Instantaneous long-distance travel of LDS gods

[_SteelHead]

Traveling via a beam of light.... It would take 4 years to get to the nearest star. How far is kolob? Would the hieing be in a twinkling of an eye?

[_zeezrom]

by the way, he was a stake patriarch as well.

That makes sense.

[_RockSlider]

Anybody care to map those connections out in a multi-dimension
cartographic hologram?

by the way, great to see ya, as it were ... your one of my heros

sorry, there are no 4-d glasses available for anyone to view the resulting holgram ... thus a somewhat fruitless effort.

Theodore Burtons son was (maybe still is) a Professor of Computer Science in the early 1980’s and did much work in multidimensional graphics.

He made some cool videos of unfolding computer modeled hyper-cubes and hyper-spheres from their fourth dimensional models into our third dimensional view (you had to wear 3-d glasses) to try and give the human mind a hint/clue as to what a fourth dimension is like.

One really could not comprehend it even upon seeing it unfold to the third dimensional view.

For an example, if you unfolded a cardboard box into the 2nd dimension

http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/ ... imensiona1

Thus saith etc.

[Guest]

UD,

You have started a thread on one of my favorite LDS gospel doctrine subjects, that of "Kolob Cosmology". Unlike most other cosmologies, Kolob Cosmology is loaded with logical contradictions and paradoxes, but not to worry, these characteristics are a part of its charm.

The problems that you cite with regard to instantaneous long distance travel are no problem in Kolob Cosmology. This is but one of the areas where Kolob Cosmology varies from the Standard Cosmological Model

Faithful denizens of the MADBoard often seemed a bit uncomfortable with their Kolob Cosmology, and would have to remind themselves of the importance of magic, the supernatural, and blind faith in gaining a true appreciation of it. (In fact, a lot of what is below is recycled from old MADBoard posts. Hope folks who have seen this don't mind.)

Tobin should be excited because this post contains a concise explanation (with equations, no less) of why superluminal travel is forbidden by special relativity.

To start with, here are some Mormon teachings related to Kolob Cosmology:

• Kolob is either the planet on which God lives, or the star nearest to the planet Oliblish on which God lives. (Which of these is actually the case is difficult to determine, but since it is not relevant to one’s salvation we can let it slide.)

• God the Father is a glorified being of flesh and bone. "Thus, I, Abraham talked with the Lord, face to face, as one man talketh with another; and he told me of the works which his hands had made" (Abr. 3:11)


• God works only through natural laws: --- whatever it may be that is done by the power of God is in accordance with natural law. " J.F. Smith

• All spirit is matter. "All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes; We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter" (D&C 131:78).

• For Joseph [Smith] that which has no physical existence has no existence at all. (WJS, 60).

As pointed out above:

• The closest star to our solar system is at 4.2 light years away. No star, including Kolob, is closer.

As I keep trying to explain to Tobin:

• Neither matter nor information can travel faster than the speed of light. Here is a Physics 101 explanation (especially for Tobin):

The two main postulates of Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity are important here. The first is that the speed of light is the same for all observers regardless of their relative speed. The second is that the laws of physics are the same in every non-accelerating time frame of reference. That is, they are the same for God on Kolob, or when he is traveling through space at a constant speed, as they are here on Earth. This pretty much negates the idea that God could enter a situation where all time was collapsed. Remember, traveling near the speed of light, the laws of physics to him are the same as they are to us and things work just fine in his frame of reference.

• The complete form of Einstein’s equation, E = mc², used when working with particles traveling at relativistic speeds is: E = mc²/√(1-v²/c²), where E is energy, c is the speed of light and, v is the velocity or speed of the particle.

• The √(1-v²/c²), term is related to "gamma" as described below. To see what happens to energy of a particle at the speed of light, enter the speed of light, c for the particle speed v, and note that the denominator term goes to zero. Mathematically, of course division by zero yields infinity. The standard interpretation is that the energy of the particle with mass becomes infinite at the speed of light.

• Travel at speeds near the speed of light (termed relativistic speeds) entails some non-intuitive phenomena such as time dilation. For objects traveling at relativistic speeds, time “slows down” compared to that for an object moving at lower (non-relativistic) speeds. Time does not stop or go backwards. There are two other interesting effects of relativistic speed travel. The momentum of an object increases (this can also be thought of as an increase in mass). The length of an object contracts at relativistic speeds. Since these latter two effects are not really relevant to this discussion (except to underline that relativistic speed travel is a big deal), further explanation has been banished.

