-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Alan Ackley Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 1:02 AM To: Brin-L@mccmedia.com Subject: the question of reality glitches
On reality glitches; Aside from proving anything, I have a question or three; 1) Can the past be changed? (or does time have more than one dimension?) 2) If so, can it be changed so that two or more people have differing memories? 3) What effects do recording have? ___________________________________________________________________________ I went into some relative areas before about this, not dealing with reality in its self, though it can be easily expanded into. I'm not sure if I ever covered this on the list but ill do one up here now. Reality: 1. The quality or state of being actual or true. 2. One, such as a person, an entity, or an event, that is actual: "the weight of history and political realities" (Benno C. Schmidt, Jr.). 3. The totality of all things possessing actuality, existence, or essence. 4. That which exists objectively and in fact: Your observations do not seem to be about reality. Truth: 1. Conformity to fact or actuality. 2. A statement proven to be or accepted as true. 3. Sincerity; integrity. 4. Fidelity to an original or standard. 5. a. Reality; actuality. b. often Truth That which is considered to be the supreme reality and to have the ultimate meaning and value of existence. Time: a. . A nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future. b. An interval separating two points on this continuum; a duration: a long time since the last war; passed the time reading. c. A number, as of years, days, or minutes, representing such an interval: ran the course in a time just under four minutes. d. A similar number representing a specific point on this continuum, reckoned in hours and minutes: checked her watch and recorded the time, 6:17 A.M. e. A system by which such intervals are measured or such numbers are reckoned: solar time. a. . An interval, especially a span of years, marked by similar events, conditions, or phenomena; an era. Often used in the plural: hard times; a time of troubles. b. times The present with respect to prevailing conditions and trends: You must change with the times. . A suitable or opportune moment or season: a time for taking stock of one's life. a. . Periods or a period designated for a given activity: harvest time; time for bed. b. Periods or a period necessary or available for a given activity: I have no time for golf. c. A period at one's disposal: Do you have time for a chat? Human memory is a very interesting and deceitful thing. Though we may believe that what remember is the exact and unaltered truth of what we saw, done, read, in the past it does not make it so. It has been documented through several experiments that over a given time the suggestibility of human memory will cause a change in our long and short term memory. Sometimes the most unreliable thing to have in a police investigation is an eyewitness. Dealing with memories of a event with multiple eyewitnesses comes down in some terms that of having to use the process of observation defined in quantum astronomy. Where an object must be viewed by several different observing devices and combined in order to see the actual object for what it is. i.e. We take 100 people and get them to look at a basket ball bouncing on a court. Then take tem in separate rooms and get them to describe the ball and its actions, you will get 100 different observations of the ball. Combing these 100 different observations we will get a more complete and accurate observation of what the basketball actually looked like while bouncing on the court. To observe is to change the object in question by adding the observer to the observation then a more accurate image can be created. Simple enough right. Nope. No matter how many observations are done we will never get a complete and fully accurate picture of the ball, let alone what the ball was doing. Was it bouncing? Was it rolling? The entire problem is that of those 100 people 1 person could accurately see and describe the ball, and another the way the ball bounced. The other 98 people will have varying observations that will distort the purity of the image of the combined 2 observers. Truth, I heard it once being described as, "As long as the subject believes that what he says is the truth then to him it will be the truth, regardless to what everyone else has seen, and what the tape shows." It reminds me of Plato's Cave theory. I found a relatively good explanation of it here http://theosophy.org/tlodocs/AllegoryoftheCave.htm . i have included a excerpt below. The allegory begins with a graphic picture of the pathetic condition of the majority of mankind. We are like chained slaves living in an underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den. Here we have been from our childhood, unable to move or to see beyond, being prevented by the chains from turning round our heads. Above and behind us a fire is blazing at a distance, but between the fire and ourselves there is a low wall like the screen which marionette players have in front of them to foster the illusion necessary for a puppet-show. We are like the strange prisoners in this den who see only their own shadows or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave. To them the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images, and they cannot distinguish the voices of one another from the echoes emanating from the surrounding darkness. Given this allegory, we might think that if only the prisoners were released from their chains by some external agency, they would cease to mistake shadows for realities and would be automatically disabused of their former errors. The allegory points out that no such simple deliverance from illusions is possible. At first, when any of the prisoners is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains. Further, the glare will disturb him and