silicone chips rather than carbon strings.

People don't care about their souls. Souls don't put food on the table, or pay the bills.

Horigan

13 Aug 2006, 21:10

philby4000

13 Aug 2006, 22:10

I have nothing against you having your beliefs, whatever helps you sleep at night, but I take offence at your post, horrigan.

I find it sad that you seem to feel that only those who cling to irrational beliefs can apreciate the sanctity of human life.

You seem to be implying that the belief that a human being is different from a computer is an entirely irrational one.

We are not 'meerly' balls of matter with no significance what so ever, we are gloriously complex constructs of trillions of ever moving, ever changing atoms. we are a result of millions of years of continuous evolution and the fact that anyone of us exists is a real life god damn miracle. and that's absolutely beautiful. The destruction of a human being can never be completely justified.

You are, of course,right to say that I have not thought my beliefs through, but that is because I do not have any, at least not in a spiritual sence. Your beleif is based on a single work of fiction whereas I prefer to base my world view on fact.

wigwam the

13 Aug 2006, 22:18

seperate time lines doesn't seem correct- as that would mean they were all happening at the same time- and some time travellers would end up somewhere completely different to where they started. so an infinite loop seems to be the best option- but that would mean no time travellers have come to visit us- and thus time travel hasn't been invented.

I don't really beleive any of it anyway.

edit: oh yes, and being strange (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan)- I seem to think that everything is just a load of matter and animals, humans, and computers have just as many rights as eachother- meaning... if it's a computer, and it can think- it has just as much right than a human with no brain. if you know what I mean. and a brainy human- as much as, say, a fox. or something.

AndrewTaylor

13 Aug 2006, 22:18

Who cares if something is alive or not? Who cares what that ball of matter called a brain "wants?" If it's just a bit of material, and all the personality differences we see are determined by varying configurations of the various physical components, then who cares what it wants? How is a person any more valuable than dirt? They are both matter. A person is alive? So what? How does that add to their value? A person doesn't want to die? So what? I'm sure if you are just a bunch of molecules then you won't care if you're "dead" or not, at least not after the fact. In fact, I would help you if I killed you, as if I kill you then you'll be freed from your fear of death.
You're misrepresenting my view there -- you're implicitly assuming that because I dispute the sanctity of human life I ascribe it no value. I for one really like my life, and I really like my friends and family. If any of those things were destroyed, I'd be rightly miffed (or dead). That makes those things valuable, and anyone who damages them should be punished.

Conversely, there are people who do not value their own life. Their lives are painful and doomed. They'd just as soon pack it in -- their lives are not valuable and someone who kills them (with their consent) should not be punished.

You can take the Who Cares What People Want? viewpoint -- or Anarchy, as it's known -- but you can do that anyway. You can say Who Cares If It's Sacred; It's In My Way, or Who Cares What God Wants Me To Do; If He's So Powerful He'll Stop Me If It Bothers Him That Much. Or even, Who Cares What We Do; It'll All Be A Big, High-Entropy Rock In The End Anyway. Besides which, the whole argument is pointless, because while under that system murder isn't a crime, punishing someone for it isn't a crime either, so we might as well do it -- we tend to feel better for it, and it reduces the odds of us being murdered, and I'm sure you'll all agree that even the most ardent anarchist would like to do that.

Taking away the God, or the sanctity, means that we no longer have an absolute black-and-white frame of reference on which to base our moral code. That means we have to make decisions for ourselves, and they're decisions that will restrict our own freedoms and affect everybody. I think that scares people more than they realise. But it has to be done, because if we assume there is a God, and we're wrong, then we end up with a moral code that's based on some arbitrary guesswork from six millenia ago -- and I think that's the scarier option.

Slick

13 Aug 2006, 22:43

That argument doesn't really work, because once you allow time travel it's no longer a closed system. If you travel in time, you're moving things, not destroying them in one place and creating them in another. Energy can't be created or destroyed, but that's not to say that the total amount of energy in the universe is constant.

That would be true. But what Im kinda trying to get at, is how would we transfer the molucules and such? From point A to point B is one thing...but to make it appear at a diffrent time out of nothing and nowhere would have to be required. Wouldnt it? You said it yourself that time teleportation wouldnt happen. So to go back in time, you would have to somehow reverse everything else around you. Then by doing that you create another timeline. That being the amount of time it takes you to go backwards to you're destination.

bleh...

