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flyzeggs
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What are in your opinion the most interesting areas or topics in foundational physics? (that have or could have profound philosophical implications) I want to see what's out there.
flyzeggs said:What are in your opinion the most interesting areas or topics in foundational physics? (that have or could have profound philosophical implications) I want to see what's out there.
EnumaElish said:Does the theory of relativity have substantive implications about determinism, free will, etc., or is it a trivial, or open-and-shut question?
The question of "frozen time vs. free will" occurred to me as I was recently reading Synchronicity by Carl Jung. I searched the web and found out that it had occurred to other people before me: see, for example, http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=21777
WaveJumper said:The block view of the universe, that flows out of GR, is pretty compelling towards determinism and poses serious challenges to the idea of free-will.
SW VandeCarr said:Why? An astronomer can look at the Andromeda galaxy from one end to the other all at once, despite the fact that's perhaps 150,000 light years across. Just because we can conceive of a block universe doesn't say anything about our free will. Time passes at the same rate for a person in a starship traveling at some fraction of lightspeed relative to Earth as it does for that person on earth. Matter, including matter that may have free will, can't travel at lightspeed. Photons, I'm sure, don't have free will anyway.
WaveJumper said:Time is relative, it does not pass equally for observers moving in different frames of reference and there is no such thing as a Universal Now(Present).
SW VandeCarr said:Right. That's exactly what I'm saying. But clocks aboard the starship run at the same rate for observer aboard the starship as clocks run for the observer if the observer were on earth. The observer gets c for the speed of light on the starship and gets c for the speed of light on earth. Now if the passenger on the starship had a twin on earth, then the passenger would be younger than his twin when he returned to earth. Read what I wrote:".. time passes for the person in the starship at the same rate as it would for that person if he or she were on earth.
Time passes at the same rate for a person in a starship traveling at some fraction of lightspeed relative to Earth as it does for that person on earth.
WaveJumper said:But clocks do not run at the same rate when compared between different moving frames of reference. Clocks do run at the same rate within the same FOR though.
SW VandeCarr said:I'm sorry. I'm not getting through to you. If you get on starship that goes 50% lightspeed you will not observe time slowing down. It will seem to pass at the same rate. When you returned to Earth you would be younger than your twin, but you will not notice time "speeding up". Of course clocks run at different rates for different frames of reference moving at different velocities relative to each other. But the observer can't be in two places at the same time, can he?
WaveJumper said:That's right. I got the impression that you were saying the opposite with your initial statement. Sorry
Otherwise, in a block universe, the past, present and future exist at once. Hence what you are about to experience has already happened in another frame of reference. There is no room for free will or free choices if everything is pre-determined.
SW VandeCarr said:The point I'm making is that for any observer, time will always pass at the same rate. There is a past and a future. If it were possible to go 99.9% of lightspeed in a starship relative to earth, you would still experience time passing as if you were on earth. If you have free will on earth, you have free will in the starship. Note I'm not saying free will exists or does not exist, but it's existence or non-existence has IMHO nothing to do with photons. As I said, I'm sure photons DO NOT have free will.
WaveJumper said:OK, hopefully this post will bring some clarity. Block universe isn't about photons. It's about your FOR not being priviliged in any way over all others. From your FOR, it's the year 2009. I could always find FOR's where it's still 1000 years after the Big Bang or FOR's where the dinosaurs have not died out yet. Take the FOR of an electron that moves at 75% of c. Because of time dilation, from the point of view of that electron, the universe is still 3 billion years old. All these parallel views of the universe exist at once, past, present and future in GR exist at once(in a block universe and in different FOR). Einstein was aware of this bothering consequence of his own theory and he discussed its philosophical implications in "The World as I see It".
SW VandeCarr said:I see where you coming from, but I still maintain that an observer can be in only one FOR at a time. Therefore wherever you are in any FOR your experience of time will not change.
Now it may be true that our calculation of the age of universe will be different in the starship than it would be on earth. The fact we say that the universe is 13.7 Gy old is related to our FOR, but the apparent movements of galaxies over a fairly large distance is small relative to c. However, in IMO, this still does not effect any free will we might have in any FOR we might find ourselves in.
WaveJumper said:This does not indicate that your future wasn't already settled.
We cannot touch the Sun and take its temperature, but this doesn't stop us from correctly inferring its temperature from experimental observations and calculations. In fact the existence of past, present and future in different FOR indicate the opposite. What free will can there ever be, when there are FOR's where you are, say, 77 years old(even if you cannot access them)?
Why? Any time traveller to a single-history future wipes the floor with the idea of Free Will.
SW VandeCarr said:How would we ever know?
You are going to have to more clear here. I don't follow your reasoning. Are talking about parallel universes? If you are, you're dealing with what is by definition metaphysics.
You can, in a sense, travel into the future as when you return to Earth after a high velocity journey, but you can't return to the past. What does this have to do with free will?
WaveJumper said:I cannot be any more clear than that, sorry. I think it's rather obvious that if there is ONLY ONE single history in store for you(a deterministic block view of the universe), that definitely means, that absolutely everything has already been pre-determined. You have provided zero arguments why this isn't so, and i believe human logic dictates that this idea is impossible.
You can google "block universe free will" as additional reference.
EnumaElish said:Consider:
photon 1 was released yesterday;
photon 2 is released today, from the exact same location as photon 1.
Do the two photons have an identical "picture" of the universe ?
EnumaElish said:Consider:
photon 1 was released yesterday;
photon 2 is released today, from the exact same location as photon 1.
Do the two photons have an identical "picture" of the universe ?
Modern theoretical physics is a branch of physics that uses mathematical models and theories to understand and explain the behavior of matter and energy at the smallest scales, such as atoms and subatomic particles. It includes fields such as quantum mechanics, general relativity, and particle physics.
Some interesting philosophical implications of modern theoretical physics include the concept of determinism versus free will, the nature of reality and existence, and the role of human observation in shaping the universe. These implications arise from the fundamental principles and theories of modern physics, such as quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity.
Modern theoretical physics has had a significant impact on our daily lives through the development and advancement of technologies such as computers, GPS systems, and medical imaging. It has also led to a better understanding of the universe, which has implications for our understanding of our place in the world and the possibilities of future technologies.
Some current topics in modern theoretical physics include the search for a theory of everything, which aims to unify the fundamental forces of nature, the study of dark matter and dark energy, and the implications of quantum mechanics for understanding the nature of time and space.
Philosophy and modern theoretical physics intersect in various ways, such as through the exploration of fundamental questions about the nature of reality and existence. Philosophical concepts, such as causation, determinism, and consciousness, also play a role in how we understand and interpret theories in modern physics. Additionally, some physicists use philosophical reasoning and methods in their research and theoretical developments.