Seeing into our (relative) future

[whap2005]

“If you could know where every single particle was and its velocity perfectly and had a computer that could work it out faster than it was happening then it (seeing into the future) could be done but such a computer would need to be bigger than all of the mass of the universe combined.”

 

Insane_Alien

 

I had a discussion with some friends of mine about this not too long ago. To sum it up briefly, the laws of physics flat out prohibit traveling forward in time in the true sense. But, I believe it is possible to “simulate” the ability to look into the future by being able to predict the interaction of every particle in your relative space (you don’t need to know where every particle is in the Universe.) The vast distances between objects in the universe make it possible to reasonable predict their outside interaction on our relative space, which for the sake or argument could be Earth or our solar system. This being said, it may be possible to somehow learn everything there is to know about every particle on Earth and in near vicinity of Earth, and then predict how they are going to interact within the know laws of physics. A quantum computer (which in theory can have unlimited processing potential http://www.physorg.com/news448.html) could then be used to predict the interaction of all the particles. Assuming that human and animal conciseness is also bound by the laws of physics, we could then peer into the future as far as we want. Although this is no easy feat, I do not think it is impossible.

[bascule]

I work in atmospheric modelling, and I can assure you that at this point we can't even perform remotely realistic multi-decadal simulations of the Earth's entire climate system. There are too many nonlinearities in the system's behavior.

 

Even if you had a complete, background-independent, deterministic, and fully quantifyable (i.e. discrete) model of how spacetime behaves, and even if you had a snapshot of, say, a spherical region with a 1/2 AU radius surrounding the earth, your snapshot would be useless for multi-decadal predictions. Think about how much energy has entered your snapshot in the form of solar radiation, even in the first nanosecond after your snapshot. Think of how much solar radiation impacts life on earth... things like the impact of sunspots/solar flares on electronics, etc. You would have to make so many assumptions about energy entering the system that your model would soon be rendered worthless.

[573v3]

I guess it all depends on quantummechanics. Some people think that quantummechanics gives these statistic results because that is the best we can get while others believe our knowledge on it is simply to small to see why sometimes we have one outcome and sometimes another. In other words believe that chaos is an order we fail to understand.

theoreticly, ...

practicly would of course be a whole diffrent thing as bascule pointed out

[whap2005]

Bascule,

 

One way to counter factors that current technology (or any future tech) may have predicting complex systems is to alter or “filter” it so it so it can be predicted. For example, in your solar radiation challenge, it is possible that we could create a huge solar “net” that could monitor every particle of solar radiate that reaches the Earth. Or, it may be easier to use the net to “filter/alter” the radiation so that it can be predicted. Being able to look into your relative future may mean having to alter the inputs to meet your ability to predict the particle interactions. I think we even have the technology now to do this on a very small scale. Although we can’t predict particle interaction in the natural environment, It should be possible to create a controlled environment in a lab were we can completely control all outside influences. We then should be able to accurately predict what happens in that environment with 100% certainty thus, gain the ability to predict the future in that small space. It’s late, so I’ll try to expand on my self correcting algorithms theory tomorrow..

[bascule]

If you had:

 

• A complete, background-independent, deterministic, and fully quantifyable (i.e. discrete) model of how spacetime behaves
   
  
• A complete snapshot of all the discrete units of reality in a particular region, whatever they may be
   
  
• Some way of monitoring everything entering/leaving the region without disturbing it (which the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle basically says impossible, but we're dreaming here)
   
  
• Some way of modelling all of this data in faster than realtime
  

 

Then, yes, I'd say it's possible.

[573v3]

So basicly you'r saying: if it would be theoreticly and practicly possible, then yes I believe it would. Not much opinion in that statement, now is there.

 

Do you personally think there exist a complete, background-independent, deterministic, and fully quantifyable (i.e. discrete) model of how spacetime behaves?

 

I do, but I don't think we'r very likely to find out

[swansont]

For example, in your solar radiation challenge, it is possible that we could create a huge solar “net” that could monitor every particle of solar radiate that reaches the Earth.

 

If you detect it, then it doesn't reach the earth.

[bascule]

Do you personally think there exist a complete, background-independent, deterministic, and fully quantifyable (i.e. discrete) model of how spacetime behaves?

 

As far as a gut feeling? Yes, but I often wonder if that feeling comes from working inside of computers all day, which operate on fully quantifiable (oops, misspelled that before) data in a completely deterministic manner.

 

I could certainly see the possibility of the universe as being continuous with the possible positions, velocities, etc. of particles/strings/what have you as being non-discrete.

 

Loop quantum gravity is trying to quantify everything discretely (at least, that's my understanding), and I hope they're onto something with that.

 

I do, but I don't think we'r very likely to find out

 

I don't know about that. I think as soon as the LHC comes online we're going to see some pretty major advances in the area of quantum gravity. I hope anyway.

[573v3]

LHC, is that a reference to that thing they'r constucting down at cern?

 

As for the typo, you just couldn't leave the opportunity to comment on it right

Yes, I copy-paste a lot, whenever possible, It's a way of avoiding mistakes due to my dislexia.