SamBridge

not sure what you mean by actual cause, the term arrow of time is simply a descriptive of entropy change to measure time. pretty much an analogy. Time itself is not controlled by entropy. Time also doesn't control entropy. The two are unrelated. The arrow of time is simply a model of time like a clock or measuring a second via beta reactions. Change in entropy follows the ideal gas laws in cosmology in the same principles as a gas in a tank.

 

Time being a measure of rate of change of events. its value as a vector only means it has a forward or backward mathematical relation. In the real universe outside of mathematics time can only flow one direction forwards. No process can reverse time.

 

Or another similar usage the use of the Hubble flow aka scale factor in cosmological time. In this case we use the expansion history as our clock. However that does not mean that if the universe is contracting time is running backwards..

Sounds to me that your under a misunderstanding of a multimedia misconception.

 

I recommend you study what entropy really is..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy

 

a key note is that entropy is a function of state

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Function_of_state

 

now I particularly want you to read this article, as it describes how a decrease in entropy is performed and its relations

http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/p670/textbook/Chap_6.pdf

 

now after you read how to decrease the entropy in a tank, does it make sense to say time flowed backward in that tank? while time flows normally outside of it?? Now apply that same scenario to your contracting universe.

I don't know that you understand "cause." Not cause as in "because," cause as in "this moves here, hitting that thing, causing it to move here," what is the reason for time's arrow exists at all in the first place? Why isn't time just stopped?

This is simply not true

Well, except that it kind of is. These large dinosaurs we're talking about here aren't the slow ones you see in Jurassic Park (which got anatomical aspects of dinosaurs wrong), those Brontosaurus were fast, which takes enormous amounts of energy. Dinosaurs were not "hot blooded" as you think mammals are. They had a higher temperature at their size not due to being like mammals, but due to their Giganothermy. Dinosaurs as you might know are descended directly from reptiles, which are cold blooded, but were able to grow so big and keep a high Metabolism, not because they were hot-blooded as modern mammals, but because they were "luke-warm" blooded, and their body temperature as adults was regulated not by the enzymatic reactions of mammals, but by their sheer size resulting from their Cascade Evolution, achievable only if the dinosaurs were able to initially take in energy from their environment just as reptiles did.

Suppose someone decided of their own free-will, not to go to the bathroom. Their bladder and bowels would eventually reach bursting point, explode, and cause death.

Doesn't matter, they chose not to move their body to the physical location where a bathroom is, and free-will only has domain over what people can agree they have control over. If someone can't control it at all, then it has no part in considering free-will.

Sorry, what? Red? Blue? Left, right? These are abstractions. According to your previous question, they don't actually exist. We cannot speak of them, since they are immaterial.

The word itself doesn't exist as anything more than electrical pulses, but the thing they are used to describe can exist in the same exact manner that mathematics itself doesn't physically exist at all, but things like motion and forces still exist. Mathematics is merely an abstract language to try and describe measurements. Unless you're saying measurements don't exist...

Yeah I mean I already know that entropy is used in the arrow of time, but how about an actual "cause"?

Perhaps the question whether we have complete "free-will", can be answered thus - we all have to "go to the bathroom", as the admirably courteous Americans politely put it.

 

The process is disgusting. Would we actually choose to do such a thing, if we had free-will?

What you're describing is entirely different. You're describing an automatic process that no one would agree they had control over. They don't have control over whether or not the feeling arises, but they have control over when/where they go go to the bathroom. In fact they can get sick from choosing to not do it. If someone can choose light themselves on fire and sit still while burning to ashes even though they can't control the process of combustion, I think someone can control when/where they go to the bathroom.

 

 

I'm sure you can think of plenty more examples.

Imagining something doesn't magically make it exist.

I'm sorry, Sam, I still don't understand your point or points, in relation to either my post or the thread topic.

You don't have to, because questions are just questions, not necessarily points. Just answer the questions.

 

 

Sauropods would have nothing to fear from the fauna in this era, but I wonder if the flora, of today, would be suitable for their digestive system; if not they would quickly starve.

The larger ones wouldn't.

 

Again maths provides us with ways of measuring. It is not usual to describe a circle by the emthod of envelopes, but it can be done.

And math itself isn't physical, nor the universe itself, it is simply a tool for approximating.

I'm seeing a lot of 'I think," but what about some "I know"? I think this article http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/ gives a good overview of the different sides of issue and how they are combined. We have this http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computational-mind/ but also have

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_superposition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

Obviously, we can identify patterns, but just as obviously, they are not 100% predictable, and the future doesn't even exist. So the answer is somewhere in the middle.

