CATEGORY:
It From Bit or Bit From It? Essay Contest (2013)
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Time is the denominator of existence, and bits come to be in it by Daryl Janzen
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Author Daryl Janzen wrote on Jun. 21, 2013 @ 16:04 GMT
Essay AbstractIn discussing his proposal that everything is a conglomerate of answers to yes-no questions—that all of it derives from discrete bits—John Wheeler noted that the physical concept that puts up the greatest resistance to being relegated, in the final analysis, to a world of discrete informational bits, is time. But the concept of time in physics is a mess. This is discussed in detail, and a potential resolution is suggested which clarifies present issues. However, rather than leading to a realisation of Wheeler's dream, time's resistance is only strengthened by a clearer idea of its function in modern physics.
Author BioI'm a postdoctoral fellow with the School of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, where I live with my wife and two kids.
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Edwin Eugene Klingman wrote on Jun. 21, 2013 @ 23:49 GMT
Daryl,
Welcome back my friend. I have to leave now but have printed out your essay and very much look forward to reading it. I'm excited that it appears to be an evolution of and elaboration on your last essay, tailored to this important topic.
Best,
Edwin Eugene Klingman
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jun. 22, 2013 @ 00:34 GMT
Hi Ed,
Thanks for the warm welcome back. I haven't had an opportunity to read any of the essays here yet, but from what I see I think there are some great ones that I'm really looking forward to—yours among them of course.
You're right that I've considered other aspects of the problem of the nature of time, along similar lines to what I wrote about in
my last essay, but of course relating to the topic of this contest. In 25,000 characters, one can only discuss so much coherently, so there was a lot more that I could bring into this discussion, with different aspects of the problem to look at; but also, I learned a lot through the discussions we all had during the last contest, and was able to draw on what I think is a clearer picture.
For that reason, I really want to thank everyone who discussed that problem during the last contest, acknowledging the influence it had on this essay, and encourage discussion on the nature of time here.
Time is a notoriously difficult concept to parse, and I think it's also the most important one to clearly tackle before physics can truly move forward out of its current deadlock, since it's connected to every major problem we're currently facing—as this essay may illustrate, through Wheeler's own acknowledgement—so I think it's just so important to open a dialogue that allows us to develop our thoughts on time and use it to move past this problem that's been unresolved for far too long.
I hope you enjoy the essay!
Daryl
Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jun. 22, 2013 @ 00:37 GMT
broken linkHopefully this works...
Paul Reed wrote on Jun. 22, 2013 @ 06:23 GMT
Daryl
“We’re concerned here with what it may mean for something to exist—and specifically, with what it would mean for space-time to exist”.
It is not a matter of spacetime existing, but being a correct model of existence. Which it is not, because there is no time in existence (it also presumes a relationship between a unit of space and a unit of time, which is probably not correct either). There is difference, ie alteration, and the existence of these differences (ie realities) occurs at a rate. Time is concerned with the rate of change, ie a feature of the difference between realities, not a feature of them.
Existence is the physically existent state of whatever comprises it at any given time. Which is a simple statement of a very compex physical circumstance. Existence is only spatial.
Paul
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jun. 22, 2013 @ 13:51 GMT
Hi Paul,
It’s nice to hear from you again. However, I do wish you’d read through and try to understand the content of my essays, rather than (apparently) just sifting through, looking for something to take issue with.
“It is not a matter of spacetime existing…” Isn’t it? There’s a pretty common conception that space-time exists, or that parts of it exist anyway, and I’m trying to speak to that. But do I agree with the idea of space-time as something that exists? Of course I don’t, as I’ve written about in my essay.
I think if you did try to understand the content of the essay, and not just look for something to disagree with, you’d find a lot of similarity in our views; e.g., you wrote that “Existence is only spatial.” In fact, the argument I’ve tried to make in the essay is that a three-dimensional Universe exists, and our four-dimensional physics describes its history. It’s a view known as presentism, and it’s very unpopular; but part of arguing for an unpopular viewpoint is arguing against the popular one—i.e., you’ve got to address it, and not just say that the things people commonly think of are no matter because you feel you’ve got the right idea about things. So I said I was concerned with what it would mean for space-time to exist; “would” being the operative word.
As I said, I think there’s a lot that we would agree on. It’s therefore always very puzzling to have you arguing against me while stating the things I’ve argued for.
Daryl
Paul Reed replied on Jun. 23, 2013 @ 06:38 GMT
Daryl
“There’s a pretty common conception that space-time exists…”
No, there is a common conception that the concept of space and time, and their relationship, as exemplified in the model spacetime is a correct representation of the form physical existence takes. Which was my point, ie although it is an incorrect model, I am not aware of a common conception that it exists,...
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Daryl
“There’s a pretty common conception that space-time exists…”
No, there is a common conception that the concept of space and time, and their relationship, as exemplified in the model spacetime is a correct representation of the form physical existence takes. Which was my point, ie although it is an incorrect model, I am not aware of a common conception that it exists, ie this is not a basis for criticism of it.
In a similar vein, the concept of it from bit does not imply there is no it, just that we can only have bit. Or alternativly, there would be no it if there was no bit. So arguing from the basis that the conception is that there is no it, is another false trail.
This is a key sentence: “So we’re charged with a need to describe time in a way that makes sense of existence”.
Now, there is no need to argue through spacetime, relativity, etc, etc to answer that question. Indeed, that is the wrong way round. The question should be answered from identifying what existence for us can be, and then how that must occur (albeit generically, it is the task of physicists to establish what manifests). Which then enables one to judge the underlying validity of any given theory which purports to represent reality.
And the answer is very simple: for existence to both occur, and then occur differently, it must be sequence. And what is varying is the physically existent state. In other words, a reality (ie physical existence) is the physically existent state of whatever comprises it at any given time. To exist, by definition, involves discreteness (ie only one state) and definitiveness (ie there is a state). Time is concerned with the rate of change (ie the turnover rate of realities, the crate at which states alter in some way). Which means that time is a feature of how realities differ (another feature being what differs). There is no time in reality, reality is purely spatial (incidentally there are more than 3 dimensions, this is just the conceptual minimum). From this basis, it is the easy to point out the fundamental flaws in relativity/QM/spacetime.
Another problem you have by arguing through the theories to a conclusion is what precisely constitutes, say, relativity, anyway. I have posted on this many times, and there is a post on my essay blog which is the first 24 paras of another paper.
I can, and did sense before, that there is an underlying view about time which at the very least is similar to mine, but it is not stated overtly, neither is it overtly explained why this is so.
Paul
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jun. 23, 2013 @ 13:26 GMT
Paul,
You must surely be aware that people say things called “black holes” exist? Beyond the event horizon of a black hole, there is one timelike and three spacelike coordinates that are all supposed to exist. Objects are supposed to be able to be dropped into a black hole, one after the other, and move through an existing timelike direction, one after the other. This illustrates the...
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Paul,
You must surely be aware that people say things called “black holes” exist? Beyond the event horizon of a black hole, there is one timelike and three spacelike coordinates that are all supposed to exist. Objects are supposed to be able to be dropped into a black hole, one after the other, and move through an existing timelike direction, one after the other. This illustrates the common conception that space-time exists and objects move around in it.
Another example that illustrates the idea that all of space-time exists is time travel. You must be aware that time travel theory poses a problem that has been discussed a lot in both physics and philosophy literature. The “grandfather paradox” and variants are seriously considered to be real problems. A time traveller couldn’t go back to the past if the past didn’t really exist.
The idea that the past, present, and future all exist is known as eternalism (as opposed to presentism, which is your view and mine), and it’s commonly acknowledged as the philosophical view that’s most objectively supported by relativity, so your claim that relativity isn’t important in the debate on existence is wrong, since it’s been the central physical theory in that debate for a century.
Then you said “…arguing from the basis that the conception is that there is no it, is another false trail.” I’ve done nothing of the sort. I argued that there could be no bits if there wasn’t first it—that bits come to be in it—as opposed to all the bits coming together to form it.
But it’s clear that you still didn’t read past the introduction, because much of what you’re saying I should have done is what I did do in my essay. I didn’t just dwell on relativity, but attempted a consistent description of what existence can be for us, and I’ve attempted to connect the generic view with relativity, as the physical theory that describes what manifests.
I agree with you that the answer is simple, and I think you’ve got the right idea about time and existence; but you’re parsing it all wrong, and you’re not acknowledging all the arguments that have been made against it that are generally accepted as sound, while your stance is commonly regarded at best as probably untenable. I am trying to argue against all that here.
Daryl
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jun. 25, 2013 @ 03:42 GMT
Paul,
"“There’s a pretty common conception that space-time exists…”
No..."
Perhaps consider this, from Greene's Fabric of the Cosmos, p. 138:
""So: if you buy the notion that reality consists of the things in your freeze-frame mental image of right now, and if you agree that your now is no more valid than the now of someone located far away in space who can move freely, then reality encompasses all of the events of spacetime. The total loaf exists [he's been chopping up space-time like a loaf of bread]. Just as we envision all of time as really being out there, as really existing, we should also envision all of time as really being out there, as really existing, too. Past, present, and future certainly appear to be distinct entities. But, as Einstein once said, "For we convinced physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however persistent." The only thing that's real is the whole of spacetime.
In this way of thinking, events, regardless of when they happen from any particular perspective, just are. They all exist. They eternally occupy their particular point in spacetime. There is no flow. If you were having a great time at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, 1999, you still are, since that is just one immutable location in spacetime. It is tough to accept this description, since our worldview so forcefuly distinguishes between past, present, and future. But if we stare intently at this familiar temporal scheme and confront it with the cold hard facts of modern physics, its only place of refuge seems to lie within the human mind."
Daryl
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Joe Fisher wrote on Jun. 22, 2013 @ 17:25 GMT
Doctor Janzen,
I must say that this is one of the finest essays I have ever read, because this essay has confirmed my theory of the Universe that I charitably expressed in my essay BITTERS. One real Universe is eternally occurring, once.
The proof of this theory was right there in your essay when you wrote: …all of space-time must really be occurring”
I contend that the absolute of time is now. You wrote: Time in the sense of an all-pervading “now” does not exist. Respectfully Doctor Jansen, unique now is occurring once. All-pervading is not unique; therefore all-pervading cannot be occurring.
I do hope you have better luck with Paul than I had.
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jun. 22, 2013 @ 20:55 GMT
Dear Joe,
Thanks very much for your gracious comment. I’ve only managed a cursory look through your essay, but I wanted to say that I like your use of “codswallop”, and think your main argument that each and every event that ever occurs is unique, is a good one.
I wanted to clarify a couple of points that you made in your comment. The first quotation was given in summary of the logical consequences of a view that I don’t agree with. In any case, I think you’ve mistaken me there, because the eventual conclusion of the argument is that according to the view (as commonly acknowledged) time shouldn’t actually pass, as we commonly think of it. I think it does, and I think relativity theory describes that very well, contrary to popular belief.
The second quote you gave is actually something I quoted from Juergen Ehlers, and it’s also something I disagree with. I think there very much is an all-pervading “now”—a three-dimensional Universe—that exists, by which I mean that time passes, with new events occurring throughout space at every instant.
When people like Ehlers say things like “The four-dimensional world simply is, it doesn’t evolve”, I take them to be describing a 4D block reality—all the events that seem to occur throughout eternity—as existing, in the same sense as I think of the 3D Universe as existing, except that the 4D block isn’t supposed to change as the 3D Universe I’m thinking of—the all-pervading “now”—does.
Anyway, I think this one idea—the 3D Universe exists—is probably the same as what you mean when you say “One real Universe is eternally occurring, once”, and that it’s also what Paul means when he says “Existence is only spatial”.
Daryl
Hoang cao Hai wrote on Jun. 22, 2013 @ 20:52 GMT
Dear Daryl
Do you not have to be an absolute individual? Only as relative?
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1802
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jun. 22, 2013 @ 21:16 GMT
Dear Hoang cao Hai,
I have to admit that I think I don't understand the question. Sorry for that.
I see from your essay that you must be a realist, since you're arguing for an absolute reality. I've done this as well. I think we probably share a similar viewpoint on a number of issues. I've examined relativistic effects in my essay, and argued that they are indeed consistent with these views that I think we share. I'm arguing against the view that reality is relative, not for it.
I hope that starts to answer your questions.
Best,
Daryl
Manuel S Morales wrote on Jun. 24, 2013 @ 03:30 GMT
Daryl,
I find myself in agreement with most of what you have stated in your objective approach to understanding existence in relation to time. Well done!
I hope you take the time to review my essay which also touched upon some of the topics in your essay as well. The findings as presented in my essay have led me to how causality unifies gravity with the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces as one super-deterministc force, see:
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1809Best wishes,
Manuel
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jun. 25, 2013 @ 03:48 GMT
Dear Manuel,
Thanks very much for reading my essay, and for your gracious comment. I will read your essay and comment. And I'll give it a fair rating. But please allow me some time to get to it, as I've got a number of others I have to get to before then.
Best wishes,
Daryl
Vladimir Rogozhin wrote on Jun. 25, 2013 @ 11:30 GMT
Hello, Daryl!
I read your essay with great interest. It is right that in this contest you update problem of the nature of time. How to get out of the vicious circle: «Explain time? Not without explaining existence. Explain existence? Not without explaining time.»…. In my essay, I built a "home" for the time of the absolute form of existence of matter (absolute state). Time has calmed down in this "house" and then it became clear that "time" is a multivalent phenomenon ontological (structural) memory, which is manifested in the "arrow of time" - "vertical" world of generation of new structures. Time and information are one source - the ontological (structural) memory. Matter - is that from which everything is born (Plato), the ontological (structural, cosmic) memory - this is the fact that all generates. Best regards and wishes, Vladimir
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Vladimir Rogozhin replied on Jun. 25, 2013 @ 14:33 GMT
И это верно: «Time is the denominator of existence…»
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Vladimir Rogozhin replied on Jun. 25, 2013 @ 14:34 GMT
And it's true: «Time is the denominator of existence ...»
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jun. 25, 2013 @ 15:18 GMT
Dear Vladimir,
Thank you very much for your comments! I'm so glad that you read and appreciated my essay. It's great that you see the relevance of the topic to this particular contest, and I'm glad you've agreed with the argument as well, as you say it's true that time is the denominator of existence.
I haven't managed to read many of the essays here yet, but I thought I'd mention that a point I've tried to make, that there should be some sort of existence to begin with, so that events can occur and information can come to be, is, I think, similarly made in some other essays as well, which you might be interested to read if you haven't yet. For instance, Lawrence Crowell commented on his own essay, that "The core issue is that It From Bit is undecidable, for any schema of that nature is based on an incomplete axiomatic system". Also, Cristi Stoica discusses Wheeler's "law without law" in his essay.
And the first point I discussed in the essay, that space-time shouldn't be thought to exist anyway---which is just a wrong way of thinking about it---is noted as well in the introduction to Edwin Eugene Klingman's excellent essay.
Your essay too sounds very interesting to me, and I very much look forward to reading it!
Thanks again, and best of luck!
Daryl
Edwin Eugene Klingman wrote on Jun. 26, 2013 @ 05:03 GMT
Daryl,
I was unaware that Wheeler identified time as most resistant to reformulation as information, but it makes sense. I agree that "the concept of time in physics is a mess." That is why I found your last essay so enlightening. Your last essay was far more complex than this one, which, I believe, is written at just the right level for the contest. (Your current score is ridiculous, and I...
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Daryl,
I was unaware that Wheeler identified time as most resistant to reformulation as information, but it makes sense. I agree that "the concept of time in physics is a mess." That is why I found your last essay so enlightening. Your last essay was far more complex than this one, which, I believe, is written at just the right level for the contest. (Your current score is ridiculous, and I will do what I can to remedy it.)
Your statement that "It from Bit" represents a universe in which "everything we may think of as a fundamental aspect of reality could... be because of the correlation of randomly occurring bits" clearly shows the problem time presents to his view. And your following analysis shows that 'block time' is erroneous and a 3-D universe existing 'now' is the reality. The key to reality is energy (often instantiated as local mass). When local mass structures are "informed" by packets of energy crossing a threshold, the received packets create stored information, which remains available as a 'memory' of the threshold crossing.
I like Stein's argument that asserting the reality of any single event in the 'elsewhere' beyond one's own here and now brings the whole ball of wax into existence. No thanks!
As you note, Einstein's analysis of relative velocities in such a framework "comes with the fantastic notion that 'what exists for me' is different from 'what exists for you' because I'm now out for a walk and you're sitting somewhere reading this."
Capek: "if time has no genuine reality, why does it appear so real?" As I noted in my essay, I'm aware of time passing. And it makes no sense to me to interpret this consciousness as based on random bits of information.
You explain well that Wheeler's conjectures are based on the 4D space-time which you have recently debunked. This "gross misunderstanding of the meaning of relativity" apparently still holds sway. Your treatment of "space that exists in time" is superb, and much easier to understand than last year's more technical essay. I'm glad to see you moving beyond dissertation-level explanations to more popular exposition. Even so I had to read your essay twice to gain its full import.
I hope you find time to read my essay enough to make sense. I think it's very compatible with your view.
Best regards,
Edwin Eugene Klingman
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jun. 27, 2013 @ 19:10 GMT
Hello Edwin,
Thanks so much for your thoughtful comments on my essay. I have read yours as well, which I was exceptionally well done, and I agree that our views are very compatible. Actually, at a couple of points, and particularly the paragraph on p. 6 above “How does information use structure”, I felt like you may have had some of our previous exchanges in mind when you wrote it. I...
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Hello Edwin,
Thanks so much for your thoughtful comments on my essay. I have read yours as well, which I was exceptionally well done, and I agree that our views are very compatible. Actually, at a couple of points, and particularly the paragraph on p. 6 above “How does information use structure”, I felt like you may have had some of our previous exchanges in mind when you wrote it. I found the whole thing drew me in, as much by the excellent writing as by the very interesting content. I have a number of comments and questions that I’ll save for a post on your site, but perhaps you could clarify a minor detail.
I hadn’t noticed when I read through your essay at first, but when I went to refer to it in my reply to Vladimir Rogozhin above, to say that I thought you’ve said something like my point that “space-time doesn’t exist” in your introduction, it seemed that your “Map from territory, or territory from map?” may be stated backwards in relation to “It from bit or bit from it?”. Have I got that right? I think you want to say that space-time is the map of all the events that happen in the Universe, and therefore connect it with the territory and the map with the bits. It’s a totally minor detail, but should your alternative title for the contest have been
“Territory from map, or map from territory?”
Regarding your comment on the improved readability of this essay compared with the last one, I have a couple of comments. First of all, I partly have you to thank for that, as you’d pointed out to me before that it would be good to aim at a slightly less technical level of discourse, to improve the overall accessibility of the discussion. And secondly, I just can’t say it enough (I’ve said it at least twice already in these comments) that Time is an extremely difficult concept to parse. I was recently visiting some friends in Phoenix, and spent a fair bit of our vacation going on about these things. On the last day we were there, after I made some statement about events not existing at all, but happening as things exist (with the map of all those events forming space-time), one of them summed it all up perfectly, I think, with that statement.
I think it’s exactly what Augustine had realised already more than 1600 years ago, when he wrote “What, then, is time? If no one asks of me, I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not.” Time really is just a very difficult concept to parse, and it’s why I think philosophers have spent so much time trying to nail down the right language. There’s no doubt in my mind that you and I have the right idea, but nailing down a clear description that’s generally understandable and deals with all the intricacies is a real challenge.
Anyway, thanks again for taking the time to read and comment here. I really appreciate it!
All the best,
Daryl
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Edwin Eugene Klingman replied on Jun. 27, 2013 @ 20:53 GMT
Daryl,
You are of course correct that I should have re-ordered the map and territory to reflect the order of bit and it. I saw that after I had submitted it. Sorry for the confusion.
I look forward to other questions on my essay when you find time.
With the schedule you have, I'm amazed you find time even to enter the contest. So many of us are old codgers with time on our...
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Daryl,
You are of course correct that I should have re-ordered the map and territory to reflect the order of bit and it. I saw that after I had submitted it. Sorry for the confusion.
I look forward to other questions on my essay when you find time.
With the schedule you have, I'm amazed you find time even to enter the contest. So many of us are old codgers with time on our hands, and even then the time seems to fly. There are a few places where you present incorrect views of time, and, if one reads too quickly, these can be taken for your view. So as you hone this presentation, be sure you present a clear distinction. For example, the last paragraph on page 2 requires careful reading. This is overshadowed by your fine writing, but people are so confused, you must help at every step to clarify. For example double negatives: "aren't relevant to non-existence" and, later "not inconsistent", etc. When people are confused (as most are about time) these can throw them, if read too quickly. Seems silly, but it's true.
I'm glad to see that Eckard finds agreement and disagreement (below). I hope that leads to further clarification. Eckhard often refers to a dictionary for translation purposes. In dealing with international distributors of our products, my wife found out early that, if an English sentence can be interpreted in two different ways, it will usually be interpreted in the wrong way! Eckhard is a careful thinker, so it will be interesting to see what comes of this.
As I've noted elsewhere, I think your example with Albert and Henri deserves a '3D' diagram or drawing (or two?), if you can manage a good one. In addition to your Fig 2. This seems like the kind of thing that is published in Scientific American.
And as for the paragraph on page 6 you mention above. I was thinking this before I came across your essay. But you made it scientifically respectable from the General Relativistic viewpoint. Thank you again for that! It really is a challenge to nail it down, whether in General Relativity, Special Relativity, or just prose English. But it's even harder when you don't understand it. Since you do understand it, it's simply a matter of fine tuning your explanations. The beauty of FQXi is that people point to what needs fine tuning, so you have all these helpers working for you for free!
Best regards,
Edwin Eugene Klingman
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Eckard Blumschein replied on Jun. 28, 2013 @ 04:41 GMT
Dear Daryl,
Augustine's utterance was also quoted by v. Weizsaecker who did also not yet understand what Michael Helland reminded us of:
"Newton wrote that for time to be understood, it should be considered as two different flavors: the relative time depicted by our clocks and other moving/changing systems, and absolute time which is external."
I wonder why I was forced to rediscover Newton's clarifying insight and why my attempt to derive consequences has been facing fierce rejection.
Best regards,
Eckard
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jun. 28, 2013 @ 17:39 GMT
Dear Eckard,
I really couldn’t agree more with this sentiment. I also agree with Ed’s optimism that the disagreements we may have are very likely the result of simple misunderstandings, because I think we do have the same idea about things. Also, I want to say sorry that my actions or inactions have ever offended you---that’s never been my intent.
I’ve felt just as you have about having to discover the clarity of Newton’s insights on my own, after having been told over and again, that Newton was a fool to his senses, and brilliant Einstein showed him for what he was. The formalism of Newtonian mechanics is wrong, but so is the common thinking that ‘absolute space and time were stupid and naïve ideas that are inconsistent with relativity’. Newton’s definitions of absolute time, space, and motion are formally nothing other than what standard cosmology describes as cosmic time, the spatial sections of its associated comoving rest-frame, and peculiar motion such as we take to be indicated by the CMB dipole anisotropy. Relativistic cosmology implements Newton’s definitions, and by extension so should all of relativity theory, since solutions of Einstein’s equations should be nothing more than local descriptions of space-time in whatever coordinate system one uses; i.e., the relative and absolute aspects of time, space, motion, etc., that are described by modern physics should be acknowledged as fully consistent with Newton’s definitions, even though he didn’t implement them correctly in his theory because he didn’t—and how could he possibly have justified it anyway?—assume the speed of light should be constant from one frame to the next.
One thing I hope to get out of an exchange with you is why you keep saying you think I haven’t considered the consequences of a presentist interpretation of relativity. But maybe it’s best if we begin with a standard thought experiment, to see if we’re on the same page regarding our stance that “There is only one common time”, as you’ve put it in your endnotes, along with what that should mean for all its consequences. I’ll start a new thread for this below.
Best regards,
Daryl
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Peter Jackson wrote on Jun. 27, 2013 @ 15:37 GMT
Daryl,
Great essay, again. Important subject, and well handled. I think it should add a lot to understanding, if it were ever published!
However, the ending, where I'd hoped to find the logical tying up of all the unravelled nonsense of past theory, seemed to fall just short. I've read it now 5 times, and think I know what you are saying, but find it incomplete. Not rigorously identifying the apparent last quote, and the Einstein/Newton/New cases didn't help, particularly as the Newtonian description is not quite as I understand it. i.e. I don't think he proposed that light travels at infinite speed from distant events.
There seems some slight underparametrization which leaves matters a little open. This also emerges in the description that Einstein; "retains the assumption that simultaneous events are synchronous in the frame of every observer," Did he really 'say' that? which is quite different to the postulate. Am I so long thinking in an apparently more consistent way that I'm forgetting what happened in the Wonderland of relativistic interpretation?
First I of course agree absolute reality, but not a single absolute 'ether' background. I also agree local propagation speed c (or c/n) and in fact the postulates themselves, if not as interpreted. but let me ask you a question;
In your proposed schema, Let's take THREE clocks C1, C2 and C3 all at the front of the train, C1 inside the train, C2 outside but hanging on a bracket beside the car, and C3 also outside but on a fixed post in the track frame. All three (co-ordinated with his own clock when at rest) send a flash at the same instant.
Will he see the flashes at different times, and if so which first/last? and why.
And will wavelengths be the same?
To aid (or confuse!?) you I have a derivation which suggests there will be differences.
Peter
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jun. 27, 2013 @ 22:07 GMT
Peter,
Thanks very much for spending so much time with my essay, and for your questions and comments. I’m glad you agree with the relevance of the topic, and I appreciate the nice things you had to say about the essay.
The first point I’ll address is where you said “particularly as the Newtonian description is not quite as I understand it. i.e. I don't think he proposed that...
