Time Traversal

Welcome to the forum, dimmack.

Between reading your linked page and watching your video, I am a bit unclear on a few things. The first thing I am unclear of is if your intent is to be scientific, or merely to preach. The end of the video seemed to contain a good bit of the latter, and it seemed as if you were almost saying anyone that questioned what you have presented is simply wrong and will fail. Yet, as it seems you display above average intelligence, I am sure you understand that each person learns and absorbs new ideas presented by others in their own time, and own modes.

If your intent is to be scientific, then perhaps we can engage in some back and forth so I can come to a better understanding of what you are presenting, or possibly claiming. I do understand that you had to go through at least some of the basics of digital representations of visual data for those who might not be familiar with it. Since I am intimately familiar with it, we can dispense that part and get to more meaningful discussions that should help me get to the core of what you are "putting out there".

Deal?
RMT
 
Thanks for the welcome RainmanTime,

It's a deal. I should highlight the fact that I have no wish to present anyone with anything they do not seek themselves, and that certain information in both the document and video is appropriate only to specific people, I apologise for the added confusion but it is necessary. I have always hated the vagueness of anyone who speaks of time or its travel, its requirement of some super distant technology or some other malarky and so I have presented the information in a format that will hopefully be understood by both the scientist and everyday joe. I have no doubt the waters are muddied with this approach but it is the best I can manage.
 
Very good.

So then, help me understand the crux of your proposition:

1) One of the more interesting potential things you might be trying to get across is known under the name The Holographic Principle. What you were trying to convey in your writeup is merely one offshoot of the HP.

2) Are you trying to claim (where you say you don't need a camera) that we can "time travel" just by creating photographs from random (or not so random) sets of pixels? If this is what you are saying, then I would have to respectfully disagree, on many counts. The fact that I could encode a purple, flying dinosaur accepting his PhD in theology from The University of Tehran does not, in fact, mean that such an event happned on our timeline, or any other.

So have I hit on what you are proposing with either of these? I'd be interested and willing to discuss either or both.

RMT
 
It seems more that what's being suggested is that one could obtain a 'genuine' picture of the past.

And indeed one could. Given enough permutations and combinations of pixels, I have no doubt that one could get a picture that would be the exact real life accuracy of Napoleon bonking Josephine or Nero fiddling while Rome burns.

Of course, for every picture that was 'spot on'....there would be billions that were inaccurate.

I'm not clear where time travel comes in. Especially as one has no way of KNOWING which of the billions of possible pics of Napoleon bonking Josephine was actually just like it happened.
 
RainmanTime:
1) Yes holography principles have been incorporated however from my understanding holography is not concerned so much with time (At least not beyond a level for standard video and such) and is more aimed toward providing interaction with a representation of some object/s in a 3D sense. So while yes you may make reference to holography when speaking of VTT, it is only applicable to certain processes.

2) Yes you could encode that image and yes you could argue that though you created this collection of pixels which are accepted as a representation of visible electromagnetic radiation in time, it simply does not exist. I would argue the opposite of course and I could possibly provide proof of this but it raises a few dilemmas two of which are: I could simply create the graphic using any of the image creation tools available, and second the fact there is proof everywhere, watch television, go to the cinema or listen to the radio. If you are really interested I would recommend grabbing a copy of Shannon’ “A Mathematical Theory of Communication”.


Twilight:
That is right Twilight there are most definitely more than billions of combinations, it is for this reason that it is initially shown you could output each of the sets that compose a resolution but the amount of storage space is ludicrous, hence the outlined goals of VTT to traverse a passage of time from an arbitrary point.
 
This concept strikes me as very similar to a million monkeys at a million typewriters. Sure, they'll come up with the Complete Works of Shakespeare. (10 monkeys in 10 minutes can bang out the Twilight series...) But that doesn't make any of the monkeys Wm. Shakespeare.
 