Xinos

13 Aug 2006, 22:43

What I meant by sanctity of human life, was that there is more to us than a bunch of matter. I realize that I probably shouldn't have used the term "sancitity" in that sense.

"...it's equally obvious that computers are not alive. When someone is murdered, their life is taken from them against their will. When a computer is broken, the only crime there is that someone's computer is taken from them against their will. Murder, in my eyes, is worse than smashing up a computer by the same amount that life is more valuable than a computer."

Who cares if something is alive or not? Who cares what that ball of matter called a brain "wants?" If it's just a bit of material, and all the personality differences we see are determined by varying configurations of the various physical components, then who cares what it wants? How is a person any more valuable than dirt? They are both matter. A person is alive? So what? How does that add to their value? A person doesn't want to die? So what? I'm sure if you are just a bunch of molecules then you won't care if you're "dead" or not, at least not after the fact. In fact, I would help you if I killed you, as if I kill you then you'll be freed from your fear of death.

I know you guys don't think this way, but I also think it's only because you haven't thought you're beliefs through. And yeah, what's nice isn't always ture, it usually. But I repeat: I for one choose to take the nice, unprovable option over the alternative I've presented above.

What the hell has the soul got to with our value? The value of a human being should not be based on wether it has an intangible, spiritual core or not, but rather about the person as a living, thinking entity. Soul or no soul, a person is still capable of emotions, of doing great or bad things and of being a good human being towards other. The soul may exist, but when it all boils down to it, the soul really has no role in evaluating practical human life.

You assume that if there is no such thing as a soul, we are all just matter and and all matter has the same basic value, but you are totally disregarding such basic things as human emotions and feelings. Yes, my not wanting to die might just be a few electrical synapses in my brain, but it doesn't mean my feelings towards death are worthless. I value my friends just like you do, but weather or not they are good people because of their soul or because of there genetics have no say in my judgement of them.

*Splinter*

13 Aug 2006, 22:50

I as myself wouldn't be born but I would be in control of a different person/animal.
What religion are you star worms? If you dont mind me asking

EDIT: On another note? Why is this still here? A conversation about Black (the ps2 game) was deleted fairly quickly, and yet this one lives on despite having no more relevance to Team17? Only difference is the mods are more interested in the subject matter, but surely that shouldnt change the rules the forum is governed by... ?

Im going to stop before I go into my whole 'dictator' rant AGAIN :)

AndrewTaylor

13 Aug 2006, 23:11

EDIT: On another note? Why is this still here? A conversation about Black (the ps2 game) was deleted fairly quickly, and yet this one lives on despite having no more relevance to Team17? Only difference is the mods are more interested in the subject matter, but surely that shouldnt change the rules the forum is governed by... ?
There are rules now? I've just been winging it so far. Where are these rules written down?

Honestly, the rules, insofar as there are any formal rules and insofar as I understand it, don't strictly speaking allow any discussion of anything non-Team17 anywhere in the forum at all, but that rule is generally relaxed in Online Orgy, for No Particular Reason. Sometimes it seems like there are too many off-topic threads and the rule is applied more strictly. Sometimes there aren't and the rule is ignored completely. Discussion of games that are clearly direct competition to Team17 is obviously not in Team17's interest, and therefore more strictly moderated than utterly academic discussions like this one. (Obviously this excludes threads comparing competitors' games to Team17's, and the like.)

Try not to think of it as a dictatorship; try to think of is as being a guest in someone's house -- Team17 welcome you in for an evening of chat and maybe a takeaway later. They don't lay down a strict set of rules the second you step onto the welcome mat, because they're normal people, but don't think that means you can do what you want. It's their house and they have every right to send you home if they want.

