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Invisiblemofo
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Gravitational Time Dilation and Galactic Life
    #8652452 - 07/18/08 07:13 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

The phenomenon of time dilation is well documented.  Time can be demonstrated to slow down both at very high rates of speed and in strong gravitational fields.

If life is relatively common in the universe, does this mean life that occurs closer to our galactic center (where there is a super-massive black hole) will generally be less evolved and "younger?"  Or would the effect be negligible?  To what extent would time be dilated on a solar system very close to the galactic center?

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Gravitational Time Dilation and Galactic Life [Re: mofo]
    #8652481 - 07/18/08 07:19 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Interesting questions... I've got to give this some thought.  I'm curious to see where this discussion goes.  :smile:

(Remember, with relativity, 'slow time' is from our perspective... to the "slow guys", they would seem to be going at a normal pace.)

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InvisibleDieCommie


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Re: Gravitational Time Dilation and Galactic Life [Re: Seuss]
    #8652724 - 07/18/08 08:20 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

I think it would be negligible.
The equation for time dilation from gravity isnt bad, Formula: 0.

I tried it with with a non-negligible dilation time of 3/5 our time.  So in our 5 billion years of evolution they evolve 3 billion years.  I used the average mass of a super massive black hole found on wikipedia, and figured you would have to be 4.6 x 10^10 meters away from the super massive black hole to feel these effects.  The event horizon of such a black hole is only 3.0 x 10^10 meters, which would only be 10 million miles away!  Our sun is 93 million miles away, so I would say that is a little close for comfort (assuming I didnt fuck up the math).

On a side note, the radiation would be so intense near the galactic center that organic molecules would probably have a real tough time existing in the first place.  The safe place for life to evolve would be away from the center like we are.

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Gravitational Time Dilation and Galactic Life [Re: DieCommie]
    #8652741 - 07/18/08 08:27 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

> On a side note, the radiation would be so intense near the galactic center that organic molecules would probably have a real tough time existing in the first place.

Never underestimate life's ability to adapt... though I agree, 10 miles from a massive black hole is probably pushing it a bit.


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OfflinePhanTomCat
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Re: Gravitational Time Dilation and Galactic Life [Re: Seuss]
    #8659874 - 07/20/08 05:21 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Seuss said:
though I agree, 10 miles from a massive black hole is probably pushing it a bit.




THAT would be a very good example of "living on the edge"....  :grin:


>^;;^<


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I'll be your midnight French Fry....  :naughty:

"The most important things in life that are often ignored, are the things that one cannot see...."

>^;;^<

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Invisiblemofo
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Re: Gravitational Time Dilation and Galactic Life [Re: DieCommie]
    #8665336 - 07/21/08 10:05 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Isn't it exponential tho?  So wouldn't say 4/5 time or even 9/10 time allow the host solar system to be significantly further away?  But yeah, there would still probably be way too much radiation.

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InvisibleDieCommie


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Re: Gravitational Time Dilation and Galactic Life [Re: mofo]
    #8668389 - 07/22/08 04:21 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

mofo said:
Isn't it exponential tho?  So wouldn't say 4/5 time or even 9/10 time allow the host solar system to be significantly further away?




It is exponential but you are applying it in the wrong way.  Think about what an exponential function does... It increased very slowly for a very long time and then explodes in enormous growth over a short time.  For example population...  It increased very slowly for the last million years, then exploded in the fast few hundred.

Time dilation works the same way.  The dilation of your time increases very slowly for very large distance as you approach the black hole.  But then, as you get very close to the black hole your dilation increases greatly.

Same thing with dilation from velocity in special relativity.  As your speed increases you get virtually no dilation effect, even at half the speed of light.  But as you get fairly close to the speed of light, the dilation effect takes off and increases tremendously.


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OfflineHematite
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Re: Gravitational Time Dilation and Galactic Life [Re: DieCommie]
    #8682185 - 07/25/08 10:28 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

A few things. First, someone living near the center of the galaxy (assuming they could live there) wouldn't experience time moving more slowly than we observe it. Time dilation is something that happens when someone in one frame of reference observes an event in another frame of reference. In other words, the center of the galaxy is not billions of years younger than the margins of the galaxy.