he will be unable to see the realities he formerly identified with their mere shadows. If he is now told that what he saw before was an illusion and that now he is approaching real existence and has a clearer vision, he will be perplexed. He will continue to fancy that the shadows he saw for so long were truer than the objects which are now shown to him. If he is compelled to look straight at the light, the pain in his eyes will induce him to turn away to take refuge in the objects of vision that have acquired a false but greater reality than the things which are now being shown to him. If he is dragged up a steep ascent and forced into the presence of the sun, his eyes will be dazzled and he will not be able to see anything at all. The liberated prisoner will obviously require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. He will first see the shadows best, then the reflections of men and objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; and then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars by night. At last he will be able to see the sun. He will come to see that the sun is the guardian of all that is in the visible world and in a certain sense the cause of all that he and his fellows had been accustomed to behold. He would remember his old habitation and the delusions of his fellow prisoners, pity them and felicitate himself on the change in himself and in his position. He would no longer care for the honors conferred upon one another by the ignorant prisoners on the basis of who were the quickest to observe the passing shadows. The first test that the liberated prisoner has to face is to get accustomed to his new condition and to forsake his long-cherished illusions. The second test is to see the unity of all things. The third is to show compassion towards his fellow prisoners and not merely revel in his own happiness. The fourth is to detach himself completely from the false valuations and hierarchical distinctions made by the men in the den. His fifth and much more difficult test comes if he is then made to re-enter the cave of darkness, for he would appear ridiculous to the prisoners who still cling to their former illusions centered on the shadows. They would say that he had become blind to realities since leaving the cave, that it is better not even to think of ascending, that they would be entitled to put to death anyone who tried to free another and lead him up to the light. The allegory then explains that the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and the journey upwards is the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world. In the world of knowledge the archetypal idea of Good appears last of all and is seen only with an effort. It is only then inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, the lord of light in this visible world and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual world, the power upon which the eye must be fixed in private and public life in order to act rationally. It is not surprising, we are told, that those who attain to this beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs; for their souls are ever hastening into the upper world where they desire to dwell. Those who do descend from divine contemplations to the underground den will not find it easy to deal with those who have never yet seen Absolute Good or Justice. I think Plato's sample reaction is rather accurate. Most people would adjust to the light and then try to understand the light, and then go on what you'd call a converting mission. And you lose people on every step... People who are too afraid to even look at something different, people who die instead of accepting it, people who're too selfish and keep it for themselves, or don't know how to persuade others. And then you have the question of what the light is, and if it's really there... There's always something like this with contrasting ideologies, politics, and then you come to a bigger picture, with God or something similar. You can get a lot out of it - it depends on what you're looking for. I agree with it, and then I don't - it works for some things and not for others. There is a definite parallel with the matrix concept. The multi-verse concept that Gary put forth is a little different IMO. However its something that has personally bounced on my court a few times as of late. The best that I could come up with, was almost word for word what ahs been brought up by Gary. Though in mine once we do carryover into the new universe we, overall we forget what the other universe was about and only remember the past of the universe that we are now apart of. However there are a few that tend not to accept the new "reality" that they are thrust into, though they do not remember the reality that they have departed, they feel as though some things just don't fit in the puzzle that they live in now. Time in its self is a conceptual construction of the conscious mind of man. It is an observed occurrence and to observe means that we are now part of the observation. And because of that our perception of time exists. With out us time would still exist. Time is fluid and is able to change, however to change time no matter how small will have a "butterfly effect" on your own future, which would be your past, and would cause you not ever coming back into the past, so the change would not occur. The only way for temporal tampering to occur would be in a multi-verse concept, and what would occur would be your "present" would be moved to the universe of the path that was chosen by the temporal tampering that was conducted. And if this is the case then reality glitches as they have been used, would simply not exist in a manner that could be recorded unless you could devise a way to travel between universes. Well im not sure if this at all helps.. I think my head ran away with my hands there for a bit.. Nick "time splitter" lidster _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