That would be true. But what Im kinda trying to get at, is how would we transfer the molucules and such? From point A to point B is one thing...but to make it appear at a diffrent time out of nothing and nowhere would have to be required. Wouldnt it? You said it yourself that time teleportation wouldnt happen. So to go back in time, you would have to somehow reverse everything else around you. Then by doing that you create another timeline. That being the amount of time it takes you to go backwards to you're destination.

bleh...
To be honest, I don't see that coming up -- you can't really travel forward in time because that's not time travel. That's just being. And you can't travel backwards in time because there's already a you occupying the spacetime you'd end up in. So without some kind of extradimensional spacetime opening up, I don't see how it can happen anyway.

Slick

13 Aug 2006, 23:22

So then it's settled. Time Travel can't accually happen.
And the people who say it can...can't accually prove it.

Gah, I have to go to work.:(

wormthingy

14 Aug 2006, 00:16

mm.. im with the loop thing..
1)20 year old guy goes back in time
2)punches little himself in the face
when little himself is 20 he dicedes to not time travel, making it un-happen. wich could make him time travel because he might not have any reason to dont do timetravelling anymore

and if its possible.. i dont think so.. but! if you showed someone in the middle ages a cell phone they'd call you crazy :p

Xinos

14 Aug 2006, 00:30

and if its possible.. i dont think so.. but! if you showed someone in the middle ages a cell phone they'd call you crazy :p
Why do that when you can bring a whole society of scientists and technicians back with you and get civilisation going early =P

Horigan

14 Aug 2006, 01:26

Note: I had typed up a whole long response to what was said on the subject of souls. But in the interest of peace, and hopefully driving this discussion back on topic, I deleted it. I suggest a new thread be created if people want to continue discussing souls, although I for one think it would be pointless.

[UFP]Ghost

14 Aug 2006, 02:37

havn't read the whole thing but remember the old twlight zone tv show? (the older black nw hite ones, not the crap color ones). In one episode a man goes back in time, once to that hiroshima event (i think thats how u spell it), once to shoot hitler and once to save a boat from being sunk. In all 3 cases variables stop him from being able to do these things as stupid as it sounds, i don't think anyone would beable to change history.

1, if they did i belive they would be in another universe therefor not chaning thierown/our history

2. If i came back in time 2 days ebfore lets say, bloopy had a heart attack after eating a cheese burger and told him not to eat it. he wouldn't belive me, he would down the cheese burger and die, because would anyone belive anyone who said they came from the future.

big edit non-tv related
Ok so just to bring it up with some of u guys who were talking about us and how we are we and it's not a crime to kill a computer.... Well first off we are not much like a computer, not so much like some but like other more advanced ones, like a computers information (through experience and trying things) we attain knowledge by what is given to us (us in experiences). Now we give computer knowledge, the knowledge we have, it doesn't attain knowledge itself. We unlike computers have the option to do as we please with no bounds. Such as I can go play worms now but a computer must be told to run worms in order to start it. A computer is bound to what we define such as if I code (somehow) that the computer cannot under any circumstance multiply, and u ask it to it won't, it won't find a way around it, nothing. Where as we may do as we wish without bounds and even if we were we can think of a way around it.

Now to humans and animals, we are in no way different to animals, we may live differently, more "civilized" (if u will) but look at cave men when there were dinosaurs, we weren’t like today; we were in every sense of the word, animals. we have offspring like animas (some), like different species, we have different characterizes and we survive through experience, like if a hamster touches a rod and gets electrocuted, it won't touch it again and so on like us. The only things that separate us from animals are that we have:
1. We dominate the planet, we now have weapons and such and we are more powerful
2. We have large brains and have evolved in such a way that we have more intelligence, but like other animals, some are smarter than others like a bear is smarter than fruit fly.

Wow I’m really rambling on, time to end this post and go have food.

edit once more: i thought of a good example, spell chekc on a computer, it doesn't interpret what we would say like humans to fix a mistake it mearly refers to a dictionary for spelling and if a word doesn't watch give you examples of words that are similar in spelling.
- thank you scientists for spell check!

