How today's computers can indeed allow us to visually time travel.

reply to post by byeluvolk


Another way to describe this is by understanding collapsing wave function and chaos theory. Infinity, which is what you are attempting to duplicate, is astronomically large and without end or beginning. The program must run for infinity to duplicate infinity. Infinity at rest is what God must be to meet his claims. This is all that can be or ever will be in one place, unchanging and apart from motion or time. In the material realm, we are temporal and finite essence in motion. This means we must collapse wave function from the infinity to produce choice. Choice is interdependent on the form we possess and the forms that exist around us. The computer you program is finite as well. Too many missing variables for the program to find infinity in a finite realm. It's a great concept, but what I say above will limit the collapsing of wave function that the computer is capable of producing.

To some extent, the forms you are seeking to reproduce are dependent on as little as a butterfly wing flapping in South America. This is the butterfly effect. Imagine infinity as being totally aware of how this flap of the wind around the wing affecting the entire globe. Essence to form is interdependent on the slightest of these motions to the greatest. This is a variable that random pixels cannot produce, even with infinite time. More processing is needed to get the overall images.

reply to post by byeluvolk


Well, in order to cut down on image-development time so that the exercise becomes more viable from a time-perspective, you will have to run many of these computations simultaneously and in parallel.This would kick up the PC resources-overhead considerably.

Obviously the more technology you use to amp up the amount of computations running simultaneously, the more you can cut down on development time. A jacked-up super-computer with a trillion times our current pcs' processing power may be able to generate all of the images in only 100 years.

Originally posted by SuperiorEd
I get what you are saying. The problem is this: With music, a performance from a unique musician cannot be duplicated by anything but the performer. Randomly generating sound will not produce a combination of tones that recreate, say, Victor Wooten playing Amazing Grace. The same will hold true for the program ever reproducing a child playing volleyball on the beach with a dolphin flopping in the background. There are missing variables that can only be reproduced by a catalog of forms. God divided the light from the darkness and created form. Form expresses from the essence (information) contained within. An oak tree is enfolded in the acorn. This is designed form from a sequence of information. This is not possible apart from the imprint of the essence included into the program. You might get some nice geometric patterns, but you will not get the pictures described by the designer.

I do not agree with you. It is an absolute certainty that if given enough time, this system will generate every image of any place / scenario ever conceived.

The Designer can be found in chaos too - in the static of radio-waves, in the midst of a tornado; and in the randomness of pixels that is yet to be ordered into an understandable image. In our vast and infinite universe, even the random and unordered images may represent places that do exist! That is the beauty of the Designer - the infinite possibilities of all life and all existences! And many forms may exist that we have not been given the ability to recognize. Some beings may find mathematical power, harmony and form from random-generated sound - which may in turn just be a mishmash of jimbled-jambled noise to our ears.

reply to post by SuperiorEd


Now even more so than when I wrote the program, the possibilities are endless. With the quality of current computer graphics you can get pictures so detailed it is scary. And all you need to do is start this program running, sit back, watch it, and grow old and die. You will of course never see anything worth looking at as I have said many times. The time it takes to display the pictures is actually longer than the time it takes for these pictures to “occur” naturally. But yes given an infinite life span you could see everything with this program.

I did the math in an earlier post and it was for a “lesser” computer than we have now days so the number of pictures was far less. The program was set to display one picture per second. However even with that smaller resolution, and lesser colors, the time it would take to display them all is
1.26001498665117428985579442281622900441043825561687 E36116 years
Obviously nobody is going to live this long to see all these pictures.

reply to post by shimmeringsilver73


I see where you are coming from but the bottle neck is not the computer hardware but us the viewers. How fast can we look at the images? Even at one per second which is what I based my math on, the time needed to view them all is 483… E1155947 years. Write the number 483 followed by 1,155,945 zeroes. This is still not quite big enough but it is close enough for my example. This number you just wrote, 483,000,000,000,000,… Out to 1,155,945 zeroes is the number of **YEARS** it will take you to view the pictures at 1 picture per second. And this is on the lesser model based on a screen with 800x600 resolution and only 256 colors. So you can see the number is so big that to try to even compute this number with some graphic quality that is anything resembling current capabilities is going to be even more ridiculous. Even with computers trillions upon trillions of times faster, the time to view the image is still 1 per second. So that number does not change. If you just want to generate the images and never actually view them….yes, you could do it faster. But even so it will not make any difference; this number is just too big.

reply to post by Byeluvolk


That is a phenomenal number - waaayyy too big for my little peanut to comprehend.