You could indeed use the Shakespearean monkeys as an example; an interesting point though is it requires more code and complexity to be able to produce some literary work of understanding (that is if you worry about grammar and the like) than it does to produce cross-sections of visible light in space-time. Also the last point you make is interesting, I agree it would not be the work of Shakespeare, but the fact remains that the English language is finite, the letters are finite, the words created from those letters, though fluctuating*, are still finite (and may always be) For me it is not that large a leap to assume that eventually every work that can be created using the sanctioned words and meanings and completed in a traditional fashion could be written. It is amazing the amount of self-centeredness in our species, a lot of which comes from encouraged competition no doubt, but it is nonetheless harming. Poor Copernicus trying to convince the world they were not the centre of the universe. What I mean is I find it interesting that you are worried more about attribution of creation than the benefits reaped from that creation; I don’t think Shakespeare wrote his works to be praised and recognised as their progenitor, but to inspire. It is this same thinking that keeps medicine away from the general populace, if it cannot be patented and it cannot turn a profit, who cares?

*Shakespeare apparently had a vocabulary of over 10,000 words, many of which are no longer used.
 
dimmack,

second the fact there is proof everywhere, watch television, go to the cinema or listen to the radio.
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I need to understand why you call any of these "proof", and what, specifically, you are claiming these examples of technologies to be proof of. Clearly, they are not proof of any form of time travel. This is where I fear that you are under the belief that your claims are scientific, but they are much too loose and general. If possible, I'd request that you speak in more specifics. These technologies you list above are proof that information can be codified and transferred from one place to another. The fact that they rely upon knowledge of the concept of entropy (both physical, thermodynamic entropy and information entropy) does not support any sort of proof of time travel, I am afraid.

If you are really interested I would recommend grabbing a copy of Shannon’ “A Mathematical Theory of Communication”.
Click to expand...

Now this is where we are going to have trouble communicating, if you are going to continue to throw out vague references. I would like you to cite, specifically, a piece of Shannon's "magnum opus" that you use to support your claim (and, as noted above, I would really like to hear your words that make your claim specific, because it is all quite confusing and nebulous, and that is not scientific).

This citation of Shannon's work offers a perfect example of why I need you to be specific, and I shall now explain why: I am not only extremely familiar with Shannon's paper/book that you cite, I am intimately familiar with Shannon, himself, and his work and his life. In fact, my father worked with him at Bell Labs on the Nike-Ajax flight control development in the late 40s and early 50's. And my interest and knowledge of Shannon and his work does not even end there! I was even lucky enough to meet the man, not just once, but twice. In 1972, when I was merely a boy of 8 years old, Mr. Shannon and his wife came to dinner at our house in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. Clearly, I was not very scientifically conversant in those days. He was just a friend of my dad's that came over for a dinner party. But later, in 1981, before I headed off to college in Southeren California, I had the pleasure of meeting him again at MIT in Cambridge, Massachussetts. Again, it was another social visit paid by my father at his residence, but this time I was able to have a good chat with him about his work, and the implications of his work to the ever-burgeoning field of artificially intelligent control systems. His work helped encourage me to study systems theory and to eventually become a control systems engineer.

So more specifics, if you please. :D
RMT
 
This is going to take some back and forth I believe but I will try. First I want to make clear that I am not a scientist, I am a programmer first and foremost.

1) I believe we can agree that both still and motion photography of reality is a fair approximation of that reality and may be used to ascertain facts of events in time i.e. speed cameras or the photograph of your father perhaps. These could be termed historical visuals as they are of events in a perceived past. As is stated in the document I linked to in the first post, a video is typically composed of multiple still images or frames which when viewed in succession at some specified rate create the appearance of motion. The still images are themselves segments of light acting/reacting in time, these when combined create a span of visual time or video. As a side, even if we ignore for the moment my claims of a multi-verse to return to a view of a universe with a single timeline, VTT still bares truth. The reason we have family albums and historical documentaries is because we know we can record and then later view some part of the history of the universe. Returning to the images/frames of the video, we know that each image is composed of a finite set of pixels, finite in colour and dimension. We also know that each of these images, if taken of reality, is accepted as a representation of reality at a specific moment. I think it is abundantly clear that a family video of a grandfather or something is a segment of history, it is a visual documentation of that history, and though we may garner more from an image than simply electromagnetic radiation, it does not make it anything more than a representation of a combination of that. I think that is as specific as I can be. A video is a span of light in time, that video is composed of frames each of which embodies light in time. We have the ability to represent light in time using digital devices, using these same devices it is also possible to create these images/sets without the requirement of capturing that light in a traditional fashion.