Star Worms

14 Aug 2006, 02:41

Well we all know that JFK shot himself, as shown by Red Dwarf:p

wigwam the

14 Aug 2006, 09:57

Ghost']
Now to humans and animals, we are in no way different to animals, we may live differently, more "civilized" (if u will) but look at cave men when there were dinosaurs, we weren’t like today; we were in every sense of the word, animals. we have offspring like animas (some), like different species, we have different characterizes and we survive through experience, like if a hamster touches a rod and gets electrocuted, it won't touch it again and so on like us. The only things that separate us from animals are that we have:
1. We dominate the planet, we now have weapons and such and we are more powerful
2. We have large brains and have evolved in such a way that we have more intelligence, but like other animals, some are smarter than others like a bear is smarter than fruit fly.

ah- that's what I meant.
I'm with him. sorry for changing the topic again

BuffaloKid

14 Aug 2006, 10:53

[UFP]Ghost: Yep. It really annoys me when people say other animals are smarter than humans because they don't destroy the planet. Or when people say that cats are smarter than dogs because they don't listen to human commands. =P
Cats sometimes listen to human commands. Mine do. They're good cats. And yes, it is annoying if people say other animals are smarter than humans because they don't destroy the planet, because they probably would if they could

philby4000

14 Aug 2006, 18:30

Cats are way smarter than dogs.

Blind obedience = stupid.

evil manipulation = smart.

Star Worms

14 Aug 2006, 18:35

Can we get back on topic?

wigwam the

14 Aug 2006, 18:42

Cats are way smarter than dogs.

Blind obedience = stupid.

evil manipulation = smart.

ah, but what you don't realise is that what dogs lack in -whatever the opposite of obeidience is... they make up for with... big teeth.

sort of like in rpgs when you organise "points (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan)" onto seperate qualities eg. brains strength...

humans would probably:
brains: 90
strength: 10

cats:
brains: 42
strength: 58

(except with more qualities) etc

you get the picture.

also, this topic seems to have split into two seperate discussions. anyone feel like starting a new one? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan)

MtlAngelus

14 Aug 2006, 19:53

Can we get back on topic?
We already went over the return point, we might not make it...

Paul.Power

14 Aug 2006, 21:00

ah, but what you don't realise is that what dogs lack in -whatever the opposite of obeidience is... they make up for with... big teeth.

sort of like in rpgs when you organise "points (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan)" onto seperate qualities eg. brains strength...

humans would probably:
brains: 90
strength: 10

cats:
brains: 42
strength: 58

(except with more qualities) etc

you get the picture.

also, this topic seems to have split into two seperate discussions. anyone feel like starting a new one? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan)It's been said that intelligence is the survival quality a species develops when it has no other qualities to fall back on...

SuperBlob

14 Aug 2006, 21:01

It's been said that intelligence is the survival quality a species develops when it has no other qualities to fall back on...
Obviously, the dodo had neither intelligence or strength :p

[UFP]Ghost

14 Aug 2006, 21:04

our species got lucky with the brains, without it we suk.

wigwam the

14 Aug 2006, 21:06

Obviously, the dodo had neither intelligence or strength :p

it didn't need either, it lived in an environment with no predators or competition- they had everything going- but humans introduced a predator to it, and they made short work of them.

Plasma

16 Aug 2006, 23:20

Now we give computer knowledge, the knowledge we have, it doesn't attain knowledge itself.
There are very few computers that dont obtain 'knowledge' in some way.

Such as I can go play worms now but a computer must be told to run worms in order to start it.
No, you must order a computer to run worms.

A computer is bound to what we define such as if I code (somehow) that the computer cannot under any circumstance multiply, and u ask it to it won't, it won't find a way around it, nothing. Where as we may do as we wish without bounds and even if we were we can think of a way around it.
That's because we are instructed; we aren't coded.

Kelster23

17 Aug 2006, 00:20

No, you must order a computer to run worms.

No you don't. You can run it in your imagination, with all new weapons created by you! ABSOLUTELY FREE!
Good god, me sounds like a sales clerk.:rolleyes:

Xinos

17 Aug 2006, 11:25

Cats are way smarter than dogs.

Blind obedience = stupid.

evil manipulation = smart.

What are you talking about? Have you ever considered what would happen if dogs would not listen to humans? If we could not train them they would not be our pets. They would not get to live indoors, get fed reguarly, kept safe from fighting each other for dominance and territory, get free and regular medical treatment. Humans also ensure that the dog species lives on, and they are not in threat of being exterminated and hunted by us. So thanks to their ability to co-exist with us they greatly benefit from our support.