Mobi's blog

[Colorful Arty]

Time travel is a fascinating subject, one which I personally want to learn more about, as it may eventually wind up in a game I create.

On the subject of time paradoxes, the one which intrigues me the most is what I call The Goron Vase Paradox (I call it such because it is covered in the game Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages). In the game, you give a brisket to a Goron, and he gives you his ancestor's vase as thanks. Link then travels back in time and gives the vase to his ancestor, who in turn passes it down to his descendant, who gives it back to you, etc. The paradox comes into play here: where did the vase originate from?

Let me know your thoughts on this.

[mobius]

I've edited the post to mention the title of book and author; (I highly reccomend despite my comments) 'Paradox' by Jim Al-Khalili.

The Grandfather Paradox
1. you vanish from existence
2. event which directly or indirectly alters the event itself [is impossible]
3. Parallel universes

Well done rebutting #2. And #1 is action-movie-handwaving over followup questions, e.g., what fills the resulting void?

#3 comes in different flavors. The wording "parallel universes" might imply that the timelines are largely disjoint, and branch off each other at discrete points. Another interpretation allows several dimensions of time, and the discretely-interlocking branches live inside this larger, continuous space.

#3 gut feeling: Be careful what "I" means, then you can answer whether it has time-travelled. You can have several Is. Or you could permanently leave a timeline perfectly fine and nobody will wonder much, because by assumption you allow time-travel.

Primer (2004 movie) is confusing even for multi-thread programmers.

Temporal bonus level 5 solution (youtube) without infinite flying trick by stacking instances. Game homepage is down, but I'm mirroring it for now: Download Temporal 1.11. Again no physical explanation, but great puzzles.

-- Simon

Yes, Gut feelings are hardly scientific but I feel I must mention them because thats what gut feelings do to you; force you to think about them even though they don't feel scientific.
To #3's credit; it is the most thought-provoking I think, and doesn't leave as much wide open speculation as the 1 and 2.

Interesting thoughts and thanks for the info! I will check this game and this movie out!

To really delve into this, I feel like a good argument on exactly what time(+space and/or dimensions) is and how it works is required; which I will do at some point.

Time travel is a fascinating subject, one which I personally want to learn more about, as it may eventually wind up in a game I create.

On the subject of time paradoxes, the one which intrigues me the most is what I call The Goron Vase Paradox (I call it such because it is covered in the game Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages). In the game, you give a brisket to a Goron, and he gives you his ancestor's vase as thanks. Link then travels back in time and gives the vase to his ancestor, who in turn passes it down to his descendant, who gives it back to you, etc. The paradox comes into play here: where did the vase originate from?

Let me know your thoughts on this.

Ah! This is exactly one of the things I was going to discuss in my next post. And excellent example. I call this the null-origin event. My initial gut reactions on this is it simply can't happen. It sounds too absurd and yet; that's what men said about taking the square root of a negative number, lo and behold today this seemingly silly concept has amazing uses in modern society. I'll have some interesting things to say on this too.

[mobius]

I've edited the Grandfather paradox post a little bit to make it a bit cleaner.

part 2 The Goron Vase Paradox

The next paradox to discuss as mentioned by Arty is what I'll refer to as a null-origin event. This has appeared in several media works like the mentioned Legend of Zelda (possibly other Zelda games too?) and TV shows like LOST (I could write a whole blog on that alone...) although it's not as well known or understood I think as the Granfather paradox. It's a very tricky paradox because it seems easily dismissible at first, but upon closer inspection becomes more and more muddled and has some surprising implications about not only time travel but the universe as a whole! I've seen this, in a few places, regarded as the same as the Grandfather paradox but I think it is clearly very different (and even harder to wrap your head around).

Consider:
-An old man gives you a watch as a present and says it was handed down to him from his father.
-You get in your time machine and go back one hundred years and find the old man's father and give the watch to him.
-The father grows older gives it to his son; the son grows old (becomes the old man) and then we come back to your present; and the old man gives the watch to you. Repeat.

