Are We Creating Our Past, Laws of Physics, and Expanding the Universe?

Three Questions (warning! The answers may not be as simple as you think)!

1. Are we creating our past? This appears to be an easy question to answer, but, there may be much more to the answer than first assumed. The question came to me after watching many documentaries about paleontology, archeology and physics. I lost count of how many shows about important discoveries were realized on the last day, in the last hours of expeditions around the world to find a new dinosaur, a new human ancestor or any number of key, paradigm shifting, theory smashing, discoveries. It usually goes something like this.

A team of paleontologists on an expedition to the Gobi Desert struggles for weeks or months searching for a “suspected” new species of dinosaur. The last day dawns with the team disappointed that their trip has been a total loss. One guy goes for a walk and within only a hundred yards of base camp happens upon a bone lying on the surface of the ground. There it is, just what they had spent the last three months looking for.

This same scenario has been repeated time and time again in a variety of scientific expeditions, and seems to be far more frequent that the law of chance would allow.

So, the question is: Could these researchers be “creating” the very thing they seek?

2. Are we creating physics on the go? At the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century, all the great physicists met and decided that everything had been discovered and only the details were left to be filled in by future scientists. Then, along came Albert who spent a lot of time going for walks and thinking. Suddenly, a whole new science came into being with multitudes of questions to be answered. But answering those questions only created more questions. For many years scientists searched for Leptons (I think this was the particle) to no avail, then one day, in two laboratories halfway around the world from each other, the lepton made its presence known. Now, it’s common to see these once elusive particles.

We know that, in the field of quantum physics, we cannot observe something without affecting it. There is no such thing as a casual observer in physics. If it is possible to affect the quantum field by observation, can it be possible that we create, by our own inquisitiveness, the very thing we want to find?

Since all matter in the universe is comprised of quantum particles, are we creating, by thought, the physical manifestations of our past?

Going one step further:

3. Are we expanding our universe by the act of observation? Each time we peer into the vast reaches of our universe we think we are close to seeing the edge. When we build more sophisticated instruments to peer even deeper does the universe expand accordingly?

Hopup

Wow! not even one comment on the above? I thought for sure that there would many deep thinkers out there that would love to weigh in on this. Or, perhaps I have posted this in the forum? At any rate, I think we do create our past and I think we expand the universe by pushing it out in all directions through our deeper and deeper observations.

I think I am, therefore, I am...I think!

Hopup

Originally posted by Hopup Dave


3. Are we expanding our universe by the act of observation? Each time we peer into the vast reaches of our universe we think we are close to seeing the edge. When we build more sophisticated instruments to peer even deeper does the universe expand accordingly?

Hopup

I been thinking the same thing for a couple years becaues its wired that space dosnt become physical antill we find it.

I personally think we are pretty much always in the process of creating our own reality in the past, as well as the present and future. In general, we have a very difficult time conceptualizing time. We generally like to think of it as a kind of line, or a stream like a river, because that's what it seems like to our animal monkey brains. But contemporary physics has suggested that our reality is essentially shaped by our observation and selection of virtual possibilities, and that includes not only the present but our conceptualizations of the past and our imagination of the future.

Lately, I've decided that for my own perception of time, it is basically an expanding torus that loops back in on itself as much as it flows outward, with our actions in the present or future having a direct effect on things in the past. Like this torus, or the Klein bottle, with the added fun of them expanding outward, as well as folding in on themselves, so there is a progression into the "future," while at the same time there's a folding back into the "past."





I think this is a much more accurate representation of time, although it's obviously missing several dimensional levels that can't be adequately represented in this form (or easily imagined).

No. We are not creating the past by observing it. That's a circular, narcissistic, and illogical argument. If it were true, then nothing could exist before humans, because humans hadn't determined what the past would be yet.

Originally posted by Hopup Dave
A team of paleontologists on an expedition to the Gobi Desert struggles for weeks or months searching for a “suspected” new species of dinosaur. The last day dawns with the team disappointed that their trip has been a total loss. One guy goes for a walk and within only a hundred yards of base camp happens upon a bone lying on the surface of the ground. There it is, just what they had spent the last three months looking for.

This same scenario has been repeated time and time again in a variety of scientific expeditions, and seems to be far more frequent that the law of chance would allow.

As soon as I read this it resonated with me and two examples I know of this immediately came to mind. For one, the English explorer who wanted the credit for first being able to associate the Great Pyramids with specific historical pharaohs known to us via the ancient Greeks, looked and looked (in vain) to find any kind of inscription inside any of the pyramids that could be linked to any pharaoh known to us.

Then someone got permission to dynamite into a previously sealed-off room that had too many heavy stones blocking it, and literally overnight, by the next morning, the team was taking down hieroglyphics all about the pyramids' creators, that were in red paint across each of the walls except the one that had been dynamited through. At least one person there noted that the markings "still" looked fresh, and it was later found that there was a grammatical mistake in the supposedly-authentic text that had already been published in one of the hieroglyphic guides of the day. I don't remember details all of this so well but I want to say we still attribute the pyramids to the same pharaohs this clown forged to this day.

