Starling
02-09-2004, 03:20 PM
I wrote this speculation awhile back, and was inspired, by the thread on teleportation, to drop it here. Enjoy.
The 2 ingredients for a time machine
(Ancient scene reconstruction, not full-out time travel.)
should both be microscopic records somehow written on subatomic particles. (Pure speculation on my part.) One record would be an identifying name or number unique to each subatomic particle. I mention name because I feel it's pretty unlikely that it's a simple sequential number like from industrial manufacture of a product. It may be more like 3 numbers that plot where the particle was in space at the big bang, seared into it from the force involved. The other ingredient would be a sequential record of where else the particle has been since it was born.
If those records are there, like subatomic DNA, then "all we have to do" is assemble a computer and some kind of actuator that can tap into that record, look up the time in question with enough detail, and assemble the appropriate atoms or a picture based on a point in time and a lump of matter as a reference point. The actuator has to attract the relevant atoms back into the scene as they were however many millions of years ago, and / or it has to seek out more relevant atoms in order to read their record.
Think of it this way: The lump we want to recompose is a triceratops dinosaur. Why? Because we have its fossilized skeleton, and that is a good forensic lump of reference point to start with. The triceratops was attacked by a T Rex all those years ago, and mostly munched on. The T Rex carried much of the soft tissue away in his stomach, and can cover quite a range in a day. But don't worry. Smaller scavengers and the elements of the weather got the rest, but likely that stuff will be dropped nearer by. A map of that triceratops' distributed body would show a few sizeable lumps far away, but mostly a cloud of presence centered on his skeleton. Most of the little varmints that scavenged after T Rex would have lived and died close to where triceratops met his end. And the weather would have soaked part of him into the soil in a plume within 50 feet.
Here's the real kicker, about computers that we already have: We can take the mere pixelly scraps of triceratops in the immediate vicinity and rerender, reexpand them into a whole skin. Especially if T Rex doesn't care for skin too much. Plus if we can home in on an exact time that the triceratops was last standing, we could trace that lungful of air and that could lead us to other related atoms. Basically it would be a synergy of proximal atomic leads. Naturally, it would be a hell of a lot easier to build up a snapshot, or even a fuzzy, translucent video of Trixie's last stand, than it would be to bring him back in the flesh. If we couldn't attract enough atoms, he'd be swisscheesed and would fall apart or be very ill. The effect would be freakish at best, not to mention any attendant ethical problems.
I mean there are 2 meaningful degrees of time reenactment here. The lesser is just to scan the environment enough to read enough of a record to get photo or video. The greater is to actually get the molecules back together as a 3D reunion of functioning Triceratops. Now, why wouldn't we just read their record for the 3D thing and just create some sort of 3D sculpture controlled at the microscopic level? I think because that would actually be much harder. I imagine a lot of difficulty with trying to manage even 3D pixels as large as 1/8 inch cube, and have it not be worth it in the end. How do we make it realistic to the touch? How do we manage the insane computing power required for real-time 3D pixels with meaningful resolution? At least with the atom seeking work, we have as much time as we need to set up the scene, and even rehearse it. It should be easier to do adequate computing work setting up the ancient scene, and let the genuine molecules just play it out exactly as they would have millions of years ago. Of course there are attendant problems. It might be quite easy to convene atoms to make a few square feet of environment look right, and it might even be reasonable to get enough atoms together for Trixie's body to function well. But what of the brain? It wouldn't do to have Trixie just immediately keel over, or go on an insane rampage through the audience in search of a china shop. Science doesn't yet know enough about the brain and its particular folds of order and serendipity to predict how that would work. Would one compromised brain cell throw off the timing of the whole clockwork? Or are thoughts, memories, instincts actually maintained as a distributed network, as vaguely different copies shared in slightly different proportions all over the brain? I tend to think less the former, more the latter. Which is good news for resurrecting Trixie.
Basically, we would have to work on reassembling Trixie from 2 angles, or a combo of them: A) We'd have to detect really far atoms and drive them back to the display area, and B) We'd have to read in finer detail the atoms record of who was connected to who as part of Trixie. Fun!
