Author Topic: Mobi's blog  (Read 28985 times)

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Offline mobius

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Mobi's blog
« on: September 15, 2016, 10:20:57 PM »
warning: Expect much less useful information and a lot more random, sometimes ignorant bull****, compared to Simon's blog. But Once and a while I can think of some useful gems.


today's random pointless rant: Open-faced sandwiches are dumb.

Why was this invented? Seriously. The sandwich was invented so you could eat the thing with your hands without getting messy, hence the two pieces of bread. If you remove one piece you're forced eat it with fork and knife, thus defeating the whole point of the "sandwich". Also why does it seem like every open-faced sandwich is purposely slathered in so much gravy or diarrhea so as to make more of a mess. An open-faced "sandwich" is not a sandwich.
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Offline Colorful Arty

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #1 on: September 16, 2016, 12:36:56 AM »
There is only one open-faced sandwich that is acceptable: French Toast.
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Offline Simon

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #2 on: September 16, 2016, 12:46:07 AM »
We have Brötchen in Germany, large bread rolls that you cut in half. They offer lots of grip, even without the top shell bun. :8():



-- Simon
« Last Edit: September 12, 2021, 06:31:31 PM by Simon »

Offline NaOH

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #3 on: September 16, 2016, 02:14:13 AM »
Why have any bread at all? That only encourages poor decisions. Just remove the bread and suddenly: a delicious salad appears! :lix-grin:

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #4 on: September 16, 2016, 04:48:07 AM »
Hmm, wonder how prone the toppings are to falling off that open-faced Brötchen after multiple bites.

All that said, a pizza is very similar conceptually to the open-faced sandwich.  Usually you can eat a slice with one hand just fine with relatively few mess.  The generous layer of delicious melted cheese holding everything together helps a lot, of course. :P

Offline IchoTolot

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #5 on: September 16, 2016, 09:33:39 AM »
We have Brötchen in Germany, large bread rolls that you cut in half. They offer lots of grip, even without the top shell bun. :8():



-- Simon

This is even better if you just put raw meat + onions on it! It's called "Mettbrötchen" and is a german classic!

Don't trust anyone who doesn't like Mettbrötchen and isn't vegetarian or sth. We even used to do a day where we bought ~ 13 buns + 1 kg "Mett" (raw meat) and some onions back in school and eat all of this in a lesson the teacher was ok with this :laugh:.



Offline mobius

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #6 on: September 25, 2016, 07:03:06 PM »
here's a tiny [poorly made] game I made with Adobe Flash in highschool. :D

Drag the file onto a blank web page and it should work.
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Offline mobius

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #7 on: November 05, 2016, 02:46:04 AM »
Today I discovered my car's break lights work exactly 50% of the time, so I've gotta take that in to get looked at, then I gambled on not working overtime this Saturday in fear I'd be given the job I don't like-- turns out I would've got a good job, then I left my cell phone in someone else's car; who happens to live rather far away.
So my three day weekend is off to a great start...

I doubt I'll be streaming tomorrow but I might just get an opportunity, I just don't know, that's why I can't be definite about it, sorry guys.

I forgot to ask this before but; @Arty since when is French Toast considered an open-face sandwich?

I like that this thread is full of pics of yummy food.
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Offline Colorful Arty

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #8 on: November 05, 2016, 01:53:27 PM »
Well, French Toast is a piece of bread with toppings on it, so it's kind of a sandwich.

Sorry to hear about bad week. Hang in there!
My Youtube channel where I let's play games with family-friendly commentary:
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Offline mobius

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #9 on: November 22, 2016, 11:01:15 PM »
all the time I read people griping about music and things they don't like in the world and all I want to say is: stop complaining and just enjoy what you like. Often on music videos people will gripe about how the crap music and crap TV is popular and main stream. That's because;

1. stupid people like to be loud and get a lot of attention, even if they have nothing to say.
2. greedy companies can easily make more money off of gullible stupid people so peddling the crap they like is better for them then selling "good stuff".

All you need to do is ignore the stuff you don't like. If you don't like it, just don't even think about it. It seems like a waste of time to me, to sit around and bitch about stuff you don't like; just enjoy what you do, and the world will seem better. :)
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Offline mobius

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #10 on: February 23, 2017, 11:34:14 PM »
EVERYTIME I got a vacation this past year; EVERYTIME! something bad happens.

Well over Presidents day weekend I believe I got my first taste of old age, needless to say; I did not care for it.

I was helping a friend move some stuff, a little heavy lifting, nothing really major, nothing I haven't done before. My knee started hurting but it wasn't bad so I soldiered through it, like I've also done before. I went up and down a bunch of steps, which is the only thing I can think of that would've caused this. I went home later and my knee got worse but like any sprained tendon/muscle whatever I thought it would go away within 24 hours (they always have for me before).
The next morning I woke up and could not get out of bed. If I moved my right leg or tried to bend my knee in the slightest I got excruciating pain. I couldn't walk from my bedroom to my bathroom without being afraid I was going to fall over. I went to the doctor the next day when it still wasn't better and he gave me some pills but didn't know what was wrong so I got an X-ray. I haven't gotten the results back yet but it seems to be getting better on it's own. But it's taken... 4 going on 5 days to get better!? :XD:
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Offline Colorful Arty

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #11 on: February 23, 2017, 11:49:29 PM »
Sorry to hear that mobius. :(

I hope you feel better soon.
My Youtube channel where I let's play games with family-friendly commentary:
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Offline mobius

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #12 on: March 04, 2017, 07:52:50 PM »
<<<<important notice>>>> :lem-mindblown:

Drop box is changing their method of sharing files and old accounts (like mine) will stop working sometime soon. I'll work on fixing my links but for a time some of them may be broken. Also some of my older ones I will probably never bother to fix; like pics posted on the forum I'm not going to update.
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Offline mobius

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Re: Mobi's blog on Time Travel paradoxes
« Reply #13 on: March 30, 2017, 11:27:16 PM »
part 1) The Grandfather Paradox

The Grandfather Paradox

This will hopefully be the first installment of a series where I talk about highly philosophical issues which science (currently) cannot understand very well. And I hope to present fun and interesting thought experiments. Discussion and argument is welcome.

I’ll start by discussing what is commonly referred to as the “Grandfather Paradox”. I read a book recently which claims to solve this paradox, but I’m not satisfied with the explanation given, I feel like it’s been “explained away” more than resolved.

For those unaware the Grandfather paradox is essentially as follows:
Assume that you can travel backwards in time. Details about time travel itself or how a time machine might work is not necessary (at least for now).
Go back in time fifty years and murder your grandfather before your father or mother was conceived. This assumedly would result in you yourself also not being born, which also means that you could not have gone back in time to commit the murder of your grandfather, first act of this situation, in the first place. Because I entertain myself with using fancy expressions I’ll refer to events like these as “null-causal event”. Expressed more accurately thus: “Causing and event which directly or indirectly alters the event itself.”

There are many different theoretical solutions to this problem. The simplest of course being “backwards time travel is not possible”, which I admit makes just as much sense at first than any other explanation. And arguments can certainly be made to support (e.g. Where are all the time traveling tourists from the future? etc.). But I’d like to assume that it is possible and most scientific articles I read or experts I see point out that most theories today (including Relativity) while don’t directly explain time travel, don’t do anything to disallow it or disprove it. So I will try to delve into each of these explanations and rationalize them as best I can for them to work. I could keep rambling on but I chose to stop at a certain point for each. If anyone has more ideas please give them.
So the solutions assuming backwards time travel is possible in some form or another;

1. The first is seen in several movies, perhaps most famously in “Back to the Future”.  The solution is that; upon killing your grandfather you vanish from existence. This explanation seems at close examination to be rather silly and raises maybe more questions than it answers. However; I will not discount it entirely and may come back to it later.

2. You cannot alter the past in this way. Backward time travel is possible but certain arbitrary things are not. Like; killing your own grandfather, to be more precise; causing and event which directly or indirectly alters the event itself. At first I can understand this argument. Because of my beliefs on the nature of free will (a topic for another blog post ;)) and determinism and such, I can see this actually working. You may argue that it doesn’t make sense to assume the universe somehow “prevents” you from doing certain events, such as the murder of your grandfather, just because they affect your perception of reality. I assert that all reality and perception is relative (another topic for another blog post) and who’s to say your being prevented from murdering your grandfather isn’t the “magical universe” acting against you but mere chance? Of course chance alone doesn’t seem enough to explain this; if an infinite number of people time traveled and killed their grandfathers chance would dictate that some of them would fail and some would succeed. This line of thought could keep going without really getting anywhere.
But here’s a more important point:
Since all events can be argued to have infinite causes that could be traced back in time infinitely, and let’s assume you’re not a super computer or god who knows what effect every action you take will cause; why should murdering your grandfather be the only thing that alters your future? The very act of talking to him in the past may alter events such to create a null-causal event. If you consider that every action has a consequence, no matter how small doesn’t matter, every action has the *potential* to create a null-causal event. Then it seems to follow that; indeed time traveling at all shouldn’t be allowed. Just stepping foot into the past for a fraction of a second disturbs the future, however slightly.

3. Parallel universes. This was the explanation offered as the “true” solution in the book I read and a couple of shows on TV, offered by scientists that is. Believing in parallel universes means that if you consider every instant of time or every action has an infinite number of outcomes and these outcomes actually happen; at every instance an infinite number of parallel universes split off. These universes somehow exist beside our own though we can’t detect them at present (if this theory is true).
Now to deal with the Grandfather Paradox; If I go back in time and kill my grandfather what I’m actually doing is creating an alternate universe where my grandfather is dead and I don’t exist, and in my present nobody would know me.
I have a gut problem with this solution. First; I would assume that the old timeline (or universe as it were) where my grandfather is still alive and doing well that leads to my birth and this event; is still intact. And from that perspective I haven’t done anything wrong. Also from that perspective; that is, from someone, e.g. a friend of mine, might say I did not time travel but I simply vanished and never returned. A line of reasoning that follows from this is to ask; at what point is the alternate universe created or entered? When I kill my grandfather? Why not the very moment when I arrive in the past? The dilemma in a step by step;

-I time travel and kill my grandfather
-I enter an alternate universe where I do not exist in my present.
-The old timeline still exists with me and my grandfather in it.

