Into the Twilight Zone: Cosmic Cones and Multidimensional Maggots...

.....Also Star Travel, Time Travel and Predestination.


So far, a lot of experimental evidence has backed up that nice Einstein
chappie, and this is based on his notion of time as a fourth dimension and
of the upper limit of the speed-of-light. This page contains an ASC11
diagram, which only work if you turn off proportional fonts.

\ B /
\ /
\ /
T X Z
/ \
/ \
/ A \


Imagine a one-dimensional creature in a two dimensional universe represented
by the diagram above. The past is downwards, and the future is upwards. If
we treat one second as equal to 300,000,000 metres (light travels about
300,000,000 metres in one second) then we can represent the time-track of
something travelling at the speed of light as a 45 degree angle to the time
axis. All other time-tracks are at angles that are less than 45 degrees:
this is the first rule of Relativity. Nothing can go faster than light.

In order for our one-dimensional being to know anything, the news needs to
come from elsewhere in his Universe. The news travels at most at 45
degrees: so he can only get news from a triangle extending into the past.
This triangle is labelled 'A': it is for this reason that when we look at
stars we are looking into the past. Light from Epsilon Eridanus (just above
the horizon at midnight now) was created by this star about eleven years
ago. If someone stole Epsilon, we wouldn't know for another eleven years.
(I ain't done it.) But the point is that everything we know is the past -
everything we see, feel, whatever is at least a few nanoseconds old. We
cannot see the present except where we are.


Going the other way, there are two ways for our being to influence his
Universe. He can send a message to some object, or he can go there himself
and do something. Either way, he cannot go at an angle of more than 45
degrees. He cannot change anything immediately - he needs to wait a bit for
his message or action to arrive. What is more, his actions can only occupy
the triangle 'B' in the diagram, because that is the limit of the 45 degree
angle.

What about the rest of the diagram? The areas marked TZ? They are
impossible to observe, and impossible to influence. What is more, they
include the whole of the simultaneous Universe, if you believe in such a
thing. (Looking at this diagram, I am not sure I do.) The area TZ need not
exist for you, as far as Einstein is concerned. The area A is bounded by
Galaxies at the edge of the Universe, redshifted to non-existence, and the
area B is bounded by the places in spacetime you can never go, because you
are too late, like that lecture you should have set off to five minutes ago.
It hasn't happened yet, but you can never reach it, no matter how fast you
run.


This TZ (Twilight Zone) includes everything in the present except you, and
everywhere you might want to go to with FTL. The belief that there is
something special about a horizontal line on this diagram is entirely
spurious: horizontal lines (of simultaneous events) are meaningless. The
only lines worth noting are the hypercone lines into the past, that allow
you to observe it, and the hypercone lines into the future, that allow you
to change it. Nothing else matters.

Now, if you say you have a way to go to that Twilight Zone, then you have an
FTL. You also have some gadget that will take you anywhere in space and
time, because the limitation to space and time travel is that 45 degrees.
As Robert Heinlein mentioned in "Time Enough for Love", you have to "choose
where to re-enter the time axis", as "any space jump can go as many years
astray as there are light-years in the jump". "That's not time travel?"
"Hmm, that feels like intentionally making a bad landing."

But it is time travel, as the character later finds out.



The other thing to notice about this is that the point where triangles A and
B touch (the point sometimes called "right now") occupies an infinitely
small point in space. So right now you are alone, and nobody can influence
your decision.

If you want to look at people as four-dimensional maggots wiggling in the
space-time-soup, the maggots choose what shape to be. They might choose
where to wiggle all at once, or they can choose a bit at a time. We don't
know which one - it's probably some of each. But there is nothing to say
that they can't choose at all.

For my money it's both. If I choose now to chop off my leg, then I cannot
choose in the future to run a four minute mile. But if I am going to be
bitter about that sort of predestination, I need to blame my own free will.
Predestination and free will may well be the same thing from different
perspectives.


Simon

---
"This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind" -Ecclesiastes 4:16

simon@ | Not affiliated to any religion
simon@ | Not affiliated to any politics
H (+44/0)1784 431998 | Not affiliated to any ideology
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"I have been asked to point out, as if you couldn't guess, that my rantings
are not the opinions of One Chip Solutions. So now you know, don't you..?"