• Photons (zero mass particles) travel at the speed of light in a vacuum. Some of the faster nonzero mass particles observed in particle accelerators, for example, travel at 0.99999999995 times the speed of light. Even at such speeds, things work out fine for particles. Relativistic equations derived from the basic equation above for determining energy, mass, and speed are used to interpret accelerator particle data. These are pretty much like classical equations except that a term known as gamma must be introduced to determine the correct elapsed time, speed, and rest mass in both the particle and laboratory reference frames. Time in our reference frame slows down, but does not "stop", for these particles.

• So, if God could travel at the speed of light (and because he is comprised of particles with mass he can only approach that speed limit asymptotically), he would require infinite energy and gain infinite momentum and therefore become infinitely massive (probably not a good thing).

One big mistake that Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Oliver Cowdery and later Brigham Young and Joseph Smith Smith made in constructing the Everlasting Gospel is that they made God a god of flesh and bone, who is subject to "natural law". In the light of modern science, this leads to fatal inconsistencies in the Mormon belief system.

Once God has a body of flesh and bone, wormholes, tachyons, quantum entanglement and other apologist "alternate theories" cannot help him exceed nature's speed limit. (Each is easily refuted.)

Unless a Mormon prophet is now willing to assert that natural law is what the Church says it is, the claim that mankind does not know enough about natural law to understand how God works is no longer valid. It is clear that J.S. Smith and other prophets took natural laws (such as the law of gravity) to mean natural laws as determined by science. The speed of light as a universal speed limit was not known to the early prophets (God forgot to mention it to them I suppose), but now stands alongside gravity as one of nature's laws.

In J.F. Smith's day, the assumption was that mankind did not know enough about natural law to understand how God performed his miracles. Today mankind does know enough about how nature works. We know, especially in the case of the Kolob issue (or idiocy), that natural law does put severe limits on what can be claimed as the Mormon God's power and capabilities.

_______

Edited to remove a redundant sentence and change "blood" to "bone". I have been reminded that the Mormon God's body apparently requires no blood.

[_Uncle Dale]

UD,

You have started a thread on one of my favorite LDS gospel doctrine subjects, that of "Kolob Cosmology"...

Yeah -- troublesome stuff. Mormon leaders should have
gone for purely magical explanations, and avoided the
notion that God is subject to natural laws.

However, had they done that, then Joe Smith probably
would not have been able to "mingle with gods" and
thus "plan for his brethren."

So, how are celestialized gods different from Joe Smith
While he was yet alive? Answer -- they are beings of
flesh and bone, while Joe (prior to the summer of 1844)
was a being of flesh, bone and blood.

Evidently, Eloheim, having no blood in his veins, can
teleport across the cosmos.

Perhaps Tobin can help us out on this.

UD

[_moksha]

Seems to have gone directly from quote button to reply button. Tricky keyboards!

[_DrW]

As to superluminal communication by quantum entanglement (again for Tobin):

The "information" about the spin state of a particle such as an electron or a photon that is "communicated" between one particle and its entangled partner is "quantum information" not "classical information" (or in fact useful information). It does not matter whether such particles have mass or not. Photons (no mass) and electrons (small mass) can both be created in pairs and thus be entangled.

It is possible to entangle two particles in terms of their relative spin states, and determine that the states are later complementary in every case no matter which particle spin state is first observed. However, it is not possible (theoretically or practically) to use this quantum entanglement to transfer classical or useful information at speeds faster than light.

One way to appreciate this is to realize that no information is transferred until the two detectors in the communication "system" compare the detected spin states of the entangled particle in order to show (or determine) that they were complimentary. This detector-to-detector communication cannot occur at superluminal speed. As a practical consequence, no useful information can be transferred at superluminal speeds.

As an example, think about how one might send a simple SOS (... ___ ...) or spin (up, up ,up down, down down, up ,up, up) message in Morse Code at FTL speeds via a quantum entanglement communicator. I will leave to the believers to explain how this could be done, given the constraints described above. (Good Luck, Tobin.)