The other example that comes to my mind is the famous Patterson bigfoot footage. That guy had been searching for bigfoot for years and had given up just that day, when he says he and a friend were riding horses and came across the thing they filmed. I saw a documentary on TV about it recently where the people producing it went to the town where the footage was shot, and filmed one of Patterson's old friends, and I nearly died laughing when I saw this poor guy walk. All I have to say is it's no wonder so many experts were fooled for so long by that walk, because that guy wasn't acting.

At the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century, all the great physicists met and decided that everything had been discovered and only the details were left to be filled in by future scientists.

It's fun because "the details" always turn out to be all the paradigm-shattering rabbit-holes that we keep feeling out. I would bet it'll keep progressing like a fractal, in that as soon as we get comfortable with our latest understanding of the universe, someone will look a little closer and realize that we were only drawing a fuzzy picture from a distance. We've gone from Platonic solids to electron clouds, but Plato couldn't actually see his supposed "solids" just as we can't see our supposed "electron clouds."

[edit on 9-3-2008 by bsbray11]

Originally posted by Nohup
I personally think we are pretty much always in the process of creating our own reality in the past, as well as the present and future.

If you think about it, this must be the case from any perspective that isn't also subject to the sense of time. The idea occurred to me once that all "significant" experiences we share with other people may be (on some level) coordinated and prioritized based on the sum impact they will actually have on all parties involved and whether or not it's "in tune" with the actions of the parties to be involved. So out of a bunch of potentialities that may pan out in the future, the ones that will actually come to pass would theoretically be the ones that would resonate best with the most people, and those realities would in a way be like a path of least resistance. And so they would become manifest when their time came, maybe preventing other things from happening in the process, or making some people go out of their way or etc.

Or if there's this one person in your town that -- IF you met them under the right circumstances -- something would happen in the future that's "needed" and creates a large "potential" in the local "consciousness grid" or what-have-you, in the same way that an electron is "needed" by the voltage that draws it in its local EM field, or the same way gravity "needs" to pull you down when you fall off a ledge in our local gravity field. That seems like it would go along with the same kind of warped (at least non-linear) time. All just a bunch of passing thoughts though.

reply to post by chromatico


"... That's a circular, narcissistic, and illogical argument. If it were true, then nothing could exist before humans, because humans hadn't determined what the past would be yet."

That's precisely why I think it is true! As for illogical, there is nothing illogical about the idea. The entire physical universe exists as a manifestation of the processes of the quantum field. We can and do affect the quantum realm in a very real way through observation. Since the "narcissistic" human mind causes changes to the quantum field, and all matter arises from this field, what is illogical about the human mind using this capability to manufacture the past and push the boundaries of the universe?

Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle is, after all, illogical in the mathematical black and white of Newtonian science, yet it stands!

Hopup



[edit on 9-3-2008 by Hopup Dave]

reply to post by Hopup Dave


There's nothing illogical about Heisenberg. Observation changes things. There is, however, a lot illogical about any theory that destroys any concept of cause and effect.

reply to post by Nohup


"Lately, I've decided that for my own perception of time, it is basically an expanding torus that loops back in on itself as much as it flows outward, with our actions in the present or future having a direct effect on things in the past. Like this torus, or the Klein bottle, with the added fun of them expanding outward, as well as folding in on themselves, so there is a progression into the "future," while at the same time there's a folding back into the "past."

Very well put! I am not familiar with either the torus or Klein bottle. Do you have a link to some resources regarding these ideas? They sound fascinating.

Hopup

We aren't "expanding" the universe as you say it, we're connecting to it.

reply to post by chromatico

"There is, however, a lot illogical about any theory that destroys any concept of cause and effect."

Cause and effect is very Newtonian. There are many aspects of quantum physics that physicists pass off to the philosophers because there is no "logical" explanation. I believe (and I rarely use that word) that the black and white mathematical is but one aspect of the universe. You cannot apply a mathematical equation to the very process that created mathematics - thought! You can describe the chemical, electrical and physical processes that make thought possible, but there is no mathematical or chemical equation that can be applied to the thought once thought, in fact, thought is, in itself, illogical.

Hopup


[edit on 9-3-2008 by Hopup Dave]

reply to post by Hopup Dave


Au contraire, we have very good evidence that all thought processes are connected to physical events within the brain!

reply to post by chromatico


Ah, well, evidence is simply evidence. Does the mind operate through the brain? Or, does the brain operate the mind? That the brain "works" is certainly incontrovertible, but HOW does it work and WHY does it work is much more complex.

Rene Descartes said "I think, therefore I am" interestingly, placing mind before matter. Should it have been "I am, therefore I think", which places matter before mind?

There is logic to the argument that mind came first, then matter, as is the Eastern philosophy. Of course, philosophy cannot be proved, we are left only with science to interpret what we can see and measure or look to philosophy for answers that fit our own paradigm. Science, as good as it is, will never answer the question, it can only theorize, and theories change constantly.