-Where exactly was the alternate universe entered or created? If I say it was when I killed my grandfather; this means my present self existed in my own past. We won’t think about the fact that my family could have pictures of this mysterious person in their past, mysterious that is until I was born then shock at the realization that I time traveled and whatever that might entail. Remember the point from #2; every single action has the potential to create a null-causal event; therefore it seems that using this explanation, upon time traveling you may be entering an infinite number of alternate universes constantly. As long as I exist in my own past there is the potential for infinite null-causal events. So If I assert that upon creating a null-causal event I enter an alternate universe it seems impossible or at least highly unlikely that I will ever succeed in getting to the point of killing my actual grandfather [that is; the grandfather from my original time-line. I could still kill “a” grandfather, but it wouldn’t be him, it would be an alternate universe grandfather]. And this seems to take us back to either #2’s argument again or simply “time travel not being possible”.

-If I assert that the moment when I enter the alternate universe immediately or by the act of time traveling; then it’s seems clearly impossible to kill your own grandfather, not only that but impossible to enter own past timeline. Furthermore I can quite easily argue that I have not actually time traveled at all. I merely stepped into or created an alternate universe which is exactly identical to my own, except happens to be fifty years behind mine, to give me the illusion of time travel. I have no problem excepting the alternate universe (or infinite worlds theory, it’s sometimes called). But I feel like this explanation, while totally plausible, is a side point, and doesn’t truly solve the problem or explain how a null-causal event works. Parallel universes may exist; but who’s to say they’re necessary to resolve the grandfather paradox (other than no other better resolution has been offered yet)?

So it seems to me that we haven’t yet truly been able to kill our grandfather and #2’s prospect is getting close to proving itself in a very unexpected or roundabout way. But I still don’t like that explanation :P

I will be working on a fourth explanation soon, for a future blog post. Hope you enjoy. If anything is confusing or not well worded please let me know.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2017, 02:56:24 PM by möbius »
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Offline Simon

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Re: Mobi's blog on Time Travel paradoxes
« Reply #14 on: March 30, 2017, 11:58:05 PM »
The Grandfather Paradox
1. you vanish from existence
2. event which directly or indirectly alters the event itself [is impossible]
3. Parallel universes

Well done rebutting #2. And #1 is action-movie-handwaving over followup questions, e.g., what fills the resulting void?

#3 comes in different flavors. The wording "parallel universes" might imply that the timelines are largely disjoint, and branch off each other at discrete points. Another interpretation allows several dimensions of time, and the discretely-interlocking branches live inside this larger, continuous space.

#3 gut feeling: Be careful what "I" means, then you can answer whether it has time-travelled. You can have several Is. Or you could permanently leave a timeline perfectly fine and nobody will wonder much, because by assumption you allow time-travel.

Primer (2004 movie) is confusing even for multi-thread programmers. :lix-scared:

Temporal bonus level 5 solution (youtube) without infinite flying trick by stacking instances. Game homepage is down, but I'm mirroring it for now: Download Temporal 1.11. Again no physical explanation, but great puzzles.

-- Simon
« Last Edit: March 31, 2017, 12:26:26 AM by Simon »

Offline Colorful Arty

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #15 on: March 31, 2017, 12:03:04 AM »
Time travel is a fascinating subject, one which I personally want to learn more about, as it may eventually wind up in a game I create.

On the subject of time paradoxes, the one which intrigues me the most is what I call The Goron Vase Paradox (I call it such because it is covered in the game Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages). In the game, you give a brisket to a Goron, and he gives you his ancestor's vase as thanks. Link then travels back in time and gives the vase to his ancestor, who in turn passes it down to his descendant, who gives it back to you, etc. The paradox comes into play here: where did the vase originate from?

Let me know your thoughts on this.
My Youtube channel where I let's play games with family-friendly commentary:
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Offline mobius

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #16 on: March 31, 2017, 02:22:16 AM »
I've edited the post to mention the title of book and author; (I highly reccomend despite my comments) 'Paradox' by Jim Al-Khalili.

The Grandfather Paradox
1. you vanish from existence
2. event which directly or indirectly alters the event itself [is impossible]
3. Parallel universes

Well done rebutting #2. And #1 is action-movie-handwaving over followup questions, e.g., what fills the resulting void?

#3 comes in different flavors. The wording "parallel universes" might imply that the timelines are largely disjoint, and branch off each other at discrete points. Another interpretation allows several dimensions of time, and the discretely-interlocking branches live inside this larger, continuous space.

#3 gut feeling: Be careful what "I" means, then you can answer whether it has time-travelled. You can have several Is. Or you could permanently leave a timeline perfectly fine and nobody will wonder much, because by assumption you allow time-travel.

Primer (2004 movie) is confusing even for multi-thread programmers. :lix-scared:

Temporal bonus level 5 solution (youtube) without infinite flying trick by stacking instances. Game homepage is down, but I'm mirroring it for now: Download Temporal 1.11. Again no physical explanation, but great puzzles.

-- Simon
Yes, Gut feelings are hardly scientific but I feel I must mention them because thats what gut feelings do to you; force you to think about them even though they don't feel scientific.
To #3's credit; it is the most thought-provoking I think, and doesn't leave as much wide open speculation as the 1 and 2.

Interesting thoughts and thanks for the info! I will check this game and this movie out!

To really delve into this, I feel like a good argument on exactly what time(+space and/or dimensions) is and how it works is required; which I will do at some point.

Time travel is a fascinating subject, one which I personally want to learn more about, as it may eventually wind up in a game I create.

On the subject of time paradoxes, the one which intrigues me the most is what I call The Goron Vase Paradox (I call it such because it is covered in the game Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages). In the game, you give a brisket to a Goron, and he gives you his ancestor's vase as thanks. Link then travels back in time and gives the vase to his ancestor, who in turn passes it down to his descendant, who gives it back to you, etc. The paradox comes into play here: where did the vase originate from?

Let me know your thoughts on this.

Ah! This is exactly one of the things I was going to discuss in my next post. And excellent example. I call this the null-origin event. My initial gut reactions on this is it simply can't happen. It sounds too absurd and yet; that's what men said about taking the square root of a negative number, lo and behold today this seemingly silly concept has amazing uses in modern society. I'll have some interesting things to say on this too.
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Offline mobius

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #17 on: April 01, 2017, 02:58:55 PM »
I've edited the Grandfather paradox post a little bit to make it a bit cleaner.

part 2 The Goron Vase Paradox

The next paradox to discuss as mentioned by Arty is what I’ll refer to as a null-origin event. This has appeared in several media works like the mentioned Legend of Zelda (possibly other Zelda games too?) and TV shows like LOST (I could write a whole blog on that alone...) although it’s not as well known or understood I think as the Granfather paradox. It’s a very tricky paradox because it seems easily dismissible at first, but upon closer inspection becomes more and more muddled and has some surprising implications about not only time travel but the universe as a whole! I’ve seen this, in a few places, regarded as the same as the Grandfather paradox but I think it is clearly very different (and even harder to wrap your head around).

Consider:
-An old man gives you a watch as a present and says it was handed down to him from his father.
-You get in your time machine and go back one hundred years and find the old man’s father and give the watch to him.
-The father grows older gives it to his son; the son grows old (becomes the old man) and then we come back to your present; and the old man gives the watch to you. Repeat.

The question we are naturally forced to ask is: Where did the watch come from? It appears as the watch has no origin. Also it appears like the watch is living (continuing to exist if you will) for an infinite amount of time somehow within a very finite amount of time.1 I will talk in detail about this in a little bit. But first let’s address the idea of origin.

It is easy to say that this situation is impossible because the watch has no origin. Everything must have an origin right? Well... where did the universe come from? Whether you’re a believer in god or the big bang this question remains fundamentally unanswered. No matter how many explanations I give to you, you can always rebut with; and where did that (or they) come from? Who caused it? What caused it? What happened before? And before that? and before that? etc. Indeed today we can’t answer whether or not the universe is finite or infinite in duration, which means we can’t say whether or not it has/had an origin. And because of a nifty thing in physics called the laws of thermodynamics we *may* go so far as to state that nothing truly has an origin that we know of today. Matter/energy cannot be created with an expenditure of matter/energy. We might consider that whenever anything is “created” whether it’s the statue of David or a star being born nothing is popping into existence; particles are just being re-arranged.
Whether or not the universe or anything has an origin; either answer it seems is just as difficult to comprehend. And it seems to follow that the entire universe itself could be a null-origin event. So asserting that this situation cannot exist in reality simply because it seems silly or that “everything must have an origin” falls short.

Let’s now consider another perplexing thought experiment: What time and date does the watch say when you receive it?

Not as easy as it sounds. First, assume the watch can magically go on ticking forever (assuming it’s incredibly durable and is a wind-up watch this could actually realistically last for quite a long time, but we’re already assuming a lot so bear with me). Let’s say it says the date is October 1990 when you receive it, doesn’t matter if it’s ‘accurate’ here. Now you time travel back and give it to the father. Wait a hundred years; when it comes back to you. What does the watch say now?

-From the watches perspective; it’s aged one hundred years so the date should read; October 2090.
-From your perspective (the original you getting the watch from the old man) it clearly says 1990.