2) You are a very lucky individual to have met Mr. Shannon; he was a truly brilliant man. As for my pointing out a specific area of support for my claims of Visual Time Traversal, I may have jumped the gun on that as I cannot do so, there is no such writing in his work, there is much which he writes of that is relatable and perhaps some when taken out of his intended context is exact, but specifics no. I would perhaps point out this section of text.

“The significant aspect is that the actual message is one selected from a set of possible messages. The system must be designed to operate for each possible selection, not just the one which will actually be chosen since this is unknown at the time of design.”

Perhaps that will take a little bit of explanation to understand from my point of view. Most people will understand that a digital image comes in a file and that file contains whatever the digital device is to display. Instead of that though perhaps think of the computer as a pool of infinite water, besides which is a near infinite amount of various sized containers which we will think of as images. The container only provides specifics of what it wants, in this case quantity. All information that a digital device is capable of is available as Shannon states “The system must be designed to operate for each possible selection”, the image is simply definition. Anyway my apologies for citing Shannon, instead I would recommend anything on set-math, combinations and anything to do with graphics programming.
 
Twilight:
That is right Twilight there are most definitely more than billions of combinations
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Yes....and I don't doubt that somewhere in those billions is as near as damnit a 100% representation of a real event. BUT, the problem you have is......how do you know which ones correspond to a real event and which ones don't ?

There's a famous photo of Hitler standing at the Seinne, with the Eiffel Tower in the backround. A real picture. One could almost certainly derive that picture through sheer chance arrangement of pixels...especially as it's in black and white. Maybe billions to one odds of getting it, but by no means impossible.

But supposing that picture had not been taken. If you then arrived at that picture via random generation....you'd also arrive at several billion others that were progessively more different from it. If the picture was never taken, you'd have no idea which of these permutations was the REAL event. You could opt for one with a pigeon flying past that was never there in reality.

That's what I see as the biggest hurdle. Sure, you'd have remarkably accurate pictures of the past via such extensive random generation.......but ultimately you'd have no way of knowing which pictures those were.
 
Actually, with a little thought on probability, the odds of recreating the Hitler pic would be way beyond even billions.

Even if we reduce it down to a very basic 256 by 256 pixel requirement, and lets say 10 different shades of white to black and grey in the middle, this means that there are 65536 pixels each requiring the correct shade out of 10 possible shades.

The chances of getting one pixel right are one in 10. For 2 pixels it is one in 10^2.....1 in 100. For 3 it is one in 10^3....1 in 1000....and so on.

So in fact the odds against getting all 65536 pixels correct are 1 in 10^65536......an astronomical number !!

The number of atoms in the entire observable universe is about 10^80......so were are talking billions upon trillions of times more than even that. In fact 10^65536 is SO large that even with a random generator generating a billion pictures a second......you'd only have created about 10^25 pictures in the entire history of the universe so far.....and would need zillions of times longer than that to arrive at the Hitler pic.

In other words.....even in the lifetime of a trillion universes you would be unlikely to arrive at that pic.
 
I'm not talking about stumbling around in the dark, there are definite precise processes that can be utilised, the simplest of which is counting, perhaps a read of the site I posted to begin with is needed.

As for your example I would strip your image to black and white only and double the resolution to 512x512 giving a total of 262144 pixels 2^262144 is approximately Click Here combinations which if taken as bare bit storage would require a few terabytes less than a petabyte harddrive or nearly a thousand terabyte drives to store. Obviously this has inherent problems (output time, sorting time etc) and that is why I am not promoting simple counting as the method to use for visual time traversal, it still however does the job and with hardware requirements as above it would be well worth the several thousand dollars to make it happen.
 
I would actually adjust the required storaged figure more in the direction of a few petas. I'll check the correct figure when I get to my pc.
 
Hiya Dimmack,

You're a java programmer. I am more of a C/C++ man myself. Did some graphics, so know where you are coming from on the whole RGB thing.

Although, I don't understand what you are trying to get at with your post. I dig that the photos are storage of the past (but, then again, any changed item is), but what I don't dig is where the whole time travel fits in.