But the film shows it obviously moving against the background. It does have a slight look of separation from the background as though it was added but I can't be sure, it is an odd looking object for sure.

No you're somewhat right, I've done photograph clouds before and I have seen lens-like clouds that are isolated with no mountains around on multiple occasions. But, I can tell they are not UFOs because I can see them dissipate over local lakes, sometimes enough to fade away mostly and stretch out. Isolated lenticular clouds can sometimes form from waves of air movement itself in a powerful gust picks up a slab of moisture like a pileus cumulonimbus effect as opposed to mountains, but only very rarely, about as rare as kelvin helmholtz clouds.

Although he may be somewhat untastefully abrupt, he has a point. Some small airplanes can maneuver very easily and are often closer to the ground in a small enough radius to go from one close end to another. Otherwise the only other thing that could simultaneously emit light and accelerate that fast in 3D space in so many different directions is ball-lightning or a really small remote control device with strong lights.

You guys are arguing with your instincts, not your intellects.

 

In ordinary English we can identify non material nouns ie separate out some quality from an object eg roundness or hardness.

 

In science or maths we can be more specific about these and even develop ways of quantifying these non material nouns.

 

Reality includes both material and non material nouns. Neither type is more real than the other.

 

In fact as soon as you have a single material noun, that you can declare to be 'real', I can find a non material property it possesses which must therefore be as real as the object itself.

But, how do you measure something that's "immaterial"? And since can't measure it, then how do you know it exists?

 

They grew that big because of predation and there's no reason to think the predators stopped growing.

As I said before, mammals cannot simultaneously that grow large and be as mobile as dinosaurs, their metabolism would be too high, that's why the biggest they really get on land is elephants. Elephants still get eaten by lions and tigers occasionally, but they just can't evolve to be much bigger, so instead they travel in groups.

 

 

The TV show was just the spark for the idea, why is that such a bad thing?

It's not, just don't use it to create the whole fire. Get some scientific wood and rational matches.

 

This misses the point completely.

Except that it actually doesn't because we can imagine a scenario without a TV show that still follows patterns we scientifically measure. A TV show won't do that, but we can, we can adjust the parameters to what makes sense in our own minds, without a TV show, based on scientific knowledge.

I think Homo Sapiens might have a few weapons at their disposal that could take care of them.

Read post #6.

If something isn't real, how is it being measured?

What he said...?

In one episode a huge flock of pterosaurs came though, this what made me start this train of thought. Obviously one T-rex isn't going to reproduce so any damage he might do would be limited.

 

To Primeval's credit the creatures that come though are often just annoying rather than dangerous, If it was US based every incursion would be a T-rex.

 

I think that modern mammals would give a good account of themselves over time. Lions could certainly kill small dinosaurs and babies of larger ones.

 

I think the dinosaurs egg laying would be their Achilles heel, one sauropod gravid with eggs would simply lay them and walk away, a passing honey badger would make short work of them.

 

A Kodiak bear is quite formidable as a predator, it would be interesting to see how one would handle a moderately sized predatory dino...

 

I'm not sure but I think I read where some dinosaurs were pack hunters as well.

I would not recommend using some pop-culture TV show as the basis for any scientific venture.

Was Newton wrong because he didn't thoroughly explain gravity? I don't think so. Same thing with Einstein. Sorry, but I don't think one person can do it all.

No they were actually wrong, it's just that they had good models for the data of the time period which was later found to not model everything.

universe and sequentialize it observationally, then there's no need for math.

How would you define where you pinpointed everything without math?

You're talking about quantum computing right? Or are you talking about the brain?

I'm talking about a relation to both. You can't apply one system to every other system in the universe, it just doesn't work, there will always be places where the approximations diverge.

You do have a point, but it is somewhat predicted that mammals even such as primates would hardly be around if dinosaurs were still around. That said, do you think a bear is more powerful than a group of 2-3 velociraptors? Do you think any known mammal is going to mess with a herd or even a single brontosaurus? Animals like lions and tigers would be the ones to challenge dinosaurs but only the ones around their size and up to the size of an elephant, and frankly land mammals can't evolve to be as big and mobile as larger dinosaurs because their metabolism would be too high. But if dinosaurs were still around, we don't really know what mammals would still be here anyway, except for maybe ground mammals.