A computer can be programmed to analyze the generated images, and look for those patterns within the generated image that may suggest that that generated image is worth looking at. It can then isolate certain "images with potential" which the humans can then analyze further.

But yes and even so - at the moment it remains a mind-boggling activity. However - I am certain that somewhere across time and space some superior civilization has managed to bridge these time-related limitations, and that they may be viewing all sorts of incredible imagery. Just imagine how that civilization will flourish just due the SHEER AND MIND-ALTERING POSSIBILITIES that the imagery has introduced them to...

reply to post by shimmeringsilver73


Well the obvious solution is to create a time machine, start the program, travel to the future and look at the images the computer deems might indicate a future event, and then look at them….. OH Wait….

reply to post by Byeluvolk


Oh wow - I had to LOL at that one!!!

Originally posted by byeluvolk
reply to post by SuperiorEd

 

You have missed the point entirely. The program I wrote is not random at all. It very systematically steps through every possible configuration of pixels on the screen. Given enough time it will ABSOLUTLY show you every possible image.

edit on 21-8-2011 by byeluvolk because: (no reason given)

Yes but watching reality around you will be a better way to see it. If your only producing a low quality image at 1 per second you'll see more by watching the environment around you. If you increase he images per second you increase the processing power needed. Your theory would take more time then time to show everything. To see reality in full you must process it all, meaning, we don't have a computer with the processing capability needed to perform these actions. Even at a billion images per second most will be jumbled, if you teach the computer sequencing and recognition then you'll see plenty of images but you still wouldn't dent the true possibility of images throughout the entire universe. I'll agree, its a pretty intelligent idea but its not really feasible. Nor is quantum computing currently. For every possible image to be created you must be able to produce unlimited pixels at an unlimited quantity.

To he who mentioned the matrix....
The matrix was not a recreation of Tue actual reality it was a simulation artificially created to allow human "batteries" to experience while basically kept in a coma. The batteries are not needed as the machines in reality could use geothermal energy, solar energy, kinetic energy, and chemical energy. Using humans would be incredibly inefficient. Also, you seem to disagree wih its possibility only because it was a widespread highdollar film. You should continue to enjoy that apparent lack of creativity and understanding of yours. Maybe next time add to the conversation.

reply to post by DarkSarcasm


And that is the point I keep making. That wile this is a very easy program to create. It takes longer to see the image of the future, than to just wait and see it personally. As for image quality, the quality is not a problem. Look at photos on your computer; you are hard pressed to differentiate between a photo and reality from any distance over a foot or two.



****EDIT
Oh and on the topic of speed. The computer can indeed create the images much faster than one per second, but we can’t look at them much faster than that or they become meaningless even if the individual frames were crystal clear. The up side to this is that because the picture is indeed only changing 1 pixel at a time it is sort of moot. If it was the random picture idea the entire screen would be different each second so the change would be drastic. but with the program as written it only changes one pixel at a time so in reality if you ever did manage to see a real image coalesce, that same basic image would then be displayed on your screen for an eternity as it slowly changed one pixel at a time. So in this regard I guess there really is no reason to limit it to one change per second. Let the computer rip them off as fast as it can, as it will still be an eternity to show them all, but you will still have plenty of time to view an image as it slowly morphs in and then out again one pixel at a time.

What makes you think that pictures made are going to have anything to do with your individual timeline?

reply to post by Threadfall


The fact that it will make every possible picture. Thus it will most assuredly show your entire life history; birth to death. It will also show any alternate time line you wish to imagine. And not only your timeline, but mine, Uncle Bob’s, and the tipple breasted whore form Eroticon 6.

All joking aside, this program steps the pixels through every possible picture you could ever display on your computer. Thus it will show everything. Plain and simple, nothing magical, or mysterious here. Just simple computer program to systematically increment each pixel on the screen through every possible configuration. Thus if it is possible for the computer to display this picture it will.

reply to post by byeluvolk


If it will show every picture combination that could be made then there is is virtually no way to snatch all the possible relevant pictures, in proper sequence, out of this "virtual warehouse" which would resemble any logical timeline for any single individual. IMO.

I understand the concept of the hypothesis...I just cannot conceive of a way to make that information relevant even if it is retrievable....kinda like you said it'll give me the timeline of a whore from Epsilon 8, or something...but how much irrelevant information (like that) must one scroll through before someting relevant is found?

This thread is blowing my mind

Couldn't you create a computer program to toss out most of the pictures but flag the possibly interesting ones? I guess it would still take forever and a day, but maybe you'd get lucky, why not? Maybe especially if someone was sitting there focusing on the computer and telling it to show something interesting (Ever see those lab experiments where random events happen less randomly when someone focuses their will on them?).

