Is our future history?

If time travel eventually becomes possible, will the stories of Jesus and other mythologies actually be the workings of our future selves telling fables of our current day and futures?

Shouldn't the notion of a temporal loop be our new religion?

No and no.

But in a Godless science. Shouldn't Occum's razor dictate that the most likely
arbitrator of our existence be ourselves?

The most likely time travel is no (macroscopic) time travel.

Originally posted by Thequ1ck
But in a Godless science. Shouldn't Occum's razor dictate that the most likely
arbitrator of our existence be ourselves?

No, Occam's razor says nothing of the sort.

And to the best of our current ability to tell time travel (or rather travel backwards in time which is what
we are talking about) is impossible.


Also it's not 'godless' science, it's just science.

There is no other 'science' to distinguish between.

Originally posted by googlefudge
No, Occam's razor says nothing of the sort.

And to the best of our current ability to tell time travel (or rather travel backwards in time which is what
we are talking about) is impossible.


Also it's not 'godless' science, it's just science.

There is no other 'science' to distinguish between.

🙂

Originally posted by mikelom
🙂

😉 Gonna slap ya!

Originally posted by googlefudge
No, Occam's razor says nothing of the sort.

And to the best of our current ability to tell time travel (or rather travel backwards in time which is what
we are talking about) is impossible.


Also it's not 'godless' science, it's just science.

There is no other 'science' to distinguish between.

So what is Occum's razor on existence then?

Originally posted by Thequ1ck
But in a Godless science. Shouldn't Occum's razor dictate that the most likely
arbitrator of our existence be ourselves?

So you suspect that the decision you made yesterday to post that was not really due to your own free will at the time but was really motivated by your future self or descendant travelling back in time to ensure the post was made? Or is it only religion that time travellers are interested in?

Originally posted by Thequ1ck
So what is Occum's razor on existence then?

Occam's razor is simply a tool for choosing between competing hypothesise.

It is basically the position that a more complex hypothesis must have extra explanatory
power to justify that complexity.

In other word you prefer the simpler of two explanations that have equal predictive and
explanatory power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

... In science, Occam’s razor is used as a heuristic (general guiding rule or an observation) to guide scientists in the development of theoretical models rather than as an arbiter between published models. In the scientific method, Occam's razor is not considered an irrefutable principle of logic, and certainly not a scientific result ...

Originally posted by twhitehead
So you suspect that the decision you made yesterday to post that was not really due to your own free will at the time but was really motivated by your future self or descendant travelling back in time to ensure the post was made? Or is it only religion that time travellers are interested in?

Wow, you totally get me. That's part of the message, yes.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Occ[b]am's razor is simply a tool for choosing between competing hypothesise.

It is basically the position that a more complex hypothesis must have extra explanatory
power to justify that complexity.

In other word you prefer the simpler of two explanations that have equal predictive and
explanatory power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occ onsidered an irrefutable principle of logic, and certainly not a scientific result ...[/quote][/b]

So we need to reduce religion to a hypothesis or else eradicate it?

Suppose we do manage to hypothesise existence, what would the leading theory be?

Originally posted by Thequ1ck
But in a Godless science. Shouldn't Occum's razor dictate that the most likely
arbitrator of our existence be ourselves?

In your mind, all science is godless?

Originally posted by Thequ1ck
So we need to reduce religion to a hypothesis or else eradicate it?

Suppose we do manage to hypothesise existence, what would the leading theory be?

So we need to reduce religion to a hypothesis or else eradicate it?

No that's not it at all.


Occam's razor is a simple principle that means when you try to explain something you try
to do so in the simplest terms possible to adequately explain a phenomena.

If two explanations offer equally good descriptions of a phenomena but one is simpler then
it is much easier to use and understand the simpler explanation than to use the more complex
one and the simpler explanation is more likely (but far from certainly) to be correct.

Now religion isn't just made up of explanations of phenomena, however any time religion does
postulate an explanation for something 9almost inevitably and universally a variant on 'god did it'
we can compare that 'hypothesis' against other competing hypotheses and first check to see which
more closely match reality, and then if two or more do match reality to the best of our ability to tell
we can chose among them using Occam's razor as a guide unless and until better evidence comes along.


However as I have explained many times before "God did it" is not actually an explanation at all...

All explanations MUST explain the new phenomena in terms of things already understood otherwise
all you are doing is moving the 'mystery' from the phenomena to the thing invoked to explain it.
As we have no idea what god is or how god works and in fact many theists define god in such a way as
to make such knowledge impossible to ever attain we do not and probably cannot understand god.
Thus god is an unknown and can't be used to explain anything.

.... But even if it was, as god and his 'ways' are defined as being infinitely vast and complex, the explanation
'god did it' is by definition the most complex explanation it is possible to give.

And thus will always be ruled against by Occam's razor until and unless EVERY other POSSIBLE explanation
has been conclusively ruled out.


And even then as an explanation it is utterly and completely useless as it is impossible to make any predictions
about anything based on the hypothesis 'god did it'.

Originally posted by Thequ1ck
Wow, you totally get me. That's part of the message, yes.

Also, all those future time travellers will be getting influenced by other time travellers who come after (or came before).

The reason why time travel is impossible, is there is always some lunatic that goes back and kills the guy that invented it.