remembering the future
baba...@gmail.com
arrow of time as: why can we only remember the past but not the
future? I am a physicist, not a philosepher, but I have come to
believe in the past year or so that questions about the arrow of time
are central to physics. Hawking's clever answer is, as he admits, a
decievingly simple one: 1. all processes we experience are entropy
increasing processes. 2. remembering the past, being one of these
processes, must be an entropy increasing process (remembering the
future would then be an entropy decreasing process). 3. the
thermodynamic arrow of time then accounts for the psycological one.
Some experts in the field have critisized this answer, and my limited
understanding of the critisizm is: just because the processes we
experience are entrop increasing processes doesn't mean you can't
remember the past without increasing entropy, and equivilantly doesn't
mean we can't remember the future without decreasing entropy.
My problem is that this doesn't seem like an impossible question to
settle (granted a very difficult one). Why can't we find concrete
(still simplified gedunken) examples of processes of remembering past/
future and check whether they're tied to entropy increases/decreases.
Any publications or feedback on this would be appreciated.
dlzc
On Aug 20, 3:48 pm, babalu...@gmail.com wrote:
...
> My problem is that this doesn't seem like
> an impossible question to settle (granted
> a very difficult one).
Not so difficult...
> Why can't we find concrete (still
> simplified gedunken) examples of processes
> of remembering past / future and check
> whether they're tied to entropy increases
> / decreases.
Past:
We remember there was a predator that tried to eat us when we went to
a certain location to pick fruit. Result: more time is spent finding
a new area, and the predator (if still alive) is forced to search out
a new place to hunt. More intermediate states are created, and
entropy is increased.
Future:
- IF we (can) do something about this "foreknowledge" we will not
investigate alternate states / options / choices if a "good" result
(entropy not increased), or we will search out alternate choices if
the result is "bad" (entropy increases).
- IF we cannot change anything, or we choose not to, entropy will be
unaffected either way.
- What is the difference between delusion and an altered future?
I see that if the future can be changed by foreknowledge, then it will
be thermodynamically likely to occur.
David A. Smith
baba...@gmail.com
> Dear babalu...:
>
> On Aug 20, 3:48 pm, babalu...@gmail.com wrote:
> ...
>
> > My problem is that this doesn't seem like
> > an impossible question to settle (granted
> > a very difficult one).
>
> Not so difficult...
>
> > Why can't we find concrete (still
> > simplified gedunken) examples of processes
> > of remembering past / future and check
> > whether they're tied to entropy increases
> > / decreases.
>
> Past:
> We remember there was a predator that tried to eat us when we went to
> a certain location to pick fruit. Result: more time is spent finding
> a new area, and the predator (if still alive) is forced to search out
> a new place to hunt. More intermediate states are created, and
> entropy is increased.
>
> Future:
> - IF we (can) do something about this "foreknowledge" we will not
> investigate alternate states / options / choices if a "good" result
> (entropy not increased), or we will search out alternate choices if
> the result is "bad" (entropy increases).
In this case we remembered the future and entropy increased so the two
arrows were not correlated.
I like the line of thought, the element of choice seems like an added
complication which i have to justify specially when "good/bad" choices
add some subjectivity.
baba...@gmail.com
Computation, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics) whose abstract and
intro promise exactly what I asked for in this post. I understand that
many authors (like Hawking) provide 2 liner answers to this question
but the aforementioned paper promises the rigorous proof that I need.
regardless of how simple/difficult it will seem in retrospect I think
a good understanding of why we remember the past and not the future
might be one of those profound moments one has like when I learned of
the theory of evolution as a kid. Not to mention relevance it may have
for other physics problems (measurement problem).
Don Stockbauer
Because the future hasn't happened yet?
baba...@gmail.com
> Why can we only remember the past but not the future?
>
> Because the future hasn't happened yet?
My understanding is that this answer is not supported by physics since
in physics all laws are time symmetric.
The TimeLord
fe4f584e-a340-4461...@r15g2000prh.googlegroups.com:
It's even more serious than that with Hawking. Hawking proposed that
black holes can radiate away due to Hawking radiation. Thus they get
smaller as time passes. When they get smaller the surface area of the
event horizon gets smaller. However, Hawking also came up with an
equation relating the surface area of the event horizon to the entropy of
the black hole, which is discussed at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_thermodynamics
Like this URL points out, if the Second Law of Thermodynamics holds, then
the Hawking Second Law (increasing surface area) should also hold. If so,
then Hawking radiation can't happen. So Hawking has proposed some self-
contradiction in his ideas of black holes.
My opinion, for what it's worth, is that the Hawking Second Law is based
on Relativity and the Hawking Radiation on QM. We already know that near
(mathematical) singlularities (ie non-analytic situations), QM and
Relativity don't get along with each other very well. So the
contradiction is more reflective of that fact than anything else.
However, my collegues don't think so.
At any rate, I think that the direction of time problem is more related
to the fact that gamma>1 rather than gamma<-1 for flat space-times. -
Just my opinion.
The best book I've seen on the subject is "The Physical Basis of The
Direction of Time, 5th ed" by Prof H D Zeh. A URL to see some samples of
the book is at
(Don't worry, it's in English.)
--
// The TimeLord says:
// Pogo 2.0 = We have met the aliens, and they are us!
harry
"Time symmetric" doesn't imply that the future equals the past. In
particular, laws of physics (at least macroscopically) establish cause and
effect, whereby the effect (chemical reactions in the brain) only occur
after the cause (visual stimulus).
Thus for this particular question, no need to bring up thermodynamics.
Cheers,
Harald
Don Stockbauer
You can't remember things which haven't happened yet. No need for
physics in that analysis.
socratus
Discover the Healing Power of Future Lives through Progression
Therapy (Paperback)
by Brian L. Weiss (Author) "EACH OF US IS IMMORTAL..." (more)
http://www.amazon.com/Same-Soul-Many-Bodies-Progression/dp/0743264347/ref=tag_tdp_sv_edpp_i/104-6916870-9115928
====================================
=============================.
“ Dualism of consciousness”
Our computer-brain works on a dualistic basis.
=======================.
Who am I ? / My personal experience./
=========.
According to advice of parapsychologist Israel Levinshtein,
I began to study religious practice-meditation.
And once, involuntary, I felt that vibration wave came on my brain.
This wave caused vibration of all neutrons of my brain.
They started vibrating in the same phase,
with the same frequency that the last wave.
All the neutrons came to homogeneous "vacuum" state.
And then I saw "myself", my spiritual essence.
I gazed and saw clean silver circle.
And I initially understood that this circle was my true "I".
And this true "I" is eternal, unwounded, passionless,
spiritual, conscious, evolutionary.
It was so exactly, so clear, so real that then,
recollecting and telling someone about it,
I told him that it was "more real than I was talking to you".
Most of all amazed me that my true "I" is passionless.
Because I am an emotional person.
How is that that I am passionless?
And I somehow mentally asked: And what about love?"
and mentally received the answer: "Way".
When the vision of true "I" disappeared, the first thought came.
And this thought drove on all the neutrons of the brain,
having programmed them with one question:
"how to explain it scientifically?"
And I became a slave of this question.
All my time was devoted to the search of the answer to this question.
============================.
Best wishes.
Israel