BTW, I can't say that I actually believe (yet) in time travel. This whole scenario is purely about reenacting a different time on select pieces of matter. Actual time travel is a whole different thing. Based on observations of electrons, observed arguably individually, scientists think they have peeked into the presence of parallel universes. I don't know if that means we could learn to shunt over to another at some point, nor do I know if that has a bearing on time travel.
A footnote on thinking as a distributed network: I've heard stories in the past about horrible brain injuries where the patient suffers almost no ill effects in the long term. If the injury missed enough critical areas or is not in the form of a direct hit on any one structure, it seems the brain automatically reallocates the task and talent. Indeed, it does it for other reasons, that are less known. Physiologists know more about trauma response because it demands attention medically. But there have been studies showing that there is a part of the brain generally reserved for your currently used language. If it's not your first language, it's because it gradually packed and moved your first language over to a secondary structure. If you go back to everyday use of your first language, then it moves it back to the primary spot. Note that when scientists say that a structure houses a brain function, it's that it mainly does. If you are speaking, there are impulses flashing all the heck over your brain. But there is a structure for speech, where your impulses are especially concentrated. That is the organic nature of boundaries in a network. There are separate entities, but they are connected; interwoven.
And also on interwoven information stuff: That's how DNA will be found to behave. When they find genes that perform a given function, it's that mainly that gene performs mainly that function. It doesn't do it in a vacuum. It has had to evolve into its role along with other genes, and that gene might have earned its reputation by paying dues in primitive species. Oh yeah, it is that deep.
On organic computers: A guy named Jarod Lanier (title among other titles: information philosopher) said in a magazine once that the entire world can be seen as a humongous organic computer chugging away at calculating the world's ongoing outcome, and doing it in real time. Or so bogged down doing it that that's why it hasn't figured it out yet. That made me think. And that's why if we can invest enough computing power just to get the atoms there, Trixie herself can be the real-time, animated, "virtual" (or just plain real) 3D model of a triceratops.
The 2 ingredients for a time machine
(Ancient scene reconstruction, not full-out time travel.)
should both be microscopic records somehow written on subatomic particles. (Pure speculation on my part.) One record would be an identifying name or number unique to each subatomic particle. I mention name because I feel it's pretty unlikely that it's a simple sequential number like from industrial manufacture of a product. It may be more like 3 numbers that plot where the particle was in space at the big bang, seared into it from the force involved. The other ingredient would be a sequential record of where else the particle has been since it was born.
If those records are there, like subatomic DNA, then "all we have to do" is assemble a computer and some kind of actuator that can tap into that record, look up the time in question with enough detail, and assemble the appropriate atoms or a picture based on a point in time and a lump of matter as a reference point. The actuator has to attract the relevant atoms back into the scene as they were however many millions of years ago, and / or it has to seek out more relevant atoms in order to read their record.
Think of it this way: The lump we want to recompose is a triceratops dinosaur. Why? Because we have its fossilized skeleton, and that is a good forensic lump of reference point to start with. The triceratops was attacked by a T Rex all those years ago, and mostly munched on. The T Rex carried much of the soft tissue away in his stomach, and can cover quite a range in a day. But don't worry. Smaller scavengers and the elements of the weather got the rest, but likely that stuff will be dropped nearer by. A map of that triceratops' distributed body would show a few sizeable lumps far away, but mostly a cloud of presence centered on his skeleton. Most of the little varmints that scavenged after T Rex would have lived and died close to where triceratops met his end. And the weather would have soaked part of him into the soil in a plume within 50 feet.
Here's the real kicker, about computers that we already have: We can take the mere pixelly scraps of triceratops in the immediate vicinity and rerender, reexpand them into a whole skin. Especially if T Rex doesn't care for skin too much. Plus if we can home in on an exact time that the triceratops was last standing, we could trace that lungful of air and that could lead us to other related atoms. Basically it would be a synergy of proximal atomic leads. Naturally, it would be a hell of a lot easier to build up a snapshot, or even a fuzzy, translucent video of Trixie's last stand, than it would be to bring him back in the flesh. If we couldn't attract enough atoms, he'd be swisscheesed and would fall apart or be very ill. The effect would be freakish at best, not to mention any attendant ethical problems.