The question we are naturally forced to ask is: Where did the watch come from? It appears as the watch has no origin. Also it appears like the watch is living (continuing to exist if you will) for an infinite amount of time somehow within a very finite amount of time.¹ I will talk in detail about this in a little bit. But first let's address the idea of origin.

It is easy to say that this situation is impossible because the watch has no origin. Everything must have an origin right? Well... where did the universe come from? Whether you're a believer in god or the big bang this question remains fundamentally unanswered. No matter how many explanations I give to you, you can always rebut with; and where did that (or they) come from? Who caused it? What caused it? What happened before? And before that? and before that? etc. Indeed today we can't answer whether or not the universe is finite or infinite in duration, which means we can't say whether or not it has/had an origin. And because of a nifty thing in physics called the laws of thermodynamics we *may* go so far as to state that nothing truly has an origin that we know of today. Matter/energy cannot be created with an expenditure of matter/energy. We might consider that whenever anything is "created" whether it's the statue of David or a star being born nothing is popping into existence; particles are just being re-arranged.
Whether or not the universe or anything has an origin; either answer it seems is just as difficult to comprehend. And it seems to follow that the entire universe itself could be a null-origin event. So asserting that this situation cannot exist in reality simply because it seems silly or that "everything must have an origin" falls short.

Let's now consider another perplexing thought experiment: What time and date does the watch say when you receive it?

Not as easy as it sounds. First, assume the watch can magically go on ticking forever (assuming it's incredibly durable and is a wind-up watch this could actually realistically last for quite a long time, but we're already assuming a lot so bear with me). Let's say it says the date is October 1990 when you receive it, doesn't matter if it's 'accurate' here. Now you time travel back and give it to the father. Wait a hundred years; when it comes back to you. What does the watch say now?

-From the watches perspective; it's aged one hundred years so the date should read; October 2090.
-From your perspective (the original you getting the watch from the old man) it clearly says 1990.

Which one is correct? How can there be two answers? Well there aren't two answers; there are an infinite number of them; remember the watch will continue to get sent back in time forever and ever, thus every time the watch "meets" you when you think it's 1990 it's another one hundred years older. If the watch could keep a record somehow it would have record of meeting you in (what it considers by its own time-keeping scheme is) 1990, 2090, 2190, 2290 etc. Meanwhile from your perspective you still have only "met" the watch one single time; in 1990. Let's assume you're a normal person and when you travel to the past to give the watch to the father you either die in the past or return to your present and die eventually later, never causing any null-causal events.

Let me make some important distinctions clear here:

-First of all we don't need a time keeping device to achieve this. Consider if the object is instead a vase like from the original Zelda example; the vase will still age. So from the vases perspective the first time it meets you it will be intact. The second time, one hundred years later it will be a little deteriorated, the third time, more deteriorated still. Yet from your perspective you have only met it one single time and can possibly only have one very singular image of it in one particular state.

-Now see that this is very different from an object or person time traveling 'normally'. Example: you the time traveler in this watch experiment. We are asserting that you have an origin. This means that you can travel back to meet yourself in the past and there will be two of you:

Let us assume for the moment that we don't have to worry about null-causal events² and parallel universes are either not real or we can't interact with them. I get in my time machine and go back ten years (I'll be seventeen years old) Then once ten years go by (I'll be around forty years old and my past self will be twenty seven) but I will be back to my present; I go back ten years again. I continue this until I die at eighty. What's happening here?

First of all; let's acknowledge that I am not considering that I can cheat death simply by time traveling. While I'm moving around in time to everyone else; I myself still age normally. Let us assume that the time travel itself is instantaneous and takes up no time or resources (highly unlikely in practice in my suspicion). Also consider that while I go back the first time, there should be two of me; a seventeen year old version and my "present" (from my present point of view) twenty-seven year old version. Of course from the point of view of the seventeen year old, I'm from the future.
The second time back now there should be three of me, all at the same time and place keep in mind; a seventeen year old, a twenty seven year old and a thirty seven year old. In theory I could keep doing this if I lived forever but an interesting problem occurs:

-I said that the "first" time I went back there should be two of me; the seventeen year old and the twenty-seven year old.
-Then I said that the "second" time I went back now there should be three of me. But wait a minute; if I'm not traversing alternate universes then there's only one timeline here; one instance where all the multiple "mes" must be together.

So what should I really see?
-Once I turned seventeen; six older versions of myself turn up and stick around for ten years, then five of them disappear (to go time travel) and the
oldest one dies.

Disregarding null-causal events² I see no obvious paradox here. There is a beginning and an end. Even if I could live forever and if we assume the universe is infinite in size then theoretically I could do this forever and eventually fill up the entire universe with multiple versions of myself.3 Wouldn't this crowd out everything else and disrupt the timeline of the future (and of my future self?) yes, but this would be a null-causal event which we've explicitly ignored from the beginning. I'm looking for a different type of paradox here that could be thought of differently and I don't find it myself.

Now let's return to the Goron Vase Paradox. Consider now that it's a vase or a person, what type of object it is, is immaterial, what's important is that it will NOT magically live forever. Now we run into an even more troubling problem; what if the vase continues to deteriorate to the point that it breaks? What happens now?
It seems from the ghostly perspective of the now non-existent vase there's a time line somehow where you are no longer receiving the vase and taking it back in time at all!
Yet logically speaking this is not that different from before; we're merely again dealing with multiple versions of history from one perspective but only one from another.

Simplifying these two paradoxes we could say:
A null-casual event is two conflicting versions of history in one time-line.
A null-origin event is a conflicting version of history between two related but separate timelines.


FOOTNOTES:

1. Let's take a look out what I meant earlier by an infinite amount of time within a finite one;
In our watch example; the watch's timeline extends forever in both directions; past and future. You could theoretically keep tracing it back and forward. The father keeps receiving it and you keep taking it back in time. There is seemingly no logical way to end the cycle in either direction. If we assert that the universe was created at the big bang 14 billion years ago, and will end 14 billion years from now in the so called "big freeze" (where everything gets farther apart and grows too cold and dies and time stops (or something like that)), we're asserting that the universe and time itself is totally finite. This does not appear to effect  the watch at all; since it's timeline never extends or gets even close to the beginning or end of the universe it comfortably continues its infinite existence *within a finite amount of time*.

It appears from this that infinity can be 'contained'. I will make a blog post delving into this and all matters of "infinity" at some point.


2. For this entire article I've been pretending that null-causal events aren't a problem here; but they are. We have perhaps a different kind of one;
If the watch exists and we take it through the cycle once, then it breaks then we can't take it back. Let's use the same arguments used in the Grandfather paradox to try and resolve the issue:

1. The watch disappears? History is changed; what exactly does this mean? The history of me taking the watch back is erased? Again this raises more questions than answers.

2. This situation is disallowed. Again chance doesn't prove anything as an explanation here. And once again at all points in the watch's timeline does it create the potential for infinite null-causal events. What's surprising is that this amount of infinite null causal events is somehow larger than the infinite number from the Grandfather paradox. Consider:

In the Grandfather paradox, the moment you set foot into the past; at every instance there are an ∞ potential number of null-causal events. And you could divide your timeline up infinitely (more on this will appear in my post on infinity) to get and ∞ number of instances we have ∞ x ∞ = number of null causal events from attempting to kill your grandfather.

In the Goron Vase Paradox the 'moment' the vase or the watch goes back in time there are an ∞ potential number of null-causal events. Again you could divide this amount of time up infinitely and get ∞ x ∞ BUT; because the vase's timeline is also infinite (unlike yourself in the grandfather paradox) what we really have is ∞ (∞ x ∞) = number of null causal events from the vase simply existing.