Which one is correct? How can there be two answers? Well there aren’t two answers; there are an infinite number of them; remember the watch will continue to get sent back in time forever and ever, thus every time the watch “meets” you when you think it’s 1990 it’s another one hundred years older. If the watch could keep a record somehow it would have record of meeting you in (what it considers by its own time-keeping scheme is) 1990, 2090, 2190, 2290 etc. Meanwhile from your perspective you still have only “met” the watch one single time; in 1990. Let’s assume you’re a normal person and when you travel to the past to give the watch to the father you either die in the past or return to your present and die eventually later, never causing any null-causal events.

Let me make some important distinctions clear here:

-First of all we don’t need a time keeping device to achieve this. Consider if the object is instead a vase like from the original Zelda example; the vase will still age. So from the vases perspective the first time it meets you it will be intact. The second time, one hundred years later it will be a little deteriorated, the third time, more deteriorated still. Yet from your perspective you have only met it one single time and can possibly only have one very singular image of it in one particular state.

-Now see that this is very different from an object or person time traveling ‘normally’. Example: you the time traveler in this watch experiment. We are asserting that you have an origin. This means that you can travel back to meet yourself in the past and there will be two of you:

Let us assume for the moment that we don’t have to worry about null-causal events2 and parallel universes are either not real or we can’t interact with them. I get in my time machine and go back ten years (I’ll be seventeen years old) Then once ten years go by (I’ll be around forty years old and my past self will be twenty seven) but I will be back to my present; I go back ten years again. I continue this until I die at eighty. What’s happening here?

First of all; let’s acknowledge that I am not considering that I can cheat death simply by time traveling. While I’m moving around in time to everyone else; I myself still age normally. Let us assume that the time travel itself is instantaneous and takes up no time or resources (highly unlikely in practice in my suspicion). Also consider that while I go back the first time, there should be two of me; a seventeen year old version and my “present” (from my present point of view) twenty-seven year old version. Of course from the point of view of the seventeen year old, I’m from the future.
The second time back now there should be three of me, all at the same time and place keep in mind; a seventeen year old, a twenty seven year old and a thirty seven year old. In theory I could keep doing this if I lived forever but an interesting problem occurs:

-I said that the “first” time I went back there should be two of me; the seventeen year old and the twenty-seven year old.
-Then I said that the “second” time I went back now there should be three of me. But wait a minute; if I’m not traversing alternate universes then there’s only one timeline here; one instance where all the multiple “mes” must be together.

So what should I really see?
-Once I turned seventeen; six older versions of myself turn up and stick around for ten years, then five of them disappear (to go time travel) and the
oldest one dies.

Disregarding null-causal events2 I see no obvious paradox here. There is a beginning and an end. Even if I could live forever and if we assume the universe is infinite in size then theoretically I could do this forever and eventually fill up the entire universe with multiple versions of myself.3 Wouldn’t this crowd out everything else and disrupt the timeline of the future (and of my future self?) yes, but this would be a null-causal event which we’ve explicitly ignored from the beginning. I’m looking for a different type of paradox here that could be thought of differently and I don’t find it myself.

Now let’s return to the Goron Vase Paradox. Consider now that it’s a vase or a person, what type of object it is, is immaterial, what’s important is that it will NOT magically live forever. Now we run into an even more troubling problem; what if the vase continues to deteriorate to the point that it breaks? What happens now?
It seems from the ghostly perspective of the now non-existent vase there’s a time line somehow where you are no longer receiving the vase and taking it back in time at all!
Yet logically speaking this is not that different from before; we’re merely again dealing with multiple versions of history from one perspective but only one from another.

Simplifying these two paradoxes we could say:
A null-casual event is two conflicting versions of history in one time-line.
A null-origin event is a conflicting version of history between two related but separate timelines.


FOOTNOTES:

1. Let’s take a look out what I meant earlier by an infinite amount of time within a finite one;
In our watch example; the watch’s timeline extends forever in both directions; past and future. You could theoretically keep tracing it back and forward. The father keeps receiving it and you keep taking it back in time. There is seemingly no logical way to end the cycle in either direction. If we assert that the universe was created at the big bang 14 billion years ago, and will end 14 billion years from now in the so called “big freeze” (where everything gets farther apart and grows too cold and dies and time stops (or something like that)), we’re asserting that the universe and time itself is totally finite. This does not appear to effect  the watch at all; since it’s timeline never extends or gets even close to the beginning or end of the universe it comfortably continues its infinite existence *within a finite amount of time*.

It appears from this that infinity can be ‘contained’. I will make a blog post delving into this and all matters of “infinity” at some point.


2. For this entire article I’ve been pretending that null-causal events aren’t a problem here; but they are. We have perhaps a different kind of one;
If the watch exists and we take it through the cycle once, then it breaks then we can’t take it back. Let’s use the same arguments used in the Grandfather paradox to try and resolve the issue:

1. The watch disappears? History is changed; what exactly does this mean? The history of me taking the watch back is erased? Again this raises more questions than answers.

2. This situation is disallowed. Again chance doesn’t prove anything as an explanation here. And once again at all points in the watch’s timeline does it create the potential for infinite null-causal events. What’s surprising is that this amount of infinite null causal events is somehow larger than the infinite number from the Grandfather paradox. Consider:

In the Grandfather paradox, the moment you set foot into the past; at every instance there are an ∞ potential number of null-causal events. And you could divide your timeline up infinitely (more on this will appear in my post on infinity) to get and ∞ number of instances we have ∞ x ∞ = number of null causal events from attempting to kill your grandfather.

In the Goron Vase Paradox the ‘moment’ the vase or the watch goes back in time there are an ∞ potential number of null-causal events. Again you could divide this amount of time up infinitely and get ∞ x ∞ BUT; because the vase’s timeline is also infinite (unlike yourself in the grandfather paradox) what we really have is ∞ (∞ x ∞) = number of null causal events from the vase simply existing.

Two numbers which are both infinite, yet one is clearly somehow larger. If you are unaware; math actually can prove this possible in theory. (again more on this later)

3. Parallel universes. If we assert that parallel universes can solve this paradox we must ask; at what point is a parallel universe entered? When I time travel? Besides my argument against this in the grandfather post; this doesn’t resolve the issue of the watch still being on an infinite timeline. However if the watch enters an alternate universe it can solve one problem:

The conflicting history. If the watch is entering an alternate universe every time it goes back then it is truly meeting a different “you” every time in 1990, and you can comfortably say you’ve only met the watch once and in one particular state and you’ve experienced no null-causal event. However this explains nothing about the watch having no origin or how it can be infinitely contained within a finite universe.

I could say a lot more on this but I feel compelled to simply remind you that we could just as easily argue that no time travel has taken place here at all; you and the watch are only moving through parallel universes and while you will die, and even if the watch breaks or dies, it's origin cannot be traced.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2017, 03:29:52 PM by möbius »
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Offline mobius

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #18 on: April 10, 2017, 12:54:33 AM »
I was thinking about the null-origin paradox the other day and I think I might be off on the whole ∞ (∞ x ∞) part. Namely, this is inaccurate, but I can't remember why or the details. That's of course assuming any of this makes any sense in the first place.
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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #19 on: April 10, 2017, 03:04:44 AM »
The symbol ∞ may mean different things. Some mathematicians sloppily use it for cardinality (amount, or number of elements in a set) and mean "an infinite cardinal, of which there are many that indeed aren't all equal, but I don't care which".

In your post, you talk about the number of events. The most interesting infinite cardinals are ℵ0 ("aleph-null"), this is the amount of natural numbers, and 20, this is the amount of real numbers. In set theory, the statements ℵ0 + ℵ0 = ℵ0 are perfectly meaningful and true, once you define what + shall mean for cardinals. For any two cardinals a and b of which at least one is infinite, addition and multiplication are simple: a + b = a * b = max(a, b).

Using that simple rule for infinite cardinals, ∞ (∞ x ∞) = ∞ is sloppy (set theorists don't use ∞ to name a cardinal), but OK.

In contrast, here's what ∞ typically means.

∞ as the limit of a sequence is shorthand for "eventually outgrows any real number". The sequence 1, 2, 3, 4, ... doesn't have a limit in the reals, nonetheless it's usual to write limn→∞ n = ∞ and say "the sequence converges to infinity". And −∞ makes sense for sequences eventually staying smaller than any given real. This has nothing to do with cardinality, there is only one ∞ in the context of limits of real numbers.

Occasionally, you see ∞ + ∞ = ∞, or similar statements. That's bad style, and shorthand for the statement "given two sequences an and bn that both converge to infinity, the sequence of sums cn = an + bn converges to infinity." This statement is true. But the notation ∞ + ∞ = ∞ is bad style because it encourages statements like ∞ - ∞ = 0, which have no useful interpretation anymore. 10, 20, 30, ... and 1, 2, 3, ... may both have limit infinity, but 10-1, 20-2, 30-3, ..., certainly doesn't converge to 0.

∞ is a common name for a new point that you add to topological spaces, to create new spaces with interesting properties. You could force the open ends of a line to converge to a new point ∞, the resulting space would be a circle.

-- Simon
« Last Edit: April 10, 2017, 03:19:13 AM by Simon »

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #20 on: April 14, 2017, 11:40:37 PM »
I'm presently writing a new "blog entry" of philosophy, but not about time travel.

Some goals I have:
-Stop wasting too much time watching videos. Videos aren't bad in themselves; they can be entertaining and educational. But I often sit down at the PC and feel too tired to do anything but watch a video or I don't know what else to do so before long an hour is wasted.
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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #21 on: May 23, 2017, 01:40:09 AM »
I'm presently writing a new "blog entry" of philosophy, but not about time travel.

Yeah forget that idea. Philosophy has wasted a lot of my time.

What I'm really interested in, and what I've been reading about for months now is astronomy. Recently, in particular, there is a star known as Boyajian's Star or KIC 8462852 that is big in astronomy right now.