As you seem to know this better, you are in a good place to explain to me as if I am a simple-minded 5 year old child where the time-travel fits in. Then, using an analogy (like I am some dim-witted student), explain how the time-travel is possible (then once I dig the concept, we can move into the more technical side of things).
 
I'm not talking about stumbling around in the dark, there are definite precise processes that can be utilised, the simplest of which is counting, perhaps a read of the site I posted to begin with is needed.
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Counting what ? I'm still not clear by what process you determine that one picture composed of random pixels is a genuine picture of the past.....and another picture composed of random pixels isn't.

Also.....2^262144 is VASTLY more than a petabyte ( a quadrillion ). A quadrillion is actually a mere 2^50.

In fact, you will find that 2^262144 is not that much different to my original 10^65536......as though you only have one fifth of the pixel colours.....you have 4 times the area in your pic.

All the hard drives in a trillion universes will not hold that much data.
 
First I want to make clear that I am not a scientist
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Holy god in heaven - an original statement from a time traveler, "I'm not a scientist." We've never heard that one before.

Next thing you know he's going to make yet another original statement, "I don't care if you believe me."

/ttiforum/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Twilight,

All the hard drives in a trillion universes will not hold that much data.
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...if you used every subatomic particle as a bit in each of those trillions of universes you wouldn't have 2^264144 bits. The visible universe contains something on the order of 2^315 subatomic particles so a trillion such universes would have, eh, 2^327 subatomic particles.

Relative to 2^264144, 2^327 and zero are approximately equal.
 
...if you used every subatomic particle as a bit in each of those trillions of universes you wouldn't have 2^264144 bits. The visible universe contains something on the order of 2^315 subatomic particles so a trillion such universes would have, eh, 2^327 subatomic particles.
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The staggering numerical sizes involved is only half the problem.

Somewhere in the range of possible pics, is one of Elvis Presley singing a duet with Hillary Clinton on the summit of Olympus Mons on Mars. Am I to believe that just because this system 'could' create such a picture......that this event actually happened ?

For every picture you get that corresponds to something that a real camera might have photographed if actually there, you will get zillions ( in fact a number still larger than the trillion universes ) that show Adolf Hitler marrying Golda Meir, 700 foot dinosaurs eating 10 foot marshmallows while floating on clouds, Ayatolah Khomeini performing as a male stripper at the Moulin Rouge......and so on.

Even leaving out the obvious absurdities, you simply have absolutely no way of knowing what is a genuine 'picture' of the past and what isn't. And there really isn't any criteria that you could go by. You could come up with a perfect picture of me opening a can of beer 15 minutes ago.....except the only person who knows whether I actually DID open a can of beer 15 minutes ago is me. Unless the system is psychic as well, there is simply no way at all that you could determine if it's a real picture.
 
"Counting what ? I'm still not clear by what process you determine that one picture composed of random pixels is a genuine picture of the past.....and another picture composed of random pixels isn't.

Also.....2^262144 is VASTLY more than a petabyte ( a quadrillion ). A quadrillion is actually a mere 2^50.

In fact, you will find that 2^262144 is not that much different to my original 10^65536......as though you only have one fifth of the pixel colours.....you have 4 times the area in your pic.

All the hard drives in a trillion universes will not hold that much data."

1) they are not random.
2) yes it is more than a petabyte, but you still have not read the site I linked to in the original post as you would realise that we would for a start only output half the total combinations as beyond a certain point each further combination is an inverse of a previously output one. There are many other things you can do to improve performance and storage requirements.

Darby,
You are correct I do not care what you think. It is obvious from your reply that you are not even digesting what is written rather rushing to voice your opinion. If you actually read my response and use of 2^ 262144 you would notice that this is 2 to the power of the total pixels of a 512x512 image (262144) giving the total combinations of that set size. Also you use the universe as an example giving its apparent total count of sub-atomic particles as some kind of reasoning as to why I cannot manipulate representations of visible light in combination in time, actually I cannot even be bothered, believe what you will.

Twilight,
Forget all the multi-verse and multiple timeline stuff and just answer me one question, do you believe that the images that have and are yet to be taken of this universe and its single timeline can be represented in a digital system? If so isn’t it obvious you have a version of a time machine you just lack the ability to use it correctly.