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Peter,
Thanks very much for spending so much time with my essay, and for your questions and comments. I’m glad you agree with the relevance of the topic, and I appreciate the nice things you had to say about the essay.
The first point I’ll address is where you said “particularly as the Newtonian description is not quite as I understand it. i.e. I don't think he proposed that light travels at infinite speed from distant events.”
That’s a good point, and I see I should really clarify what I wrote, which was “in assuming that truly simultaneous events, occurring at the same absolute time, should be described as synchronous in the proper coordinate frames of all inertial observers, Newton’s theory is inconsistent with a constant finite speed of light.”
This is true enough, but obviously misleading. The difference between the Galilean transformations of Newtonian mechanics and the Lorentz transformations of special relativity is that the factor v/c is zero in the former, which is why Newtonian mechanics is valid at low velocities. Newtonian mechanics would be consistent with the light postulate (constant finite speed of light in all inertial frames) if the speed of light were infinite. That’s why I added the word finite in that sentence.
BUT the speed of light isn’t infinite, and Newton knew that. His theory describes light as moving at a finite speed that varies between inertial frames of reference.
So, what I said was that Newton’s theory is inconsistent with the light postulate—i.e., that there’s a constant finite speed of light—because he assumed that truly simultaneous events (in absolute time) should be described as synchronous in inertial frames.
This brings me to that distinction between Newton, Einstein, and what I’m proposing, that you asked for clarification on: Newton assumed absolute simultaneity, motion, etc., and that simultaneous events are described as synchronous in all inertial frames, but allowed the speed of light to vary between reference frames; Einstein rejected absolute simultaneity, motion, etc., retained the assumption that simultaneous events are synchronous (and therefore relative depending on inertial frame), and proposed the light postulate; I’m proposing a rejection of the deep-seated assumption that synchronous events in all reference frames are simultaneous, a resurrection of an ultimate cosmic reference frame (absolute time, space, motion, etc.), away from which any relatively moving system can be described in isolation. This allows for an objective flow of time, as opposed to no flow at all, and contrary to the Machian argument that a Universal frame of rest can never be observed, it actually has!
You then asked whether Einstein ever said “simultaneous events are synchronous in the frame of every [inertial] observer.” The relativity of simultaneity is really a hallmark of Einstein’s theory. Even if he hadn’t said so explicitly, the definition is commonly made that events that occur at the same time in a given reference frame occur simultaneously. But yes, in the first relativity paper, Kinematical Part, section 1 is on the Definition of Simultaneity. There, he writes, e.g., “We have to take into account that all our judgements in which time plays a part are always judgements of *simultaneous events*. If, for instance, I say, “That train arrives here at 7 o’clock,” I mean something like this: “The pointing of the small hand of my watch to 7 and the arrival of the train are simultaneous events.”
I’m saying this definition of simultaneity needs to be rejected in favour of a Universal definition of simultaneity because that’s what cosmological observations indicate, and because that’s the only way relativity can actually make sense—and not send us down a rabbit hole where every abstraction is welcome and nothing is/can even be consistent.
Finally, in conclusion, you pointed out that my conclusion fizzles out. I don’t disagree. The main point was that without the added structure of an absolute time in relativity, time can’t pass; and in fact, whenever it’s been denied it’s just found a way of sneaking back into the way we think about our theories. The “it from bit” hypothesis is fundamentally inconsistent with this bit of structure—quantum interactions can’t occur if there is no prior existence for them to occur in—and that’s why I’ve argued for “bit from it”.
I hope that addresses your comments, and helps you to understand the parts a little better that weren’t clear to begin with. Please feel free to keep pressing me if anything remains unclear.
By the way, I’ve only looked at your essay briefly so far, but I really look forward to it. Thanks again, so much, for giving such attention to mine.
Best regards, and best wishes in the contest,
Daryl
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jun. 27, 2013 @ 22:20 GMT
Peter,
I forgot about the thought experiment. I'm not sure I understand it. Are the two clocks moving with the train and the other attached to a post at rest with respect to the outside? Do they need to be clocks, or are we just thinking of a signal that flashes once from each of them and is observed by someone at the other end of the train? Do the flashes occur, although side-by-side in, say, the y-coordinate, at the same value of x and t, so that in the x-t frame they look like the same event?
It might help if you send me your derivation. I'm very interested to see what you've got.
Thanks,
Daryl
Anonymous replied on Jun. 28, 2013 @ 15:02 GMT
Daryl,
Thanks. That's a bit clearer (if 'clarity' is really possible in this 100yr fog!)
Your description of my scenario is correct. And let's say two 1ms flashes, giving a 'space-time event'. But they're not observed as either the same time, wavelength or period. I think the solution I propose adds that pinch of magic dust to yours to finally clear the mist;
Flash C1 is IN the train. The train and air are an inertial system through which light propagates at c, (discrete field, = DFM), it's also at rest with the observer so the event remains 1ms, and with no Doppler wavelength change (0 delta lambda).
Flash C2 is outside the train but in the same inertial FRAME (at rest with the observer). Again no delta lambda on observer interaction ("detection"). However, it arrives BEFORE C1! This is because is DID change speed to propagate at c in the frame of the air outside the train, but then changed back on re-entering the original (emitter/detector) frame. That surprisingly is as found and as SR.
Flash C3 (fixed post) ALSO arrives before C1, so with C2, as it also propagates at c in the outside air frame. It then also shifts on meeting the observer frame, but this time there had been no INITIAL shift, so it is found to be blue shifted; i.e. both wavelength lambda AND the 'space-time period' have undergone 'length contraction'. (A flash from behind would be dilated or red shifted).
That rationalisation does take a little thought to assimilate as it will at first be quite unfamiliar (in a near vacuum the 'extinction distance' is greater so we need a far longer train to get rid of the birefringent mix). Careful thinking through should cause the fog to start lifting.
Let me know how you get on.
Peter
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jun. 28, 2013 @ 21:16 GMT
Hmmm... Light doesn't require a medium through which to propagate, and propagates at the same speed in all frames of reference (incidentally, the speed of light through air is c/n, right?), so I'm not really seeing this. I think in a space-time diagram, no matter which frame you're in, the light should be shown to travel from that "one" event in the x-t plane to the back of the train along the same null line. I think it should always get there at the same time, regardless of the frame of reference.
Would your idea differ if it all took place in a vacuum?
Peter Jackson replied on Jul. 1, 2013 @ 16:55 GMT
Daryl,
You can't 'see' this from anywhere where 'spacetime diagrams' exist. Leave all that behind an go for a mental walk in reality, through nature. Now think of an 'inertial system' as a real body of particles in motion (a train, air, diffuse plasma cloud, halo etc.) We've left wonderland and are back in hard reality.
Now get on a train which you can see right through. If you...
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Daryl,
You can't 'see' this from anywhere where 'spacetime diagrams' exist. Leave all that behind an go for a mental walk in reality, through nature. Now think of an 'inertial system' as a real body of particles in motion (a train, air, diffuse plasma cloud, halo etc.) We've left wonderland and are back in hard reality.
Now get on a train which you can see right through. If you really want the train can be a near perfect vacuum (a perfect on does not exist!) but you'll need 'bubble' on the side to see up the outside, and a helmet and air supply!
Now the flash C1 that propagates INSIDE the train propagates at c in the train 'frame'. Say if the train is 300m long it takes one petosec, and no Doppler shift.
Flash C2 from the bracket on the train propagates through the outside air in the air frame at c/n, but lets use a diffuse n=1 plasma (near vacuum) and c. As the distance from emission to detection is say only 290m it arrives earlier, OK now? It is however not Doppler shifted as it reverts back to c in your frame on meeting your lens (or in fact the 'bubble' glass, and you visor). This is done because it meets the surface transition zone free electrons and is re-scattered to the new local c. Remember "ALL particles emit em energy at c."
Flash C3 from the fixed post arrives at the same time as C2 because they propagated side by side in the air. It is however then Doppler shifted just the ONCE by the speed change on meeting the 'bubble' glass (visor/lens) in the normal way. So it's blue shifted.
It works in air or vacuum. But of course you should recall space is NOT an empty vacuum, just a diffuse medium, so the change takes longer (extinction distance, giving the 'atmospheric birefringence' first found by Raman).
If you think each case through they make total logical sense, AND derive the SR postulates! AND! do so by invoking an underlying known quantum mechanism!! That means unification. (All the observed effects of SR are derived alongside quantum uncertainty, including gamma.)
The Lorentz Transformation via the DFM. If you think through each flash carefully it'll make logical sense. But you'll struggle to see any of them clearly if you try to revert to any old doctrine. Are you seeing it yet?
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Eckard Blumschein wrote on Jun. 27, 2013 @ 18:36 GMT
Dear Daryl Janzen,
Your essay might be the one of this contest that has the most already agreeing arguments but simultaneously the most still disagreeing ones as compared with mine. I see this a challenge to check on what we can agree.
Yours sincerely,
Eckard
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jun. 27, 2013 @ 18:39 GMT
Dear Eckard,
That sounds like an excellent challenge, which I very much look forward to following up on. Let us get to the bottom of this!
Best regards,
Daryl
Michael Helland wrote on Jun. 27, 2013 @ 22:00 GMT
Newton wrote that for time to be understood, it should be considered as two different flavors: the relative time depicted by our clocks and other moving/changing systems, and absolute time which is external.
Its not that "true reality is timeless", but that relative time is meaningless in absolute reality (and vice versa).
My essay attempts to use an algorithm operating on is own time to produce an observer from the complexity of the algorithms computations, wherein the observer makes measurements of a clock and relative time emerges from the measurements.
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jun. 27, 2013 @ 22:35 GMT
Dear Michael,
Thanks for your post. Although I think anything that could ever cause anything else to exist first has to exist itself (and your algorithm does operate on its own time), I find your comment and your essay's abstract intriguing and will try to get to it.
Daryl
Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta wrote on Jun. 28, 2013 @ 01:29 GMT
Dear sir,
Thank you for presenting your nice essay. I saw the abstract and will post my comments soon.
So you can produce material from your thinking. . . .
I am requesting you to go through my essay also. And I take this opportunity to say, to come to reality and base your arguments on experimental results.
I failed mainly because I worked against the main stream....
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Dear sir,
Thank you for presenting your nice essay. I saw the abstract and will post my comments soon.
So you can produce material from your thinking. . . .
I am requesting you to go through my essay also. And I take this opportunity to say, to come to reality and base your arguments on experimental results.
I failed mainly because I worked against the main stream. The main stream community people want magic from science instead of realty especially in the subject of cosmology. We all know well that cosmology is a subject where speculations rule.
Hope to get your comments even directly to my mail ID also. . . .
Best
=snp
snp.gupta@gmail.com
http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.b
logspot.com/
Pdf download:
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/essay-downloa
d/1607/__details/Gupta_Vak_FQXi_TABLE_REF_Fi.pdf
Part of abstract:
- -Material objects are more fundamental- - is being proposed in this paper; It is well known that there is no mental experiment, which produced material. . . Similarly creation of matter from empty space as required in Steady State theory or in Bigbang is another such problem in the Cosmological counterpart. . . . In this paper we will see about CMB, how it is generated from stars and Galaxies around us. And here we show that NO Microwave background radiation was detected till now after excluding radiation from Stars and Galaxies. . . .
Some complements from FQXi community. . . . .
A
Anton Lorenz Vrba wrote on May. 4, 2013 @ 13:43 GMT
……. I do love your last two sentences - that is why I am coming back.
Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on May. 6, 2013 @ 09:24 GMT
. . . . We should use our minds to down to earth realistic thinking. There is no point in wasting our brains in total imagination which are never realities. It is something like showing, mixing of cartoon characters with normal people in movies or people entering into Game-space in virtual reality games or Firing antimatter into a black hole!!!. It is sheer a madness of such concepts going on in many fields like science, mathematics, computer IT etc. . . .
B.
Francis V wrote on May. 11, 2013 @ 02:05 GMT
Well-presented argument about the absence of any explosion for a relic frequency to occur and the detail on collection of temperature data……
C
Robert Bennett wrote on May. 14, 2013 @ 18:26 GMT
"Material objects are more fundamental"..... in other words "IT from Bit" is true.
Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on May. 14, 2013 @ 22:53 GMT
1. It is well known that there is no mental experiment, which produced material.
2. John Wheeler did not produce material from information.
3. Information describes material properties. But a mere description of material properties does not produce material.
4. There are Gods, Wizards, and Magicians, allegedly produced material from nowhere. But will that be a scientific experiment?
D
Hoang cao Hai wrote on Jun. 16, 2013 @ 16:22 GMT
It from bit - where are bit come from?
Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on Jun. 17, 2013 @ 06:10 GMT
….And your question is like asking, -- which is first? Egg or Hen?— in other words Matter is first or Information is first? Is that so? In reality there is no way that Matter comes from information.
Matter is another form of Energy. Matter cannot be created from nothing. Any type of vacuum cannot produce matter. Matter is another form of energy. Energy is having many forms: Mechanical, Electrical, Heat, Magnetic and so on..
E
Antony Ryan wrote on Jun. 23, 2013 @ 22:08 GMT
…..Either way your abstract argument based empirical evidence is strong given that "a mere description of material properties does not produce material". While of course materials do give information.
I think you deserve a place in the final based on this alone. Concise - simple - but undeniable.
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jun. 28, 2013 @ 17:03 GMT
Dear Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta,
Thanks for your post. Your essay sounds interesting to me, as I think we’ll see eye to eye on some fundamental issues. I hope you do enjoy my essay when you read it!
There was one particular statement you made that raised a red flag for me though. You wrote “The main stream community people want magic from science instead of realty especially in the subject of cosmology. We all know well that cosmology is a subject where speculations rule”, and really I couldn’t disagree with that more. Out of all the areas of physics, I think cosmology is the one that’s done the best to maintain a grasp on reality. I believe this is why, despite being more inclined towards philosophy, as my main interest lies in searching for a clearer and more realistic understanding of nature, I persevered through the “shut up and calculate!/purely hypothetical mathematical derivations leading to descriptions of observable events are all that matter/etc.” attitude in modern physics, to a PhD in cosmology.
Don’t get me wrong: I do think the model is fundamentally flawed, and people are reading too much into the measured parameters; but modellers in every science are prone to doing that, and I think with cosmology the heart’s in the right place. Cosmology aims to describe the large-scale structure of our Universe; to realistically account for the redshifts, etc., of distant galaxies that we believe really exist, despite the fact that we’re only observing images of them that were shone into space millions of years ago---i.e., so we can't really verify that they're actually there "now", in the cosmological sense of "now".
I think the dividing line in this contest is between people who strive for a sensible, realistic, and self-consistent description of nature that would agree with all observations we can make, and those who care more to push the limits of nonsense, to derive a theory of reality that’s not inconsistent—i.e. is technically compatible—with observation, despite possibly being nothing like experience. Personally, I’m in the former camp, and while I can appreciate to some extent the sense of scepticism that motivates the latter, I think it’s been more damaging than anything, and really defeats the purpose of science and philosophy.
The best example I know of is the Macheo-Leibnizian stance that a Universal frame of rest isn’t observable, and is therefore to be rejected from the point of view of relativity. This supports the Einsteinian stance on the relativity of simultaneity, and consequently the description of reality as a block universe in which time doesn’t really flow. According to the sceptical stance, this isn’t strictly inconsistent with experience, and we have no way of proving that all of eternity isn’t real as what we think of in our minds as now, right now, each and every second.
As I argued in this essay, however, this has often led to a very inconsistent way of thinking, in which all of eternity is actually thought of as existing—i.e. another temporal dimension is snuck into the mix—and the whole thing becomes a muddled mess with even more structure, which is even further from being scientifically defendable than the one bit of structure—the ultimate cosmic rest-frame—that they wanted to deny at the outset. In short, those who argue in this way can’t even get their story straight, but that’s generally okay by them because it’s all a bunch of abstract unobservable gibberish, which they think is a good thing because they anyhow take quantum physics to support the idea that reality really is a bunch of nonsense. In short, its stances like the one that there is no cosmic rest-frame, that lead physicists into rabbit holes where they’re happy to play around with math and make a complete mess of things and deny the notion that reality could even possibly make sense.
But then, as I argued in
my previous essay, the Macheo-Leibnizian stance is actually DEAD WRONG! For the past 80 years we’ve reasoned from the cosmological data that there is actually a cosmic frame of rest—an absolute rest-frame—and the CMBR provides unprecedented scientific evidence that this is so. The observation of a cosmic rest-frame more than motivates the idea that only the three-dimensional Universe exists, and therefore time actually passes, etc., and the events that occur in the Universe as it exists make up the space-time map of all observables, which we describe with four-dimensional physics.
Sorry if this sounds like I’ve gotten my back up. I really don’t agree with a lot of what cosmology is supposed to have established. But I do think cosmologists have done a better job of *striving* for a realistic and sensible theory than physicists in other areas. Mis-attributing the meaning of measured parameters isn't the same as pushing abstract magic as something better than a sensible description. I still think cosmology is, at its heart, a realist's theory.
Daryl
Anonymous replied on Jun. 28, 2013 @ 20:06 GMT
Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on Jun. 28, 2013 @ 23:18 GMT
Dear Datyl,
Thank you very much for an informative post.
I say Thank God , I could provoke anger in some one at least.!!!
I will answer all your questions, and please read the following in this post...
You remove all the "NO"s you will get main stream cosmology. If have any differences on any point we can have eye to eye.
after this FQXi also you can contact me by my id snp.gupta@gmail.com
- - - Dark enrgy , dark matter are calculation mistakes that rules to start with,What do you say?????
Please see, and discuss on any point, you feel not satisfied. . . .
http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.in/2012/11/fundamen
tal-questions-addressed-by.html
Fundamental questions addressed by Dynamic Universe Model
This Model is new Cosmological model fundamentally and mathematically different from Bigbang, Steady state model etc. I am giving below its Foundational points, Present Day unsolved problems, which can’t be solved by other prominent models, New Satellite Mass reduction technology and publications (Four Books published).
Main foundational points of Dynamic Universe Model:
-No Isotropy
-No Homogeneity
-No Space-time continuum
-Non-uniform density of matter, universe is lumpy
-No singularities
-No collisions between bodies
-No blackholes
-No warm holes
-No Bigbang
-No repulsion between distant Galaxies
-Non-empty Universe
-No imaginary or negative time axis
-No imaginary X, Y, Z axes
-No differential and Integral Equations mathematically
-No General Relativity and Model does not reduce to GR on any condition
-No Creation of matter like Bigbang or steady-state models
-No many mini Bigbangs
-No Missing Mass / Dark matter
-No Dark energy
-No Bigbang generated CMB detected
-No Multi-verses
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Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on Jun. 29, 2013 @ 12:29 GMT
Dear Daryl,
So you found a way for seeing eye to eye, you reduced my ratings. Does not matter, please think other ways: by logic, mathematics , calculations to prove your true support to Main stream Cosmology. Take some steps that side also. . .
Best
=snp
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Anonymous replied on Jun. 29, 2013 @ 19:29 GMT
Dear snp,
I haven't rated your essay yet, because I haven't yet had an opportunity to read it. I assure you that when I do I will give you what I think is a fair rating, so please don't despair.
You said also that you thought you had provoked anger in me, and I'm sorry that you misunderstood me. I only wanted to explain why I disagree with a statement you made.
There is definitely a lot that I could say about your post, but I'll only address a few of them. The inference that there is dark matter and dark energy in the Universe is not due to calculation mistakes. The mathematical derivation of the model is sound, and the fit to the data is very good. I actually think the mathematical form of the model is correct, but that it's based on a completely wrong idea. I indicated why in my pervious essay, but the detailed reasoning and analysis is in my dissertation. I think the inference that the cosmic expansion rate is being influenced by exotic energy sources in our Universe is wrong, and that the particular expansion rate is observed because of a well-defined geometrical background structure.
You also said that there are no differential equations in your model. Do you suppose there is no change of any sort in reality? Because that's all a differential equation describes.
And finally, I'm surprised that your model isn't isotropic. Since we actually do observe large scale isotropy, the fact should be difficult to reconcile with a non-isotropic model.
Regards,
Daryl
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Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on Aug. 6, 2013 @ 10:21 GMT
Dear Daryl,
- - - - -You said also that you thought you had provoked anger in me, and I'm sorry that you misunderstood me. I only wanted to explain why I disagree with a statement you made. - - - - -
Don't worry , no problem
- - - - -There is definitely a lot that I could say about your post, but I'll only address a few of them. The inference that there is dark matter and dark energy in the Universe is not due to calculation mistakes. The mathematical derivation of the model is sound, and the fit to the data is very good. I actually think the mathematical form of the model is correct, but that it's based on a completely wrong idea. I indicated why in my pervious essay, but the detailed reasoning and analysis is in my dissertation. I think the inference that the cosmic expansion rate is being influenced by exotic energy sources in our Universe is wrong, and that the particular expansion rate is observed because of a well-defined geometrical background structure. - - - - -
They are due to calculation mistakes only. We can sit together and discuss, even after the essay contest is over.
- - - - -You also said that there are no differential equations in your model. Do you suppose there is no change of any sort in reality? Because that's all a differential equation describes. - - - - -
Differential equations are not necessary here. Linear equations are sufficient.
- - - - -And finally, I'm surprised that your model isn't isotropic. Since we actually do observe large scale isotropy, the fact should be difficult to reconcile with a non-isotropic model. - - - - -
Isotropic models collapse to the common center of gravity.( Universe doesn’t collapse.) They will get singularities. Universe is lumpy. You will find voids as big as 1/3 size of universe.
Thanks for the live discussion!
Best
=snp
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Author Daryl Janzen wrote on Jun. 28, 2013 @ 20:34 GMT
Dear Eckard,
Following up on my first response to your comment on Jun. 28, 2013 @ 04:41 GMT
I thought you might be interested to discuss the following: consider a situation in which two gunslingers about to duel with laser pistols stand at either end of a train and there’s some gunpowder at the middle that gets lit by a referee. Someone else watches the whole thing from a field outside, and from his perspective the train is moving to the right.
Do the gunslingers see the signal at the same time, or not? According to which perspective? If no, is it still a fair fight (assuming each stands his ground)? How do you reconcile this with there being one common time?
Cheers,
Daryl
Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on Jun. 29, 2013 @ 12:50 GMT
Dear Daryl,
Did you get solution to the above problem?
Please try Dynamic Universe Model with some numerical values, give initial values of velocities, take gravitation into consideration( because you can not experiment in ISOLATION). complete your numerical experiment.
later try changing values of masses and initial values of velocities....
Calculate with different setups and compare your results, if you have done a physical experiment.
I sincerely feel it is better to do experiment physically, or numerically instead of breaking your head on just logic. This way you will solve your problem faster.....
Best
=snp
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Eckard Blumschein replied on Jun. 29, 2013 @ 16:33 GMT
Dear Daryl,
Please find my reply
here.Regards,
Eckard
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jun. 29, 2013 @ 19:38 GMT
snp:
This is a very simple experiment, which you are overcomplicating. There is no need to 'break your head' on it, because it's purposely very clear and very simple. And there have been many tests that have confirmed the validity of SR in its applicable domain, although this particular experiment is so simple that it hardly needs to be carried out.
Eckard:
thanks very much for your post! I'll respond to it over there.
Daryl
Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on Jun. 30, 2013 @ 17:43 GMT
Ok , Thank you Daryl,
As you wish, You can try calculation of Dynamic Universe Model any time...
Best
=snp
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Eckard Blumschein replied on Jul. 5, 2013 @ 16:44 GMT
Dear Daryl,
I see you very active in other discussions, and you also wrote a lot in your last post in 1793. Perhaps you overlooked my humble response.
Regards,
Eckard
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 5, 2013 @ 17:00 GMT
Dear Eckard,
Thank you for the gentle nudge. I apologise. I did see your post there only late last night when I had to go to bed, and I woke up with this post from Israel that bothered me for a couple of reasons, so that I wanted to respond right away. Unfortunately, I am leaving shortly to go camping for my daughter's 8th birthday this weekend, so I fear I won't get to it before then. I hope it's not too much to ask if I can respond then? I see now that Paul has posted another reply there, too, and I'd like to keep up the discussion.
Peter, If you manage to see this, I did notice your last post above and haven't had a chance to read through and give it the consideration it deserves. As I said, I'll be gone for a couple of days but will respond when I get back.
My apologies to both of you, and best regards,
Daryl
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Author Daryl Janzen wrote on Jun. 29, 2013 @ 23:27 GMT
To anyone who's interested:
I just added two posts at Eckard's site that I thought I'd put here as well, in case anyone's interested in this discussion we're having and might miss it there. Please feel free to comment.
First of all, here's his reply:
In order to test my understanding of the velocity of light and of simultaneity, Daryl Janzen introduced two gunslingers (this word is not in my dictionary, I just assume receivers of the same signal) who are located on a train with equal distance from the common a source of that signal located in the middle of the train.
Yes, according to the endnotes of my essay, they will see the signal at the same moment. It is reasonable and possible to choose only one co-ordinate system that refers to the train.
An observer on the ground may sees the train moving to the right. This motion does not matter.
Eckard
Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jun. 29, 2013 @ 23:28 GMT
Here's my first response:
Eckard,
Thanks for your answer. I’m sorry you felt that I mean to ‘test’ you with this question. I just thought it would be a nice concrete place to start a discussion about relativity and check on what we can agree, as you previously suggested.
And sorry for the confusion over the definition of a ‘gunslinger’. From Wikipedia: Gunfighter and gunslinger /ˈɡʌnslɪŋər/, are 20th-century words, used in cinema or literature, referring to men in the American Old West who had gained a reputation as being dangerous with a gun.