Since the early 90's scientists had solid proof that exoplanets (planets around alien stars, not our own sun) existed. Several years ago a telescope called Kepler was launched to find more exoplanets. It has found over 1,000 possible planets. They determine this by detecting a star's light dimming. When a planet passes by the star it's like casting a shadow and causes a dip in the 'light curve' (a graph plotting the luminosity of light from the star over time).

Normally these dips in the light curve are around 1% of the star's light.
Boyajian's star was found (by citizen scientists*) to have enormous dips of
up to 20%. It's an unprecedented finding and scientists as of yet don't have
a clear explanation.

There are a number of explanations, many involving natural phenomenon,
and some which involve aliens. Here are some of the theories, my
personal favorites:

1) An alien megastrucuter. I actually don't think this is very likely
at all. But the theory is this is a large man-made structure, which in
sci-fi is known as a Dyson sphere or swarm. An incredibly huge structure
larger than a planet that either collects energy from a star or works
as a habitable place for the aliens to live.

2) A large artificial "baffle". This is basically a large object created
purposefully to block star light and let other civilizations like us know
they are there. The objects can be shaped in certain ways to be easy
to indicate that they're artificial.

3) There is in fact no object blocking the starlight; the dimming is
rather being caused by aliens extracting matter/energy from the star
directly. This may support another oddity about the star which isn't
mentioned in the video below; besides the big dips, there is a gradual
dimming which may have been happening for over a century. This is my
favorite theory so far.

The full explanation, told by one of the leaders of the team investigating;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gypAjPp6eps

also a blog I've been following which details this well too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zfmovRwoC8

to summarize my overall thoughts on "aliens": I think it's likely they exist and we're not alone, but finding them is going to be very difficult and maybe more difficult than we think. I don't put very much stock in the whole UFO conspiracy spiel or so called "ancient aliens". But I love exploration and I think we are living at an awesome time in human history where we're just beginning to step foot into the next unknown frontier: outer space.

I will make more posts on this topic and other astronomy topics, as it's one of my favorite subjects.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2017, 01:45:58 AM by möbius »
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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #22 on: June 18, 2017, 11:11:41 PM »
Some half baked forum games I’m trying to come up with (need improvement):

INVASION
goals:
Before beginning number of players are agreed upon. New players cannot join after game begins. There are two “types” of players;
-It’s the job of an infected player to infect other players.
-It’s the goal of ‘normal’ players to survive to the end of the game without being infected; once you’re infected there’s no going back.
-If all infected players are eliminated or all normal players get infected the game ends, the appropriate side winning. In four weeks (approx 1 month) the game will end regardless and whichever side has more wins.
---------------

playing:
-One player is randomly chosen by the quizmaster to be possessed or infected before the game begins.
-As normal players; it’s your job to kill infected people. You may discuss openly who you think is infected and when a majority vote is agreed upon; that person will be killed (eliminated); importantly; regardless of if they’re actually infected or not. Their true status will be revealed after death.
-If a player dies; they can no longer participate by posting in the thread or PMing.
-As infected players; it’s your job to infect other players. You do this by PMing a player directly.
-Each infected player can only infect 1 other (non infected) player.
-If you receive an infection PM; you are infected. Your role is now swapped (whether you like it or not).
-Infected players can post in the topic exactly like any other player.
.......


PIT
(like the actual card game)
Players are given random assortment of goods.
Then trade by posting and announcing what quanity of good (but not the identity of the good) they are willing to give up. First person to post saying they accept that trade gets to trade. They then trade (via PM) and exchange. The seller must give up the quantity (and whatever good he wants) he announced. The buyer must offer up a good of equal quantity. It’s a blind trade and it doesn’t matter if they end up trading the same thing back and forth to each other.
The winner is the first person to assemble a full “hand” or all of their quantity of good.

Example: say there’s a total of 10 bushels of each good. One player starts with 4 chocolate, 5 oil, 1 gold. He wins when he manages to collect 10 gold.


PSYCHIATRIST
One player is the “psychiatrist” and is blind to the rules of the game. Other players agree secretly on the a simple set of rules then the game begins; the psychiatrist’s job is figure out what’s wrong with all the “patients” (other players).

In the off chance we ever try this I won’t mention the standard rule I’ve played when playing this at parties, but it’s usually been fun. The psychiatrist has to be ignorant of the rule.


MOLE
Another mafia like game but different:
Each player is privately given a piece of vital information to a larger puzzle. [Probably a word type of puzzle like descriptions of something which must be guessed].
The group must put their clues together and try to figure out the puzzle.
The catch is; one player is a mole; and his/her job is to sabotage or prevent the puzzle from being solved however they can; by steering them in the wrong direction or giving false information.
-Players may accuse other players of being the mole. If an agreement of at least 2 players can be made to accuse someone; that person will be eliminated; whether or not they’re the mole. If they’re the mole the game ends. If it’s not the mole; the game goes on but that person can no longer participate (either in post or PM)

-If the puzzle is solved the game ends.
-If the time limit is reached (something like a month) and the puzzle hasn’t been solved; the game ends and the mole wins.
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"Not knowing how near the truth is, we seek it far away."
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"I have seen a heap of trouble in my life, and most of it has never come to pass" - Mark Twain


Offline mobius

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #23 on: June 21, 2017, 03:03:19 PM »
Is there a way to get videos on youtube playlists to stop autoplaying? If not there needs to be now.

What I mean is when you're watching a playlist (with the black/grey box on the right) when you get to the end of a video it immediately goes to the next one which means it loads another page.
This is irritating for a number of reasons but most of which are:

1) If I want to comment on a video I usually wait till it's over (for obvious reasons). Well, in this case I can't do that because I'll get sent to the next video so I always have to pause the video very close to the end to write. Sometimes I forget and start writing a comment only to have the page load and my writing is lost.

2) They clearly haven't thought this through because on a pay-per-view video list, the message asking you to pay comes up but you barely have time to click "pay" before the next page loads (and keeps loading in the case of a TV show that's all pay-per-view)


While I'm on the subject: is there a way to hide the recommended videos section?
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Offline Proxima

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #24 on: June 21, 2017, 03:06:03 PM »
Is there a way to get videos on youtube playlists to stop autoplaying? If not there needs to be now.

Not that I know of. It's especially annoying because they used to have this feature, and then they took it away >:(

Offline Simon

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #25 on: June 22, 2017, 06:19:04 AM »
Maybe youtube-dl? Cross-platform command-line tool to download single videos, or download all videos from a given playlist. Then watch the files offline.

I use that on twitch vods sometimes, their web player can't handle saved chat bloat. Downloading 1 GB of video can be the least painful option to watch one minute within. >_>;

Doesn't help though for writing public comments under a video.

-- Simon

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Re: Mobi's blog PC Hardware
« Reply #26 on: June 25, 2017, 11:36:51 PM »
I'm looking for a PC that can handle decent modern 3D games well with out lag or major issues. (but, dumb wishes) also one that won't break my bank account. I usually buy used PCs anyway, and it doesn't have to state of the art.

I was using an HP Pavillion elite with Windows 7/10.
processor: AMD Phenom II.
Video card: ATI Radeon HD 4300/4500 series
RAM: (I think) 8 GB

I never really had any major complaints with these specs except that some heavy intensive games like Dark Souls required me to turn of anti-aliasing or motion blur and such or the game would noticeably slow down.

Are there any video card options that could improve my HP or would it better better or cheaper to get a new PC altogether? Like I said, don't have serious complaints and I don't play a ton of 3D rendering intensive games, but I'd like to be able to play a few now and then without major issue. I'm really only looking to improve my graphics a little bit. Of course if I can get something awesome for cheap I will. I search ebay often.

Also, besides all this I'm curious about PCs in general. What's your favorite/preferred brand of hardware? I've had HP for almost 10 years and before that was a Gateway. So I'm not too familiar with other brands. I know Dell used to be good, not sure how they are now.
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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #27 on: June 28, 2017, 01:46:54 AM »
Some half baked forum games I’m trying to come up with (need improvement):

Invasion: One good strat seems to be to kill random other players. It doesn't matter who we kill, as long as it's not me. And it doesn't matter whether I'm infected or not; my job is to survive until the end, then I'll win no matter what side. Do I win after I'm killed, when other people on my side win?

Pit: This thrives on the wild turn-free shouting in reallife. Excellent game, but I expect this super boring on a forum.

Psychitarist: Seems good on IRC with private messages before the game begins. Seems okay on a forum. Good game in reallife. It's not a competitive game, but rather a group activity: There is only one player, everybody else is a gamemaster.

Mole: Will take long, can work, can't judge. Haven't played.

-- Simon

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #28 on: May 16, 2018, 12:46:22 AM »
I read a book last year called "An Imaginary Tale" by Paul Nahin; who has several books about math and very good if you are into that. He also wrote at least one about time travel (called "How to build a time machine" or something like that) I really want to get.

Now I'm reading "The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth" by John Marco Allegro. A guy who was on the team who found and translated the dead sea scrolls in 1950. It's an interesting take on history and the bible.

Next I want to get a book "Tribe" by Sebastian Junger. I learned of him on this podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iurXFfNriyg
I found his opinions and ideas super smart and very intriguing.  Tribe is about how humans seem to work best in small intimate communities; and the society we live in today (like the suburbs) while luxurious and wealthy are causing stress, anxiety and depression.
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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #29 on: May 19, 2018, 09:43:36 PM »
At the beginning of the scientific revolution of the 20th Century Bible stories and myths across the world were shunned as total fiction and useless to determine historical events. More recently as new scientific evidence comes out they're taking a closer look at old myths, as some are appearing more truthful than we used to think. Personally I think many of them are a mix of accounts of real events witnessed; then passed down for generations before written word existed, with fictional elements thrown in and distortions due to the many years of passing from person to person.
In any case I think it's fun to examine ancient myths and try to put them to a real event that could've happened.