Two numbers which are both infinite, yet one is clearly somehow larger. If you are unaware; math actually can prove this possible in theory. (again more on this later)

3. Parallel universes. If we assert that parallel universes can solve this paradox we must ask; at what point is a parallel universe entered? When I time travel? Besides my argument against this in the grandfather post; this doesn't resolve the issue of the watch still being on an infinite timeline. However if the watch enters an alternate universe it can solve one problem:

The conflicting history. If the watch is entering an alternate universe every time it goes back then it is truly meeting a different "you" every time in 1990, and you can comfortably say you've only met the watch once and in one particular state and you've experienced no null-causal event. However this explains nothing about the watch having no origin or how it can be infinitely contained within a finite universe.

I could say a lot more on this but I feel compelled to simply remind you that we could just as easily argue that no time travel has taken place here at all; you and the watch are only moving through parallel universes and while you will die, and even if the watch breaks or dies, it's origin cannot be traced.

[mobius]

I was thinking about the null-origin paradox the other day and I think I might be off on the whole ∞ (∞ x ∞) part. Namely, this is inaccurate, but I can't remember why or the details. That's of course assuming any of this makes any sense in the first place.

[Simon]

The symbol ∞ may mean different things. Some mathematicians sloppily use it for cardinality (amount, or number of elements in a set) and mean "an infinite cardinal, of which there are many that indeed aren't all equal, but I don't care which".

In your post, you talk about the number of events. The most interesting infinite cardinals are ℵ₀ ("aleph-null"), this is the amount of natural numbers, and 2^ℵ₀, this is the amount of real numbers. In set theory, the statements ℵ₀ + ℵ₀ = ℵ₀ are perfectly meaningful and true, once you define what + shall mean for cardinals. For any two cardinals a and b of which at least one is infinite, addition and multiplication are simple: a + b = a * b = max(a, b).

Using that simple rule for infinite cardinals, ∞ (∞ x ∞) = ∞ is sloppy (set theorists don't use ∞ to name a cardinal), but OK.

In contrast, here's what ∞ typically means.

∞ as the limit of a sequence is shorthand for "eventually outgrows any real number". The sequence 1, 2, 3, 4, ... doesn't have a limit in the reals, nonetheless it's usual to write lim_n→∞ n = ∞ and say "the sequence converges to infinity". And −∞ makes sense for sequences eventually staying smaller than any given real. This has nothing to do with cardinality, there is only one ∞ in the context of limits of real numbers.

Occasionally, you see ∞ + ∞ = ∞, or similar statements. That's bad style, and shorthand for the statement "given two sequences a_n and b_n that both converge to infinity, the sequence of sums c_n = a_n + b_n converges to infinity." This statement is true. But the notation ∞ + ∞ = ∞ is bad style because it encourages statements like ∞ - ∞ = 0, which have no useful interpretation anymore. 10, 20, 30, ... and 1, 2, 3, ... may both have limit infinity, but 10-1, 20-2, 30-3, ..., certainly doesn't converge to 0.

∞ is a common name for a new point that you add to topological spaces, to create new spaces with interesting properties. You could force the open ends of a line to converge to a new point ∞, the resulting space would be a circle.

-- Simon

[mobius]

I'm presently writing a new "blog entry" of philosophy, but not about time travel.

Some goals I have:
-Stop wasting too much time watching videos. Videos aren't bad in themselves; they can be entertaining and educational. But I often sit down at the PC and feel too tired to do anything but watch a video or I don't know what else to do so before long an hour is wasted.

[mobius]

I'm presently writing a new "blog entry" of philosophy, but not about time travel.

Yeah forget that idea. Philosophy has wasted a lot of my time.

What I'm really interested in, and what I've been reading about for months now is astronomy. Recently, in particular, there is a star known as Boyajian's Star or KIC 8462852 that is big in astronomy right now.