In the scenario I posted, which I adapted from Greene’s ‘Fabric of the Cosmos’, the two men are dueling with laser pistols, so their ‘bullets’ travel at c. And someone observes it all from outside the train. I asked: “Do the gunslingers see the signal at the same time, or not? According to which perspective? If no, is it still a fair fight (assuming each stands his ground)? How do you reconcile this with there being one common time?”
We don’t agree on the answer to the first question, so let’s consider your suggestion 3: “The velocity of light c equals to the distance d between the position of emitter at the moment of emission and the position of receiver at the moment of detection divided by the time of flight t: c=d/t.”
In the frame of the observer outside the train, the signal propagates at c towards both gunslingers, from the place of emission. While the signal is propagating, the guy on the left is approaching that point of emission and the guy to the right is moving away from it. The distance that the light eventually travels in order to reach the guy on the left should therefore be less, in the outside observer’s frame of reference, than the distance that the light eventually travels in order to reach the guy at the right. With c constant, this means, by your suggestion 3, that the signal reaches the guy at the left in less time than it takes to reach the guy to the right.
On the other hand, in the gunslingers’ proper frame of reference on the train, they never move relative to the place where the signal is emitted, so the distance that the light travels is the same in either direction, takes the same amount of time to get to both gunslingers, and is therefore observed by each of them at the same time.
Do you disagree that the signal will be observed synchronously in the gunslingers’ frame, but the gunslinger on the left will see the signal before the one on the right in the frame of the observer standing outside the train? If we can agree on this basic picture, which doesn’t say anything about what’s *really* going on, but only demonstrates the issue that Einstein and others realised, then we can move on to discuss how we would interpret it. The key, in my opinion, has to do with what Paul brought up in his first post above, on Jun. 12, 2013 @ 18:47 GMT. As I keep saying, synchronicity and simultaneity are different things.
Regards,
Daryl
Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jun. 29, 2013 @ 23:30 GMT
And here's the second:
Oh I can’t help myself. Can I say already what I think is the problem with Einstein’s proposal that synchronous events are simultaneous? It’s perfectly exemplified in the following quotation from Greene (next three paragraphs):
"So: *if you buy the notion that reality consists of the things in your freeze-frame mental image of right now, and if you agree that your* now *is no more valid than the* now *of someone located far away in space who can move freely, then reality encompasses all of the events of spacetime*. The total loaf exists [he's been chopping up space-time like a loaf of bread]. Just as we envision all of space as *really* being out there, as *really* existing, we should also envision all of time as *really* being out there, as *really* existing, too. Past, present, and future certainly appear to be distinct entities. But, as Einstein once said, "For we convinced physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however persistent." The only thing that's real is the whole of spacetime.
“In this way of thinking, events, regardless of when they happen from any particular perspective, just *are*. They all exist. They eternally occupy their particular point in spacetime. There is no flow. If you were having a great time at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, 1999, you still are, since that is just one immutable location in spacetime. It is tough to accept this description, since our worldview so forcefully distinguishes between past, present, and future. But if we stare intently at this familiar temporal scheme and confront it with the cold hard facts of modern physics, its only place of refuge seems to lie within the human mind.
“Undeniably, our conscious experience seems to sweep through the slices. It is as though our minds provide the projector light referred to earlier, so that moments of time come to life when they are illuminated by the power of consciousness. The flowing sensation from one moment to the next arises from our conscious recognition of change in our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. And the sequence of change seems to have a continuous motion; it seems to unfold into a coherent story… The intuitive image of a projector light that brings each new *now* to life just doesn’t hold up to careful examination. Instead, every moment is illuminated, and every moment remains illuminated. Every moment *is*. Under close scrutiny, the flowing river of time more closely resembles a giant block of ice with every moment forever frozen into place."
People do think of space-time as existing, but not always just as such a frozen block. In the general relativistic picture, objects are more often thought to move around, warping space-time as they go. How often have you heard that when something falls into a black hole, it has to keep falling towards the singularity at r=0 because r is the timelike direction within the event horizon, so even light can’t escape it? It can move in any spatial direction it likes, but even light has to keep going towards r=0. Let me ask you: if one of these gunslingers we’re talking about jumped into a black hole, could he shoot a laser bullet towards r=2m and one towards r=0 (say he’s got two guns and fires them simultaneously in either ‘direction’) so that, although they’d both fall towards the singularity out of necessity, the latter bullet would actually get there ‘first’? Should that be any more possible to do than for you to take a gun and point it towards the past and another and point it towards the future and have the latter make it to 2014 before the former? The whole concept is so completely inconsistent and blatantly wrong!—and it’s truly remarkable that it’s persisted as long as it has.
So, the first point I addressed in my essay—which I couldn’t avoid having to address because nothing else I could say would make any sense from the point of view of the current incorrect paradigm in physics—is the blatant inconsistency in this common way of thinking of space-time as something that exists: due to the “relativity of simultaneity”, people *do* think of space-time as existing, as the Greene quotation illustrates, *but the idea smuggles in an extra dimension that’s not formally part of the theory*! They think of a block universe—all of space-time—as existing, which sneaks in the same sense of temporality as we think of when we think of a block of wood as existing. Just as a 3D block of wood sitting somewhere as time passes is a 4D concept, described by 4D physics with three spatial and one temporal dimensions, a 4D block universe existing as Greene has described it is a *5D* concept, described by four space-time dimensions and one temporal dimension. There’s more unobservable (and completely unjustifiable) structure in this view than there is when we just assume absolute simultaneity and a true rest frame, which is what Einstein rejected from the point of view of parsimony; i.e., he was so parsimonious that his theory led to a conception of reality with *more* added junk than if he’d just accepted what’s *obvious* from the beginning.
But the 5D idea that Greene describes really is a misrepresentation of what Einstein’s SR is actually supposed to imply. So: what does Einstein’s proposal that simultaneity is relative *really* mean? The block universe that’s a logical consequence of the proposal is *just* a 4D slice of that 5D reality. The block universe doesn’t exist; it’s just a temporally singular thing that pops in and out of that ‘existence’ in an instant.
My point is that when one finally understands, and makes this clear distinction, and denies the temporality that our thoughts always want to sneak into the idea, then it should be very clear that the Einsteinian view, that synchronous events should be simultaneous, *must* be wrong. The reason is obvious: *something* exists; there is *some* sense in which time passes, because right now is earlier than right now is earlier than right now, etc.—or at least it’s not all on par as we perceive it. That much is true, even if it’s because all of eternity *exists* in the 5D sense described by Greene, and our consciousnesses simply flow through our worldtubes like a river that flows everywhere and never runs dry. For that consciousness to flow, and the block to exist, that fifth dimension is required. The pure 4D block universe, unadulterated by our thoughts, is impossible to reconcile with any realistic sense of the world, and those who argue for it always do fall back on the 5D concept at one time or other, if not always so overtly as Greene does.
So, what I propose is that only the three-dimensional world around us exists, and there is only one true sense of simultaneity. In the gunslingers example, the signal either reaches them simultaneously or it doesn’t, regardless of whether that is described as synchronous in the chosen frame of reference or not. This bit of structure that’s necessary to form a coherent theory of existence that’s consistent with the apparent flow of time, etc., precludes any informational bits that might come to be. Above all else, without *existence*, bits can’t exist—for bits that exist can’t be the cause of their own existence.
So how do we reconcile the results of the gunslingers example with the notion of absolute simultaneity? Take the outside observer to be perfectly at rest in the cosmic rest-frame. Now consider the perspective of the two gunslingers. Is it so difficult to see that from their perspective, if they’d just lift the blinds so they can see the world around them, then they too would realise that the guy to the left is going to see the signal first, because he meets it part-way between his position at the time of emission and the signal’s position at the time of emission?
Of course it’s not difficult to see that that’s going to be their perception. Just because everything can also be described as if the train were at rest and the Universe were zipping past—just because he can bounce a ball on the floor, or toss it in the air, and have it come right back to his hand—doesn’t mean the gunslingers are unable to come to grips with the fact that they’re actually moving, and the sense that the guy to the left is going to see the signal first.
But this is the rock that the whole relativity church was built upon: Mach’s failed argument that even if there is a cosmic rest frame we could never observe it; Einstein’s wrong argument that it’s just superfluous structure and the theory’s just as good without it. WE HAVE A VERY PRECISE OBSERVATION OF A COSMIC REST-FRAME, and all the relative motion between galaxies, which is very small compared to the speed of light, is full well understood to be motion through the Universe.
So let’s go back to Greene’s statement: *if you buy the notion that reality consists of the things in your freeze-frame mental image of right now, and if you agree that your* now *is no more valid than the* now *of someone located far away in space who can move freely*. This statement has been fed to us for a hundred years, and it’s just plain wrong. For which freeze-frame mental image of right now are we supposed to say is the valid one for the gunslingers to hold: the one with the blinds shut or the one with them open? If the former is no more valid a mental image to them than the latter, and acceptance of the latter in light of all the cosmological evidence we’ve found over the past century is also consistent with the apparent fact that time does flow, then why the **** should we hold the former up as the crown jewel of objective thought, which proves to us without a doubt that there’s no such thing as the passage of time, and all eternity ‘exists’? If the freeze-frame mental image of right now that’s held by the gunslingers when they’ve blocked out the evidence from the world around them leads to an unrealistic description of physical reality when we assume that it’s a true representation of “right now”, then we should instead assume that the true representation of “right now” is the freeze-frame mental image of right now that’s held by the gunslingers when they’ve opened the blinds!
Cheers,
Daryl
Edwin Eugene Klingman wrote on Jun. 30, 2013 @ 08:13 GMT
Daryl,
I've enjoyed your exchanges with Eckhard, though I haven't had much time to study your comments above.
I would like to point out an essay that I would very much like your opinion of. Although I believe he takes the classical 'block time' approach, I'm not sure this is relevant to his paper. As I interpret him, I find strong support for my own theory of the (non-linear) C-field. I would be very interested in your appraisal of what I consider a significant essay, as you have far greater expertise in GR than I. The paper is
Prof Vishwakarma's. He also references an arXiv paper with slightly different contents than the essay. I hope you find it as interesting as I do.
Best,
Edwin Eugene Klingman
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jun. 30, 2013 @ 08:58 GMT
Thanks, Ed.
I skimmed through his essay earlier and couldn't see how he was proposing something different from teleparallelism, but I'll have another look. Also, I don't see why he's setting the cosmological constant to zero. It doesn't have to (and I think it shouldn't) be interpreted as dark energy, but can be treated as a geometrical constant. The full vacuum Einstein equation is R_ab=Lambda*g_ab.
Daryl
Israel Perez wrote on Jul. 1, 2013 @ 05:59 GMT
Hi Daryl
It is nice to know that you're in this contest again. As before, you did a great job.
To follow your line of thought I must confess that I had to read your essay twice, but I still do not have clear some parts. I'd be happy if you could help me to clarify them. I'm aware that you are in favor of an absolute system of reference. You also expose in your detail analysis that...
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Hi Daryl
It is nice to know that you're in this contest again. As before, you did a great job.
To follow your line of thought I must confess that I had to read your essay twice, but I still do not have clear some parts. I'd be happy if you could help me to clarify them. I'm aware that you are in favor of an absolute system of reference. You also expose in your detail analysis that based on the mathematical formulation of special relativity (SR) one can conclude that the world doesn't evolve. So, to solve this problem you're suggesting to add an additional absolute time dimension, is this correct? As I understood, the idea that you expose in your essay is that the four dimensional space-time of relativity should be embedded in an absolute time dimension?
On the other hand, you cite Capek:
If true reality is timeless, where does the illusion of succession come from? If time has no genuine reality, why does it appear to be real?
The answer to these questions obviously depends on what we understand by "time". So to tune ourselves, I'd be glad if you could tell me what you understand by "time", how would you define time?
You discuss the issue of simultaneity and the twin paradox. I'm glad that you understand how paradoxical SR is and why it is necessary to consider, in a consistent theory, an absolute system of reference -- above all for light.
Einstein was aware of this paradox and we all know how the paradox was "solved". Thus, every time that someone brings this paradox (or any other) as a critic of SR, the same Einstein's arguments are invoked. At the end, most people agree that there is no paradox at all. I just wonder if you are aware of this.
Then you go to discuss about clocks and emission of signals by Henry and Albert, that is, you go to the problem of clock synchronization, which has been extensively studied in the literature and this leads us to the problem of the impossibility of the measurement of the one-way speed of light (I have published about it). Giving my expertise in this field, now I have clear some crucial points that I'd like to share with you. (1) SR won't adopt any privilege frame --because the theory was intentionally designed to exclude these systems since the 1905 paper. (2) Our colleagues haven't acknowledged the paradoxes (for more than 100 years), so there is no point of discussion. (3) The one-way speed of light cannot be measured --this is due to the impossibility of clock synchronization on one hand, and due to the fact that our experimental techniques are circuital, on the other. Despite this, it is natural to assume that the one-way speed of light is isotropic because it is also natural to assume a privilege frame. Therefore, giving this status, I'm afraid there's nothing more to say about relativity. Those who have realized this are moving on and looking for new approaches.
Finally, I'd like to invite you to read my
essay and leave some comments. There I discuss about Wheeler's dream and propose a potential way to get out of the present crisis.
Well, I'll be looking forward to hearing any comments you may have.
Regards
Israel
P.S. I will recommend your essay to Daniel Alves (and some others), he is not aware of the paradoxical part of SR. He considers the absolute frame as superfluous (as Einstein did), perhaps your work may persuade him.
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 1, 2013 @ 22:58 GMT
Hi Israel,
It’s nice to see you here as well! Thanks for reading my essay and commenting. I see much to clarify based on your comments, so I’m glad you’ve given me a chance to do that. I’ll address things point-by-point.
“…based on the mathematical formulation of special relativity (SR) one can conclude that the world doesn't evolve.”
Yes, I’m arguing that one...
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Hi Israel,
It’s nice to see you here as well! Thanks for reading my essay and commenting. I see much to clarify based on your comments, so I’m glad you’ve given me a chance to do that. I’ll address things point-by-point.
“…based on the mathematical formulation of special relativity (SR) one can conclude that the world doesn't evolve.”
Yes, I’m arguing that one can, and often does—but really doesn’t have to—conclude this.
“So, to solve this problem you're suggesting to add an additional absolute time dimension, is this correct? As I understood, the idea that you expose in your essay is that the four dimensional space-time of relativity should be embedded in an absolute time dimension?”
No, that’s the point of confusion. I’m saying that very often people *do* think of space-time as existing, and that’s a five-dimensional concept that's not acknowledged. I quoted Weyl and Ehlers in the essay; above, I’ve quoted a few paragraphs from Brian Greene’s Life of the Cosmos, which really illustrates this. See the big long post that’s two above here, on Jun. 29, 2013 @ 23:30 GMT.
To understand what I mean by this, think of a block of wood that’s just sitting somewhere. That’s a four-dimensional concept. It occupies a three-dimensional place as time passes. The space-time concept that’s often been derived erroneously from relativity is a similar five-dimensional concept, extending throughout all of space-time as some extraneous time passes. There are two important differences, though: there is some flow of thought through the timelike dimension of space-time, like a river where the map stays the same but there’s a constant flux through it; and, due to general relativity, space-time usually isn’t thought to be just a frozen block, but something that changes. Think about it: space-time has to be thought to exist, in an extra dimension of time, in order to be able to change.
Consider the following from Einstein’s autobiography: “It is a wide-spread error that the theory of relativity is supposed to have, to a certain extent, first discovered, or at any rate, newly introduced, the four-dimensionality of the physical continuum. This, of course, is not the case. Classical mechanics, too, is based on the four-dimensional continuum of space and time. But in the four-dimensional continuum of classical physics the subspaces with constant time value have an absolute reality, independent of the choice of the reference system. Because of this the four-dimensional continuum falls naturally into a three-dimensional and a one-dimensional (time), so that the four-dimensional point of view does not force itself upon one as *necessary*.”
In a completely analogous way, I’m arguing that because of relativity and a really sloppy way of thinking of things which has a lot to do with the complete inconsistency of our languages with the whole block universe concept, people do very commonly think of space-time five-dimensionally, which is a very wrong way of thinking. They think of space-time existing, as a four-dimensional view of things, in much the same way that people used to incorrectly think of classical mechanics as describing a three-dimensional view of things.
Does that make sense? I’m just arguing that the whole concept is completely muddled and wrong. That’s what I meant in my abstract when I said the concept of time in physics is a mess. I then offered just the existence of the three-dimensional Universe, as a way out of the mess that’s motivated by cosmology.
You then asked how I would define time. I’d define time in terms of existence, and I’d say that the three-dimensional Universe exists; it evolves from one time to the next, continuously. All that exists is the three-dimensions of reality—and that is a four-dimensional concept, described by four-dimensional physics with time as one dimension. Do you see what I mean?
“You discuss the issue of simultaneity and the twin paradox”
I don’t think I wrote anything at all about the twins paradox. I searched the PDF to be certain, and the word “twin” isn’t there. Perhaps you’re referring to the discussion of time dilation and the relativity of simultaneity. That was meant to illustrate that Einstein’s interpretation of the relativity of simultaneity is wrong.
“...I just wonder if you are aware of this.”
I’m well aware of the literature on the relativity of simultaneity and its implications.
With regard to the rest, I prefer to keep a chin up. Reason based on sound logic and empirical evidence will prevail. And in that regard, thank you for recommending my essay to Daniel and others. I appreciate that.
And I very much look forward to reading your essay. Thanks very much for commenting, and if you would like further clarification on any points in my essay, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Best wishes,
Daryl
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Israel Perez replied on Jul. 5, 2013 @ 08:04 GMT
Hi Daryl
Thanks for your comprehensive reply. I appreciate it. I'd like to comment on your reply in order to clarify some points.
You: Does that make sense?
I must confess that it is not easy to grasp the idea at first sight, but I think after your explanation I got your point and this is why I asked what your notion of time is. In Newton's mechanics time is seen as a linear...
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Hi Daryl
Thanks for your comprehensive reply. I appreciate it. I'd like to comment on your reply in order to clarify some points.
You: Does that make sense?
I must confess that it is not easy to grasp the idea at first sight, but I think after your explanation I got your point and this is why I asked what your notion of time is. In Newton's mechanics time is seen as a linear flow with the same rate for observers. In SR, this flow is no longer the same for all observers. The rate of change of this flow depends on the relative speed and in GR depends also on the position of the observer in a gravitational field. So the loaf view of the universe presupposes a linear flow of time in Newton's sense. I do agree, but I as you pointed out this view is not included in the mathematical formulation. Since the mathematical formulation is the one that matter for practical purposes. So mathematically speaking, do you have any solution?
You: I'd define time in terms of existence, and I'd say that the three-dimensional Universe exists; it evolves from one time to the next, continuously. All that exists is the three-dimensions of reality-and that is a four-dimensional concept, described by four-dimensional physics with time as one dimension. Do you see what I mean?
In this case I was expecting something more like your notion of time. I mean, what do you understand by the word "time"? A flow, change, a substance, etc.?
You: I don't think I wrote anything at all about the twins paradox... ...relativity of simultaneity is wrong.
Indeed, you didn't write the word "twin" but in your discussion of simultaneity with Henry and Albert you arrive at the clock paradox, better known as the twin paradox. In your essay you say:
After some brief discussion, they both realise the paradoxical result, that from any perspective, a clock in uniform translatory motion will tick slowly.
This is the clock paradox, the famous Twin paradox. We don't need to bring twins to talk about the clock paradox. (1) The clock paradox actually consists in that, kinematically speaking, no observer can decide what clock REALLY ticks slowly. THIS IS THE PARADOXICAL PART OF THE SITUATION. (2) Many people erroneously think that the paradoxical part consists in that SR predicts that both clocks should tick slowly although what actually occurs is that only one clock undergoes time dilation. This is what they erroneously understand and recognize as the twin paradox.
The incapacity to decide whether the clocks tick slowly or not arises in virtue of the fact that in SR there are no privilege frames, neither Albert nor Henry are allowed to claim that their time is the absolute time. And so the flow of time in each frame turns out to be APPARENT not absolute. In SR there is no REAL flow of time, only an apparent or VIRTUAL flow of time. However, experiments on time dilation (such as muon life time and some others) contradict this view. Time dilation REALLY takes place because there is a privilege frame of reference. When particles move, they really move relative to the absolute frame (vacuum itself) and therefore they really undergo time dilation.
Starting with Einstein, the vast majority of physicists are aware of the clock paradox [understood as in (2) above] and they solve it by arguing that only one of the clocks undergoes acceleration by changing from an inertial frame to an non-inertial frame, whereas the other clock remains all the time in an inertial frame. At the end, our colleagues argue that there is no paradox at all.
So, if you use this "After some brief discussion, they both realise the paradoxical result, that from any perspective, a clock in uniform translatory motion will tick slowly" to demonstrate that SR is plagued with paradoxes, our colleagues will reply with the same argument, i.e., that Henry changed from an inertial frame to a non-inertial frame and therefore there is no paradox. This is what I meant when I said: "I just wonder if you are aware of this."
But from your comments I have the impression that you were not. I hope I have clarified these points.
Best Regards
Israel
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 5, 2013 @ 14:41 GMT
Hi Israel,
Thanks for your reply. Again, since you’ve written a lot I’ve got a lot to say in response. I really want to be clear about the whole five-dimensionality thing before I can properly respond to a lot of what you’ve said/asked, so I’ll have to submit multiple posts.
First of all, you say that my point that “‘existence’ in itself constitutes a dimension of...
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Hi Israel,
Thanks for your reply. Again, since you’ve written a lot I’ve got a lot to say in response. I really want to be clear about the whole five-dimensionality thing before I can properly respond to a lot of what you’ve said/asked, so I’ll have to submit multiple posts.
First of all, you say that my point that “‘existence’ in itself constitutes a dimension of temporality” is not easy to grasp at first. I don’t deny that it is, but then my question is: isn’t that remarkable? I mean, nothing should be more obvious, from a geometrical perspective, than to say that “a point exists” presents a one-dimensional concept; the entire history of the zero-dimensional point is described by a line. This doesn’t mean that the line itself exists, and the point moves along it—in fact, can you now begin to see that THAT is a two-dimensional concept? I mean, that “the existence of a line” is already a two-dimensional concept, with ITS existence described by another dimension?
Now, to go back to the one-dimensional concept of “a point existing”, this doesn’t have to mean that there is ever anything real but the point itself. The point itself may *constitute all of reality at any instant*, even though its existence is one-dimensional. This is how the dimension of time is viewed in classical mechanics, and it’s why, as Einstein indicated, there was widespread misunderstanding about the dimensionality of physical reality as described by classical mechanics; i.e. while the dimensionality of the physical world described by classical mechanics is four, the three dimensions of space constitute all of reality at any instant.
Therefore, while the dimensionality of the physical worlds described by classical mechanics and relativity are the same (four), the significant difference between the two lies in the implication, because of the relativity of simultaneity, that the *four*-dimensions of space-time constitute all of reality at any instant, as that may be arbitrarily defined.
But do you see that in this explanation of the difference between the two theories I have tactfully avoided saying anything like “relativity implies that all of space-time is real”? That’s because it’s wrong to do so. “Is” carries existential meaning, and as I’ve tried to explain (because for whatever reason it IS a difficult concept to grasp), the concept of anything’s existence constitutes an extra dimension of temporality, above and beyond the number of dimensions of the thing itself. That’s why the conception of space-time as “being” all real is five-dimensional—i.e. because the “being” already constitutes another dimension.
The reason why this is important is that people do often think of space-time as existing—that the reality of all space-time that’s thought to be indicated by relativity HAS led many to think of space-time as something that exists. And the problem that’s arisen because of that, is that, as a thing that exists, people then go on to think of it as something that EVOLVES and CHANGES. And while it may be subtle and hard to grasp the point that “all of space-time is real” IS a five-dimensional concept, there’s nothing at all subtle about the five-dimensionality of the concept that “all of space-time is real and constantly changing”.
I guess the thing is, that it’s a lot easier to grasp the fact that the classical mechanics description of a three-dimensional Universe that exists is really a four-dimensional concept, described by four-dimensional physics, than it is to grasp the reality of all four-dimensions of relativistic space-time WITHOUT sneaking a fifth dimension into the concept. Would you agree with that? Because that’s where all the inconsistency that comes with thinking of space-time as warping and changing and evolving as bodies move around in it, etc., enters.
That’s really enough to say in one post, and I’ve hardly begun to respond to all the points you’ve brought up, so I’ll break here and get back to your comments in another post.
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 5, 2013 @ 15:58 GMT
(CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST)
Now, based on everything I said in the last post, I want to answer to your point that “In Newton's mechanics time is seen as a linear flow with the same rate for observers”, and your comment/question a little further down, that “In this case I was expecting something more like your notion of time. I mean, what do you understand by the word "time"? A...
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(CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST)
Now, based on everything I said in the last post, I want to answer to your point that “In Newton's mechanics time is seen as a linear flow with the same rate for observers”, and your comment/question a little further down, that “In this case I was expecting something more like your notion of time. I mean, what do you understand by the word "time"? A flow, change, a substance, etc.?”
You weren’t satisfied with my definition of time in terms of existence, and were looking for a word like “flow”. I intentionally avoided using the word “flow” even though that’s roughly what I mean by “exist” anyway. I mean that I would define time just as Newton defined absolute time, except that I’d add a note that by “flow” I DO NOT mean flow through a substantive dimension, which the definition can easily be taken to mean. Rather than flow along a substantive dimension, I suppose I’d say more properly I mean flow as an absolute dimension, so that, as with classical mechanics, I mean that at any instant the three-dimensional Universe, and only the three-dimensional Universe, constitutes all of reality.
If you understood my previous post, you’ll know what I mean by this.
