Evolution and Time
- Thread starter dmac2020
- Start date
sniffy said:
The eye does not exist because of 'dimensions'. Dimensions are a Western cultural construction which has served the purposes of expanding technology (ie, creating buildings and other artificial structures - as well as cheap, mass produced furniture and other goods) and colonial expansion through navigational and mapping techniques.
Discontinuing belief in such things as dimensions and time will not harm us and will benefit nature.
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Ophiolite
Valued Senior Member
Nicely made point with the pause before time. Of course, dmac assures me the pause (a short period of time in which a continuous process is halted) does not really exist since dimensions, including time, are illusions. dmac does not understand that he is the illusion formed by the gestalt sub-conscious of sciforums.sniffy said:
sniffy said:
'Dimension' is a word which causes the mind to focus only on the measured spatial qualities of the world. Living things are reduced to 'objects' bound only by these qualities. Life becomes a line on a graph representable in a book. The world is reduced to a geometrical abstract.
In this system the natural and the artificial become blurred. Great artificial constructions are possible and consequently Westerners are prone to believe the world is created by humans and ideas such as 'humanism' become appealing.
I think you may find that measurable spatial quality is a reasonable definition of the word dimension.
OK let's try something different. Close your eyes, put your hand over your other hand - feel that? I'm assuming that your hand is not something that has been artificially constructed (apologies if you are an amputee and this is the actually the case) a hand is something with dimensions - three of them at the last count.
You can call dimension something else but to do so does not alter the fact that dimension exists and that's true even in non Western countries.
OK let's try something different. Close your eyes, put your hand over your other hand - feel that? I'm assuming that your hand is not something that has been artificially constructed (apologies if you are an amputee and this is the actually the case) a hand is something with dimensions - three of them at the last count.
You can call dimension something else but to do so does not alter the fact that dimension exists and that's true even in non Western countries.
Hey dmac2020, I have an experiment to suggest. You might try stepping suddenly from a high surface. If there are any physical consequences from your rapidly-changing vertical co-ordinates, it's fair to say that dimensions have an objective reality.
Edit: Try a not-so-high surface first!
Edit: Try a not-so-high surface first!
Ophiolite
Valued Senior Member
Naw. I think he should go for it. Throw caution to the wind. Well, not exactly throw, since that would require propelling an object through one or more dimensions, into a bunch of air molecules moving randomly, but with an overall vector defined by similar dimensions: so he couldn't really do it.Laika said:
Time stops everything happening at once.
Space stops everything happening in the same place.
dmac2000, just stops.
Yes, of course, time is a "major factor in the evolution of complex organic lifeforms," but it is on the duration of days, years, and millions of years, depending on the mutation rate of the type of organism studied, and not on the order of "billlions of years." But then again, this depends on your time perspective of evolution? That is, what does evolution mean to you? Humans evolved during the last two million years. Mammals evolved over the last 300 million years. Fish ventured on land and evolved into amphibians and reptiles 350 million years ago. But the origin of life dates back to 3.5 billion years or more. And the earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago!
"Does this mean that time, in the way that physicists talk about it, is part of our physical biology?" Yes it is, but you have to be more specific here to answer your question more precisely.
Physicists, and most especially astrophysicists, talk about time in term of light years: 1 light year = 9,460,000,000,000 kilometers or 63,240 astronomical units. This means that in one year light travels 9,460,000,000,000 kilometers! Astronomical aye? So what about the possibility of life on other planets? We've got a longtime search to find out!
"Does this mean that time, in the way that physicists talk about it, is part of our physical biology?" Yes it is, but you have to be more specific here to answer your question more precisely.
Physicists, and most especially astrophysicists, talk about time in term of light years: 1 light year = 9,460,000,000,000 kilometers or 63,240 astronomical units. This means that in one year light travels 9,460,000,000,000 kilometers! Astronomical aye? So what about the possibility of life on other planets? We've got a longtime search to find out!
valich said:
Ahh... astronomical indeed.
I was thinking today about Paley's argument for God's existence, and how he inadvertantly demonstrated that technology (watches in his case) should not be confused with nature (evolution).
If this is true of technology... isn't it also true of theory? You cannot have one without the other. A scientist who constructs an experiment to test his theory has already created a structure which exists outside of nature.
Ophiolite said:
How do you determine a 'bona fide' physicist or astrophysicist?
(hang on a sec... what happens if a light year is different from one year to the next?
)
<B>Warning: Valich crapola alert!</B>
valich said:
More correctly then I should say that astrophysicists measure distances and time in terms of light years, which is a unit of distance over time: how far light normally travels in one year. If it were purely a unit of distance then it would be measured in miles or kilometers. Stephen Hawkings, in his book entitled "A Brief History of Time," states that from Earth to Alpha Centauri is 4 light years away and Vega is 26 light years away. When astronomers do measure distance, they do so in terms of Astronomical Units (AU): 1AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun. But then again, they say that our Sun is about 5 billion years old and the universe about 15 billion years old.
<B>Warning: Valich crapola alert!</B>
More correctly? It’s not correct at all! The ‘light year’ IS NOT a measure of time. Full stop. End of story.valich said:
More nonsense. The ‘light year’ is a unit of distance, not “distance over time” which is a measurement of speed.valich said:
It IS measured purely in kilometers, you fool.valich said: