I wonder if we could enable 'dual existence' for units on some maps. I've been pondering some of what you just suggested too and it all boils down to what will be necessary to make play more enjoyable overall.
I believe it is possible. I will check. If what determines the city a unit is in is a list of pointers or references to existing units within the city data structure then yes it is possible. If not, we could replace the current method with such a list.
What I was saying about Infinity... you seem to believe there is a constant mass to the universe? How can you establish a number, to represent such a constant, when the universe is infinite?
Yes. I believe the universe as we understand it has a constant, non-infinite mass. The universal gravitational constant strongly suggests that this is the case. Conventional scientists do not believe in the existence of what are termed "actual infinities" (an infinite number applied to real physical objects). As the matter of fact, most religious philosophers do not believe in actual infinities either with the exception of God. Several religious philosophers have used arguments against an actual infinity as an attempt to debunk Mormonism since Mormon theology makes several statements about the existence of actual infinities.
The universe may very well not be infinite in terms of "space." Some current theories suggest that the universe has an edge. Other's believe that in terms of spacetime it has a finite shape that allows continual movement in a single direction. Think of a sphere or a mobius strip.
I believe it was Einstein who believed that the "infinity" of the universe wasn't truly an infinity; that if you were to travel the entire length of the universe, you would eventually find yourself back where you started. An interesting idea...
Even though I believe that the "universe" constists of a constant mass, I do not necessarily believe that everything is finite. I believe it is possible that existence itself is infinite. Do I believe in an actual infinity? I suppose in principle I do. But I do not believe it is possible for a single universe to contain infinity.
I believe you may be right about some of my basic presumptions. Without time, nothing may have a definition at all. Even a picture has an amount of time it had exposure to take the image. If there were no exposure time, you'd have no picture.
I see time as being somewhat separable from space but connected as well. I believe that the connection is exactly what rationalizes one possible means of time travel itself. Move faster than the speed of light and you move backwards through time because you end up entering into a vibratory state that hits an i number (imaginary so to speak) and is thus moving in negative proportion to the (majority of the) rest of existence.
Without continuing to debate endlessly on the topic, shouldn't we, as Humans, not be asking if something is impossible, but rather assuming that it is and we simply need to figure out how to do it? If we find it is in fact impossible then dang that sucks but then again we may well not have all the data either and be giving up on a concept because we don't see the full picture. I admit I don't know ALL the physics knowledge that we've obtained through the last few decades in particular, but nevertheless, everything we think we know is, as LeftBower points out, subject to change. Therefore, the FIRST thing we must admit is that for all our arguments, we don't know the truth yet. In such an admittable vacuum of proof, I don't understand why anyone would feel comfortable embracing a theory about time travel that states it cannot exist!
Pretty much how I predicted you saw things. And you are not alone. But my point (the way I see it) is that each photon (energy) that was absorbed by the photographic paper and then transformed into a different type of (chemical) energy through the chemical reaction on the paper in your example still exists at a singe point in spacetime. Each quanta of energy has a mono (single) existence; it will always exist at a single "somewhere" that necessitates a "somewhen" because the "when" is simply a result of its ability to change position.
The reason I do not believe in time travel is because my assumptions negate it as internally contradictory. And as I said before, any contradiction is necessarily impossible. For example, assuming P is always true, then not P is necessarily always false. Not P can
never be true. In principle, this is similar to my view of existence.
Assuming time is subservient to self-existence (which I reason must be so below), then an object cannot move to the past or future because to do so would cause moments in which it does not exist, and/or moments in which it has a dual existence (it is in two places at once). I know you see this as just "moving" through time but if something is self-existent then it is anchored outside of time and moving through time by necessity would result in the contradiction of being in two places at once OR not existing for a section (period) of spacetime at all which is contradictory to being self-existent.
The reason I believe that things must self-exist is because the way I see it, creating something out of nothing is self-contraditory. If something exists then it (or at least it's constintuents) must have always existed in one form or another. To me this suggests/implies that it exists independent of time. Experiments with entangled photons are indirect evidence of this independence of time in my opinion since two photons separated by an indefinite amount of space will simultaneously affect one another no matter how large that distance is.
In fact, archaeology, I believe, has given us some ample evidence that it does, that there have been beings on Earth whom have been utilizing the technology and have left massively enduring structures designed to aid them in determining wherever they may BE in time whenever they visit. But perhaps that's a conversation for another thread entirely
LOL. Archaeology is not evidence of this at all. In fact, it can easily be interpreted to mean almost the opposite. These massively enduring structures are meant to be monuments. Some may have been territorial markers. We have our own massively enduring structures and they certainly were not built to tell us when we visit another time what age it currently is. The Lincoln memorial comes to mind. And we have thousands of objects made of stone that could easily survive for tens to hundreds of thousands of years.
In fact, such an ability to endure is evidence that they
were not built to tell time. Things that change very little make it more difficult to determine their age. If they were so advanced to be able to do what you suggest, the simplest way to create an accurate time marker would be to get a very large radioactive sample (restricted to alpha or beta emission to avoid harming surrounding life) with a medium range half life and embed it in one of these large structures. Potassium-40 would be ideal since potassium is common and it has a half life of 1.3 billion years; a good mid-range period of time. If fine time resolutions were necessary, then Uranium-234 with its 80,000 year half life would be useful though Uranium is considerably more rare. To my knowledge no such artificial specimen has ever been found.
I just hope I can convince the rest of the team.