Now, in between the two statements I just answered to, you noted that relativity complicates such a view and asked if I have a solution to the problem. Actually, more specifically you asked, “Since the mathematical formulation is the one that matter for practical purposes. So mathematically speaking, do you have any solution?”
I have a suspicion that you’ve got something else entirely in mind, and therefore may not consider my answer too carefully, but I’ll give it to you anyway: Actually, the statement that the mathematical formalism is all that matters for practical purposes is incorrect. In practice, in order to correctly make use of the mathematical formalism, we need to take observation into account as well—and the cosmological data clearly indicate that there is an ultimate cosmic rest-frame. I discussed this in my last essay, referenced it in the current one, and tried to explain it to you further during the previous contest. I discussed why this matters, practically, in both of my essays; but I’ll briefly explain that here.
Since the predictions made through the mathematical formalism have been verified, it’s reasonable to assume for now that there’s nothing the matter with the math. The issue, then, becomes one of consistently reconciling the mathematical formalism with ALL the observations. And in that sense, yes, I do think I have a solution. Put far too simply to be entirely convincing to everyone, the solution is that, according to the cosmological observations, there IS an ultimate cosmic rest-frame, and an associated “true”—i.e. absolute—simultaneity-relation. Mathematically speaking, in any inertial frame BUT the cosmic frame, the hypersurfaces of absolute simultaneity won’t be orthogonal to the proper time axis—i.e. they’ll be tilted—BUT that doesn’t mean that they won’t still “flow equably along that axis” (please recall, that by flowing equably along an axis, I don’t mean a substantive dimension).
I don’t like using the words “privileged” or “preferred” reference frame to describe the cosmic reference frame, because these are the words of relativists who historically wanted to claim the objectivity of their stance, and argued that each observer’s proper frame should be considered to be as good a reference frame through which to describe “true reality” as anyone else’s, and therefore liked to claim that there’s no such thing. I call bulls**t.
The point that I tried to make in my essay with the Albert and Henri example is that this is actually wrongheaded. Sure, Henri is free to frame things in such a way that the clock across the train car “remains at a fixed distance from him, and both of them remain motionless”. But if he opens his eyes to the world around him, he should see that he’s actually moving—i.e. he’s not “truly” motionless. Then, he should realise that a photon that travels from the clock to him DOESN’T truly make it all the way across that fixed distance, because from point of emission to point of observation Henri ACTUALLY moved forward and met it part way. Mathematically speaking, this all works perfectly well according to what I said above about absolute simultaneity being tilted in Henri’s frame of reference.
Now, the Machian argument against this is “How can Henri or Albert really *know* that Albert’s frame is the correct one to use?” In actuality, it isn’t: the Earth orbits the Sun, which orbits the Galaxy, etc. But what matters is that there IS one objective cosmic frame, which we have been able to observe to an unprecedented degree of confidence. We “know”, with as great a degree of scientific knowledge that we “know” anything, that we are actually moving through the Universe at 370 km/s—and that’s really the bottom line. The relativist argument is pure speculation based on the relativity of inertia; science says otherwise, and it’s perfectly consistent with the relativity of inertia.
The last thing you talked about was the twins paradox, and it seems you want to perpetuate a much too common error about acceleration being the solution. I’ll address that in one more post.
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 5, 2013 @ 17:36 GMT
(CONTINUED ON FROM PREVIOUS POST)
First of all, from your statement,
“So, if you use this… to demonstrate that SR is plagued with paradoxes, our colleagues will reply with the same argument, i.e., that Henry changed from an inertial frame to a non-inertial frame and therefore there is no paradox. This is what I meant when I said: "I just wonder if you are aware of this." But from...
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(CONTINUED ON FROM PREVIOUS POST)
First of all, from your statement,
“So, if you use this… to demonstrate that SR is plagued with paradoxes, our colleagues will reply with the same argument, i.e., that Henry changed from an inertial frame to a non-inertial frame and therefore there is no paradox. This is what I meant when I said: "I just wonder if you are aware of this." But from your comments I have the impression that you were not.”
I feel both misrepresented and slightly insulted. Regarding the misrepresentation, in describing a well-known “paradox” my intention was not to argue that SR, or certain of its assumptions, should be rejected because it “is plagued with paradoxes”. In my opinion, that in itself is a pretty weak form of argument. What I did was move on from a derivation of the paradoxical result, to provide an intuitive and realistic resolution to it, that’s in objective agreement with the empirical data (see my previous post), as opposed to simply going with Einstein’s suggestion that we should just accept that “that’s how it’s got to be”. And regarding the insult, you weren’t being very clear about what you meant, which is I think why you felt the need to explain your meaning more clearly. It seems you perhaps meant to test my knowledge, so see if I’d infer your meaning from what you had written, and found that because I didn’t respond as you’d expect someone with your knowledge to respond, you thought I must be unaware of something. Please: if you’ve not been overtly clear about your meaning, don’t presume that I don’t know my subject because I haven't answered unasked questions.
There are a couple of reasons why I couldn’t possibly have inferred your meaning. First of all, the “clock paradox” that you refer to is not IDENTICAL to the “twins paradox”, as you’ve suggested. The "clock paradox" is an important result from SR that’s used in *constructing* the “twins paradox”, which runs specifically as follows. Consider two twins, standing together: at some point in time, they separate via Lorentz boost and remain in constant relative motion awhile; then at some point in time another Lorentz boost causes them to approach each other with (for simplicity) the same relative velocity; when they come together at the same place, a final Lorentz boost keeps them together. According to the symmetry of relative time-dilation (meaning both, that clocks tick relatively slowly by the exact same amount whether they’re approaching or receding with constant relative velocity AND from any perspective, a clock in uniform translatory motion will tick slowly—which you’ve called the “clock paradox”) either twin should therefore expect the other to be younger when they meet again, according to a pure relativist perspective, for the following reason: since, according to pure relativists, there’s no such thing as actual motion, as it’s all just relative, throughout the entire scenario EITHER TWIN can claim to be "perfectly at rest" while his brother "went off on a journey"; therefore, BOTH of them should expect their brother to be younger when they return, but the two points mentioned in brackets above.
The “paradox” is already ill posed, because there is such a thing as REAL motion, as I’ve already discussed. Therefore, only one of the brothers can claim to have remained motionless the entire time; i.e., at some point, one of the two brothers HAS to have ACTUALLY hopped from one frame of reference to the other. They can both determine this by looking at the world around them. The solution then runs as in Schutz’s Introduction to Relativity textbook, which you might be interested to look at because it has all the right details in it.
The resolution has nothing whatsoever to do with acceleration. It’s a mathematically ill-posed problem in SR, which is derived without reference to acceleration, and it’s by correctly posing it IN SR that it needs to be properly resolved.
And this is the other reason why I didn’t pick up on what you were driving at before: I do know that there has been a common misconception that the twins paradox can be resolved by saying someone has to accelerate, but I’d like it if everyone would move beyond that, so I don’t tend to think of it too much. It’s wrong, and that’s all there is to it.
This can be proven as follows (e.g., see Tim Maudlin’s new space and time book; I think Fig 11? Although he's got the paradox itself wrong, this bit is great!): consider the scenario as described in the frame of the twin who remains at rest; his twin heads off into space and at some point turns around and heads back with the same constant velocity. We know it’s the twin who actually went on the journey who aged less, and the reason can be stated geometrically: less proper time passes along the “longer” worldline, as drawn in Euclidean space. Now consider giving the twin who stays at home some short Lorentz boosts so that he moves for a short time, in the middle of his brother's absence, at the same “outward” velocity as his brother (no relative motion), then turns around at the same time (considered still in the same frame; so there’s still no relative motion), and then comes back to rest and sits there waiting for his brother. He’s been “accelerated” just as much, but still his worldline is shorter, and he will still have aged more than his brother. You can actually give him multiple of these boosts, so he’s actually “accelerated” MORE, and he’ll still be the older one when he and his twin come back together.
That’s all I wanted to say in response to your detailed post. I hope I haven’t said anything offensive, and I’m sorry that I took a bit of offense to your remark. I really appreciate your interest, and feel you’ve hit on some very good points here, and therefore also appreciate being given the opportunity to respond as I have. Please do post a reply if you see any further interesting points of discussion, and I’ll gladly take them up with you.
Sincerely yours,
Daryl
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Israel Perez replied on Jul. 16, 2013 @ 05:57 GMT
Dear Daryl
Thanks for your extensive reply. First of all, I'd like to make clear that it was never my intention to insult you or anybody else. Please accept my apologies if I say something that made you feel insulted.
With respect to the dimensionality of reality. I agree with most of your points. In math, points are defined in terms of lines, lines in terms of planes and planes in...
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Dear Daryl
Thanks for your extensive reply. First of all, I'd like to make clear that it was never my intention to insult you or anybody else. Please accept my apologies if I say something that made you feel insulted.
With respect to the dimensionality of reality. I agree with most of your points. In math, points are defined in terms of lines, lines in terms of planes and planes in terms of solids. So there is implicitly, as you said, a higher dimension defining lower dimensions.
You: I mean that I would define time just as Newton defined absolute time, except that I'd add a note that by "flow" I DO NOT mean flow through a substantive dimension, which the definition can easily be taken to mean. Rather than flow along a substantive dimension, I suppose I'd say more properly I mean flow as an absolute dimension, so that, as with classical mechanics, I mean that at any instant the three--dimensional Universe, constitutes all of reality.
Newton said that mathematical, true time flows absolutely without reference to anything else and its other name is duration. Is this what you mean by substantive dimension? I'm sorry but I don't get what you mean by "absolute dimension". I don't see the epistemological distinction between substantive dimension and absolute dimension because as far as I understand Newton's notion of time is both substantive and absolute.
You: Actually, the statement that the mathematical formalism is all that matters for practical purposes is incorrect. In practice, in order to correctly make use of the mathematical formalism, we need to take observation into account as well.
Of course, I agree that we have to consider observation. Perhaps you misunderstood me. What I meant to say is that if we don't put our ideas in a mathematical formulation, i.e., a formal theory, they will remain at the level of ideas or mere philosophy. For the physics community what matters is that theory agrees with the observations, the problem sometimes is that these observations are nothing but data and data can have many interpretations.
You: The point that I tried to make in my essay with the Albert and Henri example is that this is actually wrongheaded. Sure, Henri is free to frame things in such a way that the clock across the train car "remains at a fixed distance from him, and both of them remain motionless". But if he opens his eyes to the world around him, he should see that he's actually moving--i.e. he's not "truly" motionless.
Yes, I agree with this, one can easily infer that there should be an absolute frame. The problem is that is not easy to define which one is and how to find it. This is in connection to what you later say that we know for sure that the earth is moving with an ABSOLUTE velocity of 370 km/s.
I assume that you are referring to the speed of the earth relative to a frame at rest with the CMB radiation. Here one should question: is this velocity interpreted within the context of SR or GR (or what theory)? For the sake of consistency test theories of SR have to assume that there exists at least one inertial frame of reference where the one-way speed of light is isotropic. Such frame is considered to be the frame at rest with the CMB (Test theory of special relativity:I, II, and III Mansouri et al. Gen. Rel. Grav. 8, pp., 497, 515 and 809, 1977). For other frames the speed of light could be, in general, anisotropic and this would depend on the choice of clock synchronization. SR is a theory with a particular clock synchronization that leaves the one-way speed of light invariant for all frames. However, strictly speaking, one should acknowledge that in SR there are no absolute frames of reference. Therefore, for SR, 370 km/s is not an absolute velocity but a relative one.
To be continued
Israel
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Israel Perez replied on Jul. 16, 2013 @ 07:42 GMT
Cont. from the previous post.
Within the context of the GR, the interpretation is not different at all. From the cosmological perspective, relativists distinguish two classes of reference frames, that is: (a) those that go a long with the expansion of the universe (Hubble's flow) or comoving frames and (b) those that don't follow the space expansion. For an observer in a comoving frame the...
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Cont. from the previous post.
Within the context of the GR, the interpretation is not different at all. From the cosmological perspective, relativists distinguish two classes of reference frames, that is: (a) those that go a long with the expansion of the universe (Hubble's flow) or comoving frames and (b) those that don't follow the space expansion. For an observer in a comoving frame the universe appears to be static and isotropic. As well, this frame also defines a cosmological time. For any other frame different than the comoving frame the observers will see the universe expanding (redshifted). Thus 370 km/s is the speed of the earth relative to the comoving frame and, again, according to relativists, this frame is not an absolute frame but only a frame that is selected, for the sake of simplicity, among the infinite frames; just as when we select the sun to simplify the motion of planets. Moreover one should keep in mind that the rate of flow of a clock is function not only on the speed of the clock with respect to the absolute frame but also with respect to its position in a gravitational field. Therefore, how would we know what the best standard of time is? I mean, for experimental matters the rate of flow of a clock in the neighborhood of a black hole is not the same rate of flow as on earth, or on the sun or between two galaxies where we assume there are no sources of gravitation. So, one should acknowledge that relativists have a strong point. What do we mean by cosmic time if the flow of time would depend on where the clock is placed in the universe? For practical matters, relativists assumed that in the comoving frame all clocks are synchronized. But how are these clocks synchronized? This question leads us again to the problems of clock synchronization and the one-way speed of light which is a vicious circle. From this circular reasoning one realizes that it seems that nature is conspiring against us (as in the case of the measuring problem in quantum mechanics). This is a topic that has been extensively discussed in the literature and I wouldn't like to open a discussion on this topic here, I just wanted to let you know about it. In the book of gravitation and spacetime from Ohaninan and Ruffini, one can read in relation to the "absolute speed of the Earth": this determination of velocity of the Earth in no way contradicts the principle of relativity, since the measurement is not made relative to empty space, but relative to the photon gas in the blackbody radiation. As you can see, for relativists there is no absolute frame of reference.
You: First of all, the "clock paradox" that you refer to is not IDENTICAL to the "twins paradox", as you've suggested. The "clock paradox" is an important result from SR that's used in *constructing* the "twins paradox", which runs specifically as follows...
I disagree, they are IDENTICAL. The clock paradox according to Einstein himself runs as follows: Imagine we have initially two synchronized clocks and one of them is set in motion in a journey at a constant speed. According to SR and given the symmetry of the problem both clocks should show the same time when they reunite. Einstein GUESSED that when the traveling clock returns it would read less time when compare to the clock at rest, in contradiction to the theory predictions. It was Paul Langevin who in 1911 argued that living organisms are also clocks and he introduced twins instead of clocks in this problem. The twins obviously represent two synchronized clocks. Therefore the clock paradox is the same as the clock paradox. It seem to me that you are confusing "time dilation" (which is used to construct the paradox) with "clock paradox". The case in your essay is the clock paradox better known as the twin paradox.
My comments from the previous post, where aimed at trying to delimit the paradoxical part. This part consists in that both observers should conclude that time should tick slowly for both because, according to SR, time dilates equally for two systems of reference in relative uniform motion. Therefore, given that in SR there are no absolute frames, observers cannot decide whether time really dilates or not. Since they cannot decide this, it's impossible to conclude that when both clocks reunite one clock will read less time than the other. It was Einstein that BET or GUESSED (without any theoretical argument) that the traveling clock will read less time than the other. Thus one should distinguish the two paradoxical aspects of the "paradox": (1) that time dilates for both observers in relative motion in the same amount and so they cannot decide if time really dilates or not and (2) that one cannot conclude that the traveling twin (clock) will be younger than the other. From what theoretical (within the context of SR alone) argument can we conclude that the traveling twin will be younger? This is the second paradoxical aspect. Most people think that the clock or twin paradox consists in aspect (2) whereas I argue that it consists in aspect (1).
As you correctly argue, when we introduce the absolute frame of reference [which for you is the CMB and that for me the CMB is only a manifestation of space (conceived as a material field)] then actual motion comes into play and the clock that is set in motion is the one that really undergoes time dilation.
You: The resolution has nothing whatsoever to do with acceleration.
I agree. I just mentioned that relativists resort to acceleration to solve the "paradox".
Well, I just wanted to clarify those points. As you can see I actually have one question which is related to your notion of time and I hope you have some time time. These days, I have been reading the arguments of Brian Greene about time and the loaf picture but that picture of time seems to me like a linear vision of time as a dimension, but as you and Brain put it, seems to be paradoxical. My notion is more Newtonian. For me time is just the transformation of things, it is change, but it seems that the transformation is gradual and follows a transformation law.
Well, thanks a lot for your time.
Best Regards
Israel
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 16, 2013 @ 13:55 GMT
Dear Israel,
Thanks very much for responding. First of all, on the twins paradox thing, I see your point. I forgot that in the scenario in my essay I did have each of them claim that the other shouldn't have aged enough. It's just that that wasn't the point I meant to illustrate, so I didn't think of it. You'll notice that I didn't describe in any way how they got back together, but just...
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Dear Israel,
Thanks very much for responding. First of all, on the twins paradox thing, I see your point. I forgot that in the scenario in my essay I did have each of them claim that the other shouldn't have aged enough. It's just that that wasn't the point I meant to illustrate, so I didn't think of it. You'll notice that I didn't describe in any way how they got back together, but just said that they did. I didn't say anything about the train turning around, for instance. What I was really meaning to illustrate at that point was the symmetry of relative time-dilation between two systems in uniform translatory motion.
I also see that I only managed to confuse the issue on time. I think Newton's definition is right. I was just trying to say something about the fact that when we think of something flowing, we may tend to think of it flowing through space. In fact, it's flowing through space in time, which is more complicated yet. Do you see how it's confusing to use verbs (like flow or rest or change) to describe time, when time is actually the denominator of those verbs? i.e. things flow or rest or change *in time*. I think that already starts to do a good job of defining time, but there's something more to it. That's the metrical structure, which is the "equable" part in Newton's definition.
But when Newton says time flows equably, he makes a point of saying that that flow is without reference to anything external. So he's saying that it doesn't flow through any space, which is the point I was trying to be careful about, although I see I was just confusing the issue. He calls this equable flow without reference to anything external "duration", which is what I mean when I say it's the denominator of all verbs, and that it has well-ordered measure, or metrical structure.
But then that metrical structure has to be a part of the Universe, if we're saying that only the present Universe is real at any given moment. That's another important point, I think.
So, to summarise, I think time's a tricky thing to define because in defining it we'd like to use verbs (like "flow", etc.), but time is already implicit in those verbs. I think the "flow" or "passage" of time has well-defined metrical structure, but I think it's worth cautioning (as Newton did) not to think of that "flow" as occurring through a space that has that metrical structure.
The other point you brought up was about observing absolute rest. I think looking at local clock synchronisation and relative motion is really the wrong way of going about this.
But I think cosmology does show, in a totally different way, that there is an absolute rest frame. Historically, this evidence came as follows: if there were no such thing as absolute rest, and all motion were just random, then the relative motion of everything, from any perspective, should be uniformly distributed on the interval (0,c). The fact that the stellar velocities are orders of magnitude less, was already taken by Einstein as motivation enough to assume a cosmic time variable in 1917. Then came the discovery of the redshift-distance relation, which was taken to indicate cosmic expansion--i.e., the redshifts are not thought to be due to relative motion, but due to the expansion of space through which the light travels. Over time, we've discovered tens or hundreds of thousands of objects with redshifts greater than 1, confirming this suspicion. These cosmological redshifts are therefore many orders of magnitude greater than the motion of any galaxy through space, including our own. What this means is that we can neglect the motions of all bodies through space and model redshifts in an expanding universe under the assumption that they're all absolutely at rest. The model, which is a very accurate fit to the data, assumes absolute space and time, which we call the Universe and cosmic time.Through the model, we therefore have a means of measuring cosmic time *even without knowing our own absolute motion*. That's simply a handy thing about living in an expanding universe.
But you know that's not the whole story. Cosmic expansion suggests that maybe the Universe was much denser and hotter at some finite time in the past. This led to the prediction of the CMB, which was confirmed. The CMB is a radiation field that's supposed to fill all of space, cooling uniformly as the Universe expands. One feature of particular interest is the dipole anisotropy, which tells us that the Solar System is moving through the CMB towards the constellation Leo at 370 km/s. Since the CMB is supposed to be an isotropic and homogeneous radiation field that fills all of space, we take the CMB's rest-frame to be the absolute rest-frame, and therefore infer that our own absolute motion is 370 km/s in the direction stated. This motion is the combination of the Sun's velocity through the Galaxy and the Galaxy's velocity through the Local Group and the Local Group's velocity within the Local Supercluster, etc. How that combination actually comes together doesn't really matter, though, because we have a direct measurement of our absolute velocity, and that's what mattered.
Now there's a really good consistency check that indicates to us that this picture is correct: the CMB's multipole anisotropy signature. Again, before it was even observed, the calculations had been done, to describe the effects of vacuum fluctuations at the time the CMB was created, as we would observe them today in macroscopic anisotropies in an otherwise isotropic CMB signature, as these anisotropies would have expanded along with the Universe. The measurements, as you know, are consistent with the model parameters that have been derived through the redshift observations.
Therefore, we do have strong empirical support for an absolute frame of rest. But that's all that it is: empirical support. We have no way of proving that it's right, any more than we have of proving anything else through observation. But it's a really consistent picture, and it at least refutes the claim that "we can't ever observe absolute motion, so we might as well assume that there isn't any".
I hope I've answered your questions here. I'm sorry if I was cranky before. Thanks for taking the time to clarify where I had been mistaken or unclear.
Best regards,
Daryl
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Israel Perez replied on Jul. 16, 2013 @ 22:57 GMT
Dear Daryl
Thanks for your clarifying reply. I'm glad we are understanding each other.
you: In fact, it's flowing through space in time, which is more complicated yet... ...i.e. things flow or rest or change *in time*.
When people say *in time* they usually think that, just as in the case of space which is conceived as the container for physical objects, time is a container...
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Dear Daryl
Thanks for your clarifying reply. I'm glad we are understanding each other.
you: In fact, it's flowing through space in time, which is more complicated yet... ...i.e. things flow or rest or change *in time*.
When people say *in time* they usually think that, just as in the case of space which is conceived as the container for physical objects, time is a container for events. So events occur IN time as if time were a thing capable of containing events, being events different from physical objects (material bodies or fields). In this notion of time, events are organized as a linear sequence and thus are put in terms of a dimension. Time as a way of organizing events is fine for mathematical purposes but unfortunately causes intuitive confusion. This is why a prefer to conceive time as "change" or "transformation of things" in the universe. To me all things are constantly changing but the change is so minuscule that for some processes (such as the evolution of a star) it is not noticeable. So we assume that some things don't change whereas other do change. By comparing processes that change and those that don't change we realize or feel a passage of time, a flow. If nothing changed or transformed we would not be able to tell whether time flows or not. Certainly, the change of things is not arbitrary it follows certain laws, this is why it appears that time has a preferred direction, what we call the arrow of time, but this is another issue.
You: But when Newton says time flows equably, he makes a point of saying that that flow is without reference to anything external.
Based on my notion of time, I interpret "time flows equably" as "constant change". Everything in the universe is constantly changing, therefore, I feel a constant and invariable flow. When Newton says that the flow of time is "external" I understand this as the change, motion or transformation of things can never stop. Since change can never stop we think that it cannot be affected by anythings. But since time is nothing but motion or change, relativity teaches us that motion will affect the rate of flow of time. That is, that the motion will affect the rate of change or transformation in a given process. This is because there should be an absolute frame (the vacuum, space itself or the material field, as you wish to call it) and because there is a limiting speed. For observers that are at rest in the absolute frame the change of things, i.e., the passage of time, goes at some rate. For frames in motion relative to the absolute frame the passage of time goes slowly because electromagnetic fields has to cover more absolute distance which in turn will make a process to appear slower than when this same process occurs at rest (as an illustration of this consider, for instance, the light clock).
You: Then came the discovery of the redshift-distance relation, which was taken to indicate cosmic expansion--i.e., the redshifts are not thought to be due to relative motion, but due to the expansion of space through which the light travels....
And also: The CMB is a radiation field that's supposed to fill all of space...
As I have expressed before, the interpretation of the cosmological redshift as space expansion is valid under the conception that space is a DEFORMABLE EMPTY CONTAINER mathematically represented by a pseudo-Riemannian manifold. Being space an empty container is then, as you said, FILLED with matter and fields (I don't agree with this notion of space). For relativists, the space is permeable to light in the sense that offers no dissipation or dispersion to the propagation of electromagnetic waves. So, if we accept the relativist view of space, I agree with the interpretation of the redshift but, I don't believe space is a geometrical container and therefore the redshift has a different interpretation which I also discussed with you in previous discussions. You may wish to read my new essay where I give a clear example that strongly suggest that space is not a geometrical container as relativity assumes.
You: These cosmological redshifts are therefore many orders of magnitude greater than the motion of any galaxy through space, including our own. What this means is that we can neglect the motions of all bodies through space and model redshifts in an expanding universe under the assumption that they're all absolutely at rest. The model, which is a very accurate fit to the data, assumes absolute space and time, which we call the Universe and cosmic time.
I'd like to insist on the following point and I would be happy if you could understand it. I asked the question "is this velocity interpreted within the context of SR or GR (or what theory)?" in a previous post because I wanted to elucidate the importance that the theoretical framework plays. The physical meaning of the data depends on the theoretical framework under consideration. I assume that when you say "the model" you are talking about the concordance, the big bang or the lambda-cold-dark matter model. This model, as far as I know, assumes that GR is the correct theory. The physical interpretation of the redshift is given within the context of GR where there are no absolute frames, despite that the observations strongly suggest it. For relativists, that's not an absolute frame, it is just a frame more convenient than others. From my view, it is contradictory to construct a model, that assumes absolute space and time, with the aid of a theory (GR) that denies absolute motion. So, for relativists, 370 km/s is not an absolute velocity as you and most cosmologists stated it. For this reason, one has to build a model based on another theory in which the notions of absolute space and time are allowed. This is why, I don't follow relativity and its notion of space.
Well, I hope you have grasped my message.
Best Regards
Israel
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 17, 2013 @ 17:48 GMT
Dear Israel,
I mostly agreed with your first paragraph, except where you wrote "If nothing changed or transformed we would not be able to tell whether time flows or not." I don't think so. I think space-time has an objectively well-defined metrical structure, or background, which I think is a fundamental property of the Universe, and that this would be the same whether things moved around...
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Dear Israel,
I mostly agreed with your first paragraph, except where you wrote "If nothing changed or transformed we would not be able to tell whether time flows or not." I don't think so. I think space-time has an objectively well-defined metrical structure, or background, which I think is a fundamental property of the Universe, and that this would be the same whether things moved around in space over the course of time or not. It comes down to a chicken/egg thing, but I do think ordered duration is needed in the first place. I've already discussed this a lot with John Merryman here.
In the next paragraph, you wrote "When Newton says that the flow of time is "external"," but Newton defined absolute time as flowing "without reference to anything external". Maybe that's what you meant, as I'd infer from what you wrote after that, but it seems you said the opposite. But on that point, it does puzzle me why you think he must have meant, then, that the flow should be in reference to things internal? I personally do think of that as being a convoluted way of thinking. Things have to exist if anything is going to change, but not the opposite. As I said, I discussed this a lot with John, and I can't see that there's much more to say on the matter. People like George Ellis would certainly side with you as well, but I think you're trying to put the cart before the horse.
On the next point, I think you've got the relativist's view of space all wrong. I would strongly recommend reading Einstein's "Relativity and the Problem of Space", the fifth appendix to his popular "Relativity", where he clearly opposes what you describe. His view is entirely consistent with cosmology. None of this has anything to do with my views of the matter, however.
And on the last point, GR is completely consistent with the definition of an absolute time, through an objective foliation of space-time. Just because it's not generally required to do so, because from a relativistic point of view it's commonly thought of as superfluous, doesn't mean it's actually inconsistent with the theory. You can define an absolute simultaneity-relation in GR, which is just what's done in cosmology.
Best,
Daryl
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Israel Perez replied on Jul. 19, 2013 @ 08:42 GMT
Dear Daryl
As far as I can see our discrepancies may be a matter of semantics.
You: I don't think so. I think ... ...over the course of time or not.
From your comments, it seems to me that your talking about the PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCEPTION of space and time, more than the PHYSICAL EXISTENCE of space and time. I wouldn't like to open a discussion on how we humans develop these...
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Dear Daryl
As far as I can see our discrepancies may be a matter of semantics.
You: I don't think so. I think ... ...over the course of time or not.
From your comments, it seems to me that your talking about the PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCEPTION of space and time, more than the PHYSICAL EXISTENCE of space and time. I wouldn't like to open a discussion on how we humans develop these notions, it would be a long topic but I think it's important to let you know why I think that matter and change/motion are the fundamental objects of the universe whereas space and time are derived entities from these two. I just want to mention that as most people, I used to think that space and time existed as physical entities of different nature to both material objects and change/motion, but after learning how we humans developed our notions of space and time, I changed my mind. Jean Piaget meticulously studied these topics and taught us that the notion of space as a container of objects and an organizer of positions originates in the first moths of our lives. Not surprisingly, the notion of time as the container and organizer of events and therefore as the duration of a process develops at later ages (between 6-8 years) because children of less ages haven't developed the intellectual capacity to causally distinguish what event follows from any other one, that is, they haven't "discovered" the principle of causality (this is why small children don't know the difference between saturday or monday, or yesterday or tomorrow). So, for children what really exists are objects and change and with these two they naturally build the notion of space and time to organize events and relative positions of objects in their minds. By the age of 8-10 children have well developed these notions and use them to predict the outcome of an action (actually, these notions are nothing but survival mechanisms). Later, without realizing, we include space and time in our repertory of "real physical" objects that we believe constitute the universe. Unconsciously children realize that everything appears to be continuously changing and they feel that there is a thing called "time" that flows. By abstraction they believe that this flow is continuous and independent of change. This belief is reinforce by the fact that all biological organisms have a "biological clock" that even if nothing around us changes, the clock makes us feel that time still flows (this is the psychological source of Newton's notion of absolute time). A similar case occurs with space, the relative position of objects and their innate extension make us feel that space is always there even if there were nothing filling it, this is also the psychological source of Newton's notion of space.
People use to think that things change thanks to the existence of time. If time doesn't flow, things are not allowed to change. This view is naive because that would imply that time is an agent different from change that influences the change of things but is not affected by change (just as Newton believed). For the reasons I just expose above, I have concluded that change/motion gives meaning to time. Just as Mach thought that space must be affected by the objects it contains, the flow of time must be affected by change/motion. SR confirms my view because change/motion affects the rate of flow of time for different observers, that is, the completion of a process is not the same in absolute terms when the process takes place at absolute rest than when it occurs in absolute motion, again consider as an illustration of this the light clock. A tick of a clock doesn't takes place because there is a thing called time that flows, but because a tick is the completion of a process of change and the change consists in the displacement from one point to another of the ray of light. When the clock is set in motion light has to travel a longer distance to complete the process which for the observer in motion gives the impression that time flows slowly. So time is change/motion and the faster the motion of the observer the slower the passage of time occurs for him. Obviously, time for the observer in motion flows slower not because time flows at a slower rate but because the observer moves faster in absolute terms and light will have to travel longer to make a tick.
Thus I think that we first should acknowledge that what our senses really deal with everyday is with the material substance(s) the universe is made of and the constant change/motion of this substance. Space and time are useful abstractions to help us organize the causal relations of objects in the universe. But they are not physical entities as matter or change/motion. If you ask me what change is, I don't have it clear, I understand it as transformation from one thing to another (as Russell defined it). But this transformation is not arbitrarily it appears to follow a transformation law. Lee Smolin argues something similar to this, he believes that the laws of nature are not immutable and external to the world (as most scientists believe today), he thinks that the laws gradually change as "time" goes by. But he doesn't have clear what he says when he says "time". It seems that he also has a newtonian notion of time: The laws change because time flows but the laws cannot affect the flow of time. Instead, I would say that the laws change because the world continuously changes, if we affect the occurrence of change then the laws accordingly must change (this is what occurs with biological organisms, they change when they are exposed to changes).
to be continued
Regards
Israel
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Israel Perez replied on Jul. 19, 2013 @ 08:46 GMT
Continuation from previous post
You: In the next paragraph... ... but it seems you said the opposite.
Sorry, you're right, what I meant to say is that Newton thought that the flow of time was not affected by anything. In my interpretation Newton's notion only means that change/motion can never stop and so time seems to flow no matter what occurs in the universe.
You: I think you've got the relativist's view of space all wrong.
In what sense, do you mean I got it wrong? Doesn't Euclidean space represents an empty container? isn't Minkowskian (or Riemannian) space representing a physical container deprived of matter, energy and fields? What substantial properties does the Minkowskian space-time has?
Regards
Israel
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 19, 2013 @ 13:27 GMT
Israel,
On the last point, in the reference I suggested, Einstein concluded (though you should probably still read how he got there):
"[Minkowski space], judged from the standpoint of the general theory of relativity, is not a space without field, but a special case of the g_ik field, for which--for the coordinate system used, which in itself has no objective significance--the...
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Israel,
On the last point, in the reference I suggested, Einstein concluded (though you should probably still read how he got there):
"[Minkowski space], judged from the standpoint of the general theory of relativity, is not a space without field, but a special case of the g_ik field, for which--for the coordinate system used, which in itself has no objective significance--the functions g_ik have values that do not depend on the co-ordinates. There is no such thing as an empty space, i.e. a space without field. Space-time does not claim existence on its own, but only as a structural quality of the field.
Thus Descartes was not so far from the truth when he believed he must exclude the existence of an empty space. The notion indeed appears absurd, as long as physical reality is seen exclusively in ponderable bodies. It requires the idea of the field as the representative of reality, in combination with the general principle of relativity, to show the true kernel of Descartes' idea; there exists no space 'empty of field'".
And this brings me back to the first point. In effect, you're claiming that Newton thought no more about space and time than a naive child. That he wasn't guided by the development of physics. That somehow brilliant Descartes had really thought deeply, then Newton stood up and said "actually, I've got this other idea that's basically been knocking around in my head since about eight that I'm going to run with." That Newton, who based his entire system on naive intuition, gave no compelling reasons for doing so, and people accepted it for centuries because, apart from a couple of real thinkers such as Leibniz, no one else really thought of the problem past their own childish view of reality for centuries until Mach set us back on the right path and Einstein took up the torch.
You began your first post with "As far as I can see our discrepancies may be a matter of semantics," yet I disagree with what you wrote after that on every level. As I said, I've already discussed this a lot with John below, so if you want a sense of some of my reasons for thinking differently from you, you could read that discussion. I'm heading out of town tomorrow, and don't have the time to re-iterate.
Daryl
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Israel Perez replied on Jul. 21, 2013 @ 02:03 GMT
Dear Daryl
You said: people accepted it for centuries...
I don't think so, most people (including Newton himself) knew that totally empty space was an absurdity, but we have to understand the reason why Newton left space totally empty in his theory. Newton mostly agreed with Descartes' view of space. For Newton space was a substance and the medium that convey gravity between...
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Dear Daryl
You said: people accepted it for centuries...
I don't think so, most people (including Newton himself) knew that totally empty space was an absurdity, but we have to understand the reason why Newton left space totally empty in his theory. Newton mostly agreed with Descartes' view of space. For Newton space was a substance and the medium that convey gravity between celestial bodies was the aether, but he realized that Descartes' view was so complicated to put it in mathematical terms that he decided to leave space in his theory as an empty container. As we all know, the empty container view of space is mathematically represented by Euclidean space. This is space, as we all know, has no substantial or material properties per se and the same occurs with any other geometrical space (you should check Riemann's original paper on this subject). The view that space was an empty container was always seen as an anomaly of Newton's theory but the anomaly remained for centuries because that was the only game in town since nobody could come up with a better formulation of space until Minkowski arrived in 1908. Similar to Euclidean space, Minkowski space-time represented emptiness although its metrical properties are certainly different (the discussion of Minkowski space-time as a real space is still a hot topic among the philosophers of science and some physicists, Veselin Pektov is one of the advocates of the physical existence of Minkowski space-time). When the aether was rejected in 1905, Einstein left space again totally empty, just as in Newton's theory. According to Newton's theory celestial bodies were interacting at a distance in totally empty space, which for Newton himself was an absurdity. At this point, it is convenient to quote Newton's opinion about this topic, I'd like to show you that he was basically following Descartes' view. The quote was taken from one of his letters sent to Bentley in 1692:
It is inconceivable that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of something else which is not material, operate upon and affect other matter, without mutual contact, as it must do if gravitation in the sense of Epicurus be essential and inherent in it. And this is one reason why I desired you would not ascribe 'innate gravity' to me. That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance, through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it.
So, as we all know, the discovery of Minkowski space-time didn't and doesn't solve the problem of how celestial bodies interact. Minkoswki space-time continues to be an empty container. At first, Einstein disliked Minkowski's formulation but later he recognized its scientific value. He realized that treating inertial frames in terms of space-time could be useful to extend his SR to non-inertial frames. Since, it is assumed that GR is an extension of SR, at some point the metrics in GR should reduce to the Minkowskian metric. He then argued that the Minkowskian metric is a special case of the general case g_ik where the gravitational potentials are contained. Einstein said that even if the energy-momentum tensor were zero, we still have the gravitational potentials contained in the metric tensor which at the end gives meaning to space. Minkowski metric, is then a special kind of gravitational potential with constant coefficients. According to Einstein, empty space is inconceivable, for him the g_ik tensor gives physical meaning to space, this object in Einstein view is the new "aether". But we should not mix the concepts, this is the metric of space not space itself. In Newton's theory the mathematical object that represents the notion of physical space is the Euclidean manifold not its metric. Similarly, in GR what represents space-time is not the g_ik but the pseudo-Riemannian manifold. And a manifold has no intrinsic material or substantial properties associated with it. In GR, space is not a medium as Descartes' aether was. Space-time is still a container with metrical properties defined by its material content but the manifold itself doesn't represent a substance.
Now, Einstein said that g_ik is the fundamental field, but what is a field made of? If we ask this question to Maxwell, he would certainly reply that an electromagnetic field is a state of a material medium, in his time, such medium was the aether which filled the empty space. I must make clear that I don't follow this dichotomy, for me aether and space are the same thing, therefore, a field is a state of space, understanding space as a material substance and so one can say that space is a material field. The fact that the permeability and permittivity of the vacuum are not zero tells us that the vacuum behaves as a paramagnetic medium and only material substances have these electromagnetic properties. If space were Minkowskian these properties would be zero. In contrast, for Einstein, an electromagnetic field is a different entity from space, is a physical reality that fills and propagates through space. And for him the properties of space itself are defined by the metric tensor that gets its "substantiality" from the gravitational potentials. But again, this is not a medium in the sense of Descartes, Newton or Maxwell because a medium is material and has no curvature. It is absurd to talk of a curvature of a medium, that term only makes sense only for geometrical spaces (manifolds). I hope I had made clear why I don't follow the notion of geometrical space-time. I have read your discussion with John and I support's John's view. I think you are getting it in the wrong direction.
Best regards
Israel
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Anonymous replied on Jul. 21, 2013 @ 08:07 GMT
By the way, did you hear about the work that claims that the universe is not expanding? The argument is that the mass of the particles in the past was different and that's the cause of the redshift that astronomers observe today, what do you think? I don't think the masses changed, that hypothesis cannot be experimentally proven. But it seems that it;s gaining support from some people.
http://www.nature.com/news/cosmologist-claims-univers
e-may-not-be-expanding-1.13379
Regards
Israel
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 21, 2013 @ 08:53 GMT
And I think you're going in the wrong direction. C'est la vie. Regardless of what we think, though, it ultimately comes down to whether a consistent physical description can be formulated which consistently accounts for the phenomena, etc.
No I haven't read that article. I find much of physics these days to be purely speculative mathematics, motivated by a shut up and calculate dogma. Why think, when you can do advanced algebra? That's what that sounds like to me.
Thanks for sharing. I suppose that sounds insincere from what I wrote, so I should stress that I really do mean that. Sincerely,
Daryl
Israel Perez replied on Jul. 21, 2013 @ 21:43 GMT
Dear Daryl
You have your approach and I have mine. I think I'm right, you think you are. As you said: Regardless of what we think, though, it ultimately comes down to whether a consistent physical description can be formulated which consistently accounts for the phenomena, etc. I agree with this but perhaps you are ignoring one important component of science. There was a time in the past...
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Dear Daryl
You have your approach and I have mine. I think I'm right, you think you are. As you said: Regardless of what we think, though, it ultimately comes down to whether a consistent physical description can be formulated which consistently accounts for the phenomena, etc. I agree with this but perhaps you are ignoring one important component of science. There was a time in the past when science was about unveiling the true behind the appearances, but that view is in the past. Today science is more a business than science. I brought the case of that paper not to bother you but to let you know that the weight of media has something to do with the establishment of new approaches. You may wish to ignore it, but the general public will not. I'd like to quote something that Lee Smolin said and that I sympathize with:
Science is not about what's true or may be true... Science is about what people with originally diverse viewpoints can be forced to believe by the weight of public evidence.
"Public evidence" means "evidence widely known". As long as our ideas are not widely spread by mass media they'll be ignored by the physics community. I have read the story of how Einstein and his theory became famous and many commentators ask why the same situation didn't occur with QM. It was the mass media of that time, not the theory itself, that created the legend and the greatness of relativity and its author, not only among the general public but also among the physics community. Finally, I'd like to quote what Oliver Heaviside said in 1919 with respect to the understanding of gravity and the future of theoretical physics:
Newton, as was known, did not understand the nature of gravitation. We do not understand it now. Einstein's theory would not help us understand it. If Einstein's third prediction [gravitational redshift] were verified, Einstein's theory would dominate all higher physics and the next generation of mathematical physicists would have a terrible time. Such things as university courses for all practical purposes would be continued upon Galilean and Newtonian dynamics, but the Einstein school could not fail to interest, sooner or later, every intelligent man.
He sounds like prophet because he knew that the view of space and time of GR will blind future generations of physicists. Now, here we are all, a hundred years after still trying to unify gravity with the other forces and discussing these topics because after all we are starting to realize that GR didn't help us understand it.
All the best and don't be cranky, there's no reason to be like that, life is too short!
Israel
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Israel Perez replied on Aug. 22, 2013 @ 08:30 GMT
Dear Daryl
I'd like to thank you for your recommendation to read Einstein's discussion of space. I hadn't read that passage in the past but I was aware of his view. After I read it, my picture of Einstein's view of space is more comprehensive. As he himself recognizes the metric field gives meaning to his notion of physical space.
In recent years, there is a vivid discussion about...
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Dear Daryl
I'd like to thank you for your recommendation to read Einstein's discussion of space. I hadn't read that passage in the past but I was aware of his view. After I read it, my picture of Einstein's view of space is more comprehensive. As he himself recognizes the metric field gives meaning to his notion of physical space.
In recent years, there is a vivid discussion about the nature of space among physicists and philosophers of physics. As you may know the debates turns around two currents, namely, substantivalism and relationalism. The general consensus is that the space of GR is seen as a substance more than a relation. This is because the manifold and the corresponding metric play the role of a background. In relativity space-time is more like a substrate for fields and particles. As you and Einstein argued, physical meaning of space, that is, its substantiality arises from the metric field. So, under this view, it seems to me that you defend the idea that this kind of space-time itself must represent an absolute frame of reference, am I right? As a plus, I have noticed that space in relativity is never considered as an absolute frame of reference (I still don't understand why).
So far so good. Now, I'd like to point out some of the ontological differences in the notion of space, according to relativity and to those like me who assume space as a medium. In relativity space is some sort SUBSTRATE or container, where particles and fields are placed. As you say, the metric field gives meaning to space, if there is no matter and no metric field, then there is absolutely nothing. So, the Minkowski metric represents a special case of "gravity" that has constant coefficients in the metric field. Despite this, space continues to be a substrate, a background. One of the properties of this space is that it is permeable to fields and particles, both of them are seen as of different nature to space. In contrast, my view of space is different. For me space is a material medium and the laws of continuum mechanics rule its behaviour. Since space is a medium, it is not permeable to fields and particles, instead, as any other medium, it is dispersive and dissipative. As it has been shown, Maxwell equations can be derived from this assumption. The properties of this space affect the propagation of light and particles as well. The other significance difference is that fields are states of the medium (just as Maxwell devised it) and particles are not separate entities of space (just as quantum field theory strongly suggests). From this view, particles are seen as excitations or resonances of space and therefore, as in your case, space constitutes an absolute frame of reference. This view, opens the door to the unification of physics because particles are seen as part of space. I believe that this notion of space, has more advantages over the "traditional" one.
Since there are not many options to conceive space, one conception or the other should be the "right" one. So, given this notable differences, I'd would like to ask you your opinion about the notion of space as medium. I'm curious if it sounds reasonable to you or if you have any objections or critics. I'd be grateful if you could give me your comments.
I'd be looking forward to receiving your reply.
Regards
Israel
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James Lee Hoover wrote on Jul. 3, 2013 @ 18:45 GMT
Daryl,
If given the time and the wits to evaluate over 120 more entries, I have a month to try. My seemingly whimsical title, “It’s good to be the king,” is serious about our subject.
Jim
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Anonymous wrote on Jul. 8, 2013 @ 02:39 GMT
Daryl,
I've been somewhat refraining from discussing time in this contest, but thought I'd at least mention this point again. Yes, we as individual entities experience time as a sequence of events, but the non-linear dynamic is change. Not the present moving along some vector from past to future, but change causing what was future to become past. Not the earth traveling a fourth dimension...
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Daryl,
I've been somewhat refraining from discussing time in this contest, but thought I'd at least mention this point again. Yes, we as individual entities experience time as a sequence of events, but the non-linear dynamic is change. Not the present moving along some vector from past to future, but change causing what was future to become past. Not the earth traveling a fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, but tomorrow becoming yesterday because the earth rotates. It really does resolve the issues with time. Duration is not a real vector because it doesn't transcend the present, but is the state of what is present between the occurrence of events. All perception is necessarily subjective, so what order anyone receives information is relative. There is no universal flow of time, because all change is relative, but there is a universal present because there is only what exists and time is an emergent effect of change.
We are constantly focused on what is going to happen next, as historically our life often depended on it, but the larger reality is these occurrences are constantly receding into the past, as what exists, adapts and evolves.
If time were a vector from past to future, you would think the faster clock would move into the future more rapidly, but since it ages/burns faster, it moves into the past more rapidly.
Since were are not moving along a universal vector from a determined past into a probabilistic future, there is no need for multiworlds to explain how to go from determinism to probability. It is simply the actual occurrence of events which collapses the probabilities into the actuality.
No need for blocktime either.
Other than it undermines some generational scientific assumptions and literally age old cultural ones, I really don't understand why people who are presumed to be professionally thoughtful can consider the observation that "tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth rotates," is either unproven or trivial, when it is not included in the canon and no one seems able to refute it.
So, had my say on the subject again. Sorry to be a bother.
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John Brodix Merryman replied on Jul. 8, 2013 @ 02:41 GMT
Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 8, 2013 @ 17:07 GMT
Hi John,
Thanks for commenting. It’s never a bother to hear your opinion. I’m sorry if I’ve ever given you the impression that it has been. If I haven’t been able to properly respond to your comments in the past, it was simply because the Earth spins around every twenty-four hours, rather than thirty-six or fifty or whatever it would actually take for me to get to everything I’d...
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Hi John,
Thanks for commenting. It’s never a bother to hear your opinion. I’m sorry if I’ve ever given you the impression that it has been. If I haven’t been able to properly respond to your comments in the past, it was simply because the Earth spins around every twenty-four hours, rather than thirty-six or fifty or whatever it would actually take for me to get to everything I’d like to get to in a day.
I don’t know that I’ve ever said anything directly about your view of time, so I thought I’d try to give you a bit of a response to some of the points you bring up. First of all, saying that tomorrow becomes yesterday because the Earth rotates seems to me like a Wheelerian participatory way of thinking. I personally think the passage of time is more fundamental, and has nothing to do with our Solar System, although that’s a good reference point; i.e., I don’t agree with your apparent view that the Earth’s rotation *causes* time to pass, but think the two coincide.
Now, regarding either the idea that the future becomes the past as time passes, or the idea that the past becomes the future: this is a common view that’s taken up by “blockers” who use it in order to find inadequacy in a presentist position on temporal passage. But at it’s heart, this is a five-dimensional way of thinking of becoming, which seems flawed from the get-go *because* it already views all of eternity in a sense as *existing*, and then restricts that view to a supposed present that moves through it.
As I’ve tried to bring out in my essay (it may help as well if you read through to the end of my first response to Israel on July 5, above), existence of anything adds a temporal dimension above and beyond the dimensions of the thing. The conception of all eternity existing adds a fifth dimension to the four dimensions of space-time, and it’s this sense of existence that allows us to think of change within space-time, such as future becoming past, etc. And beginning from this view, a lot of philosophers go on to show that a description of temporal passage like the one you’ve given just imposes a lot of superfluous structure, so as opposed to “resolv[ing] the issues with time”, I think it really does just muddle the concept up enough, leading to enough of a false conception of existence, to enable people to construct a reasonable argument *against* temporal passage.
When you say, “there is no universal flow of time” I have to take you to mean, from the surrounding text, that there is no universal perception of the flow of time. Because actually, “there is no universal flow of time” is inconsistent with “there is a universal present because there is only what exists…” By “what exists”, I have to assume you mean a three-dimensional Universe that exists. If that’s the right clarification of what you’ve written, then I agree with you.
Except I don’t think that is quite your meaning, because you *are* talking about a probabilistic future existentially, as something that becomes the (existential) determined past.
Anyway, when you speak of “no need for blocktime”, I’m not sure that you understand that the view has been taken as logically necessitated by other views that I’m not certain you disagree with. And just to be sure: I’m arguing for a very similar viewpoint as you, I think, but I’m doing so through analysis which takes into account various relevant aspects of the problem, rather than simply stating an opinion. I could tell you my opinions as well, and tell you that they make perfect sense because they do to me, but without offering any sort of analytical argument that considers the relevant aspects of the problem and either fits them into that view or argues why they’re wrong, that isn’t anything more than the trivial statement of opinions. I think that’s probably where you’re running into problems with others, as you’ve indicated that people have considered your opinion unproven or trivial. Because until you provide reason to support your claim that the Earth’s rotation causes tomorrow to become yesterday, it’ll remain just an opinion.
I hope this helps. You seem frustrated about not being taken seriously. I assure you that I’m just as frustrated. It’s hard to get anyone to take one’s ideas seriously. I don’t think you’ve ever taken my ideas seriously.
If you do want to discuss any of this further, please feel free and I’ll do my best to respond.
All the best,
Daryl
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John Brodix Merryman replied on Jul. 9, 2013 @ 03:57 GMT
Daryl,
Thank you for responding so thoughtfully. I am a bit defensive because I suppose it doesn't seem complicated to me, though I suppose I've made it complicated by covering all bases. I only use the earth rotating as an example of what amounts to motion creating a clock. We naturally think from one day to the next, yet the actual physical process is a star shining on a rotating planet,...
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Daryl,
Thank you for responding so thoughtfully. I am a bit defensive because I suppose it doesn't seem complicated to me, though I suppose I've made it complicated by covering all bases. I only use the earth rotating as an example of what amounts to motion creating a clock. We naturally think from one day to the next, yet the actual physical process is a star shining on a rotating planet, creating a series of events and dissipating them as well. There are lots of similar clocks, such as the cycles of the moon, or the revolution of the earth around the planet. These are their own clocks, yet we cut and paste to make them all seem part of a singular flow, such as adding days to months to make 12 of them match a year, leap days, etc.