Lately I've been reading about the so called "Apocryphal books of the Bible". In BCE times there was no "bible" as it is today; just a huge collection of separate books. Around 300 AD the Roman Catholics held a meeting known as the Council of Laodicea; where they made the bible official and decided what to include and what not to include in the big book. To some degree or another this is the bible you would find in an American Hotel today. There are actually a large number of ancient biblical books and letters that they left out, of which they considered 'non-canonical'.

The Book of Enoch
This book expands upon an existing story only mentioned briefly in Genesis, and casts light on some things about other parts of the bible. Enoch himself is mentioned several times in the rest of the bible as a descendant of Adam and Seth who lived years before the flood (one of the earliest stories in the bible). And as a rare man who was faithful during a time of sin ("the earth was filled with badness"), lived for over 300 years then possibly went to heaven or entered heaven without dying.

Summary:
The beginning is like a sermon;
-Enoch (assuming himself to be the writer or speaker here) establishes himself as a prophet of God.
-A brief explanation of seasons and astronomy.
-reprimands people (everyone?) as sinning and not appreciating God. Makes a distinct separation between holy and unholy people.

Chapter 7 is where  it begins to get interesting; telling the famous story of the "Fallen Angels"
-This story is mentioned but only briefly in Genesis, right before the Noah's Ark story. It actually appears very similar but like an abridged or compact version, omitting the details.

-A group of angels (200 in total), several "leaders" being mentioned by name (and apparently all male) descend to earth to mate with female humans.
-When these women became pregnant they gave birth to giants who terrorized humans.
[Some versions use other terms like "Nephelim" and some versions elaborate saying there were multiple races, or that the giants had children of their own who were also giants etc]*

In Genesis there is a particular verse referring to these things as "These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown."

The follow parts are not mentioned in Genesis:
-Each named angel goes on to teach something to the people of the earth; "how to make weapons, shields, mirrors, workmanship, paint and use of makeup/fashion, sorcery, astronomy, astrology, divination etc"

"and the world became altered"
"And men, being destroyed, cried out; and their voice reached to heaven."

-Then the good angels in heaven talk with God about what to do about all this. An interesting passage:
"You have seen what Azazyel [one of the fallen angels] has done, how he has taught every species of iniquity upon earth, and has disclosed to the world all the secret things which are done in the heavens."

-God gives on order to punish the fallen angels by throwing them into "an opening in the desert" of darkness.
-God sends Enoch to tell the fallen angels this and reprimand them.
-The angels ask Enoch to ask God to forgive them.
-Enoch has a prophetic dream:

It speaks of clouds and mist, fire and "agitated stars" (multiple times), flashes of light and wind. He flies up to heaven and sees an enormous building made of crystal and vibrating flames. He admits to being terrified and shaking in fear.
During this dream God speaks directly to Enoch and tells him how the bad people/angels will be punished. Then the dream continues and Enoch continues to see strange things.

This is all I've read so far. As unrealistic as all this sounds; I believe most of this can be extrapolated into real history.


-The Giants
It's currently known that many different species of early humans existed; and as we learn more about the evolution of humans we learn it was no straight line from ape to human. There were Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons, homo-sapien etc. More recent evidence suggests some of these subtly different species existed on earth at the same time. Let's assume they even cohabited. Humans were spreading over the earth at this time; many being nomads, partly due to changing climates during this time (especially during the ice age).
It is well proven that human stature during the time of Christ was considerably shorter than us today. Human height increased a great deal during the Middle ages, like the 'Medieval Warm Period'. I don't know all the reasons for this (or if it is known at all) but the sizes and shapes of the various species (Neanderthals etc) were noticeably different from their skeletons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo#Names_and_taxonomy
(scroll down a bit for a picture (I didn't post directly as it's a artist rendition and a semi nude picture))

If a civilization of the smaller humans got visited (or more likely invaded) by the larger civilization; they would've appeared like "giants" to them, even if not to us. And it seems likely the larger group would've dominated the little group, possibly gone to war with them, or used them as slaves. Bother civilizations may not have gone away from the exchange unscathed.
This likely could've happened long before writing existed but possibly oral tradition had started. This tradition was passed down for eons until it became "The Nephilim"

-The Fallen Angels
Not only here but repeatedly in the bible it speaks of angels appearing like humans (or in human form at one point or another). Here it seems revealing that these "angels" taught men all matter of things, intelligent things like how to build weapons and astronomy, and the "secrets of the heavens".
Besides the different species of humans being different in stature they could've been separate in intelligence and technology. This story could simply be an account of two separate ancient human races meeting for the first time and the more advanced one sharing it's technology; and the predictable stress and culture upheaval this would've had.
I don't know if it's known if these different races were compatible with each other but seems okay to assume they were; interbreeding would've just been another memorable part of this story.

-Enoch's dream/vision
Enoch (and characters in the bible as well, similar to this) describes characteristics quite similar to experiences people today describe after taking hallucinogenic drugs like DMT or psylocybin.
These experiences often include; bright colors, geometric shapes, seeing animals or creatures, lighting or strange weather, hearing voices. Having intense emotions; far more powerful then ordinary sober emotions.
The most interesting example to me is the verse:
"So greatly did it excel in all points, in glory, in magnificence, and in magnitude, that it is impossible to describe to you either the splendour or the extent of it."
-Again people who have taken a drug like this say that the altered state of mind is too strange to describe in words to someone who's never tried it themselves. Many cherish the experience as a spiritual thing, even if they weren't spiritual people, the most unique thing they ever experienced.

-Types of fungus and plants containing the drugs necessary to supply this experience (like Acacia) were available in the Mesopotamian area at that time and in fact, the Acacia bush is mentioned many times symbolically in the bible. In fact recent archaeological digs found stone sculptures of mushrooms in some of the most ancient sites ever found.

1) a bit of side commentary; this book reminds me a little bit of Greek and Roman mythology; I wonder if that's part of the reason for it's exclusion.

2) The verse in Genesis "the heros of old, warriors renown" makes it sound like this was an already old legend at the time of writing the bible. Which makes sense as these books were written I think between 1 and 1,000 BC. These interactions with different species would've happened possible 10,000+ years prior.
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Offline mobius

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #30 on: June 15, 2018, 02:50:24 AM »
PHILOSOPHY 407 WITH PROFESSOR(HOBO) MOBIUS

I will get back to the biblical reviews but first I had some other ideas I wanted to lay out;

chance = ignorance

This begins a series (which I probably won't finish) I've been wanting to do for a while explaining my personal philosophies on life. It's kind of necessary to discuss things in a certain order however, starting with the simpler concepts so the more complicated ones can be understood. I may do research but not much (which means I’ll probably do a lot). These are intended to be thought experiments without getting too technical. Some of these things at least at the beginning may seem very simple but it will get more complicated as we go along.

I begin this by making entries each of which will focus on a concept. I explain my stance on these concepts and how I think they relate to us as humans or human society and separately to the physical universe. A few terms I will be using (possibly abusing but I don’t care);
immaterial: means lacking relevance or importance; not made of matter, not physically real.
abstract: for the purpose of this blog, an “abstract” is a creation of the human mind. It’s a word or set of phrases with meaning, but it’s more than that; it describes and relates to many layers and structures in the mind. Abstracts however have no meaning what-so-ever without a human in the picture. A quick example is the word “tree”. Trees exist without people there to see them, but the word itself means nothing to the tree without humans. Trees don’t talk like us; trees have been around for thousands of years before we started speaking “tree” and likely could exist for thousands more if we disappeared.

Today I will attempt to define a deceptively simple concept: Chance and randomness.  What is it?

If you roll an ordinary 6 sided die; what is the outcome? Is it random?

You'd probably say definitively: "yes"

But let's look at it more closely;
You may say "I don't know the outcome" or its "one of 6 possible outcomes." We can calculate with probability a more detailed answer. But we cannot say with certainty what the outcome will be. So, the statement “I don’t know” still holds true. It is still uncertain, even if uncertain within a limited boundary. We call this outcome "random".
But what if we could know?
What if we could calculate exactly how the die will roll and where it will land? If we knew or could somehow predict the exact motions of your arm, the die, the table it rolls on etc... it's conceivable that we could know what the outcome would be with every roll. Whether or not this is realistic is immaterial. The point is that: in this exercise; I can know with exact certainty the outcome 
Would you call this random?
Since you know what the answer is going to be, we say no. Because there is a pattern, or there is "order".

Take now the example of computer games and programs; when programming a game where you want a random element (like dice rolling). Since the computer programmer is dictating in a very direct and precise manner how this game works (inherently this is how programming works for the most part); they necessarily calculate everything with 100% (or as close as they can to that) accuracy. It's (as far as I know atm) impossible to create a 'true' random program, hence the name 'pseudo-random'. What is usually created is an algorithm with a huge number of 'seeds' which generate many different patterns so complex an ordinary person cannot predict them on their own.
Another simpler way of getting this randomness is to simply remove yourself from the deciding process. Example: pick up a menu and pick a food item at random. What do you usually do? Close your eyes and put your finger down on a random spot. You've eliminated your vision so your hand was less guided. If you couldn’t limit your senses you’d have a very difficult time *not* making a conscious decision and feeling honest with yourself as calling it random.
So, going back to the original question: what is randomness?
It appears that if we have answers, have knowledge and can predict or understand outcomes, we don't call it random. If we lack knowledge or understanding or simply remove ourselves from understanding the whole picture; the result is we don't know how the outcome was arrived at, thus we call this outcome random or chance.
Thus in my opinion, chance and ignorance are essentially one and the same. Randomness is an abstract; a mental construct we use to 'explain away' our ignorance of the matter at hand. Randomness is immaterial to the universe.
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Offline Simon

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #31 on: June 15, 2018, 03:20:57 AM »
For game programming, pseudorandomness with seeded algorithm is unpredictable enough.