Since the early 90's scientists had solid proof that exoplanets (planets around alien stars, not our own sun) existed. Several years ago a telescope called Kepler was launched to find more exoplanets. It has found over 1,000 possible planets. They determine this by detecting a star's light dimming. When a planet passes by the star it's like casting a shadow and causes a dip in the 'light curve' (a graph plotting the luminosity of light from the star over time).

Normally these dips in the light curve are around 1% of the star's light.
Boyajian's star was found (by citizen scientists*) to have enormous dips of
up to 20%. It's an unprecedented finding and scientists as of yet don't have
a clear explanation.

There are a number of explanations, many involving natural phenomenon,
and some which involve aliens. Here are some of the theories, my
personal favorites:

1) An alien megastrucuter. I actually don't think this is very likely
at all. But the theory is this is a large man-made structure, which in
sci-fi is known as a Dyson sphere or swarm. An incredibly huge structure
larger than a planet that either collects energy from a star or works
as a habitable place for the aliens to live.

2) A large artificial "baffle". This is basically a large object created
purposefully to block star light and let other civilizations like us know
they are there. The objects can be shaped in certain ways to be easy
to indicate that they're artificial.

3) There is in fact no object blocking the starlight; the dimming is
rather being caused by aliens extracting matter/energy from the star
directly. This may support another oddity about the star which isn't
mentioned in the video below; besides the big dips, there is a gradual
dimming which may have been happening for over a century. This is my
favorite theory so far.

The full explanation, told by one of the leaders of the team investigating;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gypAjPp6eps

also a blog I've been following which details this well too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zfmovRwoC8

to summarize my overall thoughts on "aliens": I think it's likely they exist and we're not alone, but finding them is going to be very difficult and maybe more difficult than we think. I don't put very much stock in the whole UFO conspiracy spiel or so called "ancient aliens". But I love exploration and I think we are living at an awesome time in human history where we're just beginning to step foot into the next unknown frontier: outer space.

I will make more posts on this topic and other astronomy topics, as it's one of my favorite subjects.

[mobius]

Some half baked forum games I'm trying to come up with (need improvement):

INVASION
goals:
Before beginning number of players are agreed upon. New players cannot join after game begins. There are two "types" of players;
-It's the job of an infected player to infect other players.
-It's the goal of 'normal' players to survive to the end of the game without being infected; once you're infected there's no going back.
-If all infected players are eliminated or all normal players get infected the game ends, the appropriate side winning. In four weeks (approx 1 month) the game will end regardless and whichever side has more wins.
---------------

playing:
-One player is randomly chosen by the quizmaster to be possessed or infected before the game begins.
-As normal players; it's your job to kill infected people. You may discuss openly who you think is infected and when a majority vote is agreed upon; that person will be killed (eliminated); importantly; regardless of if they're actually infected or not. Their true status will be revealed after death.
-If a player dies; they can no longer participate by posting in the thread or PMing.
-As infected players; it's your job to infect other players. You do this by PMing a player directly.
-Each infected player can only infect 1 other (non infected) player.
-If you receive an infection PM; you are infected. Your role is now swapped (whether you like it or not).
-Infected players can post in the topic exactly like any other player.
.......


PIT
(like the actual card game)
Players are given random assortment of goods.
Then trade by posting and announcing what quanity of good (but not the identity of the good) they are willing to give up. First person to post saying they accept that trade gets to trade. They then trade (via PM) and exchange. The seller must give up the quantity (and whatever good he wants) he announced. The buyer must offer up a good of equal quantity. It's a blind trade and it doesn't matter if they end up trading the same thing back and forth to each other.
The winner is the first person to assemble a full "hand" or all of their quantity of good.

Example: say there's a total of 10 bushels of each good. One player starts with 4 chocolate, 5 oil, 1 gold. He wins when he manages to collect 10 gold.