Hopup

reply to post by bsbray11


"It's fun because "the details" always turn out to be all the paradigm-shattering rabbit-holes that we keep feeling out. I would bet it'll keep progressing like a fractal, in that as soon as we get comfortable with our latest understanding of the universe, someone will look a little closer and realize that we were only drawing a fuzzy picture from a distance. We've gone from Platonic solids to electron clouds, but Plato couldn't actually see his supposed "solids" just as we can't see our supposed "electron clouds."

Your fractal analogy is, I think, right on! All of the questions will never be answered. The human mind cannot allow it, we must invent more questions than we have answers.

I find it interesting that religion and science tell us what we should believe and how we should think, yet both, although contributing in great measure to our current state of affairs, have failed us in as many ways, leading to our current state of affairs.

Hopup

Flagged!

A very interesting theory, which to some extent i've always believed myself.
I've always thought that every movement we make / everything thing we do affects what we find, the world changes around us due to our decisions made / ideas had. For example the old "touch wood" phrase & superstitions?
But on a different level.

Or maybe stumbling across an idea isn't down to cause and affect?
Perhaps there is infact already a pre-determined set of things we are meant to find?
Not in a laid out 'you are going to find this at this time / place etc' way but just as in a puzzle? you come across them?

I'll post more later, i'm gonna have to go away and think about this.
It's confusing but extremely intriguing! i just had to post something.

Another thought to add to this interesting topic regarding the past and the creation of "reality"--if we consider that light is the limit of all speed, then the "reality" we see is essentially the "past" because the in time it takes for us to process light bouncing off our environment, our environment has fundamentally changed both on the micro and macro scales.

Being inherently slow (slower than light) beings, we will forever live in the past and our actions will effect that realm of reality. This plays along well with the quantum theory of uncertainty. If nothing can travel faster than the speed of light than the future must exist in a state uncertainty or in other words, probability. This is the same kind of thing we see in quantum mechanics.

So, to take a theological point of view (just for the sake of it, not because I'm implying that this is the truth by any means), but maybe this is the simple proof that only a supreme being/faster than light being can control/effect future events.

Originally posted by chromatico
No. We are not creating the past by observing it. That's a circular, narcissistic, and illogical argument. If it were true, then nothing could exist before humans, because humans hadn't determined what the past would be yet.

I suggest that the past, like the future, is constantly being created by our perception of it. We attempt to draw a picture of the past by observing things in the present, testing a hypothesis in the future (which becomes the present during the test), and then extrapolating backward. All the action takes place in the present, though, because that's all there is.

As for the universe not existing before humans, I'm of the opinion that anything that lives and has a point of view can do a fine job of narrowing down the virtual probabilities so that there is only one reasonably stable reality. That includes the tiniest of bacteria (that may have been assembled molecule by molecule 4 billion years ago by some smart, telekinetic kid in the future). We also don't know for sure that there isn't some massive creature out there in the universe with a brain the size of a planet, that has been around for 10 billion years, that isn't working harder at creating the universe than us.

But we do our small part. I just used the tiny quantum fluctuations of my mind to manipulate patterns of thought in my head, which in turn created this bit of information which has become reality within the circuitry of the Internet, reaching out to trigger electrochemical activity in distant brains. Quite a trick. Okay, so it's not creating the Earth. But it's something. That used to be nothing. So there's a little bit of proof right here.

reply to post by Nohup


"But we do our small part. I just used the tiny quantum fluctuations of my mind to manipulate patterns of thought in my head, which in turn created this bit of information which has become reality within the circuitry of the Internet, reaching out to trigger electrochemical activity in distant brains. Quite a trick. Okay, so it's not creating the Earth. But it's something. That used to be nothing. So there's a little bit of proof right here."

Well put! As I approach the downhill side of life I have wondered if the universe existed before me. I can't remember it before I was born. I don't think that it will exist (to me) once I die. Perhaps I created the whole damn mess myself - now that's an ugly thought!

Hopup

reply to post by bmiasma


"Perhaps there is infact already a pre-determined set of things we are meant to find?
Not in a laid out 'you are going to find this at this time / place etc' way but just as in a puzzle? you come across them? "

I have often thought that this existence is akin to a pin ball machine. There are an infinite number of posts and bumpers out there. They are always there and always have been. As we go through life we are the ball, once in while we bump into the right pin. The key is to recognize it before the flipper sends you out of play.

But in this idea, or theory, the things we find are not pre-determined, instead, by thought (deep and prolonged thought), we manifest the evidence by subconsciously affecting the quantum field.

An example would be that we (humans, and all life, and the material universe) came into being "in the middle" of time with no past, and we have created the past beyond that point. At the point of beginning, the universe was small and condensed, but our curiosity and observation has pushed the boundary outward, ever expanding the edge out of reach.

Hopup

[edit on 14-3-2008 by Hopup Dave]