I would say I am a "presentist," except the idea of the present is time based and there is the assumption of it being a point, but there is no point because the activity does not freeze. I simply see space as occupied by activity and time is a way to measure it, just like temperature. There are lots of scalar measures which I consider falling into the category of "temperature." For example, employment statistics amount to a scalar of human activity and so are an economic temperature reading. We could no more describe physically extant reality without the effect of temperature, anymore than we could without the effect of time, yet we understand temperature is an effect of this activity, not the basis for it, because temperature is not the basis for narrative and cause and effect logic, as time is.
I'm not saying time isn't real, anymore than I would argue temperature isn't real, only that it is effect, rather than cause.
The reason I keep emphasizing how as an emergent effect, it is simply the resolution of potential by the actual events, such that while the cat's future is indeterminate, its continued existence or demise is due to what physically happens, which becomes a matter of historical record, not any extant future or past.
As to why I keep emphasizing this future becoming past, just for a moment consider Julian Barbour's winning
entry in the Nature of Time contest; After pages of arguing time does not exist, he then concludes by using the principle of least action as a way to derive units of measure. "You choose in U two points – two configurations of the universe." "For this extremal curve, and in general for no other joining the fixed end points, the particles obey Newton’s laws with the emergent time defined by (3). This is a timeless law; it determines a path, or history, in U . The key thing is that no time is assumed in advance. A time worthy of the name does not exist on any of the non-extremal curves. Time emerges only on the extremal curves."
Now consider this
entry[/link} in last years contest, Machian Time Is To Be Abstracted From What Change? by Edward Anderson. Anderson happens to be a FQXI large grant winner on the subject of time. From the abstract; "It is utterly beyond our power to measure the changes of things by time. Quite the contrary, time is an abstraction at which we arrive through the changes of things." Ernst Mach [1]. *What* change? Three answers to this are `any change' (Rovelli), `all change' (Barbour) and my argument here for the middle ground of a `sufficient totality of locally relevant change' (STLRC) giving a generalization of the astronomers' ephemeris time."
Now you will notice that they don't view time as fundamental or even real, it seems, in Barbour's case, yet both view what to be most important, in Barbour's words, "worthy of the name," is the "measure of change!" In other words, in order to have something to calculate and treat as a dimension, it is the measure from one event to the next that matters, past to future, not the actual physical process creating that change, ie. the physical occurrence of events, by which they go from being in the future to being in the past. It would as if we viewed the reading on a thermometer as being more real than the thermodynamic activity being measured.
Hopefully this is more clear.
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John Brodix Merryman replied on Jul. 9, 2013 @ 04:02 GMT
Sorry to mess up that link. No edit button came up.
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 9, 2013 @ 16:10 GMT
Dear John,
Thanks for clarifying. I have a much better idea of your position on time now, and I do mostly agree with it. Since you’ve indicated that you have trouble getting people to discuss the matter with you, I have some suggestions that you’re free to take or leave. First of all, if you don’t think the Earth’s rotation causes time to pass, then you shouldn’t use the word...
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Dear John,
Thanks for clarifying. I have a much better idea of your position on time now, and I do mostly agree with it. Since you’ve indicated that you have trouble getting people to discuss the matter with you, I have some suggestions that you’re free to take or leave. First of all, if you don’t think the Earth’s rotation causes time to pass, then you shouldn’t use the word “because”. You could use “as”, or, since that is sometimes used in place of “because”, “while” might really be the best.
But in the end, what you’re doing is working out a well-oiled statement of your view, and I think simply stating that view might be the wrong way to get people to start discussing it with you. Your statement comes across as a simple doctrinaire assertion, and I know you have reasons for thinking these things, so I’d recommend starting a discussion by stating those reasons in context, rather than just your conclusions/overall opinion on the matter of time, which really doesn’t provide an opening for discussion. When you state an opinion without apparent cause, and without any reasoning, whether anyone agrees with it or not, it’s difficult to know how to respond, and I suspect most just won’t (and you’ve indicated that they don’t).
And finally, most importantly, while a number of people *will* agree with this position to some extent or other (as I said, I mostly do), you do need to recognise, and you need to learn to appreciate, the reasons why many people think that this basic idea of the functioning of time simply can’t be correct. The most significant obstacle in the matter is surely relativity, but there are obstacles related to quantum theory, for example, *even though quantum mechanics has been historically based on a classical conception of time*. For an example of how someone might respond from that perspective, you could look at Ken Wharton’s responses to me over on his essay page.
The bottom line in all of this is *reason*. If you want to convince someone that the way you view time is correct, you need to provide reason why conclusions they’ve drawn from physical theory could be in error, or could be interpreted another way and remain consistent with empirical evidence. For example, prior to the discovery of relativity, the ticking of clocks in all inertial frames was thought to be absolute; but Einstein showed with simple thought experiments (e.g., the one that I’ve used in my essay) that if the speed of light is to be constant in all inertial frames (as empirical evidence suggested) this simply can’t be the case. The irrefutable reason is that the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is longer than its legs. If you’re arguing in favour of presentism, amongst other things you do need to explain the flaw in Einstein’s reasoning. There is no other way to convince people who’ve reasoned that, according to relativity, presentism is wrong.
I hope this helps. Maybe I should add that when I say I mostly agree with your position, the reason I don’t completely agree with it is that I think temporal passage is a more fundamental aspect of reality that doesn’t result from continuous change, or the motion of things that exist. I think change *can* occur because time passes, and that the order of that passage has to do with a very basic metrical structure—namely, the fundamental symmetry of nature. So about the order, or consistent measure of temporal passage, I don’t personally think that it can be *caused by* relative change, although it’s certainly evident *through* relative change. For an insightful discussion, I’d recommend reading the part of St Augustine’s Confessions that deals with time. I think it’s book 11. I think his discussion of the duration of syllables really illustrates this.
Best wishes,
Daryl
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John Brodix Merryman replied on Jul. 9, 2013 @ 17:43 GMT
Daryl,
Thank you for the advice. I do get stuck in a rut on occasion. I recognized this as I made my first post and that was why it came out as it did. It was a bit of a broadside to the conversation you were having and deserved to be dismissed on procedural grounds alone. Otherwise I do try to tailer the argument to the points people raise. For instance, I think there is still some...
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Daryl,
Thank you for the advice. I do get stuck in a rut on occasion. I recognized this as I made my first post and that was why it came out as it did. It was a bit of a broadside to the conversation you were having and deserved to be dismissed on procedural grounds alone. Otherwise I do try to tailer the argument to the points people raise. For instance, I think there is still some distance between your position and mine.
" I don’t completely agree with it is that I think temporal passage is a more fundamental aspect of reality that doesn’t result from continuous change, or the motion of things that exist."
Now if I thought in terms of sequence, rather than action, I would agree with you. Duration is a very real effect. As even Barbour states it, "from one configuration state of the universe to the next."
That is why I think making the point that it is not the present moving from one event to the next, but one event dissolving, as another comes into being, is important. That way, duration is not simply the space between two measurement points, but the very dynamic of change itself. What is occurring in the present, with the specific points of reference as fairly arbitrary.
To go back to the sun; Our concept of the analog clock evolved from the sundial. On this clock the hands represent the present moving from one unit of time to the next, around the face of the clock, just as the shadow moves around the dial. When it became a mechanical instrument on a wall, naturally the movement of the hand reflects the movement of the sun from the northern hemisphere, going left to right across the top.
Yet the reality is that it is always the present and it is the motion of the earth which creates the impression of the sun rising to the east and setting to the west.
So just as it is both the sun and the present which appear to move, it is actually the earth and the events which do move, spinning west to east and coming into form and fruition and then to fade.
I'm not sure you are seeing this, because it does contradict in a most fundamental way our physic sense of moving through and along time and it is only when we are old and have given up any sense of control over our destiny, that we can really sense time moving through us. I, for reasons of lack of control at an early age and subsequent loss of confidence in the way society seems to be going, developed some sense of my vegetative side at an early age.
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 9, 2013 @ 18:10 GMT
Dear John,
Believe me that I do understand what you are saying. In fact, this is why I'd urge you to giving up thinking of events as things that "become" or "dissolve" or anything at all like that. Instead, I think the distinction needs to be made between what it means for something to "exist" and what it means for something to "happen". I've tried to state my position as being that the Universe---everything; which is only three-dimensional---exists. And I emphasize the word "exists", because that's where the fourth dimension enters into the description. I think that existence is a well ordered, measured duration that gives rise to the well-defined metrical structure of space-time. And what is space-time in this view? It is the set of "events", "happenings", "occurrences", that "take place" in the Universe as it exists. When we begin to think of events as "existing", we start sneaking a fifth dimension into our conception of reality, because indeed, the idea of the events of space-time as "existing" is a five-dimensional concept, just as the idea of the three-dimensional bodies in the Universe all existing is a four-dimensional concept. That's why I think your idea of events dissolving isn't the right way of looking at it. Something has to exist to dissolve. I think it's best to think of the whole three-dimensional world as existing---i.e., enduring with objectively well-defined order---and then think of events as the things that happen in it as it exists.
I hope that helps you to understand my views better.
Best regards,
Daryl
Anonymous replied on Jul. 9, 2013 @ 21:42 GMT
Daryl,
Rather than try to convince you that it is just stuff happening in space and time is an effect of it, because duration is that train running through your head and you are not getting off into a non-linear situation, how about I just bat a question in your general direction; What are "dimensions?" Do they underlay reality as some aspect of a platonic mathematical structure, or are...
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Daryl,
Rather than try to convince you that it is just stuff happening in space and time is an effect of it, because duration is that train running through your head and you are not getting off into a non-linear situation, how about I just bat a question in your general direction; What are "dimensions?" Do they underlay reality as some aspect of a platonic mathematical structure, or are they a conceptual tool we first used to describe space because it takes three coordinates to locate a position and have since applied to other logical projections?
Necessarily I view it as the second, that dimensions model space about like latitude, longitude and altitude model the surface of the planet.
Since we exist as points in space and thinking requires distilling out the salient points of any feature, it made sense to think of space as this coordinate system. So we then exist in this coordinate system and experience a series of events, as our point of reference relates to its dynamic environment. This sequence then becomes the vector of time, or narrative, as it is historically known,
As a physical model of reality it has some problems, since every point experiences its own narrative dimension and space from different points of reference. Now we are in a somewhat advanced stage, in which all these individual time vectors are plotted out in the four dimensional geometry of spacetime, like a novel with multiple plot lines. The problem is that to make it work, the entire dynamic function and any sense of a universal present has had to be removed, leaving blocktime, as though the entire novel and every event in it are sitting there on the shelf for eternity.
Is there another way to do this? I propose we simply have space as an infinite void and because it has no physical attributes, is necessarily inert. This can theoretically be measured by centrifugal force in space, since the rate of rotation by a frame against inertia can be measured. In this space is a convective cycle of expanding radiation and contracting mass. Time only emerges from this action when we put reference points in this activity and can chart and model sequence, because there is no past or future, so no duration from one to the other.
Regards,
John
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 9, 2013 @ 22:41 GMT
Thanks for the question, John!
Recall from Tom's essay last year:
"Only with the development of analytical geometry were we able to identify relations between numerically distant points and a local coordinate system." Similarly, only through the development of relativity theory have we been able to accurately identify the relationship between different events and a local space-time...
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Thanks for the question, John!
Recall from Tom's essay last year:
"Only with the development of analytical geometry were we able to identify relations between numerically distant points and a local coordinate system." Similarly, only through the development of relativity theory have we been able to accurately identify the relationship between different events and a local space-time metric. Space-time specifically has four-dimensional Lorentzian metrical structure. As I said, I don't think time is just an effect of things happening in space, because space-time does appear to have this objective metrical structure, through which events are just as well ordered in time as they are in space. While I naively define my notion of "existence" as another dimension in my concept of an n-dimensional thing that exists (i.e., I think that's an (n+1)-dimensional concept), I think this is a more formal definition.
You asked "Is there another way to do this?" and I think the Machian spirit of relativity needs to be completely abandoned and replaced by a Newtonian one. I think all that needs to be done is to adopt an objective cosmic rest-frame, as per the evidence, and interpret relativistic solutions geometrically, keeping consistent track of that, rather than in the usual abstract topological way, which considers that the coordinates have no immediate metrical significance.
I know we disagree on this one point, but I can see that our views are otherwise in agreement, as we both think all that's real is three-dimensional space that exists. Perhaps I, more than you, consider space-time as an accurate description of the events that occur in space, though. With this in mind, my question to you is: are you able to appreciate anything about the arguments in my essays that are meant to support this view over the interpretation that relativity most objectively implies a block universe view of reality?
By the way, thanks for the discussion! I've been enjoying it.
Daryl
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John Brodix Merryman replied on Jul. 10, 2013 @ 02:56 GMT
Daryl,
I'm not doubting that spacetime provides an accurate "placement" of the events that occur in space. What it misses is that foundational dynamic which creates the change being measured in the first place.
And that space(sans time) is the objective cosmic restframe.
It is just that I do lean toward the Machian view, that it is only the motion of the activity, not a Newtonian underlaying "flow" of time.
If we accept dynamical activity in space, it provides the change without any additional dimensionality. Otherwise what is the physics of a flow from past to future, presumably along the vector of possible events, whether deterministically singular, or the multiworlds of potential options? Doesn't this imply some form of blocktime, in which the potential of these events are some form for the energy of what is present to fill, like banks of a river to guide the water? Otherwise without that fifth dimensional guide, it is just the changing/evolving forms of the energy, resulting in a probabilistic future, a dynamic present and a determined past.
You are welcome and thanks for accepting my logic at face value.
John
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 11, 2013 @ 00:02 GMT
Dear John,
Sorry for the delay. Of course I agree with your second and third sentences, and I'm glad that we're clear on the first.
It's actually that first point that convinces me that absolute duration has to be a fundamental property of the Universe, just as Newton defined it. Without that basic bit of structure, I don't think it would be possible to describe the speed of light as being the same value in all inertial frames of reference, etc. I think the background structure is necessary to recover the consistent ordered measure that we perceive in reality.
I really do recommend reading the time part in St Augustine's Confessions, because I think he really hit the nail on the head on this point in particular. His discussion of whether a day would seem as long if the Sun were to complete its orbit in half the time, and his discussion of the different lengths of syllables, I think really drive this point home.
Best regards,
Daryl
John Brodix Merryman replied on Jul. 11, 2013 @ 02:59 GMT
Daryl,
What if you have space as an absolute reference frame, in which the speed of light is the limit at which all mass constituent energy has been converted into velocity? Then any clock, being a measure of internal motion, is reduced by a comparable amount, as its velocity is increased, such that any clock moving above absolute inertia will record time at a slower rate, thus making the speed of light comparable in any frame. A way to theoretically measure this would be that since gravity and velocity slow the clock rate, if we were to distribute clocks in various positions and action around in space and could measure their rate to near infinite precision, the fastest clock would the closest to universal inertia. That way it would be due to the interaction of space and energy, with time as effect.
I should read alot more, but the whole time and focus thing.... This contest is currently taking much of what I possess of both.
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John Brodix Merryman replied on Jul. 11, 2013 @ 03:51 GMT
Daryl,
One point to consider is that the vector, duration, is a measure of activity. You are starting the measure at one point in the process, such as the top of a cycle and finishing it at a following point, so what is being measured is an aspect the activity as it occurs. You are not moving along that vector, rather it is occurring. This is very similar to what we measure with temperature, a scalar quantity of activity. Think about how these two are similar to frequency and amplitude.
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 11, 2013 @ 15:35 GMT
Dear John,
It seems to me what you're really proposing is that 3D space, or the Universe--which we both agree constitutes all of reality--has absolute properties relating to motion, etc., of the things in it, and that time passes when those things move.
Aside from your thinking that this motion, etc., could actually be the cause of time's passage, I agree with this, inasmuch as I think of 3D space as being real and having certain such properties relating to its existence. In fact, I'd almost be willing to say that as long as we can agree that these properties conspire to produce space-time, as the well-ordered metical description of events that occur in the Universe as it exists, then I'm less concerned about whether the measured passage of time should be chalked up to motion and all that, or absolute passage. That's not to say that I'm not interested in what the actual cause is, but that simply for practical purposes I'm glad that you seem to agree with me that the Universe must have some fundamental property that leads to consistent temporal passage, so that it's not all just willy-nilly.
But with that said, I'm only *almost* willing to agree that the motion of things through the Universe would cause time to pass in this very consistent, uniform manner, because I just can't get past feeling that nothing could ever move about and conspire to be the cause of anything if it didn't *exist* in the first place. And that sense of existence--of things in space simply enduring, regardless of whether they *remain* (in time) in one place--is what I see as a fundamental aspect of change, rest, the passage of time, and the occurrence of all events.
I'm not thinking of this as some vector projected into some aethereal dimension, but simply as an absolute passage of time that's taking place everywhere throughout space consistently, and in such a manner that the local passage of time that occurs when things move about through space in time, is less than the absolute passage, in a geometrically well-defined way.
If you think of the barograph example in my last essay, there really isn't any vector of flow through anything, but just an ordered duration of space and everything in it. And the way space-time fits into that picture, as it's being physically traced out onto a sheet of paper that scrolls along beneath the barograph pens, is very much like your idea of an uncertain future becoming a certain past. If we strip away all the unreal paper, etc., in that second dimension, leaving only the things that exist in space, there's no vector; there's just space, existing, with time passing in an ordered way.
But anyway, I think you do agree with most of this. The only difference that I'm seeing is that I think things first of all have to exist if they could ever move, etc., whereas you're wanting the motion of things to be the fundamental cause of their existence. It seems like a real chicken-and-egg problem to me.
Cheers,
Daryl
John Brodix Merryman replied on Jul. 11, 2013 @ 19:48 GMT
Daryl,
"The only difference that I'm seeing is that I think things first of all have to exist if they could ever move, etc., whereas you're wanting the motion of things to be the fundamental cause of their existence."
I would certainly admit to a materialist instinct. The problem is that if they are not moving, these apparently very small constituent particles are not connecting...
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Daryl,
"The only difference that I'm seeing is that I think things first of all have to exist if they could ever move, etc., whereas you're wanting the motion of things to be the fundamental cause of their existence."
I would certainly admit to a materialist instinct. The problem is that if they are not moving, these apparently very small constituent particles are not connecting and so there is no larger emergent reality. If you simply freeze motion absolutely, down to the quantum level, reality as we know it would simply vanish, even if the dynamic energy were converted to mass. M=E/c2
One thing to keep in mind about temperature is that these particles, atomic, molecular, workforce, planetary, etc. are trading energy around, so it is not simply a statistical average, but a localized entropic state. Think Bose-Einstein state. Think flocks of birds swarming and swirling.
Now think of what I said about time and temperature as frequency and amplitude. Consider that you can't have one without the other, or they would be a multiple of zero. Now consider this in terms of my prior point about how freezing motion would effectively erase reality. If you have a temperature of absolute zero, or time as a dimensionless point, you essentially multiply reality by zero. So, yes, I very much agree time is an essential feature of reality, but as a measure of the change.
What spacetime does, is correlate measures of duration with distance, using light as the medium. Could we do the same with ideal gas laws and argue volume and temperature are really just different parameters of the same space? Expand the volume and the temperature will drop and vice versa. The premise of the cosmic background radiation is based on that.
As for the barograph, remember the needle, representing the dynamic moment, stays in one place, while it is the paper, representing the changing circumstances, which go past the needle. This is how the process of time is actually working, underneath our quite natural constant anticipation of the future. If the clock worked like that, the hand would remain motionless and the face would turn counterclockwise, like it is the sun that stays rooted and the earth that rotates. Like the paper, the past is physically unreal, but it is conceptually emergent.
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 11, 2013 @ 20:11 GMT
"... Like the paper, the past is physically unreal, but it is conceptually emergent."
John, I'm really glad you've understood my example so well! I think that fits in with your view so well, as that last paragraph illustrates.
I'm just not there with you on the chicken and the egg thing, but I do think it's a worthwhile problem to think about, and I think you're asking interesting questions (e.g., I do think time would pass if everything were perfectly still, but it would be impossible for everything to be perfectly still, so there's no way of verifying that. On the other hand, there's always *something* in motion, so why not suggest as you do...).
In the meantime, however, I think it's good to be mindful of the more immediate problem, that most people think there can't be an objective Now, and that reality consists of the past, present, and future, without objective distinction. I think we have to get through on that point first, and start making headway from there, before it will be possible to answer these more fundamental problems.
John Brodix Merryman replied on Jul. 12, 2013 @ 00:41 GMT
Daryl,
Consider for a moment that it would be every bit as conceptually difficult to imagine nothing moving, as it would no passage of time. Life and imagination depend on both, not to mention temperature.
As for getting others to consider this, I think it will be a matter of when the time is right. Yes, string and M theory and susy are starting to look shaky and they are the upper floors of this edifice. I think over the next several years, not only will a lot more, such as Big Bang cosmology and all the associated patches start to be questioned, but there will build a social reaction within the field, as recent and new graduates understand raising significant questions about where it is going will determine their futures. FQXI has certainly circled around the issue of time since it started and I see it as the essential issue. As I pointed out in the 7/9; 3:57 post, the measure of duration is incorporated into this 4 dimensional geometry that is supposedly causal, allowing expanding universes, etc, but it would be like treating a temperature reading as more fundamental than the actual thermodynamics.
No telling who will get any recognition for this, so it seems we just have to keep chipping away and see what the non-linear results will be.
I do think though, we can put time entirely in the category of effect, if we think of it in terms of change.
Regards,
John
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John Brodix Merryman replied on Jul. 12, 2013 @ 00:48 GMT
Daryl,
I was looking at your title again and I thought I'd point out that unlike a ruler, a clock has two parts, hands, representing present and face, representing events, so one is the denominator and one is the numerator. With the current system, the events are the denominator and thus the present is factored into them, therefore each event is its own present, but if we look at it the other way, with the present as the denominator, then the events have to be factored into that and there is only one present in which all events either manifest, or don't happen.
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 12, 2013 @ 02:36 GMT
Ah, John that's where I have to strongly disagree. I think it's conceptually very simple to think of nothing moving, but it's impossible to imagine nothing existing. Even thinking of a single slice, an instant, in all of eternity, brings up thoughts of it as existing in my mind. I actually think that's where all the trouble in understanding the block universe model comes in--because it's impossible to think of without surreptitiously imagining it in some sense as existing. In contrast, it's incredibly simple to think of something as just existing, not moving at all through space. I can think of a rock, or whatever. I know that that rock is full of atoms and subatomic particles that *actually* are moving, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm able to naively think of it as being completely still.
The best way I think I've ever heart the passage of time expressed was by Seneca:
"Our bodies are hurried along like flowing waters; every visible object accompanies time in its flight; of the things which we see, nothing is fixed. Even I..., as I comment on this change, am changed myself. This is just what Heraclitus says: 'We go down twice into the same river, and yet into a different river.' For the stream still keeps the name, but the water has already flowed past. Of course this is much more evident in rivers than in human beings. Still, we mortals are also carried past in no less speedy a course;... the universe, too, immortal and enduring as it is, changes and never remains the same. For though it has within itself all that it has had, it has it in a different way from that in which it has had it; it keeps changing its arrangement."
It's worth reading a couple of times to understand how he's using the river metaphor. It's at best a loose comparison, because time doesn't actually flow through any existing space like a river does. The river *mostly* provides a useful means of recognising the passage of time, because the water is moving, so it's obviously changing. But the same passage is still there in all things, with the same measure, no matter whether they're moving or not.
Therefore, when you conclude with "I do think though, we can put time entirely in the category of effect, if we think of it in terms of change" I just have to completely disagree, because the passage of time lies at the heart of change. Nothing can change if it doesn't exist. As for the title, time *is* the denominator of existence, because to *exist* is to be somewhere over a period of time. Whether that "somewhere" is changing as time passes or not, the thing is existing; and in your view and mine, *absolute time* passes everywhere with the same measure, whether or not local measures of time pass differently due to a body's arbitrary motion through space. That time, *absolute time*, is the denominator of "existence", and all the events that occur just happen, and all information simply comes into existence or fades from it as time passes.
Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 12, 2013 @ 02:44 GMT
I forgot to add, at the end of the first paragraph: I can think of *something* as being completely still, and by superposition I can imagine an entire universe in which nothing at all is moving. With no photons moving about, nothing would be seen, etc., etc., but that doesn't change the fact that I can imagine it, whereas I simply can't think of anything at all without thinking of it in some sense as existing.
Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 12, 2013 @ 03:02 GMT
Actually, I can say that better--about the quote, I mean. It's worth reading a couple of times in order to see that he is using the river example in two ways. He himself is using it as a metaphor for the flow of time, and he says that's how Heraclitus uses it---but he doesn't, does he? Heraclitus is using the river as a benchmark for recognising temporal passage, because of the fact that it *is* changing. Every time we go down to the river it's obviously changed; it's different. But what Seneca notices, which was surely Heraclitus' point, although we've only got the fragment, is that *everything* is changing in the same way: it's all existing, whether it's moving or not; and that sense of "change" is uniform--the even passage, or duration, of absolute time.
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John Brodix Merryman wrote on Jul. 12, 2013 @ 11:29 GMT
Daryl,
" the universe, too, immortal and enduring as it is, changes and never remains the same. For though it has within itself all that it has had, it has it in a different way from that in which it has had it; it keeps changing its arrangement."
Would you say there is a changing present, or that the present "moves" along the "passage of time?"