PSYCHIATRIST
One player is the "psychiatrist" and is blind to the rules of the game. Other players agree secretly on the a simple set of rules then the game begins; the psychiatrist's job is figure out what's wrong with all the "patients" (other players).

In the off chance we ever try this I won't mention the standard rule I've played when playing this at parties, but it's usually been fun. The psychiatrist has to be ignorant of the rule.


MOLE
Another mafia like game but different:
Each player is privately given a piece of vital information to a larger puzzle. [Probably a word type of puzzle like descriptions of something which must be guessed].
The group must put their clues together and try to figure out the puzzle.
The catch is; one player is a mole; and his/her job is to sabotage or prevent the puzzle from being solved however they can; by steering them in the wrong direction or giving false information.
-Players may accuse other players of being the mole. If an agreement of at least 2 players can be made to accuse someone; that person will be eliminated; whether or not they're the mole. If they're the mole the game ends. If it's not the mole; the game goes on but that person can no longer participate (either in post or PM)

-If the puzzle is solved the game ends.
-If the time limit is reached (something like a month) and the puzzle hasn't been solved; the game ends and the mole wins.

[mobius]

Is there a way to get videos on youtube playlists to stop autoplaying? If not there needs to be now.

What I mean is when you're watching a playlist (with the black/grey box on the right) when you get to the end of a video it immediately goes to the next one which means it loads another page.
This is irritating for a number of reasons but most of which are:

1) If I want to comment on a video I usually wait till it's over (for obvious reasons). Well, in this case I can't do that because I'll get sent to the next video so I always have to pause the video very close to the end to write. Sometimes I forget and start writing a comment only to have the page load and my writing is lost.

2) They clearly haven't thought this through because on a pay-per-view video list, the message asking you to pay comes up but you barely have time to click "pay" before the next page loads (and keeps loading in the case of a TV show that's all pay-per-view)


While I'm on the subject: is there a way to hide the recommended videos section?

[Proxima]

Is there a way to get videos on youtube playlists to stop autoplaying? If not there needs to be now.

Not that I know of. It's especially annoying because they used to have this feature, and then they took it away

[Simon]

Maybe youtube-dl? Cross-platform command-line tool to download single videos, or download all videos from a given playlist. Then watch the files offline.

I use that on twitch vods sometimes, their web player can't handle saved chat bloat. Downloading 1 GB of video can be the least painful option to watch one minute within. >_>;

Doesn't help though for writing public comments under a video.

-- Simon

[mobius]

I'm looking for a PC that can handle decent modern 3D games well with out lag or major issues. (but, dumb wishes) also one that won't break my bank account. I usually buy used PCs anyway, and it doesn't have to state of the art.

I was using an HP Pavillion elite with Windows 7/10.
processor: AMD Phenom II.
Video card: ATI Radeon HD 4300/4500 series
RAM: (I think) 8 GB

I never really had any major complaints with these specs except that some heavy intensive games like Dark Souls required me to turn of anti-aliasing or motion blur and such or the game would noticeably slow down.

Are there any video card options that could improve my HP or would it better better or cheaper to get a new PC altogether? Like I said, don't have serious complaints and I don't play a ton of 3D rendering intensive games, but I'd like to be able to play a few now and then without major issue. I'm really only looking to improve my graphics a little bit. Of course if I can get something awesome for cheap I will. I search ebay often.

Also, besides all this I'm curious about PCs in general. What's your favorite/preferred brand of hardware? I've had HP for almost 10 years and before that was a Gateway. So I'm not too familiar with other brands. I know Dell used to be good, not sure how they are now.

[Simon]

Some half baked forum games I'm trying to come up with (need improvement):

Invasion: One good strat seems to be to kill random other players. It doesn't matter who we kill, as long as it's not me. And it doesn't matter whether I'm infected or not; my job is to survive until the end, then I'll win no matter what side. Do I win after I'm killed, when other people on my side win?

