In the eye of the beholder

[ElMaco]

This is not a very spiritual or drug-related topic and it might actually be better of posted on some physics-forum. But I would never have the understanding of the mechanics of the universe if it weren't for that evening when I yet again surrendered to the realms of DMT and had a revelation. Actually it was not as much of a revelation as a missing piece of the infinite puzzle we call reality. I've never been a very spiritual man. The mushroom didn't change that, neither did the DMT or mescaline. I'm a man of science. To me "God" is my never ending search to understand the world around me, enlightenment if you will.

Einstein spent years dreaming about what it would be like to ride a photon at the speed of light through the universe, I have experienced his dream. By definition there's a clear correlation between speed and time. Speed is measured in distance by time put in relation to another object. If i drive my car all alone on a road my speed put in relation to the road might be 60mph. If i meet a car driving at the same speed in the opposite direction our relative speed will be 120mph. Now imagine that I was actually riding a photon and not a car, I would be traveling at the speed of light. If I met another photon heading the opposite direction our relative speed would not be twice the speed of light as logic would dictate, it would still be the speed of light. No speed can exceed that limit. What does this actually implicate?

To an outside observer, standing in between the two photons, both photons will appear to be traveling towards them at the speed of light. To explain this paradox-like phenomenon there is only one logical conclusion. Time passing by "outside" the photon must be infinitly small to make sure that the speed relative to another object does not exceed the speed of light. Yet we can measure the lifetime of a photon. From our point of view it takes about 8 minutes for a photon emitted by the sun to reach earth but seen from the photon it must reach earth so fast that the time passed is not even measurable. That must mean that the destination of a photon is known at the time of it's creation.

This hypothetical scenario really raised alot more questions than it answered to me. If the destination of a photon is known at it's creation, is it some kind of "photon-precognition" or simply destiny? If so, what else in our universe is predecided? Is our entire reality based on a predecided destiny? Are our lives controlled by destiny as well? If our lives are bound to a destiny, is free will an illusion? Can we, human kind, also develop precognition in some way? Or perhaps we're destined to...

I find the topic most interesting, I'm not sure my fascination is shared by very many here at SPF but I'd love to hear your thoughts about it. After all, almost everyone here is highly philosophical and thinking beeings.

/Maco

[fuzz]

interesting stuff elmaco.

i remember reading a bio of Einstein while on a train coming back from Spain with my mam. reading about him (so sitting still on a seat) while in a moving train is a great meditation to do;)

anyhows, i cant answer anything about the destiny question. frankly i have no idea. moslty i think we create our own destinies. i dont think anything is set, because there are too many random factors involved in everything. i do think humans benefit from a form of free will, their curse and blessing all at once. also, i like the word "awareness" more than "free will" i think. many are not very "aware" of their acts and their consequences, not realizing that the very free will they have is what shapes their future(s).

free will can be an extremely scary concept, hence part of the reason why humans design systems, boxes, because the freedom is too much for many to handle. systems help people to create "boundaries", "identities" and all that neat stuff that derives from "closed systems". via those systems we can give ourselves the illusion that we are following our "destinies", ie the same as what Raw calls a "reality tunnel". it is gathering data in a specific way to fit a certain model. same with "coincidences" ecetct.
at the end of the day, i just did a day and have to doa  night, i have no need to find any reason to why, because i dont believe in reasons. its just a day, thats destiny, days after nights after days after nights wandering about the whys, or not;)

to me, what we call "destiny" is more for writing poetry, but can not apply to any more serious and factual discussion. it is poetry, a form of theoretical physics, or abstract math. ie, pretty fluff scribbled on some board.

my question is concerning the "speed of light".
i thought that the speed of light theory was disproved and that we actually now know that we have no understanding of what light actually is.
?

[ElMaco]

Well, the speed of light is an interesting concept. We use it on a daily basis in fission-fuled powerplants, E=MC^2, and it's proven itself over and over again. What light actually is raises alot of other questions.

There's an interesting paradox that arises from the idea of traveling faster than light. If we were somehow able to do that we would infact be traveling back in time, Einstein pondered that too for a while. However, if we were to invent a way to travel back in time we could just head back a few years and provide the civilization at that point in time with the "blueprints" for our timemachine. So if I get a visit by myself (a future myself) tomorrow and I hand myself the blueprints for a timemachine and I decide to build it and head back and give myself the blueprints again, where do the blueprints actually originate from?

This metaphysical paradox would seem to prove that nothing can travel faster than light and that no matter how hard we try we'll never be able to travel back in time.

[TroutMask]

I think the main lesson is: Whatever you do, don't shine 2 flashlights at each other. You may create a black hole.

-TM

[TroutMask]

But seriously, folks... I really appreciate the question and this discussion, although it tends to make my head hurt if I think about it too long.

Since I was a young pothead, I have often imagined that we'll keep looking at smaller and smaller parts of matter (cells to molecules to atoms to electrons to where-the-hell is all the black matter, dude???) until one day we'll look in the scope and there will be God smiling back at us, maybe giving the thumbs up or something. Then what?

I guess my point is that we know so little of what there is to know. I think the theory of relativity leaves something out; there is something we're missing, maybe a whole lot of something. I think there is more to the equation that we haven't discovered yet. I'm also a science-type "believer" and I believe there are no paradoxes in (this?) reality. I believe that such paradoxes are simply failures to fully understand reality. Not failures, I guess, but simply the fact that we haven't figured it out yet. There is no guarantee that we humans be around long enough to figure it out, nor that even if we were around forever that we would ever figure it out. I believe there will always be an unknowable, always a challenge for whatever species live in the universe, especially as it pertains to knowing God or whatever your name for it may be. Many species in the universe must be much more advanced than we are and able to do things that we can't even comprehend (I'm thinking traveling via wormholes, for instance.)

I ran out of thoughts...

-TM

[laughingwillow]

troutie: I just read your post above and have to say it struck a certain chord, deep inside of me. The more I think of it, the more I realize I'm ready to be your first follower. How do I sign up?

Btw, I humbly submit the proposal that a court jester with a microscope up his nose and a telescope out his ass be the official papal seal.

lw

[Syd]

I would like to sign up as well. As long as I can be on the board of trustees and be in control of the income, I mean donations.

[cenacle]

man, i climb the mountain so rarely and every time i do i ask why not more often? i keep coming back to two things: the world around me seems real and solid enough, but this means nothing essentially...buildings rise, fall, as do heroes and empires and great forests and deserts...things change, they don't, we don't know, maybe we do...i look into dreams and mostly they simply look back around at me...i give music my ear and it laughs, says join in, nobody knows jack and it's all good! so yah that's good, and sometimes a fuck happy hour is good too, but this is the mountain so what of it all, and my other thing is this world aint jack by the whole of things...which is to say, drop acid, i mean really fucking drop with it, into it, of it, through it, find your way, lose your way, lose any sense of you or way, and what then, chaos...maybe, awhile, maybe a void to nip at you...oh terrors, yah but then they pass too, so what then, where does it lead, speed of light, speed of sound, speed of sniff, speed of mourn, speed of song, nothing, everything, typing, noise, hours pass, chords strike and fade, all fades, all fades, beauty, want, sadness, but man, get real here, what of the insects and the eucalyptus buds, don't forget nothing in this one, we're all brothers and sisters, even the ones with wings and fins, the rocks, the bones of lost kin, lost species, ghosts, gods, legends, pure fictions, bad movies, the camera taking saturn's pretty pictures, the most hatefilled fist pounding some map tonight and planning...brothers and sisters, more than that, that hardly tells, that hardly begins to tell, see? this is why i climb this mountain hardly ever........................