I mean there are 2 meaningful degrees of time reenactment here. The lesser is just to scan the environment enough to read enough of a record to get photo or video. The greater is to actually get the molecules back together as a 3D reunion of functioning Triceratops. Now, why wouldn't we just read their record for the 3D thing and just create some sort of 3D sculpture controlled at the microscopic level? I think because that would actually be much harder. I imagine a lot of difficulty with trying to manage even 3D pixels as large as 1/8 inch cube, and have it not be worth it in the end. How do we make it realistic to the touch? How do we manage the insane computing power required for real-time 3D pixels with meaningful resolution? At least with the atom seeking work, we have as much time as we need to set up the scene, and even rehearse it. It should be easier to do adequate computing work setting up the ancient scene, and let the genuine molecules just play it out exactly as they would have millions of years ago. Of course there are attendant problems. It might be quite easy to convene atoms to make a few square feet of environment look right, and it might even be reasonable to get enough atoms together for Trixie's body to function well. But what of the brain? It wouldn't do to have Trixie just immediately keel over, or go on an insane rampage through the audience in search of a china shop. Science doesn't yet know enough about the brain and its particular folds of order and serendipity to predict how that would work. Would one compromised brain cell throw off the timing of the whole clockwork? Or are thoughts, memories, instincts actually maintained as a distributed network, as vaguely different copies shared in slightly different proportions all over the brain? I tend to think less the former, more the latter. Which is good news for resurrecting Trixie.
Basically, we would have to work on reassembling Trixie from 2 angles, or a combo of them: A) We'd have to detect really far atoms and drive them back to the display area, and B) We'd have to read in finer detail the atoms record of who was connected to who as part of Trixie. Fun!
BTW, I can't say that I actually believe (yet) in time travel. This whole scenario is purely about reenacting a different time on select pieces of matter. Actual time travel is a whole different thing. Based on observations of electrons, observed arguably individually, scientists think they have peeked into the presence of parallel universes. I don't know if that means we could learn to shunt over to another at some point, nor do I know if that has a bearing on time travel.
A footnote on thinking as a distributed network: I've heard stories in the past about horrible brain injuries where the patient suffers almost no ill effects in the long term. If the injury missed enough critical areas or is not in the form of a direct hit on any one structure, it seems the brain automatically reallocates the task and talent. Indeed, it does it for other reasons, that are less known. Physiologists know more about trauma response because it demands attention medically. But there have been studies showing that there is a part of the brain generally reserved for your currently used language. If it's not your first language, it's because it gradually packed and moved your first language over to a secondary structure. If you go back to everyday use of your first language, then it moves it back to the primary spot. Note that when scientists say that a structure houses a brain function, it's that it mainly does. If you are speaking, there are impulses flashing all the heck over your brain. But there is a structure for speech, where your impulses are especially concentrated. That is the organic nature of boundaries in a network. There are separate entities, but they are connected; interwoven.
And also on interwoven information stuff: That's how DNA will be found to behave. When they find genes that perform a given function, it's that mainly that gene performs mainly that function. It doesn't do it in a vacuum. It has had to evolve into its role along with other genes, and that gene might have earned its reputation by paying dues in primitive species. Oh yeah, it is that deep.
On organic computers: A guy named Jarod Lanier (title among other titles: information philosopher) said in a magazine once that the entire world can be seen as a humongous organic computer chugging away at calculating the world's ongoing outcome, and doing it in real time. Or so bogged down doing it that that's why it hasn't figured it out yet. That made me think. And that's why if we can invest enough computing power just to get the atoms there, Trixie herself can be the real-time, animated, "virtual" (or just plain real) 3D model of a triceratops.