Pit: This thrives on the wild turn-free shouting in reallife. Excellent game, but I expect this super boring on a forum.

Psychitarist: Seems good on IRC with private messages before the game begins. Seems okay on a forum. Good game in reallife. It's not a competitive game, but rather a group activity: There is only one player, everybody else is a gamemaster.

Mole: Will take long, can work, can't judge. Haven't played.

-- Simon

[mobius]

I read a book last year called "An Imaginary Tale" by Paul Nahin; who has several books about math and very good if you are into that. He also wrote at least one about time travel (called "How to build a time machine" or something like that) I really want to get.

Now I'm reading "The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth" by John Marco Allegro. A guy who was on the team who found and translated the dead sea scrolls in 1950. It's an interesting take on history and the bible.

Next I want to get a book "Tribe" by Sebastian Junger. I learned of him on this podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iurXFfNriyg
I found his opinions and ideas super smart and very intriguing.  Tribe is about how humans seem to work best in small intimate communities; and the society we live in today (like the suburbs) while luxurious and wealthy are causing stress, anxiety and depression.

[mobius]

At the beginning of the scientific revolution of the 20th Century Bible stories and myths across the world were shunned as total fiction and useless to determine historical events. More recently as new scientific evidence comes out they're taking a closer look at old myths, as some are appearing more truthful than we used to think. Personally I think many of them are a mix of accounts of real events witnessed; then passed down for generations before written word existed, with fictional elements thrown in and distortions due to the many years of passing from person to person.
In any case I think it's fun to examine ancient myths and try to put them to a real event that could've happened.


Lately I've been reading about the so called "Apocryphal books of the Bible". In BCE times there was no "bible" as it is today; just a huge collection of separate books. Around 300 AD the Roman Catholics held a meeting known as the Council of Laodicea; where they made the bible official and decided what to include and what not to include in the big book. To some degree or another this is the bible you would find in an American Hotel today. There are actually a large number of ancient biblical books and letters that they left out, of which they considered 'non-canonical'.

The Book of Enoch
This book expands upon an existing story only mentioned briefly in Genesis, and casts light on some things about other parts of the bible. Enoch himself is mentioned several times in the rest of the bible as a descendant of Adam and Seth who lived years before the flood (one of the earliest stories in the bible). And as a rare man who was faithful during a time of sin ("the earth was filled with badness"), lived for over 300 years then possibly went to heaven or entered heaven without dying.

Summary:
The beginning is like a sermon;
-Enoch (assuming himself to be the writer or speaker here) establishes himself as a prophet of God.
-A brief explanation of seasons and astronomy.
-reprimands people (everyone?) as sinning and not appreciating God. Makes a distinct separation between holy and unholy people.

Chapter 7 is where  it begins to get interesting; telling the famous story of the "Fallen Angels"
-This story is mentioned but only briefly in Genesis, right before the Noah's Ark story. It actually appears very similar but like an abridged or compact version, omitting the details.

-A group of angels (200 in total), several "leaders" being mentioned by name (and apparently all male) descend to earth to mate with female humans.
-When these women became pregnant they gave birth to giants who terrorized humans.
[Some versions use other terms like "Nephelim" and some versions elaborate saying there were multiple races, or that the giants had children of their own who were also giants etc]*

In Genesis there is a particular verse referring to these things as "These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown."

The follow parts are not mentioned in Genesis:
-Each named angel goes on to teach something to the people of the earth; "how to make weapons, shields, mirrors, workmanship, paint and use of makeup/fashion, sorcery, astronomy, astrology, divination etc"

"and the world became altered"
"And men, being destroyed, cried out; and their voice reached to heaven."

-Then the good angels in heaven talk with God about what to do about all this. An interesting passage:
"You have seen what Azazyel [one of the fallen angels] has done, how he has taught every species of iniquity upon earth, and has disclosed to the world all the secret things which are done in the heavens."