If security matters, you can buy stronger randomness. Random.org takes it from atmospheric noise (weather measurements) and even better would be atomic decay, that's as random as you can get.

Quote
It appears that if we have answers, have knowledge and can predict or understand outcomes, we don't call it random. If we lack knowledge or understanding or simply remove ourselves from understanding the whole picture; the result is we don't know how the outcome was arrived at, thus we call this outcome random or chance.

Who is "we"? Many say that atomic decay is random. Some say that Downward Reduction is random, but I claim that learning some principles gives a huge edge on Downward Reduction.

-- Simon
« Last Edit: June 15, 2018, 03:32:37 AM by Simon »

Offline mobius

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #32 on: December 20, 2018, 01:39:50 AM »
Sorry I forget to respond to this way back;
For game programming, pseudo randomness with seeded algorithm is unpredictable enough.

If security matters, you can buy stronger randomness. Random.org takes it from atmospheric noise (weather measurements) and even better would be atomic decay, that's as random as you can get.

Quote
It appears that if we have answers, have knowledge and can predict or understand outcomes, we don't call it random. If we lack knowledge or understanding or simply remove ourselves from understanding the whole picture; the result is we don't know how the outcome was arrived at, thus we call this outcome random or chance.

Who is "we"? Many say that atomic decay is random. Some say that Downward Reduction is random, but I claim that learning some principles gives a huge edge on Downward Reduction.

-- Simon

"we" is everyone https://www.dictionary.com/browse/chance?s=t
for our purposes (our very limited lives) pseudo-randomness is of course good enough. I argue in light of the truth (the truth I'm arrogantly asserting) there is only pseudo-randomness or 'fate'. Fate in this sense; by my definition is just an act that is normal and we understand why it happened, and how and everything about it (at least that matters for the game we're playing).

Downward Reduction is not random. First there is skill then different strategies which cause unexpected behavior; but then highly unexpected things may happen due to lag, which is another form of "chance"; that is we cannot predict it accurately at present, but in theory we could.
So in a summary; it can be thought of as pseudo-random. :P

I don't really like discussing this issue at length as it really seems like some people either 'get it' or they don't. There's no in between or arguing that seems very useful. There's a truth that I became aware of at some point in my life; and since then I cannot unlearn it. It's not an opinion or a belief. It's a deeply embedded truth. But what is truth? I don't know :D

Anyway just for the record;
I believe that chance, purpose, free will, choice, control, progress, and more are all concepts that exist only in our minds. They serve a purpose and are 'real' in the sense that they exist in our society. But our society itself is only a thing of the mind. The deeper question that really gets to the point and to interesting territory is;

What is the mind?

The road to answer that question is, I assure you, far stranger than you can imagine. I'll make a blog post on this eventually. ;)

--------

On time, part 3.
https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=2910.msg63579#msg63579

Since reading a lot about various things have enlightened me a bit on this topic; I'd like to return to it. If you're really interested I highly recommend the book "Time Machines" by Paul Nahin.

I haven't changed my opinion on my # 1 or 3 explanations. But in my #2 explanation; I now believe this explanation is not so silly or impossible.

The main problem/confusion is the difference between affecting the past and altering it. You can conceivably travel backward in time and affect things (maybe you build one of the great pyramids), but you didn't change anything. You build the pyramid; you always did, there always was a pyramid. There are no 'multiple timelines' here.* There is just one timeline, with you going back to the past and affecting it. So nothing is 'changing'. Everything is as everyone would've remembered.
For our purposes in real life; this means that either nobody's ever time traveled in history; or we aren't able to tell that it's happened.
(possible explination for building of the pyramids and other impressive ancient structures?) If you want to read more on that; I recomend looking into things like the Roman Temple of Jupiter or the 'stone of the pregnant woman'.

 An excellent example is the movie 12 Monkeys.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

*I feel like the invocation of multiple time lines brings in the multiple universe theory again. Which as I stated in my ealier post; I find nothing wrong with; just that it doesn't really explain the difficulties with time travel itself.]

This all also suggests (perhaps demands) a different view of time. Somewhere I think I said that it feels like we don't have the brain capacity to really understand this; or require a new way of thinking in order to. I may have recently gained a very different view point, just the type which can explain this. But it is not easy to articulate into words.


Part 4; with thoughts and questions on the nature of time and consciousness itself coming soon.
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Offline nin10doadict

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #33 on: December 20, 2018, 06:45:26 PM »
There's basically two big views of time travel: Either you can go to the past and mess with things and it changes the present/future, or you can't because the present is already a result of the stuff you messed with in the past.
Either way can make for some good stories.

As for whether time travel will ever become a reality, I doubt it. I don't think we were designed to be dealing with such things. Or maybe it already is possible and nobody knows because the present is a result of all the time travelers messing with the past? :devil:

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #34 on: December 20, 2018, 07:42:32 PM »
If you believe there can be multiple parallel timelines, it could also be that whenever you try to travel into the past, you inevitably always end up in a different parallel timeline than the one you originated from.  In which case from your POV you could change the past to change your present/future in that destination timeline, but from POV of everyone else in your original timeline, you simply disappeared when you time traveled.

Looking at it from a more practical standpoint:
  - A lot of theoretical time travel device based on current knowledge of physics, tends to be that you can't actually any further into the past than the moment the device first became operational.  This at least limits the kinds of paradoxes you could run into.  (It would also neatly answer the question "if time traveling into the past is possible, why haven't we observed any such time travelers yet?")
  - It may be very difficult to control the location in space you end up in.  Consider that the earth and solar system is in constant motion around the galactic center, which in turn also moves relative to other galaxies in the local supercluster, plus the fact that the universe itself is also expanding (and apparently accelerating in the rate of expansion), the fact is that if you want to time travel into the past but still stay somewhere on earth, you might also have to actually travel quite some distance in space, since where you were in the past is actually quite some distance away from where you were in the present due to all that motion.
  - And of course, we don't really know what the energy requirements are for doing time travel, and more generally the finance requirements.  It's rather hard to justify a trip to the past if it costs the entire world's total GDP to do so, or if it requires consuming so much fuel for energy that there's none left for the world to survive!  On the flip side, it could mean that time traveling may possibly only be feasible on a small scale like sending tiny bits of subatomic particles, rather than entire humans for example.

Offline mobius

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #35 on: December 27, 2018, 01:39:00 AM »
As I'm still reading this book "Time Machines" I'm learning new interesting things constantly and feel inadequate to make a blog about this quite yet. In the meantime;
here's another interesting topic.

The Omnipotence Problem

I first heard this on TV, probably a Science show like "Through the Wormhole" or the like. I've read the argument in different ways and this is a simplified version of it.

Consider the thought experiment:

Let's say we want (and are somehow able) to build a super computer and we want to make it omnipotent. As in; it knows everything, from the beginning of the universe to the end. Every detail of every atom, event in time etc, everything.

Assume it's 'brain' will work at least in some fashion similar to our computers today; that is; data is written to some sort of disc or object that must take up physical space in the universe. Never mind that this space is incredibly small, by even decades old computer standards data on a disc is tiny. That point is that it is finite. If this is the case; then building this omnipotent super computer is impossible.

Here's why:
First there is the fact that the universe may be infinite. And if it is; then this computer must also be infinite in size in order that it's brain containing the data be large enough to hold all the data, meaning it would fill up the universe. This could lead to some interesting arguments but we can ignore this really, because there is another reason this is impossible, even if the universe is not infinite;
-In order for the computer to be able to contain data on everything; in must also contain data on itself.
-Every piece of data that is information on itself; is added material to itself; which it in turn must have information on; if it will be truly omnipotent. Therefore you must add more material to store that data, which is must know about so you must add more, and so on. An infinite recursion. Meaning you could never achieve true omnipotence.

A possible argument against this:
After one iteration of this (storing data on the data recursion) doesn't it become redundant? I guess the question comes down to: Is it safe to assume that from that point on it will always be identical therefore you can 'cheat' and forgo storing that data?
The question also comes down to the difference between power and omnipotence. Obviously a super computer of this nature will be extremely powerful; but everything is relative. The interesting take away point is that truly, honestly knowing everything, at least in this way, is impossible.
« Last Edit: October 13, 2019, 01:26:45 AM by mobius »
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Offline mobius

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #36 on: January 01, 2019, 07:13:40 PM »
I've managed keep up a steady routine of exercising and meditating everyday after work for several weeks now. IT feels good to have a routine; that builds discipline. But what good does it do if the habits themselves don't do anything else for you? Exercising and meditation both take months-years to make noticeable changes in you.

So many intense and draining things happened in 2018. When I looked in the mirror recently I thought I suddenly looked noticeably older. Maybe that was just my imagination though.

I spent near 400$ on upgrading my PC and after figuring everything out it may take several more weeks yet till I have a working PC up and running.

My new years resolution is that I'm not going to spend any money on games, books, movies or any media until I've read/used at least 50% of the stuff I already have which I haven't looked at yet.
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Offline mobius

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #37 on: January 05, 2019, 03:52:53 PM »
mobius On Time part 1

Think of two events in the past year in your life. Which came first? Now ask yourself how do you know which came first. The answer may seem obvious "I just know". But I'll bet the only reason you know is because you're comparing the two memories. If you have nothing to compare it to; it becomes difficult.

Think of some examples; for myself; I recently was looking at my phone and at a text message I sent to a friend. I was shocked when I saw that the date of the text was almost a year ago. It was fresh in my mind; before seeing the date I was thinking I had sent that... maybe a few months ago? Surely not that long ago. But now I know; now it's there, cemented in my mind. And any illusion that it was a few months ago is gone. But when I reflect on the event itself it still feels fresh in my mind. When I really think about it; I don't feel any kind of obvious  chronological identifier that goes with these or any memories. Every time I'm thinking about the past the only way I have of ordering events is to compare multiple events. And it is possible to mix them up and confuse ourselves very easily. Especially as people get older and our memories get "poorer".
Don't people often say things like "Feels like she was just born yesterday... now she's ten years old."
I've had arguments with my parents about this; they asserted that my sister got married after this other person moved into town. I swore it was the other way around. After looking at pictures the truth was rectified.