Second, life has been on earth for 3-4 billion years, but there is no reason to think that it takes 3-4 billion years to evolve any particular level of complexity. Modern day bacteria have exactly the same amount of evolution behind them as we do. Moreover the simplest organisms in existence, when compared to say crystals, are almost as complex as the most complex organisms. A bacterium is a lot more like a dog than it is like a lump of clay. It's likely that that level of complexity was achieved very early in the history of life, no more than 100 million years or so after life started. Everything since then has just been tinkering and minor adjustments.

If we're talking about sensory systems and big brains, it's a similar story. These appeared in a big way about 500 million years ago, and had achieved an essentially modern level of complexity no later than 400 million years ago among vertebrates, arthropods and cephalopods.

Evolution isn't progressive.

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InvisibleDieCommie


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Re: Gravitational Time Dilation and Galactic Life [Re: Hematite]
    #8682462 - 07/25/08 11:33 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Hematite said:
A few things. First, someone living near the center of the galaxy (assuming they could live there) wouldn't experience time moving more slowly than we observe it.




Of course they would, I calculated it a few posts above.  If you are 10 million miles from the super massive black hole at the galactic center your time will dilate to about 3/5 of that for somebody not near the black hole.

Quote:

Evolution isn't progressive.




What does that mean?

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OfflineHematite
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Re: Gravitational Time Dilation and Galactic Life [Re: DieCommie]
    #8683311 - 07/26/08 07:45 AM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

DieCommie said:
Quote:

Hematite said:
A few things. First, someone living near the center of the galaxy (assuming they could live there) wouldn't experience time moving more slowly than we observe it.




Of course they would, I calculated it a few posts above.  If you are 10 million miles from the super massive black hole at the galactic center your time will dilate to about 3/5 of that for somebody not near the black hole.





This is how it would appear to us watching from here. If I were falling into a black hole it wouldn't feel any different than falling into anything else; I'd accelerate and slam into it and that would be that. To someone watching from the outside I would appear to freeze at the event horizon, but that would not be what I experienced.
Quote:



Quote:

Evolution isn't progressive.




What does that mean?




It means that 'evolved' doesn't apply 'advanced.' Life has been around on earth for billions of years, but that doesn't mean that we are billions of years up some kind of evolutionary ladder. Most of evolution is just change. Things are different now than they were 200 million years ago but they are not more advanced or complicated or somehow better.

Of course organisms that are around today (presumably) are more complicated than the very first organisms, but in the actual history of life on earth most of this complexity arose fairly quickly, in a few rapid episodes. A few hundred million years probably would be enough time for the simplest organism to evolve into the most complex, for something like a bacterium to evolve into something like a great white shark. On earth this took billions of years to happen not because it takes billions of years for a shark-like level of complexity to evolve, but because evolution isn't trying to get anywhere; it has no goal and just stumbles onto things.

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Offlinepothead_bob
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Re: Gravitational Time Dilation and Galactic Life [Re: Hematite]
    #8684496 - 07/26/08 02:39 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

but because evolution isn't trying to get anywhere; it has no goal and just stumbles onto things.




I don't know about that comment.  I think evolution is directed.  The species isn't just randomly trying shit and seeing if it works out.  It's doing things specifically to adapt to the environment and different situations.


--------------------
No knowledge can be certain, if it is not based
upon mathematics or upon some other knowledge
which is itself based upon the mathematical
sciences.
  -Leonardo da Vinci (1425-1519)

Speak well of your enemies.  After all, you made them.

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InvisibleDieCommie


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Re: Gravitational Time Dilation and Galactic Life [Re: pothead_bob]
    #8684522 - 07/26/08 02:48 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

The species isn't just randomly trying shit and seeing if it works out.



Sure it is.  Mutations are random.  Evolution of traits however, are not.

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Offlinepothead_bob
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Re: Gravitational Time Dilation and Galactic Life [Re: DieCommie]
    #8684570 - 07/26/08 03:03 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Evolution of traits however, are not [random].




Well, now that sounds different from what you said in your previous post.

Quote:

evolution isn't trying to get anywhere; it has no goal and just stumbles onto things




I'm saying, that evolution does in fact have a goal.