I’m going to continue on now and begin to explain some things.

I just wish to clarify that I am not in support of a simple counting system but as that is as far as most people have developed in their understanding of this subject of VTT I will demonstrate some techniques to improve the requirements to output and store visuals.

Early in 2001 I started to delve into image/video compression and have since that time developed many techniques, the first I will outlay here is the foundation upon which all further developments of my own as to processes of compressing data are built.

For this example we will assume we are working in the RGB colour system, this system uses three numerical values with magnitude 0-255 to represent each of the primaries of Red Green and Blue. This colour system is simply radix or base 256, for this reason at this moment we will ignore the visual representation to concentrate on the numerical system underlying it.

Base 2 – Read right to left
…|128|64|32|16|8|4|2|1

Base 10 – Read right to left
…|1000000|100000|10000|1000|100|10|1

Base 256 – Read right to left
…|72057594037927936|281474976710656|1099511627776|4294967296|16777216|65536|256|1

I will just point out something that may not be immediately noticed, each larger base is a form of compression of the bases below it. An example:

1,0,1,0,1,0,1,0,0,0,1,0,0,1,0,1,0,0,0,0,1,1,0,0,1,1,0,1,0,0

To Base 10

713638708

To Base 256

42,137,67,52

The point to note here is that the compression is dependent on the amount of data to compress, for instance in the conversion from base 10 to base 256 there is not as drastic an improvement as there is from base 2 to base 10, however if you were to increase the amount of data to be interpreted to base 256 we would notice a larger change. For instance to represent the base 10 value of 281474976710656 in base 256 would be 1,0,0,0,0,0,0 which interprets as follows

281474976710656|1099511627776|4294967296|16777216|65536|256|1
_____________1_____________0__________0________0_____0___0_0

This knowledge can be used to improve the compression of data required to explain a visual, thus decreasing the amount of storage required. I will cover the details of this shortly but first I want to offer what I would consider to be a fresh perspective as to how an image is understood. It is typically explained that an image is constructed from an array of numerical values each of which may represent wholly or when used in combination a pixel. An example:

{0,255,76,83,196,245} this is a numerical array representing the values of a two pixel RGB image as is shown below.

imagezg.png


My proposition: Rather than interpreting the values of this image as representing the pixels, interpret the total value as an index of an array. This will be easier understood returning to black and white imaging. Below is listed every combination available for a two pixel B&W image.

00
01
10
11

For the moment we will ignore colour tables and pixel indexing and assume these combinations as images would be sent as they are, perhaps they would include a header to identify the file type as well as the width and height of the image and then the pixel colours (Represented here as 0 and 1) So someone might send you the image 01 and it might arrive as such:

HEADER|WIDTH|HEIGHT|0|1

Instead of this system I would instead state that each of these images can be accessed via index.

00 – index = 0
01 – index = 1
10 – index = 2
11 – index = 3

So instead of
HEADER|WIDTH|HEIGHT|0|1
we would have
HEADER|WIDTH|HEIGHT|1

Obviously this does not seem like much of an improvement but remember we are dealing with very low resolution images in this example and the compression ratio will increase as the amount of data does. The next point to note is that we are using radix 10 for the indices; this unfortunately will not work because as we know there are more than billions of indexes and for those who are into programming we know we only have the ability to work with unsigned and signed integers of certain bit sizes (Not including custom types, though they still have restrictions). It is for these reasons we perform some numerical trickery, instead using a larger base that can be interpreted within system to an index of the indicated resolution. I will leave this here and pick it up when I can.
 
Rusty I missed your post my apologies. I am not a java programmer I use many languages including c/c++, the reason I have presented the information on the site in c# is for ease of access for those new to programming as it provides a gentle entrance.

As for how the whole time travel thing fits in, I suppose I would explain it as such: Each image is a cross-section of space time, meaning each image is representative of visible light acting/reacting in time. The resolution we could look at as the frustum (if you do any 3d programming) now as for time, well it is safe to say that a video of "reality" represents a span of time visually, that is the frames of the video represent electromagnetic radition in time and when viewed in sequence we can view the span of visual time it represents.
 
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