DJ FC

Well I've been pondering a few thoughts in my head lately, and it sure would be nice to get them down on paper (or virtual paper) and what better way than to post them in the jibberish thread for all to read and comment on.

If any of these ideas are stolen from other people, I am sorry, it was purely coincidental.

First and foremost, a few assumptions:

1) If something is possible, however improbable it may be, given enough chances; it will happen.

- Example: If I play the lottery enough times, I will eventually win.

This seems straight forward enough; until you begin to consider the smallest of chances (eg a comet will take a specified path). But the fact of the matter is that we have to accept it in all cases, no matter how small the odds, there is always a certain number of times that could render a desired outcome. We always assume that these events are possible (they don’t violate the laws of physics, or whatever universal laws really exist)

2) The law of conservation of matter.
-Matter cannot be created nor destroyed. We accept this as truth, and I am not going to consider otherwise. In the event that matter can be turned into energy and vis versa, I consider the two one in the same. One can be exchanged for the other, but neither can be created nor destroyed.

3) The first 3 dimensions (height, width, and depth) all exist together.
Example - While we can treat "time" (the 4th dimension as I will refer to it) separately from the other 3 dimensions, we will not assume that 2 or 1 of the 3 dimensions can exist without the others (an object cannot have height without width and depth, etc.)

Ok so here was my train of thought:

People use the concept of "infinite" so loosely, that I doubt they truly understand how bold a statement is. Specifically with infinite referring to time (forever), we immediately come to some strange conclusions when considering my assumptions.

If we assume that time will continue infinitely (at first we will assume that time started at some point, and from that point continues ad infinitum, but we will discuss the other option later) and we also consider my first premise (that given enough chances anything that is possible will happen) well we can conclude that anything that is possible will happen.

How is this a possible conclusion? Well… can we put odds that someday the Earth will fall into the sun? Certainly we can. Can we put odds that the entire universe will collapse and explode again? You bet. Does it matter what these odds are? Nope, because if time continues on forever, this will eventually happen. So when this universe explodes again, is it possible that another planet capable of sustaining life could be created? Why yes, it’s happened before. So there are odds of this event happening, no matter how small? Certainly. Well on any given planet capable of sustaining life, life may spring up… it’s pure chance. And this life could be humanoid. You see the pattern. No matter how small the chance may be, as long as you assume infinite chances at achieving a desired solution you will eventually arrive at this solution.

Wow that’s fucking crazy. So assuming that time goes on forever… I can safely assure you that there will be some point in the future in which the Japanese win WW2. It is incomprehensible how much time would be required for this to happen, but we can rest assured that it would indeed happen.

Not only will it happen with the same construction, but it will happen with the exact same pieces of matter in the exact places. Matter may fly off into space, but there is always the chance that gravity could pull it back, and the chance that it could be sucked back up and spit exactly as it was spit before.

Sounds far out, absolutely crazy, but we can’t disprove it.

OK, well now let’s make another assumption, and forget time for the time being.

Let’s assume that the universe has no origin.

First I must explain what I mean by origin. Assume that there was a single point in the universe. And from this point, there could be a distance beyond which there was no matter. The laws of physics may still apply there, but matter simply does not exist at such distance.

In such a construct, without an origin, you could keep traveling in a straight line forever and keep finding matter.

If this was the case, then you could place odds that you would find anything within the next amount of space you imagined. There are odds that there is intelligent life, so if you searched far enough, you would find it.

If you searched far enough, somebody else would be writing this exact passage at the exact time that I am.

This also seems fucking nuts, but we can’t disprove it.

So lets assume we have both. An infinite universe, infinite matter, and infinite time. Only this time, time as well has no origin. Existence and matter always has been and always will be.

But this can’t be the case, because if it was, everything I could think of would be happening right now. How so you ask? Well it would be possible that some time ago and at some distance away, some civilization launched a rocket with a cat and a message to be directed toward my house, or they would blow up the moon, or anything you can think of. Well the odds of these things happening, no matter how remote… do exist, but they simply don’t happen.

So we can conclude at least one of the following:

Time has an origin.
or
The Universe (or existence, basically I mean everything that is) has an origin, and a finite amount of matter.

Ok now back to time.

We can also conclude one of the following:
Either time isn’t infinite
Or
Time travel is impossible

How do I get this? Well if time was infinite, eventually someone would discover time travel, if it was possible, and would visit me right now. But they haven’t.

There was more stuff along these lines, I really should be writing this stuff down as I think of it, the arguments really were more richly and deeply developed in my head, I’ll post them if I remember.

[ January 06, 2005, 07:56 PM: Message edited by: DJ FC ]