--------------------
No knowledge can be certain, if it is not based
upon mathematics or upon some other knowledge
which is itself based upon the mathematical
sciences.
  -Leonardo da Vinci (1425-1519)

Speak well of your enemies.  After all, you made them.

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OfflineHematite
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Re: Gravitational Time Dilation and Galactic Life [Re: pothead_bob]
    #8685151 - 07/26/08 05:48 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

pothead_bob said:
Quote:

Evolution of traits however, are not [random].




Well, now that sounds different from what you said in your previous post.

Quote:

evolution isn't trying to get anywhere; it has no goal and just stumbles onto things




I'm saying, that evolution does in fact have a goal.




The second quote is mine.

What is evolution's goal, then? Us? Dragonflies? Slime molds? How do we know when we've arrived?

If evolution has a goal, it's taken its sweet time getting there. The first two thirds of the history of life on earth essentially was an age of pond scum. It wasn't until fairly recently (about a billion years ago) that anything bothered to evolve a nucleus or the ability to eat.

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Offlinepothead_bob
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Re: Gravitational Time Dilation and Galactic Life [Re: Hematite]
    #8685247 - 07/26/08 06:19 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Oh shit, your right.  Sorry about that, guess I wasn't paying attention.

Anyways, evolutions goal is to adapt to the environment and gain competitive advantages over other lifeforms. 

Like birds becoming able to fly.  It takes more than just random fluctations for them to attain abilities that require special rules of physics to be followed.  They grew wings, yes, but their muscular-skeletal frame also had to change to reduce the weight of the creature so flight could occur.  Evolution would have to be directed to adapt in such a way.

Humans evolved from primates because the rain forests of Africa dissapeared.  The species adapted.  Adaptation was the goal.  Evolution met that goal by making the necessary changes.

Quote:

If evolution has a goal, it's taken its sweet time getting there.




What is time anyways?  Who says that a billion years is long?  I think life is extremely precious.  Our cognizence of this Universe is so important, I think.  So a billion years for chemicals to come together and have a thought pattern and be aware of their own existence in this universe may not be long.

When it comes to when we've arrived, I tend to share Huxley's beliefs that we, humans, have finished our evolutions.  Changes to our environment are no longer a problem because evolution has provided us with complex thought that is capable of handling such things using technology.  I think that we have clearly dominated this planet and have obtained the ability to realize our existence.  I see that as important, but I realize that that's just my opinion.  If you don't share my opinions, then you would obviously not agree. 

But if you just look at the small scale of this planet and what we typically define as success, evolution does have a goal, which is dominance and adaptation.  The fact that creatures change to better live in their environment should be evidence that evolution is directed.  You would never see a plant changing to use more water in its life cycle when the climate is becoming more arid in the region where the species thrives.


--------------------
No knowledge can be certain, if it is not based
upon mathematics or upon some other knowledge
which is itself based upon the mathematical
sciences.
  -Leonardo da Vinci (1425-1519)

Speak well of your enemies.  After all, you made them.

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Invisiblejohnm214
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Re: Gravitational Time Dilation and Galactic Life [Re: pothead_bob]
    #8685355 - 07/26/08 07:10 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

so you believe in some sort of enteligent design evolution then?


Cuz the standard theory of evolution doesn't posit that there is any goal.  It's all random.  What lives lives, what doesn't doesn't.

To say their is a goal seems to require sentient control, which no one can prove.

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InvisibleDieCommie


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Re: Gravitational Time Dilation and Galactic Life [Re: johnm214]
    #8685378 - 07/26/08 07:16 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

It's all random.  What lives lives, what doesn't doesn't.




Well arnt the pressures are very specific?  Slow gazelle die, fast gazelle live.  What gazelle lives or dies is not random.  Whether a particular gazelle is born fast or slow is random.  But the selection process is not random; it is determined; determined from the pressures of the particular environment.

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Offlinepothead_bob
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Re: Gravitational Time Dilation and Galactic Life [Re: johnm214]
    #8687327 - 07/27/08 06:09 AM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

But the selection process is not random; it is determined




Yes, that's an interesting way to look at it.  Perhaps I shouldn't say that evolution has a goal, as if it were a person.  But I should say that the reason evolution occurs is because something could be better about the species.  The species could function better and be more competetive if it had something different about it.  Saying that the environment is pressuring and directing those changes sounds reasonable to me.

