3 ms·

Our understanding of physics has been broken for 100% of humanity's history. We've greatly increased the amount of things that can be done, but I wouldn't be s

Our understanding of physics has been broken for 100% of humanity's history. We've greatly increased the amount of things that can be done, but I wouldn't be so confident about the things that can't be done.

godelski 4y ago
> Our understanding of physics has been broken for 100% of humanity's history. I'll let Asimov speak on this because he says it better than I can. But this is not even remotely accurate. We've become less wrong over time. https://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html https://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html
- literalAardvark 4y ago
  Thanks, I'll read it. I was quite precise in my wording and didn't say what you are responding to. My opinion (and it's just that, I'm unprepared to defend it) is that we've always been [less and less] wrong on everything. And since we can't know what the boundaries of knowledge are, and it could easily be some insane unbounded fractal existence, it seems rash to me to decide that we know enough to say that there can't exist civilizations whose technology is magic to us.
  - the6threplicant 4y ago
    A lot of things would be demonstratively broken if Special Relativity is wrong.
    - literalAardvark 4y ago
      It doesn't need to be too wrong, just incomplete. Much like Newton's laws. See my comment in the sibling subthread.
  - godelski 4y ago
    Problem is that this technology breaks our understanding of causality. So it isn't a "less wrong" type of situation so much as we have to rewrite everything. Specifically it means things that happen in the future can affect things in the past (communication past the light cone). The discoveries of quantum and relativity didn't break classical mechanics so much as extend it. But to rewrite how a sequence of events happens, well that's a big fundamental change. The light from my flashlight turning on at t=1 does not force me to press the button to turn it on at t=0.
    - literalAardvark 4y ago
      The first hit on Google, from a reputable site, suggests that this isn't proven to be impossible to solve by adapting the current frameworks, as we've done before. It's unsettled science, which is imo working as expected: https://www.sciencealert.com/study-shows-how-the-universe-would-look-if-you-broke-the-speed-of-light-and-its-weird https://www.sciencealert.com/study-shows-how-the-universe-wo...
    - naasking 4y ago
      > Specifically it means things that happen in the future can affect things in the past (communication past the light cone). Sure, and that's not a problem so as long as self-consistency is preserved. > But to rewrite how a sequence of events happens, well that's a big fundamental change. Depends how you look at it. There are retrocausal explanations of quantum mechanics, for instance.
      - godelski 4y ago
        > Sure, and that's not a problem so as long as self-consistency is preserved. You break the lightcone... > Depends how you look at it. There are retrocausal explanations of quantum mechanics, for instance. Let me save people the time, there's critiques at the bottom but there is no actual evidence for retrocausal explanations: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-retrocausality/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-retrocausality/
        4y ago

godelski 4y ago

> Our understanding of physics has been broken for 100% of humanity's history. I'll let Asimov speak on this because he says it better than I can. But this is not even remotely accurate. We've become less wrong over time. https://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html https://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html

literalAardvark 4y ago
Thanks, I'll read it. I was quite precise in my wording and didn't say what you are responding to. My opinion (and it's just that, I'm unprepared to defend it) is that we've always been [less and less] wrong on everything. And since we can't know what the boundaries of knowledge are, and it could easily be some insane unbounded fractal existence, it seems rash to me to decide that we know enough to say that there can't exist civilizations whose technology is magic to us.
- the6threplicant 4y ago
  A lot of things would be demonstratively broken if Special Relativity is wrong.
  - literalAardvark 4y ago
    It doesn't need to be too wrong, just incomplete. Much like Newton's laws. See my comment in the sibling subthread.
- godelski 4y ago
  Problem is that this technology breaks our understanding of causality. So it isn't a "less wrong" type of situation so much as we have to rewrite everything. Specifically it means things that happen in the future can affect things in the past (communication past the light cone). The discoveries of quantum and relativity didn't break classical mechanics so much as extend it. But to rewrite how a sequence of events happens, well that's a big fundamental change. The light from my flashlight turning on at t=1 does not force me to press the button to turn it on at t=0.
  - literalAardvark 4y ago
    The first hit on Google, from a reputable site, suggests that this isn't proven to be impossible to solve by adapting the current frameworks, as we've done before. It's unsettled science, which is imo working as expected: https://www.sciencealert.com/study-shows-how-the-universe-would-look-if-you-broke-the-speed-of-light-and-its-weird https://www.sciencealert.com/study-shows-how-the-universe-wo...
  - naasking 4y ago
    > Specifically it means things that happen in the future can affect things in the past (communication past the light cone). Sure, and that's not a problem so as long as self-consistency is preserved. > But to rewrite how a sequence of events happens, well that's a big fundamental change. Depends how you look at it. There are retrocausal explanations of quantum mechanics, for instance.
    - godelski 4y ago
      > Sure, and that's not a problem so as long as self-consistency is preserved. You break the lightcone... > Depends how you look at it. There are retrocausal explanations of quantum mechanics, for instance. Let me save people the time, there's critiques at the bottom but there is no actual evidence for retrocausal explanations: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-retrocausality/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-retrocausality/
      - 4y ago