So this is why the earth does not need lots of turtles to hold it up — it’s in a weightless state
This next one explains an awful lot! . . . . it turns out we are ultimately made up of vibrating nothingness . . .
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Neil Godfrey
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The ancient Indians were speaking about the idea that the passage of time is different in other planetary systems.
There is this story I recall hearing when I was a child. At that time it made no sense but 10 years ago when I reheard this tale my mind clicked connecting this to Einstein’s theory of relativity.
The story goes like this:
King Kakudmi travelled to Lord Brahma’s abode for consultation.”When they arrived, Brahma was listening to a musical performance by the Gandharvas, so they waited patiently until the performance was finished. Then, Kakudmi bowed humbly, made his request and presented his shortlist of candidates. Brahma laughed loudly, and explained that time runs differently on different planes of existence, and that during the short time they had waited in Brahma-loka to see him, 27 chatur-yugas (a cycle of four yugas, totalling 108 yugas) had passed on earth. Brahma said to Kakudmi, “O King, all those whom you may have decided within the core of your heart to accept as your son-in-law have died in the course of time. Twenty-seven chatur-yugas have already passed. Those upon whom you may have already decided are now gone, and so are their sons, grandsons and other descendants. You cannot even hear about their names. You must therefore bestow this virgin gem (i.e. Revati) upon some other husband, for you are now alone, and your friends, your ministers, servants, wives, kinsmen, armies, and treasures, have long since been swept away by the hand of time.”
This is from the Bhagavata Purana. It’s dating is all over but it may have been composed around 500CE. My question is how did the early Indian thinkers conceive of such a idea. Mind you this idea predates Einstein’s thoughts on this subject.
The concept of time in Indian thought is like no other. It’s composed on an enormous scale. That’s another topic by itself.
The Bible itself says that in a spirit realm a day is as a thousand years. I see no relationship at all to scientific knowledge. Myths and stories with magical time variances are an entirely different category of knowledge. There is nothing scientific or “true” about the story. Dreams, hallucinatory states, normal waking from deep sleep, momentary loss of concentration, – there are many sparks to inspire time stories. Numbers often enter myths for their symbolic meanings. Compare the “enormous scale” of years of the Sumerian antediluvian kings. For an explanation I’d be looking at the significance of 4, 107, 27, 28 etc in that thought system.
I love this kind of stuff. All my friends (acquaintances) are all into Jesus (or they won’t come out of the closet) and I’m the kook. So grateful for the Internet and for people, like me, that actually wonder about what’s going on.
Do keep in mind that string theory aka “we are ultimately made up of vibrating nothingness” has not one scrap of evidence to support it at this moment. Pure speculation it is. That doesn’t mean that it won’t prove out but so far … nada, and quite a few chaps have been hammering away at it for some time now.
There is a “race” between theorists and experimentalists, but that are in fact chained together. Theories guide experiment design and data from experiments drive theories. We need some results in this area and in the areas of dark energy, dark matter, etc. Otherwise we get too far ahead of ourselves and waste time unproductively. And, as usual, nobody is in charge.
On the first comedy clip 1) Galileo’s Leaning Tower of Pisa thought experiment long precedes Einstein; 2) The container and the water are falling at the same acceleration as one another, that is why the water stops flowing; 3) gravity is still acting on both, that is why they are falling. Getting your “education” from a comedy talk-show is a very poor substitute for a phyics lesson or textbook. I’d go to a library /s
On String “Theory”: 1) “That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” – the greater Hitchens. 2) The confusion of hypothesis with theory 3) It very doubtful whether String “Theory” even amounts to an hypothesis 4) We are no further on than Peter Woit’s Not Even Wrong of 2006. 5) String “Theory” and “God” have an awful lot in common and “bollocks” suffices to describe either.