Causality is a fundamental concept in Newtonian and Relativistic Physics. Those who believe that causality must also be maintained in quantum physics accept the postulate that entanglement cannot be used to transfer information at FTL speeds, because this leads to paradoxes that ultimately violate causality.

Nonetheless there are those who do not care for "peaceful co-existence" between relativity and quantum mechanics and (as scientists should) continue to question this speed limit. Although some of these attempts are fun (and even instructive) to think about, so far they have been unsuccessful.

[Guest]

As to superluminal communication by quantum entanglement (again for Tobin):

The "information" about the spin state of a particle such as an electron or a photon that is "communicated" between one particle and its entangled partner is "quantum information" not "classical information" (or in fact useful information). It does not matter whether such particles have mass or not. Photons (no mass) and electrons (small mass) can both be created in pairs and thus be entangled.

It is possible to entangle two particles in terms of their relative spin states, and determine that the states are later complementary in every case no matter which particle spin state is first observed. However, it is not possible (theoretically or practically) to use this quantum entanglement to transfer classical or useful information at speeds faster than light.

One way to appreciate this is to realize that no information is transferred until the two detectors in the communication "system" compare the detected spin states of the entangled particle in order to show (or determine) that they were complimentary. This detector-to-detector communication cannot occur at superluminal speed. As a practical consequence, no useful information can be transferred at superluminal speeds.

As an example, think about how one might send a simple SOS (... ___ ...) or spin (up, up ,up down, down down, up ,up, up) message in Morse Code at FTL speeds via a quantum entanglement communicator. I will leave to the believers to explain how this could be done, given the constraints described above. (Good Luck, Tobin.)

Causality is a fundamental concept in Newtonian and Relativistic Physics. Those who believe that causality must also be maintained in quantum physics accept the postulate that entanglement cannot be used to transfer information at FTL speeds, because this leads to paradoxes that ultimately violate causality.

Nonetheless there are those who do not care for "peaceful co-existence" between relativity and quantum mechanics and (as scientists should) continue to question this speed limit. Although some of these attempts are fun (and even instructive) to think about, so far they have been unsuccessful.

Yes, I've seen this explanation before. You'll note the underlined and bolded statement. It is pure assertion. There is NO law of physics that precludes this. That is why DrW is full of gas. Actually, I wasn't the first one to note this assertion (many people with degrees and who are professionals in the field have made similar remarks). Those who state that quantum entanglement can not be used as a means of communication make a number of baseless assertions along these lines and do so repeatedly. It either boils down to assertions that it is impossible, even though the states are maintained over any distance OR they state casaulity (ie time travel is impossible) precludes this, even though a signal sent in one time frame could be received potentially in any (or multiple) time frames. It is all just BS and handwaving and that is why research still continues on the potential of this means of communication.

The fact of the matter is space-time and quantum mechanics does not preclude any of this. In fact, physics equations work perfectly well if you move time forward or backwards. And it has often been pointed out that time is relative and can be effected by distance, speed, and direction (I'm addressing the causality/time travel criticism). For example, if an alien were 10 billion light years away from us. If they moved slowly towards or away from us, their future would coincide with our distant past or (and this is the hard part to grasp for some people) our distant future. Another way to think about it is to compares space-time to a piece of paper and imagine we are two-dimensional beings trapped on that piece of paper. If you draw two dots on opposite sides of the paper and try to move from one to the other, it will take a certain amount of time to traverse the distance. However, if you bend the paper over so each dot is touching each other, travel is instantaneous. The same can be said if you stick a pencil through the paper. It might appear that the same object appears in multiple places as once, even though we know that in reality it does not. If you extrapolate these examples, you can see that travel (or sending information) should not only be possible instanteously in 2 dimensional world, but ours as well. And that casaulity is not a valid criticism, since the principles at play is the shape of space-time (in this case at the quantum level).

The essential question the critics fail to address again and again is why are these things possible in a 2 dimensional world, but not possible our world simply because we live in another dimension?

[Anonymous]

While in the MTC I raised my hand in a meeting one time, during a discussion about the Holy Ghost, and posited that maybe the Holy Ghost can be in our hearts simultaneously through time-slicing, in the same manner that a single-threaded operating system can appear to run multiple programs simultaneously by running each application during short slices of time and cycling through them rapidly, giving the illusion of simultanaity.

I don't think anyone else understood what I meant, and the conversation moved on.

[_SteelHead]

The HG is a VM?