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 12, 2013 @ 12:27 GMT
A changing present; however, this "change" is not by virtue of constant rearrangement, but simply because it endures. For that reason, regardless of any possible rearrangement, each instant is already different from any other. In that sense, the present is always changing. I think this is what Joe Fisher means as well.
The alternative you suggested, that the present "moves" along the "passage of time", brings to mind a physical dimension along which the present flows. In order for the 3D present to flow along that fourth dimension, all of it would have to exist, and that's really a 5D concept.
But I think existence *is* the fourth dimension, even in the relativistic description--but the only thing that's ever real is the three-dimensional enduring present.
Daryl
John Brodix Merryman replied on Jul. 12, 2013 @ 16:52 GMT
Daryl,
Are they one and the same? It endures because the energy is conserved and time is the measure of regularity, because it is both enduring and in motion.
Existence is the fourth dimension, in that without both the effect of sequence and the concept of narrative, we don't exist. That doesn't make it physically real.
We seem to be on the same page.
You do realize this view refutes the conceptual basis for Big Bang Cosmology? No wormholes, or multiverses either. Just scales beyond our ability to conceive.
Regards,
John
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 12, 2013 @ 19:38 GMT
John,
I've tried to discuss cosmology with you before, but you seem adamant about wanting to misunderstand the standard cosmological model. One of its basic assumptions is that there *is* a cosmic time, a cosmic frame of rest, and all the rest of what we've been talking about. In fact, George Ellis for one is far closer to agreeing with your "moving matter causes its own existence" stance...
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John,
I've tried to discuss cosmology with you before, but you seem adamant about wanting to misunderstand the standard cosmological model. One of its basic assumptions is that there *is* a cosmic time, a cosmic frame of rest, and all the rest of what we've been talking about. In fact, George Ellis for one is far closer to agreeing with your "moving matter causes its own existence" stance than he is with my "matter can't move if it doesn't exist" one. Either way, cosmology describes space as existing, and expanding in time. The three-dimensional universe simply multiplies by a scale-factor a(t), which is a function of cosmic time.
Then how does one model this? Any scale is set by two values, so one possibility to use is that at some finite time in the past the value of the scale-factor was zero. The other value doesn't actually have to be known, but everything can be scaled relative to it. For this, we use the present value, *explicitly assuming that there is a present*, and we usually set it equal to 1 and scale the value at every other time relative to that. Redshift can be related to the change in the value of the scale factor in an expanding/contracting universe--i.e. 3D space that gets bigger or smaller as objective cosmic time passes--and can therefore be used to derive a measure of distance that relates to a change in apparent brightness. Yadda yadda. We have a means of modelling redshift and apparent brightness data. We now have really good data, and the model that tells us our Universe is now 13.8 billion years old, has expanded monotonically from a time when the scale factor was zero, and has been expanding with a very particular rate of change, fits the data very well.
Furthermore, the whole "Big Bang" idea predicted the CMB as a relic of a time when space was relatively much smaller, and energies were a lot higher than they are now, which was observed a while back. Since the initial prediction, people realised that if the CMB really were created this way, when space was a lot smaller, and that it has expanded for billions of years since, then the effects of vacuum fluctuations at that time, which would have caused tiny little anisotropies in the background radiation of space, would have expanded to huge macroscopic sizes along with space. The detailed anisotropy signature that the theory predicts also fits to the standard model. No other model has been proposed that can come close to explaining the detailed CMB anisotropy so well.
I'm not saying I agree with everything about the model, and I'm not trying to defend Big Bang cosmology here. I do have different ideas that I think explain a lot more, and they don't involve real singularities, worm holes, etc. I've been trying to defend presentism against Ken Wharton on his essay page, and I ended up going into some of the details over there. If you're interested to get an idea of what I think, you could look at that.
Regardless, I did want to defend against your claim that Big Bang cosmology is inconsistent with there being a cosmic present, but I really don't want to defend against other aspects of the theory that I disagree with.
Daryl
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John Brodix Merryman replied on Jul. 12, 2013 @ 22:18 GMT
Daryl,
Not trying to push any boundaries here and I certainly didn't set out to question cosmology, it's just that about 24 years ago, it started occurring to me that it didn't add up. Just a few of the points; If gravity and expansion balance out, as theory and observation suggest they do, where is the additional expansion for the universe as a whole to expand coming from? It would seem...
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Daryl,
Not trying to push any boundaries here and I certainly didn't set out to question cosmology, it's just that about 24 years ago, it started occurring to me that it didn't add up. Just a few of the points; If gravity and expansion balance out, as theory and observation suggest they do, where is the additional expansion for the universe as a whole to expand coming from? It would seem space between galaxies is expanding, while the galaxies are essentially pulling in this effect. Sort of like what Einstein originally proposed the cosmological constant to do.
If space is what you measure with a ruler and space expands, why does our most basic ruler of intergalactic space, the lightyear, remain stable, since these galaxies presumably move apart in terms of light crossing the distance between them.
Wouldn't the cosmic background radiation also be the solution to Olber's paradox, if redshift is an optical effect of distance?
As well as that it is premised on the "fabric of spacetime" being physically manifest.
Here is an interesting paper describing how redshifting could be caused by multispectrum quanta of light. It seems to me that if we assign the effect of balancing gravity to light, some of these issues might not be so mysterious. Not only do galaxies radiate away tremendous amounts of radiation, to balance the mass falling, in, but the black holes are shooting enormous jets of cosmic rays out the poles. Yes, mass, structure and information fall into black holes and other gravity wells, but it seems quite obvious the constituent energy is being ejected out of them. It seems to me a lot of these processes could be thought of in terms of cosmic weather patterns; Such as a convection cycle of expanding radiation and collapsing mass, gravitational cyclones, etc. Just is mass releasing energy creates enormous pressure, wouldn't the opposite be true, that energy coalescing into mass creates a vacuum? Which might explain gravity.
I realize this is outside convention and only raising what I see as interesting questions.
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 12, 2013 @ 23:07 GMT
John,
I first of all need to apologize for the negative tone in my previous reply. I was rude, and I'm sorry. Thanks for not getting upset with me.
First point: I don't think mass actually warps space-time, but it's all a teleparallel effect due to momentum through a universe that exists with a well-defined Lorentzian background metric. I don't think stress-energy has any effect on...
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John,
I first of all need to apologize for the negative tone in my previous reply. I was rude, and I'm sorry. Thanks for not getting upset with me.
First point: I don't think mass actually warps space-time, but it's all a teleparallel effect due to momentum through a universe that exists with a well-defined Lorentzian background metric. I don't think stress-energy has any effect on the basic fabric of reality. (See my post to Ken Wharton). I'm also not happy with the idea of expanding space around gravitationally bound clusters of galaxies, that picks off the outliers and carries them into the Hubble flow.
Point two: A light year of intergalactic space now is not a light year of intergalactic space five minutes from now, since space is expanding. It's the speed of light through space in time that's relevant in the space-time metric. This needs to be appreciated according to the metrical description, without complicating it by thinking of space as not expanding in some places and expanding in others, etc. So: space just multiplies, right. It's everywhere expanding by the exact same amount. This is the way we model the large-scale expansion. Consider two galaxies as points in this expanding space. There are THREE relevant distances to consider when discussing the light travel from one galaxy to the other: the distance between the two points at the time of emission; the integrated distance that light travels through expanding space; and the distance between the two galaxies when the light is finally observed. When distances to galaxies, quasars, etc., are mentioned, it may be the light travel distance that's quoted. It's stated in light years, because light travels a fixed distance in a year, so quoting the light travel distance would also indicate when the light was emitted. The distance is a distance travelled, at a fixed rate, through expanding space. As I said, it's an integrated distance over the path of the photon, and not a distance that there is in space at any one time.
Point three: Number one against you is the CMB's anisotropy signature. No one's offered a reasonable proposal to explain that but Big Bang cosmology. Also, there's the fact that even the temperature was exactly predicted by Big Bang cosmology. Predictive power holds a lot of weight in physics. I suppose one can (?) contrive a theory of tired light to explain the paradox, but I don't know. I seem to recall a sky full of tired photons still having to be bright. Something to do with infinity. I could be wrong, but the possibility doesn't really interest me unless it could realistically begin to contend with the CMB and is consistent with everything else.
Point four: I'm not sure I understand. Are you now talking about aether theories? Or are you thinking that the fabric of space-time needs to be physically manifest in the standard model. I disagree with that. There's a metrical structure of the Universe; everything in the Universe is supposed to have been projected at the Big Bang so that it was all flying apart at an initially decelerating rate (yuck, IMO); and, more to that point, everything in the Universe is supposed to have henceforth been affecting that primordial rate of expansion. I personally think the apparent expansion rate has to do with an absolute background metric that was fixed before the "big bang" (again, refer to my post to Ken Wharton).
Point five: The inference that black holes exist is not justified if there is supposed to be an objective cosmic time.
See: my ideas lie outside of convention, too ;)
Cheers,
Daryl
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John Brodix Merryman replied on Jul. 13, 2013 @ 11:21 GMT
Daryl,
" The distance is a distance travelled, at a fixed rate, through expanding space."
What is the metric for that "fixed distance" light is traveling, if space itself is expanding? There seems to be an unconscious assumption there that distance is just, well, distance, even if "space" is expanding. I wouldn't want to try that logic on the IRS.
Big Bang cosmology did predict the background radiation, but it didn't predict its smoothness, thus the need for inflation, nor the rate of redshift, so we have dark energy. It seems different standards to say it's proof when it gets it right, but when it gets it wrong, we just need a patch.
"Tired light " was a pretty primitive idea to have as the sole basis for all forms of steady state universe. It seems like a variety of factors could be coming into play. Even the time it takes for photons to register from such incredibly distant sources would be stretched out between each photon.
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 13, 2013 @ 13:50 GMT
John,
You said again here "What is the metric for that "fixed distance" light is traveling", but I keep telling you there is no fixed distance in cosmology. Space is expanding. Light travels at a fixed rate through expanding space, and the integrated distance it travels through that space in a year is a fixed amount. The fixed rate is the null rate defined by the metric.
Dylan is...
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John,
You said again here "What is the metric for that "fixed distance" light is traveling", but I keep telling you there is no fixed distance in cosmology. Space is expanding. Light travels at a fixed rate through expanding space, and the integrated distance it travels through that space in a year is a fixed amount. The fixed rate is the null rate defined by the metric.
Dylan is screaming death metal in my head, "Don't criticize what you [don't] understand!" I really don't think it's something you "can't" understand. I believe you can. But you really don't yet. And it's really important to actually understand--and understand well--the theory you want to argue against. It's the only way to do proper analysis.
Light travel through expanding space isn't the easiest concept to understand, and a lot of people do have trouble with it. I think it's an especially tricky concept for you because you want to argue that it's wrong more than you want to understand it. But please try to understand: space is constantly expanding and light travels through expanding space at a fixed rate; in a year, it can only get so far, say it goes from A to B one year; if A is a galaxy that's constantly emitting light and B is an observer, then the light A emits even a second after that last bit, that took exactly a year to get to B when it was emitted a second ago, now takes slightly longer to get to B; light still travels the same cumulative distance through space in a year, but a second later the distance between A and B was a bit more AND the eventual distance it had to cross was greater by even more than that *initial* amount because all of the space between A and B was expanding *the entire time* the light travelled.
Distances between objects aren't fixed in an expanding universe, but are expanding. Light does travel at a fixed rate described by invariant null lines in the metric. Therefore, at this fixed rate, light travels a fixed finite distance through expanding space in a year, which integrates along its path over the course of the year as the distance between two fixed endpoints grows and grows.
If you were at all trying to understand this, you would; but all you seem to be doing is looking for an error in it, and there isn't one, and that is keeping you from getting it, as far as I can tell. On this particular point, I feel we're at an impasse until you give up wanting to argue against it and first try to understand it. The question you asked to start with is already wrong, and the "unconscious assumption" you're referring to isn't remotely what anyone thinks.
Now, to move on: you said, "Big Bang cosmology did predict the background radiation, but it didn't predict its smoothness, thus the need for inflation", and I told you I don't want to defend things I don't agree with (inflation), but you've got this all wrong, too. The metric of standard cosmology--the thing that's been verified by observation--is constructed based on the observation that the Universe appears to be isotropic on the large scale, and the assumption that it should be homogeneous, so that nowhere should be special (i.e., it should thus appear isotropic from every point; this is the cosmological principle). Accordingly, the CMB should be smooth. Inflation is supposed to address the flatness and the horizon problem, but I said I don't care to defend a theory I ultimately disagree with right now, so I'm not going to get into that. The more basic issue, though, is that we have a model that assumes spatial homogeneity and isotropy, and it works empirically, but we want to explain why it should be isotropic and homogeneous. We could just go on assuming it, but that bothers people, so we try to think up reasons why that should be.
Now, to refer back to your "but it didn't predict its smoothness"--obviously yes, a signature from when an isotropic and homogeneous space was in near-thermodynamic equilibrium should be very smooth, so the theory does predict that, but what's really interesting is what I said before about the anisotropies that it predicted from tiny vacuum fluctuations occurring then, which we've also observed.
Then in your next statement you again refer to an idea I disagree with, but you again have it so wrong that I'm compelled to try to explain. You wrote: "nor the rate of redshift, so we have dark energy. It seems different standards to say it's proof when it gets it right, but when it gets it wrong, we just need a patch." The rate of the redshift is modelled very accurately by the standard model without having to change the underlying theory a lick. But accurately modelling it meant that a parameter that was previously assumed to be zero had to be allowed to be some other constant value. It's hardly a "patch" when all you're doing is saying your previous assumption seems to be wrong, because observations indicate otherwise. And by the way, in science we never ever ever say anything is proven. We say that we've verified assumptions, or falsified them. That's it. In this particular case, the assumption was falsified. But as I said, I totally disagree with the "dark energy" idea--I think there is a fundamental geometrical constant related to the metrical symmetry, which you'd know if you look at the post to Ken Wharton I keep referring to--so I don't care to defend it.
Daryl
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John Brodix Merryman replied on Jul. 13, 2013 @ 14:47 GMT
Daryl,
Thank you for your patience.
I meant fixed rate, not fixed distance.
"but a second later the distance between A and B was a bit more AND the eventual distance it had to cross was greater by even more than that *initial* amount because all of the space between A and B was expanding *the entire time* the light travelled."
I'm having trouble parsing the distinction between space and distance. How is it that space can be said to expand, yet there does seem to be this stable distance, as measured by lightspeed, against which to measure it? Isn't "space what you measure with a ruler" and doesn't a ruler measure distance?
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 13, 2013 @ 17:24 GMT
John,
Thanks for the question. That helps. This all goes back to our presentist idea, in which space exists. At any instant, there is a certain physical distance between A and B. But because of the way in which space exists, i.e. expanding as time passes, the physical distance between A and B increases.
The fixed rate that light travels through space in time is a differential, so...
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John,
Thanks for the question. That helps. This all goes back to our presentist idea, in which space exists. At any instant, there is a certain physical distance between A and B. But because of the way in which space exists, i.e. expanding as time passes, the physical distance between A and B increases.
The fixed rate that light travels through space in time is a differential, so maybe it would be useful to take a calculus approach: rather than thinking of instantaneous velocity, start by thinking of the fixed rate as a tiny distance travelled in a moment. We can start by thinking of the expansion of space as occurring only "between" each moment, with space remaining fixed "during" each moment. Accordingly, the tiny distance that is traversed every moment is a smaller and smaller fraction of the total distance between the two endpoints, so the light initially covers a greater portion of the distance that's got to be made up. It might take only a tenth of the time to get to the half way point, because space is expanding so much by the end. But this doesn't really matter to the point that we're discussing. The point is that the physical distance that light actually crosses in a year is just given by adding up all the tiny distances travelled in an entire year, which has nothing to do with the fact that space is expanding. The latter is only important if you care to know how far in space the light actually got by travelling at that fixed rate throughout the year.
Now your mind is brimming with objections. "Inconsistent!" you cry, "Space is supposed to be continually expanding, even during those brief moments!" And that's true, but we haven't yet made this a calculus-based description. In the limit in which those moments become instants, the rate does become an instantaneous velocity, and that's what's fixed, and if you want to determine how long it will take light to travel from point A to point B when instantaneous light speed is that fixed value and space is actually continually expanding, you integrate over the path from A to B. However many years that is, tells you how many lightyears that integrated distance was. If you object to the validity of doing this, what you're really objecting to is the validity of calculus, and not the validity of the cosmological model, which simply makes use of calculus in this way.
If you don't understand calculus very well (I have no idea what level of mathematics you're comfortable with) then this isn't the easiest example to begin with. It would be better to first understand how it works in space that isn't expanding, and then complicate things with spatial expansion.
Alternatively, you could just think of the rubber band example I gave you last year. You tie one end to a post and walk slowly away, or even at a variable rate, holding the other end. You have a friend take a marker and draw a line from the fixed end over to you, walking at a fixed rate, always with the same instantaneous velocity. I think you had worried then about how this fixed rate through expanding space could be consistently defined, i.e. when space itself doesn't provide a consistent backdrop. But space really isn't enough, as I've argued above: there really does need to be a consistent four-dimensional background metric. In cosmology, that metric is defined according to comoving coordinates, so that A and B *do* remain a fixed comoving distance from each other as space expands. Galaxies all maintain their positions, and space multiplies.
Daryl
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John Brodix Merryman replied on Jul. 13, 2013 @ 18:03 GMT
Daryl,
I'm really not trying to be hard-headed here, but I'm not getting it. Whether calculus or rubber bands, it seems to relate one unit to another and insist they are both space. I don't see how they both can be the denominator.
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 17, 2013 @ 16:40 GMT
John,
I'm really sorry that I missed your last post. I didn't mean to give up trying. Maybe we could think of it another way: you've been on a moving walkway at an airport, right? The whole thing is quite similar, except that rather than expanding, the moving walkway surface is moving. If you walk along a 60 m walkway at 60 m/minute, and you go in the same direction that the walkway is...
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John,
I'm really sorry that I missed your last post. I didn't mean to give up trying. Maybe we could think of it another way: you've been on a moving walkway at an airport, right? The whole thing is quite similar, except that rather than expanding, the moving walkway surface is moving. If you walk along a 60 m walkway at 60 m/minute, and you go in the same direction that the walkway is moving, you'll get there in less than a minute, and you'll actually have walked less than 60 metres. If you go in the opposite direction, it'll take more than a minute to cross and you'll have walked more than 60 metres. That's really basically what's supposed to be happening according to standard cosmology.
The metric uses comoving coordinates, so that the positions of galaxies all remain the same, but space is just expanding. You can think of dots on a balloon that's being blown up, which all keep the same angular position, but separate from each other. Therefore, the physical distance between each point is increasing, but at any moment light traverses the same distance. It doesn't traverse the same angular separation in a given moment, because that physical distance is increasing. For example, by the time these physical distances have doubled, light's only traversing half the angular separation. The rate that's fixed is the physical distance that is travelled in a given instant. This is easy to think of in the moving walkway example, because it isn't expanding: if you take a 1 m step each second, against the direction that the walkway is moving, then in 30 seconds you'll have walked 30 meters and gotten nowhere; if you walk in the same direction as the walkway, you'll have walked 30 meters in 30 seconds again, but the distance between your starting point and your end point will be 60 meters. Similarly, using the comoving coordinate representation in cosmology, we can determine the physical distance travelled in moving from one position to another, if we know the form of the scale factor.
Please let me know if that gets us anywhere.
All the best, and again, sorry I didn't see your response.
Daryl
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John Brodix Merryman replied on Jul. 17, 2013 @ 18:45 GMT
Daryl,
Thanks for the vote! Bumped me up to 3. I admit I'm just paddling around the edges of this contest and the voting is pretty brutal.
I do understand how these two factors are being related to one another. Consider though, that you are using the steps/lightyears as the denominator. Such that 30/1 means you have walked 30 steps. Now matter how it moves, your steps remain constant.
As you say, "the physical distance between each point is increasing, but at any moment light traverses the same distance. It doesn't traverse the same angular separation in a given moment, because that physical distance is increasing. For example, by the time these physical distances have doubled, light's only traversing half the angular separation."
It is the distance between the galaxies, the numerator, which changes/increases. The denominator, the distance light travels in a year, remains constant, therefore it takes more of them to cover the distance between the galaxies.
So if you are going to say that the very fabric of space is the numerator, what metric is the source of your denominator?
Say two galaxies expand from x lightyears to 2x lightyears. There is simply more space, as measured in lightyears, between them. So the space, as measured in lightyears, isn't being stretched, or it would always take just as many lightyears to cover the space between the two points. There is an increased distance, as measured in the stable units of space called lightyears.
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 18, 2013 @ 04:27 GMT
Hi John,
You're welcome for the rating; but I did enjoy reading your essay, so the pleasure was mine.
In this last post, however, I'm really having a difficult time knowing what you're saying. It seems you think a distance in expanding space, stated in units of lightyears, should say something about how long it would take light to traverse the distance? Is that what the issue is?
Since space is expanding, it takes light much longer to cross what is 1 lightyear to begin with, because space is going to expand the whole time. It might take 5 years to cross from A to B, and when it does, the distance from A to B might be 8 lightyears. But the question is: how far did the light actually travel? It's 5 lightyears.
If the moving walkway is 60 m, moving along at 1 m/s and you jog against it at 2 m/s, then each second you gain 1 m and it takes you a minute to get across. How far have you run, at 2 m/s, in a minute? You've actually run 120 m, even though gone 60 m from A to B.
The speed of light is constant, and therefore so is the lightyear. But whether light actually can make it all the way from A to B in a year (say AB is initially less than 1 ly) or only half the distance totally depends on the rate of spatial expansion. If you speed up the moving walkway to 2 m/s in the above example, but hold your jogging rate constant, you'll still run 120 m every minute, but now you won't actually get anywhere. If the speed of the moving walkway now varies, but still you hold your jogging speed constant at 2 m/s, the distance you actually move along the walkway in a minute will be different again, BUT STILL the distance you actually run in a minute will be 120 m.
Does that get us anywhere?
Daryl
John Brodix Merryman replied on Jul. 19, 2013 @ 14:55 GMT
Daryl,
The issue here is; What is space?
Physics treats it as a measure. As Einstein said, "Space is what you measure with a ruler."
So now there are 2 measures; That which is being measured by how far light travels in a given time and how far two points of reference are away from each other.
So are they both measures of the same space, or are they completely distinct from one another? Presumably they are of the same space, since they are being compared to one another. In that case, which is the denominator and which is the numerator? Which is the reference frame and which is the variable? Presumably the denominator, the reference frame, is the measure of "real" space and the other is distance being denominated in the units of the other.
Now it would seem that you are using lightyears as the denominator, yet you are saying the distance between two points/galaxies, is the "real" space. So if "real" space is expanding, what is the basis of lightyears? You say the light is not measuring the real space, but there just seems to be this stable metric the light is traveling, yet it is just assumed. What makes it "constant," if it is not measuring the "real" space?
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 19, 2013 @ 16:52 GMT
John,
Why do you want to consider a ratio of the distance light travels through expanding space through time, to an instantaneous distance? True, they're both measures within the same space-time metric, but they're very different [Actually, as I read this over, I see this is your point. Please keep reading and I'll talk about this at the end].
If you're referring to the comoving...
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John,
Why do you want to consider a ratio of the distance light travels through expanding space through time, to an instantaneous distance? True, they're both measures within the same space-time metric, but they're very different [Actually, as I read this over, I see this is your point. Please keep reading and I'll talk about this at the end].
If you're referring to the comoving coordinate separation, that's not a distance at all. What's the distance between the north pole and the south pole of a sphere? You can't answer that unless you know the magnitude of the radius in some unit of measure. Same goes in cosmology. The scale-factor, in whatever unit, is multiplied by the coordinate positions.
By "Now it would seem that you are using lightyears as the denominator", I can only take you to mean that you think lightyears is not just the unit of measure, but actually the magnitude that distances are scaled against. Sure, it can be, but you're missing something. You're not thinking about this the right way at all, and I fear I may have confused you at some point. Please think of it this way: space-time (the geometry of the Universe's evolution) has a well-defined metrical structure, so we can use an algebraic coordinate representation to describe it. We assume continuous coordinates which are multiplied by a scale-factor, which provides the unit of measure, and it is an increasing function which *sets the scale* *throughout time*. Therefore, if the distance between two points A and B, say on opposite sides of spherical space (that's their coordinates) is 1 m at one time (that's because of the value of the scale-factor at that time, which sets the scale and defines the unit of measure) and then the scale factor doubles in size, then they will be 2 m apart at the later time.
That example considers only spatial distances at an instant and not distances travelled over the course of time. As I've said, in order to calculate distances travelled over the course of time you do need to use calculus and consider the space-time metric, not just the metric of space at one time, because that changes as the scale factor increases with time.
[Now, getting back to that point from above: the metrical structure of space-time allows us to consistently compare distances in any particular unit of measure throughout space-time. We can therefore determine how far light moves through expanding space over the course of a year and call that our unit of measure. Due to the metrical structure of space-time, we can then even use that as our unit of measure when referring to instantaneous distances throughout space.]
I do need you to try to meet me halfway on this. In my last post, I gave examples in which the distance travelled through space in a minute varied even though you jogged along at a constant rate and therefore always actually jogged the same distance in a minute. I need you to either concede that what I said makes sense to you or disagree with it. It's an example that I think should eventually help, or I wouldn't have written it down.
I'm sorry if this is even more confusing. I'm trying.
Daryl
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John Brodix Merryman replied on Jul. 19, 2013 @ 17:40 GMT
Daryle,
I do think I understand your point. It just seems to me that you are absently using a given without considering that it needs a source.
