John C. Mather: “There is no first moment of time” (2017)

Re:John C. Mather: “There is no first moment of time” (2017) by xwdv on Sunday September 11, 2022 @10:53PM (#32805538)

Not only might there not be a first moment, there might be no time at all. Every possible instant of time could be randomly distributed with some very small but not infinitely small probability of occurring. On an infinite timeline, everything should occur, forever. When a moment occurs, a structure of your brain exists coded with memories of past events that feel real but never happened.

Since each moment is pure and has no external state, you do not perceive the trillions of years that could pass in between two moments occurring, nor do you have any way to realize you are perceiving moments out of order or that other possibilities of realities exist.

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Re:John C. Mather: “There is no first moment of time” (2017) by fallingfrog on Monday September 12, 2022 @12:01AM (#32805949)

“On an infinite timeline, everything should occur, forever.”

I can imagine scenarios where that isn’t true- maybe the universe cycles through a long loop of states and just repeats that infinitely for example.

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Re:John C. Mather: “There is no first moment of time” (2017) by TedDoesntTalk on Monday September 12, 2022 @01:58AM (#32806581)

Isn’t that saying the same thing but a little differently? In your scenario, everything is re-occurring, forever (obviously beyond our perception)

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Re:John C. Mather: “There is no first moment of time” (2017) by TedDoesntTalk on Monday September 12, 2022 @01:56AM (#32806569)

> you do not perceive the trillions of years that could pass in between two moments occurring, nor do you have any way to realize you are perceiving moments out of order or that other possibilities of realities exist

This is intriguing. But how does cause and effect work? If there is no “external state”, say I burn my hand by spilling hot coffee on it. There’s a burn in my skin. Trillions of years pass and I experience the next moment… with burned skin?

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Re:John C. Mather: “There is no first moment of time” (2017) by xwdv on Monday September 12, 2022 @08:07AM (#32808912)

The next moment is generated entirely by chance. A very small probability. Also it could have been generated even before you spilled your coffee but you wouldn’t know that as you only have your memories as a reference. It’s like creating a movie by just putting down random pixels and eventually you get an actual frame from the movie. Repeat until the movie has been seen entirely.

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Re:John C. Mather: “There is no first moment of time” (2017) by wruza on Monday September 12, 2022 @11:55AM (#32812203)

There is no cause and no effect, as far as I understand it. “You” spend most of the time in bizarre states and only once in a 10^^^^^^(…)^^^^^10 seconds chances can reconstruct the next, previous or just different step of a reasonable continuous experience, including all memories “you” “think” about in this moment.

But in my opinion this is overengineered. States not only don’t have to come in order, they don’t have to form a continuous “movie” at all. An infinite amount of “current” moments with all the past and current reality already embedded in is sufficient.

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