4 ms·

I've been casually considering: what would the universe look like from a photon's point of view, considering that its entire lifespan is - from its own perspect

I've been casually considering: what would the universe look like from a photon's point of view, considering that its entire lifespan is - from its own perspective - instant? Photon views itself as a point, with the totality of everything viewed as a radius from that path. And great insight on God having a very different perspective of time. That's pretty clear in most theologies, but how it's different is never seriously considered. Only change to your point I'd make is: whatever the actual nature of time, a "tweak" (miracle?) may be made & propagate in a much simpler fashion than our perspective perceives it as (ex.: we see "spooky action at a distance", but God sees it as just changing the state of a singleton).

lostmsu 9y ago
In the current theory, photons do not have a frame of reference. "The spooky action at distance" is a media term. In quantum physics it is indeed a "single state". I fail to see why Odin, or any other god you could have meant would "see" Universe's events any differently from physics. Physics by definition is seeking the full description of the Universe. What we argue here is how to interpret that, but that is mostly needed for people, who are too lazy to grok actual equations as they are.
- jerf 9y ago
  "Physics by definition is seeking the full description of the Universe." From the "inside". We can not have an exterior perspective, and the Church-Turing thesis suggests that we will never know what the "outside" looks like because there's any number of possible models and literally zero ability to discriminate them from within the system. The only way to find out would be for someone from the outside to tell us, and even then you can get into some interesting philosophical knots asking how you'd evaluate such a claim, or even be sure it was from the outside. I HAVE HIJACKED JERF'S MESSAGE TO TELL YOU FROM THE OUTSIDE HOW YOUR UNIVERSE WORKS. YOUR UNIVERSE IS A QUANTUM SIMULATION RUNNING ON WHAT TO ME IS ANALOGOUS TO A SMALL BREAD PUDDING WHICH HAS JUST STARTED BAKING, WHICH I INTEND TO CONSUME SOON FROM MY POINT OF VIEW. YOU NEED NOT WORRY, IT'S MANY TRILLIONS OF YEARS IN YOUR PERSONAL VIEW OF THE FUTURE.
  - tylerjwilk00 9y ago
    I agree with your view on this. We can not compute the computation that we are contained within. As for the "internal" vs "external" perspective of this computation, I have found the analogy of a music record a good metaphor for explaining. The entire album is contained staticly on the disc all at once as viewed from the external. However, from an internal point of view as the record needle it exists as a flow of time over the record.
- gowld 9y ago
  "spooky action at distance" is a relativistic term, coined by Einstein.
  - lostmsu 9y ago
    We are well past Einstein at this moment.
- ctdonath 9y ago
  You're failing to differentiate a program from the programmer. You're equating Odin (or whatever) to the operating system, which while superior to other programs is, in essence, just another program. I'm equating Odin (or whatever) to the programmer, who knows far more about the essence & foundations of the system, and even has a debugger capable of stopping the entire system, editing values, and resuming the system as though absolutely nothing happened (save for occurrence of a miracle).

lostmsu 9y ago

In the current theory, photons do not have a frame of reference. "The spooky action at distance" is a media term. In quantum physics it is indeed a "single state". I fail to see why Odin, or any other god you could have meant would "see" Universe's events any differently from physics. Physics by definition is seeking the full description of the Universe. What we argue here is how to interpret that, but that is mostly needed for people, who are too lazy to grok actual equations as they are.

jerf 9y ago
"Physics by definition is seeking the full description of the Universe." From the "inside". We can not have an exterior perspective, and the Church-Turing thesis suggests that we will never know what the "outside" looks like because there's any number of possible models and literally zero ability to discriminate them from within the system. The only way to find out would be for someone from the outside to tell us, and even then you can get into some interesting philosophical knots asking how you'd evaluate such a claim, or even be sure it was from the outside. I HAVE HIJACKED JERF'S MESSAGE TO TELL YOU FROM THE OUTSIDE HOW YOUR UNIVERSE WORKS. YOUR UNIVERSE IS A QUANTUM SIMULATION RUNNING ON WHAT TO ME IS ANALOGOUS TO A SMALL BREAD PUDDING WHICH HAS JUST STARTED BAKING, WHICH I INTEND TO CONSUME SOON FROM MY POINT OF VIEW. YOU NEED NOT WORRY, IT'S MANY TRILLIONS OF YEARS IN YOUR PERSONAL VIEW OF THE FUTURE.
- tylerjwilk00 9y ago
  I agree with your view on this. We can not compute the computation that we are contained within. As for the "internal" vs "external" perspective of this computation, I have found the analogy of a music record a good metaphor for explaining. The entire album is contained staticly on the disc all at once as viewed from the external. However, from an internal point of view as the record needle it exists as a flow of time over the record.
gowld 9y ago
"spooky action at distance" is a relativistic term, coined by Einstein.
- lostmsu 9y ago
  We are well past Einstein at this moment.
ctdonath 9y ago
You're failing to differentiate a program from the programmer. You're equating Odin (or whatever) to the operating system, which while superior to other programs is, in essence, just another program. I'm equating Odin (or whatever) to the programmer, who knows far more about the essence & foundations of the system, and even has a debugger capable of stopping the entire system, editing values, and resuming the system as though absolutely nothing happened (save for occurrence of a miracle).