I think most will agree with this at least: the brightest memories are often not the most recent. The memories that are best recalled are the most important or emotional. Most of you reading this probably don't remember what you ate for lunch a week from today. (Unless you eat the same thing everyday, in which case you may not really remember; you're just coming to a logical conclusion ;) ) But you may remember what you ate for lunch on the first day of school or at your's or some relatives wedding.

My point is that is seems to me like our sense of past is not very stable at all, even though people like to say it is. We tend to think of time and life as being very linear and simple, past to present to future. But the closer you look at the universe it is not so linear, not so simple. What makes up your past is not just your memories either but emotional and logical patterns/habits and customs you garner as you live. A person can be injured and lose their entire memory of even who they themselves are (amnesia) yet still function like a normal person (more or less).

The other minor thing I want to discuss briefly here is memory of dreams. According to a neurologist I listened to they think during sleep the chemical that is responsible for making stable memories is not being produced; hence why we rarely are able to remember our dreams, or they are quickly forgotten. The dream state seems to be focused on pumping out imagery and feelings but not on logic and memory.

Yet have you ever been doing something during the day and suddenly the memory of a long distant dream comes up? This suggests to me that the actual data memory of that dream was always there (never lost) but the access to it or ability to recall it was lost until found again. This happens with real life memories as well; suggesting that we may always contain all memory of everything that has ever happened to us but not necessarily the ability to recall it on demand. Which makes sense when you think about it; memory of everything without exclusion in theory could take up a lot of brain power and leave no room for other activity. It would make doing simple everyday tasks difficult; having to parse through everything just to find the important things. Indeed this is in simple terms what autism is. People like the famous 'Kim Peak' who have incredible memory (supposedly of every book he's ever read) have trouble socially and taking care of themselves in society without help.

Next class we will discuss the various theories of the concept of time, time travel and the passage of time versus the opposing so called 'block universe' theory.
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Offline Simon

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #38 on: February 04, 2019, 07:28:27 AM »
Judging time of a memory: Very nice observation and examples, thanks.

I believe this problem comes from a substitution fallacy, i.e., from replacing the hard question
A: When did X happen?
with the easier question
B: How intense is the memory of X?
...then answering B, but wording that answer as if it were an answer to A, then believing in this reworded position and even defending it in an argument.

With memories, you often can rectify by relating X and Y each to a third memory Z, and then making two logical arguments why X must come before Z and why Z must come before Y. If you're lucky to find such a Z.

More examples of substitution of questions:

Parent want to buy something nice for their kid, and they realize that the kid likes computer games, and thus decide to buy a computer game. But instead of buying game X that makes the kid happiest, the parents buy game Y because the parents imagine (kid playing X happily) and (kid playing Y happily), then the parents decide that the parents will be happier themselves watching the kid play Y happily. Even at the risk of never seeing the kid happy with Y.

People are familiar with the spawn interval expressed as release rate -- which even holds water in an argument -- but then assert that the release rate is also simpler than the raw spawn interval. This is especially surprising when the same people correctly assess simplicity elsewhere, e.g., that it's bad to have two values of release rate to mean the same spawn interval, despite familiarity.

-- Simon
« Last Edit: February 04, 2019, 07:34:16 AM by Simon »

Offline mobius

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #39 on: November 08, 2019, 01:46:09 AM »
Graham's number

Let’s have some fun with really big numbers.
Suppose you took the four vertices of a square. It may be obvious but important that we're dealing with two dimensions so it has four vertices (2^2). Draw lines connecting all possible pairs of every vertex; you'll find there are 6 in total (four on the 'outside' and two diagonals).

Now you can draw each of the 6 lines one of two colors (red or blue in my example). And there are a bunch of different combinations you can have there. You could draw many of these square representing each combination. See example A.

So what? Well there are some interesting configurations you could create... but not with this square; we need more dimensions. A three dimensional cube has 8 vertices. And now there are 28 possible line segments. Now color each line one of two colors same as before.

The whole point of this exercise is to avoid the following configuration:
A square (contained somewhere within this cube) with all 6 vertices the same color. See example B.

In three dimensions (a cube) it is possible to avoid this. Is it avoidable in larger dimensions? There is the 'four dimensional cube' or a Tesseract. See the below picture (Which I believe is correct but keep in mind only a representation). Here there are 120 different line connections. How many different ways can you color these?

A simple calculation but a not so simple answer: 2^120= 1,329,227,995,784,915,872,903,807,060,280,344,576

Already a number that's difficult to express by computers. To put this number into perspective here's a list of some 'ordinary numbers'

one thousand = 1,000
one million = 1,000,000
billion = 1,000,000,000
trillion = 1,000,000,000,000
quadrillion = 1,000,000,000,000,000
quintillion = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000
sextillion = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
septillion = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
octillion = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Astronomers by the way, estimate the number of stars in the known universe is around 70 sextiliion...
The above number is larger than all of these. But back to the problem; the question is can you avoid a flat (in a plane) square of all connected vertices with the same color within the tesseract? The answer is yes. It is known that it's avoidable in fact in 5 dimensions, all the way up to 12. So is it always avoidable?
The answer is no.
If the dimension is large enough you cannot avoid this configuration.

Let's take 13 dimensions. In a 13 dimensional cube you'd have 8192 vertices.
8192*8191/2 = 33,550,336 line segments. So possible configurations of red/blue lines in this example would be 2 to the power of 33,550,336... A number that most computers cannot compute. The answer to 13 is not presently known. But the point at which it must happen that it cannot be avoided, that is, the upper bound, is known; Graham's number.

How big is Graham's number? It's pretty big. So big that a different type of notation must be used to help describe it. Arrow notation describes powers of powers. Here’s how it works:

3↑3 means 3 to the 3rd power (3 cubed) = 27
3↑↑3 means 3 to the power of three, to the power of three (in other words 3 to the 27 power) = 7,625,597,484,987. Every new arrow adds another exponent on top of the exponent, a tower of exponents so to speak.

So what is 3↑↑↑3? Simple; we already know two arrows mean 7 trillion, so this means 3 to the power of 7 trillion. What number is that? Well the answer contains 3.6 trillion digits. So I can’t write it here. There is no specific name for this number or any numbers in this realm for that matter. This kind of number cannot even be written accurately in scientific notation (x*10^n). Already this is a number that is not really comprehendible by humans because we have no point of reference for such numbers. We’re used to dealing with single and double digits in our lives. We may even struggle with mere triple digits. And 3↑↑↑3 isn’t even close to the realm of Graham’s number.

Now take 3↑↑↑↑3. Once again we can skip steps because we already know that this essentially means 3 to the power of ((3↑↑↑3)a 3.6 trillion digit number). So this number has many, many, many times more digits than the previous 3.6 trillion digit number. For every single arrow added to this operation it puts you in a whole other world of size so to speak. And every arrow raises it by a degree far greater than the previous increase. And still, we’re not even in the ballpark of Graham’s number.

3↑↑↑↑3 represents the number of arrows in between another pair of threes. This gives you another number of even greater earth shattering epicenes. Remember just 3↑↑↑3 is a number that cannot be written down. The number we’re looking at is gotten to by doing an operation of 3 followed by a number of arrows equal to (3↑↑↑↑3) So; insane orders of magnitude greater than 3↑↑↑↑3. This is by the way far greater than a googol or a googolplex.

The answer to that then gives you another ridiculous number. This then is the number of arrows to use in the next step, between another pair of threes. Repeat this process 64 times. This is Graham’s number.

This number is so large that (based on current knowledge) there is not room in the finite universe to store the number via digital data nor time in the universe’s lifetime to write it out. In other words there are more particles in the known universe than digits in this number.

Amazingly while most of the actual digits are unknown the last several are (…….195387); because any power of three’s final digits are very predictable.

Even getting to Graham’s number is mind-boggling. Of course it’s nothing compared to infinity. But that’s a topic for another entry. What’s your favorite gigantic number?
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Offline mobius

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #40 on: February 29, 2020, 07:30:48 PM »
I've been LPing Nessy's levelpack on youtube. Been on a bit of a break lately but I'll get back to it eventually.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpVIVPo7Jak&t=108s
everything by me: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5982.msg96035#msg96035

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Offline WillLem

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #41 on: March 01, 2020, 12:35:13 PM »
Even getting to Graham’s number is mind-boggling. Of course it’s nothing compared to infinity. But that’s a topic for another entry. What’s your favorite gigantic number?

I love the Googolplex: a 1 followed by a Googol zeroes! A Googol is a 1 followed by a hundred zeroes, which can be written thus:

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

With a Googolplex, there are less particles in the universe than there are 0s following the 1; like Graham's number, you couldn't write it down or even store it in a computer. It's smaller than Graham's number though.

Speaking of infinity, I've learned in recent years that there are different types of infinity, and whilst they are labelled in all sorts of ways, the two that make the most sense to me are these:

Divergent Infinity - an infinite series in which the individual elements have a finite limit. For example:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9... (a finite difference of 1 between each number)

2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16... (a finite difference of 2 between each number)

1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15... (a finite difference of 2 between each number)

Convergent Infinity - an infinite series in which the individual elements have an undefined limit which tends towards zero or infinity. For example:

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21... (each number is the previous two added together, providing differences between each number which tend towards infinity)

0.1, 0.01, 0.001, 0.0001, 0.00001, 0.000001... (the difference between the numbers in this series gets infinitely smaller, tending towards zero)

0.1, 0.11, 0.111, 0.1111, 0.11111, 0.111111... (the difference between the numbers in this series gets infinitely larger, tending towards infinity)

It helps to explain why there is an infinite series of whole numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9...) but there is also and infinite number of subdivisions between each whole number (0.1, 0.11, 0.111, 0.1111, 0.11111...)

