The anthropic principle justifies everything, actually. It is far under-utilized.

The universe does not care that we are here. What we witness is a product of our presence.

>Instead, QM says that particles gain or lose energy "instantaneously", or rather "so fast that you can't tell what happened" as per the Heisenberg uncertainty of dE*dt. This means GR is, in some sense, more complete as a mathematical theory than QM

Great. I can't believe I understood that.

So QM is Newtonian, huh? Just goes to show the difference that scale can make. Cosmology is out of its reach.

Nah. Newton is correct for a wide swath of experiments. "Usefulness" is the measure here.

If you want to talk "wrong", let's talk about Einstein in the 30's when confronted with quantum theory. He went apeshit.

The article sucks, get over it. Show me one good sentence (or two).

Yep. There's a theory out now that says we live inside of a computer. That is, the universe is an information processing machine with ruthless precision. For example, if you want to find out where a thrown ball will land, you can sit at a desk, run Netwon's equations, and plot the trajectory. Or you can simply throw the ball. The universe provides the answer, perfectly every time.

I consider this theory basically moot. We know the universe conforms to our mathematical approximations. We know it's reliable. We know nothing is going to change this situation barring some fantastical event. We know that, however imprecise, we can communicate with the universe through math.

But there is a theory that goes further, which says that mathematics is the sole requisite for an object to exist. That is, if an object can be described by mathematics, then it does exist, period. I'm not sure what to make of this. I know that math is a human invention. I know that math will always fail, subtley, in comparison to the infinite complexity before us.

And yet, what are we but empty space? Mass is just vibrations held in place by forces, whatever those are. Atoms, mostly empty space, with tiny protons and electrons inside.

I used to say that mathematics was the language of God. I wouldn't go that far anymore. But I think he likes what we're thinking.

Time exists. We experience it everyday. If you could go backwards in time, you would have done so by now.

But as I said in another post, the universe is asynchronous. It doesn't care much for the raw clocking of time. Time is just another annoying impediment for particles moving around randomly, which is what the universe likes to do with itself. You're right in the sense that God has no wristwatch; if you mentioned "time" to him, he would laugh any more than you mentioned distance or volume. It's all just shit moving around (and "moving" implies some useful time dimension, just not an accurate one).

Rather, I agree with your statement that there is an amorphous interface between the two. Quantum mechanics is extremely small-scale, perhaps (I should look this up) smaller than Planck scale. Time is 12-billion light-years wide. The idea that both theories have to match up perfectly is kind of silly :/

And antimatter travels faster than c, correct? I mean, it travels into its own past.

I heard that here, a few months back. It makes quite a deal of sense, symmetry-wise. Antimatter is matter, time-inverted. So much for the mysterious "arrow."

>If you can't encode information into it, are you really transmitting something? *Headache*

Simple. There are many regions of the universe that can't currently communicate with one another because the distances are greater than the speed of light can effectively handle. By the time you get to, say, Cygnus X-1, it may no longer be there.

So how do you think we got so far away from Cygnus X-1?

By travelling faster than the speed of light. Relative to one another, of course.

FTL travel is crucial for understanding the current makeup of the universe. That's because the universe is currently composed of a great many units which do not interact.

Many Worlds is a joke and you know it. Let's discuss Stargate SG-1, while you're on this ridiculous topic.

What about his full-on hatred for quantum mechanics? His vitriol was so poisonous, you have to assume he knew deep down that it was the correct theory.