In any case, this would make a great novel/movie.

reply to post by Universer


Exactly what I said above:

A computer can be programmed to analyze the generated images, and look for those patterns within the generated image that may suggest that that generated image is worth looking at. It can then isolate certain "images with potential" which the humans can then analyze further.

A computer can be programmed to look for certain algorithms or signatures that would signify that an image has developed that may be of worth. This can cut down the human time involved considerably.

Very true! I like what you said about "randomness happening less randomly when someone focuses their will on them". The OP's concept in itself is a great topic for a novel. But imagine what potential inspirational material can be generated with this program! A writer could formulate entire ideas about another world by seeing one fantastic visual. It can be a program that is used entirely as a never-ending inspiration generator for artists, authors, students etc.

reply to post by shimmeringsilver73


If what you say is true what the hell is the point of human artists? This idea has not been thoroughly considered IMO, but what other POV would ya'll expect from an ATS'er like me?

reply to post by Threadfall


Well - even IF we can speed up this whole process by running computations in parallel and programming identification algorithms, it will still take (as Universer said) forever plus one day.

It may take YEARS for the first image of any worth to be generated.

So - until then, artists remain our inspiration, are of ABSOLUTELY importance and will have to be our visual time-travellers.

At the end of time (when the program has run full cycle) we will no doubt be so advanced that everything imaginable has already been conceptualized, and we are either non-existent, machinized drones or immaculate celestial godheads, so artistry may in any event be rendered obsolete.

But until then - the artists will continue to be the most important people (in my opinion) on this planet.

Originally posted by byeluvolk
I was reading a thread here tonight that reminded me of a concept I came up with years ago, that has exponentially changed as time goes by. First this was originally an idea I had back in the early days of computers, when computer graphics were first starting. The basic PC had a resolution of 300x200 and had 4 colors. Admittedly this did not give you very good pictures, but since we did not know any better we were appropriately awed. So this idea started to form in my head that if you wrote a computer program to systematically cycle the pixels through all the possible configurations you would eventually display every picture possible on the PC. This was a very large number but back then it was a bit more manageable. Basically you had 300x200 pixels that could be 4 colors. In today’s world on the PC you have much larger numbers. The latest video cards can support 2560x1600 pixels at 281.5 trillion colors per pixel, so you can see the number of pictures possible to display is not even comprehensible any more. (not that it was comprehensible even at the early stages of PC graphics)

If you were to sequentially display each of these pictures you would eventually see every picture that could ever be made. You would see your future, your past, the surface of every planet and moon in the universe. You would see everything that ever could happen in every alternate reality you care to imagine. You would see these things with every possible combination of clothes, every possible combination of people, and every combination of any variable you wish to mention.

At fist people I tell this to look at me as say “So what is your point?” The true scope of this does not sink in for several days, usually after I explain the program needed to display all the pictures is a simple task to write. Just a few lines of code and you can see everything that ever was, will be, and will never be. The fact still remains that if you write this program, and set it in motion it will still take an eternity to display every picture. Even at 1 second per picture it will be longer than the history of the universe. So the odds of you ever actually seeing a picture that makes sense, and is not just a screen full of static, are so small you may as well say zero. But you will indeed be able to know everything.

First things first, video cards cannot reproduce 281.5 trillion colors per pixel but anyway... even at a modest bit depth and resolution, over 99.999999999999999999999999999999% of those images are going to be a random jumble of pixels. Not only that but it would take you hundreds of thousands of millions of years to view them all. Give me a few mins and I'll do some calculations...

reply to post by john_bmth



Yes the new nvida cards can indeed use 281.5 trillion colors per pixel. However the variations are not all usable at the same time, and the human eye is not capable of differentiating between many of them any way.

But that is not the point even at a mere 256 color you will never see this program run its course. The time involved at 256 colors may as well be infinite. The extra colors per pixel just make it infinite raised to the infinite power. It is really redundant.


****EDIT

The calculations have been done read the thread, there have been several examples laid out previously for a few different resolutions and color depth setups.

reply to post by Threadfall


The topic has been very well thought out; this has been something I have been dealing with for over 30 years. And in fact I wrote this program nearly 30 years ago just for the heck of it.

The idea behind the infinite nature of it is hard for the human brain to grasp. However, if you get beyond that hurdle, and deal with just the programming aspect the problem become manageable and in fact mundane. It a very simple program to write.

reply to post by byeluvolk


Can you incorporate PHI or the Fibonacci sequence into your formulas instead of a random number generator?