A thought I've always found interesting is: where do you start counting between 0 and 1?

0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001? Well, why not

0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001?

0.(0 recurring) is one of my favourite infinite numbers, for this reason. It never even starts counting towards 1, it just exists in all its glory as a divergently infinite number.
« Last Edit: March 02, 2020, 12:17:08 AM by WillLem »

Offline Proxima

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #42 on: March 01, 2020, 05:59:39 PM »
Convergent Infinity - an infinite series in which the individual elements have an undefined limit which tends towards zero or infinity. For example:

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21... (each number is the previous two added together, providing differences between each number which tend towards infinity)

0.1, 0.01, 0.001, 0.0001, 0.00001, 0.000001... (the numbers in this series get infinitely smaller, tending towards zero)

0.1, 0.11, 0.111, 0.1111, 0.11111, 0.111111... (the numbers in this series get infinitely larger, tending towards infinity)

Hmm, I think you've misunderstood something here. The last sequence you mention converges to a limit of 0.1(recurring) = 1/9. Every number in the sequence is larger than the last, but no number in the sequence exceeds 1/9, although they get as close to it as you like -- this is the precise mathematical definition of a limit.

We say that a series is divergent (or tends to infinity) if it does not converge to a limit. The Fibonacci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13...) is an example: given any positive integer n, there is a Fibonacci number greater than n.

Offline mobius

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #43 on: March 01, 2020, 06:45:17 PM »
On the topic of infinity;

Cantor's Diagonal Argument which I've finally understood :D

There are different kinds of infinity. And as paradoxical as it sounds some are bigger than others.

There is countable infinity. These are all numbers that can be listed;

whole numbers; 1,2,3... integers; 0, 1, -1, 2, -2.... even fractions and decimals; 1/1, 1/2, 1/3...

even though some of these lists may seem larger than others (e.g. the list of integers at first appears like it must be twice as large as whole numbers remember that both are infinite in size; thus in that sense at least; they're the same.

but all real numbers cannot actually be listed like this. Real numbers include "everything" (considered by mathematicians today) integers, fractions, irrational numbers, transcendental numbers (pi and e...) And there is proof of this:

Begin by listing numbers arbitrarily;

0.12137195...
0.22114366...
0.31100212...
0.00176143...

Now we're going to make a number by taking numbers from this above list by taking a diagonal line through the list.

0.12137195...
0.22114366...
0.31100212...
0.00176143...

0.1217...

Now according to the rules of this concept the above number should actually appear in the list somewhere even if we haven't written it down yet. Remember this list is infinite.
But now we're going to make a new number by making up a rule and applying it to the number we made diagonally;

for every 1 we change it to a 2 and anything else is changed to a 1. So our new number would be;

0.2121...

Now the crazy part to consider is that this above number does not appear on the list. Think about it; it cannot, you can compare it to every number (even though this theoretical list is infinite). It's not the first number because it's different in the first digit, nor the second number because it's different in that digit and so on. We've purposefully changed every digit of this diagonally created number and thus have changed exactly one digit in every single number in the list.
Therefore you cannot list this number in this way so it is classified as a whole other type of infinity.
everything by me: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5982.msg96035#msg96035

"Not knowing how near the truth is, we seek it far away."
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"I have seen a heap of trouble in my life, and most of it has never come to pass" - Mark Twain


Offline WillLem

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #44 on: March 01, 2020, 07:03:29 PM »
Convergent Infinity - an infinite series in which the individual elements have an undefined limit which tends towards zero or infinity. For example:

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21... (each number is the previous two added together, providing differences between each number which tend towards infinity)

0.1, 0.01, 0.001, 0.0001, 0.00001, 0.000001... (the numbers in this series get infinitely smaller, tending towards zero)

0.1, 0.11, 0.111, 0.1111, 0.11111, 0.111111... (the numbers in this series get infinitely larger, tending towards infinity)

Hmm, I think you've misunderstood something here. The last sequence you mention converges to a limit of 0.1(recurring) = 1/9. Every number in the sequence is larger than the last, but no number in the sequence exceeds 1/9, although they get as close to it as you like -- this is the precise mathematical definition of a limit.

We say that a series is divergent (or tends to infinity) if it does not converge to a limit. The Fibonacci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13...) is an example: given any positive integer n, there is a Fibonacci number greater than n.

I know what you mean. I think the misunderstanding here is that I'm saying the difference between the numbers in the series tends towards infinity. The series itself, as you've quite rightly pointed out, converges to a limit of 0.(1 recurring).

It's probably something in my generally non-mathematical way of understanding mathematics that's caused me to word it in a slightly confusing way! :P

EDIT: I've now edited my original post to be a bit clearer.
« Last Edit: March 02, 2020, 12:16:33 AM by WillLem »

Offline WillLem

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #45 on: March 02, 2020, 10:03:23 PM »
Also, if you're into numbers, check out Lemmings Recurring. ;P

Offline mobius

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #46 on: September 14, 2021, 11:50:52 PM »
my last blog post was about Cantor's Diagonal Argument (still a topic that boggles my mind :D ). That was in March of 2020. Before the pandemic really started around here.

A lot has happened since then. I haven't played with my band since then or done some of the things I used to. And that honestly hurts a lot. The pandemic didn't bother me too much emotionally at first. But if I'm honest it's really starting to get to me now. I miss hanging out with friends, some that I no longer have. I've actually almost gone really crazy a few times, getting pretty close this past summer of 2021.

I was laid off from my job last summer of 2020 for just a month but it was very uncertain at the time, very stressful. Now work's tougher than ever and they're hiring new people during a covid outbreak at my job. One co-worker is currently in the hospital. (Because nobody follows guidelines here). I've had a to do a lot of filling in for other people which can be very unpleasant at my job. I keep putting off looking/getting prepared to get another job; school/training etc. I really should. I always wanted to learn to weld for example; that sort of job pays really well...

Looking to buy a house for almost a year; total dud. Not a buyer's market, at all. Finding an apartment to rent is even difficult now. This has me depressed.

Struggling with changes/realizations about myself big time. Some days it's no big deal and things seem fine. Other days not so much. Like I said above, feel like teetering on the edge of sanity sometimes, it's not great. Really not sure where life is going to take me at this point tbh. Thought my life was going to be pretty boring but idk now...
everything by me: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5982.msg96035#msg96035

"Not knowing how near the truth is, we seek it far away."
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"I have seen a heap of trouble in my life, and most of it has never come to pass" - Mark Twain


Offline mobius

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #47 on: October 28, 2021, 09:48:59 PM »
I like Simon's goal oriented blogs and kept procrastinating setting my own. Well I finally did.

-Cut down on coffee. I started drinking every single day for a while now and I think it's turning my teeth brown (and makes me jittery from time to time which I really don't like). Started a week or so ago and is going pretty well I think. I would rather drink only every other day.

-Exercise. I started to do push-ups and sit-ups every other day. [Isn't that how it's supposed to work? Every other day; not every day cause your muscles need to heal? Or am I mixing that up?]. I start out small like always and try to work upwards from there; doing more every time. I don't think I ever got past doing 20 at a time. I always seem to get discouraged because after a few weeks or months of that I don't see any noticeable difference, no big strong muscles...

Finally got back into music creation, slowly but surely and trying new things. I've been experimenting with FamiTracker http://www.famitracker.com/
everything by me: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5982.msg96035#msg96035

"Not knowing how near the truth is, we seek it far away."
-Hakuin Ekaku

"I have seen a heap of trouble in my life, and most of it has never come to pass" - Mark Twain


Offline Simon

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #48 on: October 30, 2021, 04:35:29 PM »
Very good. Keep daily notes of the pushups, that is the best proof of benefit. The muscle will still build, but it's rarely noticeable on the outside. Pushups aren't full-time bodybuilding.

Yours truly hefty walrus is still at 87 kg, the same weight we started with. Assuming this trend of ±0 continues, muchos penuncias will hail onto the LF hosting account.



PDF: An Editor Recalls Some Hopeless Papers by Wilfrid Hodges.

He reviews attempted rebuttals of Cantor's diagonalization proof that there is no surjection from the naturals onto the reals. His view is mostly that of a logician, therefore some parts get technical, although sometimes it's also the view of a psychologist.

-- Simon

Offline mobius

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Re: Mobi's blog
« Reply #49 on: January 25, 2023, 01:42:07 AM »
another goal which I've been very slow and rocky to get going; spend less time on social media:

-everyday I'd come home from work to "relax" by spending sometime just browsing internet communities. Made me feel surrounded by people and less lonely, get news, read interesting things, laugh at funny stuff etc. Seems like this would be a good thing. But in the end not all that much. Especially the past few years it often leaves me frustrated and depressed. Maybe I'm just not a good people person. In any case, my goal now is to come home and instead of spending time on social media focus on doing at least one creative thing. Sit down at an instrument/write/making custom content.

The effect was definitive and immediate: I feel better. At the cost of being a little bit more lonely I feel like my time is better spent, more productive and fewer frustration. I never used twitter; but I'm guessing this is kind of the angle most people I've heard complain about that program had.

-Exercise; I still do almost every day, though I've kept it at a 10-20 reps, no more. Frankly I don't really have the time to do more. I care less about big muscles and more about just being healthy.

-Started working on a new lemmings pack a long time ago and it stalled many times. Might still get somewhere but I don't have the motivation to work on that the way I used to.
everything by me: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5982.msg96035#msg96035

"Not knowing how near the truth is, we seek it far away."
-Hakuin Ekaku

"I have seen a heap of trouble in my life, and most of it has never come to pass" - Mark Twain