michel123456

That's approximatively my point of vue too. With 2 amendments: 1. anything mutualy possible to happen. IOW not wathever "any thing", but "some thing". 2. if there is infinite probability for something to happen, then infinite nothing could never exist in the first place: absolute nothingness is impossible.

Well I speculated about that. When we use meters, we know we are talking about distance. when we use square meters, we know we are talking about surface. And when we use cube meters, we are talking about volume. That's a way of figuring the 3 dimensions of space. When we use seconds, we know we are that talking about time. When we use squared seconds, we know we are talking about ??? Or what? We actually use squared seconds when talking about acceleration: these are meters by squared seconds. It is not imagination, in physics, we use squared seconds. So one could speculate the existence of a second dimension of time. At the condition, I presume, to be always exactly of the same value of the first. But this is wild speculation.

I don't understand where I am wrong. You observe a baseball player hitting a pitch. Point. Maybe after 20 billion years you will observe someone throwing. The cause will appear so far from the result that you call the result "random", because there is no obvious observable cause. What is wrong with that?

I looked the wiki article. Spacetime is an emergent property in LQG. That is what I call a prediction. A premise is something you have put as a working hypothesis, it is the contrary of a prediction. I didn't see that in the wiki link. I saw "spacetime".

I have the feeling that the game would be clearer if we knew the identities of the players. For the moment we have the well-known politicians on one side and ghosts on the other. From time to time a name like G.Soros comes out to feed some conspiration theory, there must be others. But there is always supiscion: why do you want this information? So I ask again, is this a secret? Or is it only a very difficult to get information?

So in some reference frame the measured observation would be that some event happen randomly, without any cause, and some instant later, the cause appears. That does not sound too outrageous. In fact that could explain apparent randomness.

That is far above my head. Are you sure it is a prediction? or a premise?

Thank you for the info. After questionning I googled and found this article. But I never get a very specific answer. All these, American,British, Chinese & others have names & adresses. I guess 99% of U.S. debt is owned by a few hundred names and adresses, not more. And the part owned by americans must give much less identities. Is this secret information? Who are they? ---------------- BTW I googled "carib bnkng ctrs" from your 2nd diagram and got first result about "tax haven". I was really surprised that part of treasury debt was hold by tax evadors.

Really I'd like to know to whom are the U.S. indebted ?

IMHO the mirror test is too human. A dog does not recognize another dog upon its appearence only, but on its smell. I guess a mirror does not smell dog. Maybe Rocky finds that you are particularly stupid to recognize yourself into a mirror.

Yes. You will die. The question is when. Did I won a million dollar?

I don't see space & time as 2 different materials interwoven. To me space & time are not even "made of the same stuff": they are not separable, they are one.

How could one referee make a judgment on the work of over 150 scientists?

I suspect that we are not disagreeing that much. IM Egdall gave a good example, where 2 flashes are simultanate for an observator, and sequenced for another. You can imagine a third observator for which the sequence of events is reversed. IOW the past for some observator can be the future for another. But if one flash is the cause of the other flash, the 2 events cannot be reversed, unless some observator moves at speed faster than light, which is impossible by axiom. In this sense, the sequence from any observator cannot be reversed. Now, you are stating, if I understand correctly, that the sequence is simply an ordering happening in our brain and not a matter of physics. That must be our disagreement. I went through this phase, having for a while the conviction that time simply does not exist. But then, what is this "t" factor you encounter in all the mathematical laws of physics ? You cannot simply erase it and continue explaining the Universe. I have come to the conclusion that Time must correspond to something very physical. To me, Time is not an illusion. I don't believe that "time is moving", I believe that WE are traveling into time. To me, time is a receptacle like space is. In fact a spacetime continuum. But if time were moving, it would be relative to space. Better say space would be a tridimensional manifold translating along a fourth dimension we call time. But that would be wrong IMHO because time is relative.

Correct. Replace the word "subjective" by the word "relative" and most members here will agree on the statement. Here all the discussion should focus on what "exist" means. If you mean what "exists" is determined by what happens into the present, it will be your interpretation. Someone else could argue that all we can observe "exist" only in the past. And someone else could argue that everything in the past present & future exist. These will be based upon 3 different definitions of the word "exist", not about the nature of time. --------------- My understanding of time is the following: 1. Time is not flowing, WE are "moving" in time. 2. each observator is the centre of its own universe, with its own present, past, future. There is no absolute present. 3. Displacement in time follows the same principle as displacement in space: diplacement means that you change position (looks like tautology), you exist at some coordinates and stop existing at another. IOW my own past is not occupied by my presence, I traveled from my past to my present, I changed coordinates in time. 4. I just deleted point 4 fearing entering deep speculation.

I am so glad you ask the question. I live in Greece, a country that has been accused of the worst (economical) crimes lately. Being Belgian, I follow the news in Belgium as well. It is quite remarkable that since Belgium has been warned by Moody's (due to Dexia bankruptcy), Greece is not in the newspapers front page anymore. Now the bad guys are the credit rate agencies: Standard & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch. Indeed, it is frustrating to endure a loan at 5% when yesterday it was 3%, just because someone somewhere decided you are less solvable. Tomorrow, the loan will go up to 7% because you have a sudden difficulty to adapt, after-tomorrow it will be 10%, and in a month or two, 15 or 20%. Before you understand anything, you become totally unsolvable: you are a pig. Just like that, simply going to work as usually, because someone somewhere decided so. It must happen to you to understand the feeling.

Call that eccentricity I love using unusual words.

Space is wrong. Spacetime is correct. Our intuition makes us believe that space alone can exist, but it is wrong. When you look at the distance between your face and your desktop screen, there is not only space in it, there is time also.

It looks like someone interrupted Denise.

Read only the bold. Does that make sense to anybody? I prefer people who fight for a better worldwide environment without the need of a hollywoodian sword of Damocles..

The whole idea looks like trying to extract energy from the rotation of the Earth itself.

Food Lion maybe? I love Belgian beer.

I doubt you will get a straightforward answer. How do you come to such a conclusion ? I see things this way: 1.You can look at an event in the past: if this event took place a year ago, this event must be on light-year away. Otherwise, you cannot observe it. 2. you can observe an event that happened 1 second in the past: this event must be one light-second away (300.000 km away). Otherwise, you cannot observe it. 3. you can observe an event that happened one nanosecond in the past: this event must be one light-nanosecond away from you.(30 cm away) 4. If you want to observe an event that happened zero second in the past, this event is must be next to you. Actually, at t=0, the event is inside you. That is the present. In this view, the present is not something fugace between past and future. The present is a long long you. 5. If you want to look to the future, it is kind of difficult, because you should look inside yourself. I think this view is compatible with established scientific conviction.

You should make the experiment. Take 2 blocks of ice from your refrigerator with your hands and place them touching side by side, they will make a solid block. If you take them out with a spoon, they probaly won't.