-God gives on order to punish the fallen angels by throwing them into "an opening in the desert" of darkness.
-God sends Enoch to tell the fallen angels this and reprimand them.
-The angels ask Enoch to ask God to forgive them.
-Enoch has a prophetic dream:

It speaks of clouds and mist, fire and "agitated stars" (multiple times), flashes of light and wind. He flies up to heaven and sees an enormous building made of crystal and vibrating flames. He admits to being terrified and shaking in fear.
During this dream God speaks directly to Enoch and tells him how the bad people/angels will be punished. Then the dream continues and Enoch continues to see strange things.

This is all I've read so far. As unrealistic as all this sounds; I believe most of this can be extrapolated into real history.


-The Giants
It's currently known that many different species of early humans existed; and as we learn more about the evolution of humans we learn it was no straight line from ape to human. There were Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons, homo-sapien etc. More recent evidence suggests some of these subtly different species existed on earth at the same time. Let's assume they even cohabited. Humans were spreading over the earth at this time; many being nomads, partly due to changing climates during this time (especially during the ice age).
It is well proven that human stature during the time of Christ was considerably shorter than us today. Human height increased a great deal during the Middle ages, like the 'Medieval Warm Period'. I don't know all the reasons for this (or if it is known at all) but the sizes and shapes of the various species (Neanderthals etc) were noticeably different from their skeletons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo#Names_and_taxonomy
(scroll down a bit for a picture (I didn't post directly as it's a artist rendition and a semi nude picture))

If a civilization of the smaller humans got visited (or more likely invaded) by the larger civilization; they would've appeared like "giants" to them, even if not to us. And it seems likely the larger group would've dominated the little group, possibly gone to war with them, or used them as slaves. Bother civilizations may not have gone away from the exchange unscathed.
This likely could've happened long before writing existed but possibly oral tradition had started. This tradition was passed down for eons until it became "The Nephilim"

-The Fallen Angels
Not only here but repeatedly in the bible it speaks of angels appearing like humans (or in human form at one point or another). Here it seems revealing that these "angels" taught men all matter of things, intelligent things like how to build weapons and astronomy, and the "secrets of the heavens".
Besides the different species of humans being different in stature they could've been separate in intelligence and technology. This story could simply be an account of two separate ancient human races meeting for the first time and the more advanced one sharing it's technology; and the predictable stress and culture upheaval this would've had.
I don't know if it's known if these different races were compatible with each other but seems okay to assume they were; interbreeding would've just been another memorable part of this story.

-Enoch's dream/vision
Enoch (and characters in the bible as well, similar to this) describes characteristics quite similar to experiences people today describe after taking hallucinogenic drugs like DMT or psylocybin.
These experiences often include; bright colors, geometric shapes, seeing animals or creatures, lighting or strange weather, hearing voices. Having intense emotions; far more powerful then ordinary sober emotions.
The most interesting example to me is the verse:
"So greatly did it excel in all points, in glory, in magnificence, and in magnitude, that it is impossible to describe to you either the splendour or the extent of it."
-Again people who have taken a drug like this say that the altered state of mind is too strange to describe in words to someone who's never tried it themselves. Many cherish the experience as a spiritual thing, even if they weren't spiritual people, the most unique thing they ever experienced.

-Types of fungus and plants containing the drugs necessary to supply this experience (like Acacia) were available in the Mesopotamian area at that time and in fact, the Acacia bush is mentioned many times symbolically in the bible. In fact recent archaeological digs found stone sculptures of mushrooms in some of the most ancient sites ever found.

1) a bit of side commentary; this book reminds me a little bit of Greek and Roman mythology; I wonder if that's part of the reason for it's exclusion.

2) The verse in Genesis "the heros of old, warriors renown" makes it sound like this was an already old legend at the time of writing the bible. Which makes sense as these books were written I think between 1 and 1,000 BC. These interactions with different species would've happened possible 10,000+ years prior.