It's like, why don't we, as humans, have eighty pound heads, full of all extra fluid that serves no purpose?  Our heads are just big enough to fit our brains and sensory organs.  To be bigger would be a burden and make the species harder to survive.  Why don't we have tails anymore?  We have a tailbone, but no tail.  We lost it because we don't need it.  If it isn't essential for survival, then evolution eliminates it to make the species more efficient.  We also don't have organs that don't have some sort of function.  Even the appendix produces good bacteria for the digestive system. 

If things were completely random, with no direction, wouldn't we and other animals have bizzare, non-useful appendages?  Pretty much all animals, no matter how odd they look, could be explained in terms of why they look that way directly relating to the environment they live in.


--------------------
No knowledge can be certain, if it is not based
upon mathematics or upon some other knowledge
which is itself based upon the mathematical
sciences.
  -Leonardo da Vinci (1425-1519)

Speak well of your enemies.  After all, you made them.

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Offlinepothead_bob
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Re: Gravitational Time Dilation and Galactic Life [Re: pothead_bob]
    #8687347 - 07/27/08 06:24 AM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

To say their is a goal seems to require sentient control, which no one can prove.




Actually it's funny you should say this because I tend to think this sometimes. One time when I took some Thailand-Koh Samui cubes, I started thinking about evolution and how we are all unified and one as a species.  It felt like the human species was on single, large organism, with all of us comprising smaller units of operation, like cells or organs.

The species evolves in order to be more competetive or adapt to its environment, as I said before.  In order to evolve, the species gathers information from its separate members, me, you, everyone, to get a feel for the environment and what changes need to be made.  When two people come together and breed, information is combined to create a new member of the species using feedback from what the parent members had gathered in their lives. 

This is why the species demands genetic diversity.  If you've ever noticed, successive generations of inbreeding cause deformations and unhealthy children quite quickly.  This is equally true for plants and animals.  The species also tries to preserve good genetics and eliminate poor ones by ingraining it in our behavior to lust after attractive people and not unattractive ones.  Theoretically, then, people that demonstrate poor traits wouldn't breed and their genetics wouldn't contribute to the evolution of the species.  This way, the species attempts to only pass on good genetics and guide the evolution of the species in the most beneficial direction.

This is purely speculative, but I thought it was an interesting thing to think of.  The species doesn't have a brain in the conventional sense, but perhaps the smaller constituents of our makeup set up these rules that make up our behaviors so that evolution would take place in this manner - certain chemicals, enzymes, or hormones are released in our body under certain circumstances to affect our thinking and actions.  I can't see how you would prove this to be the case.


--------------------
No knowledge can be certain, if it is not based
upon mathematics or upon some other knowledge
which is itself based upon the mathematical
sciences.
  -Leonardo da Vinci (1425-1519)

Speak well of your enemies.  After all, you made them.

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OfflineHematite
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Re: Gravitational Time Dilation and Galactic Life [Re: pothead_bob]
    #8687713 - 07/27/08 10:03 AM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Organisms don't evolve in order to adapt; they adapt as a consequence of evolution, which would happen anyway. Evolution is the natural and inevitable consequence of imperfect reproduction, of offspring not being exactly like their parent(s), because of mutation or some other error in transmitting heritable information between generations. Sometimes these errors lead to adaptation, and sometimes they don't, but in either case evolution is the result. Individual organisms do not and cannot 'try' to evolve, much less groups of organisms like 'species.'

Adaptation requires evolution, but evolution does not require adaptation. Much of evolution is just a random walk that occasionally encounters something useful. Adaptation, when it occurs, is not farsighted but only can confront immediate conditions. The whole chain of limb modifications that allowed one group of dinosaurs to evolve flight did not start out as a quest for flight. Even the very last modifications, just before actual flight evolved, did not occur because they eventually would make flight possible. If these changes were adaptive they were adaptive for something other than flying. Flight did not become adaptive until it actually had evolved. From the point of view of evolving flight, the entire evolutionary history of limbs up to the point where they became functional wings was a random walk.

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