Consider: "Therefore, if the distance between two points A and B, say on opposite sides of spherical space (that's their coordinates) is 1 m at one time (that's because of the value of the scale-factor at that time, which sets the scale and defines the unit of measure) and then the scale factor doubles in size, then they will be 2 m apart at the later time."
So: At one point in time, the sphere of the universe is one million lightyears across. Subsequently at another point, it is 2 million lightyears across. This seems to correspond to your description. Yes?
So my point is; Where does the metric of space/distance come from, that sets the speed of light? Presumably, if the speed of light is being determined by the same set of coordinates as A and B, it will always be one million lightyears, because the set of coordinates and the speed of light are determined by the same metric of space, but they are not. There are two metrics of space, that between A and B and that (m) set by the speed of light.
Consider: " in order to calculate distances travelled over the course of time you do need to use calculus and consider the space-time metric, not just the metric of space at one time, because that changes as the scale factor increases with time."
If lightspeed was determined by the space-time metric, it would change along with the scale, but it doesn't, so it is not determined by the space-time metric. So my question, again, is: What metric determines the speed of light?
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John Brodix Merryman replied on Jul. 19, 2013 @ 17:44 GMT
Daryl,
Sorry for the name misspelling. My mac is old and the spinning wheel is getting more distracting.
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 19, 2013 @ 18:15 GMT
John,
(no problem about the misspelling. I know you know how to spell my name.)
Consider the line-element
ds^2=-c^2dt^2+a(t)^2dx^2,
where c and a(t) are in metres and the coordinates x and t are unitless.
At t=1, what is the distance between x=1 and x=2? Again, you can't answer that, because I haven't told you that a(1)=1 m; therefore, the distance is 1 m (dt=0, so s=1 m*integral over dx from x=1 to x=2; therefore, s=1 m*1=1 m). If a(2)=2 m, then the distance between x=1 and x=2 at t=2 is 2 m. Depending on the value of a(t) at any particular t, the distance between the fixed locations x=1 and x=2 varies.
Now to the speed of light. Light moves along null lines in the metric, where the conserved quantity ds is zero. A little rearranging of the line-element tells us
dx/dt=(+/-) c/a(t),
so the coordinate velocity of light certainly changes in time with a(t). As a(t) increases, light doesn't get as far along x in equal amounts of time. But c is just a constant which is defined as such in the line-element.
Daryl
Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 19, 2013 @ 19:06 GMT
Hi John,
Now I want to change things and define the units as dimensional quantities. This is perfectly allowable, mathematically, and really about half of cosmology textbooks define a dimensional scale factor and half use a dimensional radius. So consider the same line-element,
ds^2=-c^2dt^2+a(t)^2dx^2,
where t is in seconds, x is in metres, c is in m/s, and a(t) is dimensionless. The point I want to make regards the value of the constant c. We can set it equal to 300,000 m/s and scale our entire description accordingly, calling that "the speed of light". The reason is given by the second equation above, with a=1. I see your point about "but how do we define "space", and compare the "speed of light" to it, describing that as constant, when space is expanding?" Indeed, as the above example shows, the coordinate speed of light is not constant, and as we've said over and over light will make it further away from us through expanding space this year than it will next year.
But do you see that c really is just a constant. The lightyear is defined by multiplying that constant by the number of seconds in a year. From the metric, we can integrate to determine distances at an instant or distances through expanding space. For light, which moves along null (ds=0) lines, we can calculate how far it goes in a year when the scale factor changes in some way. We can state the values in "lightyears" in just the same way that, in the above example, we can say that you jog along the moving walkway at a rate of 2 m/s, and in a minute you travel 120 m, regardless of how far you actually make it along the moving walkway, which is something that also depends on the walkway's speed.
How's that?
Daryl
John Brodix Merryman replied on Jul. 19, 2013 @ 20:56 GMT
Daryl,
I'd love to say, Ah ha! I see your point, because you have been far more patient than anyone else in the physics community has ever been, but....
If I'm jogging along, however the larger frame is moving, there are basic physical reasons why my speed is constant, but with the speed of light, you remove the validity of a stable metric of space, assigning that the expanding scale, yet still take it as a constant for granted.
As you say, it "moves along null (ds=0) lines."
Wouldn't this constitute as basic a metric of space as you could describe?
Yet you then turn around and say, " the coordinate velocity of light certainly changes in time with a(t). As a(t) increases, light doesn't get as far along x in equal amounts of time."
The irony here is that since the coordinates increase, relative to that, the change in the coordinate velocity of light must be to slow, since it doesn't travel as far. Yet because you take the speed of light as a constant so much for granted, then the assumption is it is the coordinates which vary, ie. increase.
It is still the same problem; The coordinates grow further apart, while the speed of light remains constant. Which is the measure of space in this equation and which is the distance being measured?
Lets put it in the context of me jogging; Say I live in some funhouse reality, where my stride is constantly being warped and shrunk and swollen and there is no way to judge what each step will be. One might only be a few inches, while the next could be hundreds of feet. It would no longer be a useful constant now. So it is only because each is governed by the same processes and covers the same relative amount of ground that it can be considered a constant. The same goes for the speed of light. Whether the universe is 1m, or 2m, or 3m, m is still the constant. It is the distance between the coordinates that changes.
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 21, 2013 @ 09:11 GMT
Hi John,
First of all, thanks. It means a lot to know that you appreciate my effort. Just to let you know, I appreciate you pressing the issue. It's good to think about these things, and always helps to reevaluate the justification of ones ideas.
Second of all, sorry I'm taking so long to respond. I'm traveling right now, with a few hours to kill in Zuerich, but won't be able to properly respond until after I'm settled. That may not be quick because I'll be busy while I'm here, so I'll post on your site again to let you know when I do.
Best regards,
Daryl
John Brodix Merryman replied on Jul. 23, 2013 @ 01:35 GMT
Daryl,
Good luck on the trip. Not a problem getting back to this. Patience is a necessity. Not that I always have any, but I'm good at keeping myself distracted.
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Héctor Daniel Gianni wrote on Jul. 13, 2013 @ 17:46 GMT
Dear Daryl Janzen:
As you said the concept of “time” in physic is a mess, more than that at least since the beginning of written history men did not know what he was measuring, but doing it satisfied the practical need to know the duration of things. Always till now days, people relate the so called “time” to “motion” and attributed to it quite a...
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Dear Daryl Janzen:
As you said the concept of “time” in physic is a mess, more than that at least since the beginning of written history men did not know what he was measuring, but doing it satisfied the practical need to know the duration of things. Always till now days, people relate the so called “time” to “motion” and attributed to it quite a few characteristics, like flow, direction and many others than nobody ever proved. People always was asking themselves for definition and empiric meaning, instead of what they was measuring, when the last was find, physicist, specially theoretical physicists had everything they need for their work with it. When you know the experimental meaning of the so called “time” “space-time” not only become understandable, but also understandable is why can’t be separated.
So I sending you a summary of my essay because I am convince you would be interested in reading it. ( most people don’t understand this essay and is not just because of my bad English) “Hawking, A brief history of time” where he said , “Which is the nature of time?” yes he don’t know what time is, and also continue saying…………Some day this answer could seem to us “obvious”, as much than that the earth rotate around the sun…..” In fact the answer is “obvious”, but how he could say that, if he didn’t know what’s time? In fact he is predicting that is going to be an answer, and that this one will be “obvious”, I think that with this adjective, he is implying simple and easy to understand. Maybe he felt it and couldn’t explain it with words. We have anthropologic proves that man measure “time” since more than 30.000 years ago, much, much later came science, mathematics and physics that learn to measure “time” from primitive men, adopted the idea and the systems of measurement, but also acquired the incognita of the experimental “time” meaning. Out of common use physics is the science that needs and use more the measurement of what everybody calls “time” and the discipline came to believe it as their own. I always said that to understand the “time” experimental meaning there is not need to know mathematics or physics, as the “time” creators and users didn’t. Instead of my opinion I would give Einstein’s “Ideas and Opinions” pg. 354 “Space, time, and event, are free creations of human intelligence, tools of thought” he use to call them pre-scientific concepts from which mankind forgot its meanings, he never wrote a whole page about “time” he also use to evade the use of the word, in general relativity when he refer how gravitational force and speed affect “time”, he does not use the word “time” instead he would say, speed and gravitational force slows clock movement or “motion”, instead of saying that slows “time”. FQXi member Andreas Albrecht said that. When asked the question, "What is time?", Einstein gave a pragmatic response: "Time," he said, "is what clocks measure and nothing more." He knew that “time” was a man creation, but he didn’t know what man is measuring with the clock.
I insist, that for “measuring motion” we should always and only use a unique: “constant” or “uniform” “motion” to measure “no constant motions” “which integrates and form part of every change and transformation in every physical thing. Why? because is the only kind of “motion” whose characteristics allow it, to be divided in equal parts as Egyptians and Sumerians did it, giving born to “motion fractions”, which I call “motion units” as hours, minutes and seconds. “Motion” which is the real thing, was always hide behind time, and covert by its shadow, it was hide in front everybody eyes, during at least two millenniums at hand of almost everybody. Which is the difference in physics between using the so-called time or using “motion”?, time just has been used to measure the “duration” of different phenomena, why only for that? Because it was impossible for physicists to relate a mysterious time with the rest of the physical elements of known characteristics, without knowing what time is and which its physical characteristics were. On the other hand “motion” is not something mysterious, it is a quality or physical property of all things, and can be related with all of them, this is a huge difference especially for theoretical physics I believe. I as a physician with this find I was able to do quite a few things. I imagine a physicist with this can make marvelous things.
With my best whishes
Héctor
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 13, 2013 @ 18:04 GMT
Dear Héctor,
Thanks for the summary of your essay. It does indeed sound interesting to me, and I look forward to reading it. From what you said, I suspect you would find some interest in the above discussion I've been having with John Merryman--especially the first part.
Thanks for commenting here, and best wishes!
Daryl
Peter Jackson wrote on Jul. 16, 2013 @ 14:07 GMT
Daryl,
I hope we can continue the string conversation (June 27th) above when you have time. Reading my essay first may allow greater insight if you are able. I value your views, ..I think! and hope you'll see the value in my essay.
I know time is short. My eyes are sore from reading! But I do have your essay down for a much better score in due course, and can't quite understand why it not yet doing better.
Very best of luck.
Peter
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 16, 2013 @ 20:48 GMT
Dear Peter,
Thanks very much for the gentle reminder this morning. I've been struggling to get through a few things, but managed to read and rate your essay today. Well done! It was an interesting read.
And thanks for the supportive words about my essay. It hasn't been nice seeing how many people hate it without bothering to comment why they do, or alternatively simply hate me.
Anyway, maybe it will be better to continue our discussion from above in this thread, since it might be easier to find?
There are a couple of things that concern me in what you wrote. Your proposal of comparing descriptions of different things from different frames of reference doesn't seem right to me. I don't see why you are suggesting that the description of A in frame A should be compared to the description of B in frame B. That seems like comparing apples and oranges, but maybe I'm missing something. I think we can compare A and B in frame A, or A and B in frame B, or even compare the descriptions in frame A to the descriptions in frame B, but comparing A in frame A to B in frame B doesn't make sense to me. Here's what I'm thinking: suppose I took a rubber band and marked off centimetres on it using a ruler, and then used it to measure my foot. Say it's 27 cm. Then I stretch the rubber band out and measure your foot. If it reads 15 cm, would I really be justified in saying my foot is bigger? The other point I don't really see the reason for is considering the Doppler shift at all. Are you saying light should travel faster or slower if it is Doppler shifted? I might still just be missing something.
Best regards,
Daryl
Peter Jackson replied on Jul. 17, 2013 @ 10:41 GMT
Daryl,
Thanks. I don't think the low scores are anything personal. I'm sure I've had perhaps a dozen 1 scores, as many others. It may be indicative of the integrity of many in science. As effectively a 'professional' over 3 fields I can see the differences, but I've also seen the honesty and integrity in most, certainly yourself. I've just rated yours, taking it closer to it's deserved...
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Daryl,
Thanks. I don't think the low scores are anything personal. I'm sure I've had perhaps a dozen 1 scores, as many others. It may be indicative of the integrity of many in science. As effectively a 'professional' over 3 fields I can see the differences, but I've also seen the honesty and integrity in most, certainly yourself. I've just rated yours, taking it closer to it's deserved level.
You say my derivation; "doesn't seem right". That's good! As Feynman predicted; the 'correct' answer cannot first look right as it must be different!
Now let's study that rubber band, because it is THAT which we are here analysing! In current 'interpretation' of SR it's just a hand waving effect with some manipulated symbols to maths it, but no real mechanism. (Remember it's only in an interpretation NOT the theory itself, which as Einstein made very clear in 1952, is; "entirely contained within the postulates."
I now invoke the bit you've agreed, that light representing an 'event', once emitted, is just physical evidence 'at large' so liable to Doppler and other effects on refraction (which is change of propagation speed in a dielectric medium). What changes then is wavelength lambda (the first wave is slowed before the second) and, similarly the 'distance' between the flashes.
How is that changed? Because each 'flash' is absorbed by the matter in the new FRAME and then re-emitted at c in that frame. That is an effect additional to any refractive index difference between the media. It is also precisely what is found in optical sciences (as all experiments inc. Fizeau, Sagnac, Wang etc. etc.) That is also what gives the 'nonliear optics' effects not presently explainable theoretically.
Now of course it's unfamiliar to you. But it's entirely consistent with all observation, and indeed resolves paradoxes (i.e.; recovers Snell's Law and Fresnel refraction at Maxwell's near/far field transition zone, also explains KRR and the Kerr effects). So lets test it again;
Flash C1 is emitted IN the front of the train. The train and air represent a single 'inertial system' through which light propagates at c, (so a 'discrete field' = DFM). the observer also at rest, so the event remains 1ms, and with no Doppler wavelength change.
Flash C2 from the light on the side of engine is outside the train but in the same inertial FRAME (at rest with the observer). Again no delta lambda on observer interaction ("detection"). However, it arrives BEFORE C1! This is because is DID change speed to propagate at c in the frame of the air outside the train, but then changed back on re-entering the original (emitter/detector) frame. That surprisingly is as found and as SR.
Flash C3 (from a fixed post by the track) ALSO arrives before C1, so with C2, as it also propagates at c in the outside air frame. It then also shifts on meeting the observer frame, but this time there had been no INITIAL shift, so it is found to be blue shifted; i.e. both wavelength lambda AND the 'space-time period' have undergone 'length contraction'. (A flash from behind would be dilated or red shifted).
Shocking at first I know, but not for long, and none the less far more consistent that current incomplete interpretation, and deriving SR direct from the quantum mechanism invoked (= unification). Just imagine the elephant in the room ~200 times as big as you were expecting and you should then be able to make it out. The elements in my essay are just a few of the rather powerful consequences. You may recall others from last years.
Peter
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 17, 2013 @ 18:24 GMT
Peter,
Thanks for rating, and for continuing to press the point here. We're still not seeing eye-to-eye on--not that that has to be a bad thing, as you've said.
It seems to me that you're conceiving of a "frame" as a space, or a medium through which light propagates. But a frame of reference is just a coordinate system that one uses to describe space. You can run a tape measure along train tracks and use that as the coordinate in your frame of reference, and say that the train is "moving"--or you can run a tape measure along the floor of the train and use that as the coordinate in your frame of reference, so you claim that the outside world is "moving". We can analyse the situation in different frames of reference, and relate those descriptions to each other through covariant coordinate transformations; but when you speak of light entering one frame, etc., it seems that you're thinking of these different frames as different spaces, rather than just different ways of measuring space.
It still seems like you're saying, "A happens with the rubber band unstretched and B happens when it's stretched, so B happens more quickly", but I think you've got to make your measurements either with the band stretched or unstretched. Sorry if it seems like I'm being obtuse; it just seems inconsistent, but I am trying to keep an open mind.
Daryl
George Kirakosyan wrote on Jul. 17, 2013 @ 04:58 GMT
Hi dear Daryl,
I have read your nice work (in first approximation) and have find there many of honestly judgements. Actually I was intrigued when I see you have discussed the problem of ,,time,, with my friend Vladimir R. Both of you are excellent people of course, but I must tell you that about ,,time,, there exist certainly and correct, in my view, definition, which gives Einstein. ,,Time,, is a concrete, energetical parameter of matter and it can be only local. Meantime, you are very right with bringing up this very important question in physics because for most of people the ,,time,, continued seen as something absolute, that going himself and independ from anything. That is why I have decide to rate your work as ,,high,, Hope my work
ESSAY text will be interested you and I will get your impression on it.
Best wishes,
George
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 17, 2013 @ 18:58 GMT
Dear George,
Thanks very much for reading and rating my essay. I've read through parts of yours before now, and had intended to post a comment and rate it when I'm able to read through the whole thing, but I wanted to say in response to your comment that I'm glad you were able to appreciate my essay because I see a lot of value in your epistemic viewpoint.
Many thanks again, and best wishes,
Daryl
George Kirakosyan replied on Jul. 18, 2013 @ 05:10 GMT
Daryl,
I am really happy to meet you. Thank you very much for compliments and kindly words. I understand your critical remarks also. I can say that I have some explanations and answers on these. But, I will tell now you one thing only. I am never pretended to be fully right on the all aspects. The same approach I have use in relation to our deserved pioneers as will. I never accept that any of them must be perceived by us as the indisputable and finitely authority. We must remember always that they was ordinary/normally people first (same as we are) So, we have right to make mistakes and we must not excluded that our teachers also can have it.
Then why I am talking so sure and criticizing on left and right? Matter is - I have use some approach that give me many incredible RESULTS! I am talking sure with this only. (And lot of people just do not take in attention mentioned ,,trifle,,!) Let me just offer you my works (mentioned in references) Try study these. I really believe it will interesting for you. Then you can continue my ideas, reject some points, suggest new modifications that will bring to new RESULTS etc. That is the normally way of development of our knowledge.
My Best wishes,
George
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john stephan selye wrote on Jul. 18, 2013 @ 19:37 GMT
Dear Darryl,
Your treatment of the subject of time is particularly interesting to me, and very thorough, too. In reading your work I realize that I've been considering time, too - though from another perspective.
As you point out, Wheeler was hoping for a 'deeper physics' that would define time properly. Your comparison of the 'block' space-time as opposed to the more sequential flow...
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Dear Darryl,
Your treatment of the subject of time is particularly interesting to me, and very thorough, too. In reading your work I realize that I've been considering time, too - though from another perspective.
As you point out, Wheeler was hoping for a 'deeper physics' that would define time properly. Your comparison of the 'block' space-time as opposed to the more sequential flow of reality we experience crystallizes my own outlook very nicely: I link the issue of time to the correlation of the evolving observer with the Cosmos.
Though my paradigm has cosmological consequences beyond this - the underlying significant fact is that in our immediate environment, there is always an observer present in any observation - while over very great distances, the observer becomes a problem and parameters unravel.
I think your example of the clocks and the train shows this - none of these phenomena, or distortions, affect us in our immediate circumstances - and in fact the experiment shows in a highly compressed frame of reference how things appear at great distances.
I say there is a block of space-time, but we evolve from it to create sequential flow, and it is this that limits our explorations to the nearer space-time regions.
Therefore, we must consider that the evolving observer needs to somehow be incorporated into physics - which, in turn leads to the conclusion that we will always be playing with the borders of the Cosmos, and that they will never be fixed and permanent - since evolution can never end, and is never absent from our perceptions.
In this broader perspective, the definition of It and Bit clearly must be expanded to something more than Wheeler intended (but then, how else can we achieve a 'deeper physics?); indeed, the interaction of It and Bit can only be defined as one of continuous and simultaneous shifts - or more precisely, of correlation.
It was thoroughly interesting for me to read your essay (and of course, I've rated it too) - and I hope you'll read my work, as I think you'll find much of interest in it.
Best of luck in the competition,
John.
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Sreenath B N wrote on Jul. 19, 2013 @ 02:09 GMT
Dear Daryl,
I have down loaded your essay and soon post my comments on it. Meanwhile, please, go through my essay and post your comments.
Regards and good luck in the contest,
Sreenath BN.
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1827
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Antony Ryan wrote on Jul. 19, 2013 @ 11:41 GMT
Dear Daryl,
Very pleased to see time utilised so elegantly here - well done. Your essay is both relevant and interesting. I think you've used excellent arguments and find myself agreeing with them. Hopefully if you have time, you will take a look at my essay which perhaps shows an arrow of time emerging when utilising simplexes of their respective n-dimension to explain entropy.
Best wishes for the contest,
Antony
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john stephan selye wrote on Jul. 21, 2013 @ 15:20 GMT
Hello darryl - Have you had the time to take a look at my post, above?
John
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 21, 2013 @ 15:51 GMT
Hi John,
Yes I did get it as I was preparing for a trip. I've just arrived in Lausanne for a metaphysics of time workshop tomorrow, but I will read your essay. Thanks very much for reading mine, and for rating it (you gave it a 6, right?). I will read yours.
Daryl
Michel Planat wrote on Jul. 22, 2013 @ 09:39 GMT
Dear Daryl,
I have studied your essay and this gave me further motivation to go back to the related Wheeler's paper you refer to.
I found your essay very well written and interesting.
"Understand the quantum as based on an utterly simple and -- when we see it -- completely obvious idea.
Explain existence by the same idea that explains the quantum...
Reduce time into subjugation to physics."
If you read my essay
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1789
you will see that the Riemmann surface concept, favoured by Hermann Weyl, may be made in a good correspondance with the quantum.
Good luck,
Michel
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Paul Borrill wrote on Jul. 23, 2013 @ 00:44 GMT
Good Paper. Starts off slow, repeats the same stuff about Wheeler found in other essays in this contest. Then goes on to discuss our language issues with the notion of time, and makes some rather interesting points.
I wholeheartedly agree that Minkowski spacetime does not exist. However, the relationship between space and time does exist down the single direction of propagation of quantum particles, not in some empty manifold we call Minkowski space. “Elements of reality” are therefore bounded by the emitter and absorber atoms. This is where an “interval” in time can be considered. In section 3, your claim that “no interval of time exists...” needs a reference.
I am not convinced by the world-line argument. This is just another attempt to regenerate a form of simultaneity surfaces. World-lines do not exist unless something travels along it. I do not find the argument for block universe compelling, even if it is a dynamically warping and molding thing.
The section on Minkowski space was a little jumbled and confusing.
I enjoyed the description “relativity of synchronicity.” Very nice.
This is a strong entry and I gave it a good rating. The author would have done better with a shorter introduction and a focus (in two sections) on the Newtonian and Einsteinian inconsistencies in the relativity of synchronicity, then in the concluding section added the claims of novelty that he wished to make.
All in all, a worthy paper I will look forward to reading other works from this Author.
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Than Tin wrote on Jul. 25, 2013 @ 03:44 GMT
Hello Daryl
Richard Feynman in his Nobel Acceptance Speech (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/19
65/feynman-lecture.html)
said: “It always seems odd to me that the fundamental laws of physics, when discovered, can appear in so many different forms that are not apparently identical at first, but with a little mathematical fiddling you can show the...
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Hello Daryl
Richard Feynman in his Nobel Acceptance Speech (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/19
65/feynman-lecture.html)
said: “It always seems odd to me that the fundamental laws of physics, when discovered, can appear in so many different forms that are not apparently identical at first, but with a little mathematical fiddling you can show the relationship. And example of this is the Schrodinger equation and the Heisenberg formulation of quantum mechanics. I don’t know why that is – it remains a mystery, but it was something I learned from experience. There is always another way to say the same thing that doesn’t look at all like the way you said it before. I don’t know what the reason for this is. I think it is somehow a representation of the simplicity of nature.”
I too believe in the simplicity of nature, and I am glad that Richard Feynman, a Nobel-winning famous physicist, also believe in the same thing I do, but I had come to my belief long before I knew about that particular statement.
The belief that “Nature is simple” is however being expressed differently in my essay “Analogical Engine” linked to http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1865 .
Specifically though, I said “Planck constant is the Mother of All Dualities” and I put it schematically as: wave-particle ~ quantum-classical ~ gene-protein ~ analogy- reasoning ~ linear-nonlinear ~ connected-notconnected ~ computable-notcomputable ~ mind-body ~ Bit-It ~ variation-selection ~ freedom-determinism … and so on.
Taken two at a time, it can be read as “what quantum is to classical” is similar to (~) “what wave is to particle.” You can choose any two from among the multitudes that can be found in our discourses.
I could have put Schrodinger wave ontology-Heisenberg particle ontology duality in the list had it comes to my mind!
Since “Nature is Analogical”, we are free to probe nature in so many different ways. And you have touched some corners of it.
Good Luck,
Than Tin
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Akinbo Ojo wrote on Jul. 25, 2013 @ 19:34 GMT
Hi Daryl,
Very nice. I agree entirely that no time, no existence! And if you want to talk of existence better you analyse space separately from time instead of using space-time. Exist appears over 80 times in your essay. I wonder what you will say if existence/non-existence can be implemented as a binary choice since you have properly defined what existence means. In a way
my essay tries to make something out of this Bit.
All the best in the contest. To be well rated. Almost flawless.
Akinbo
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Aug. 3, 2013 @ 22:30 GMT
Dear Akinbo,
Thanks very much for your comment. Sorry it's taken so long to reply, but I've finally managed to read your essay. I thought your analysis of monads was very interesting, and I really liked the way you handled your discussion of historical philosophical views on the topic. I think it's really important that anyone who stands on the shoulders of these giants should know what they were actually thinking and how they arrived at their ideas, since textbooks often either misrepresent things, or just leave out the original reasoning entirely.
Regarding your question about existence/non-existence as a binary choice, I think our views are very different on that point, although I can appreciate what you're going for. It's just that I do think a continual passage of time is fundamental, and prior to any particular thing existing. I can think of a three-dimensional set of monads existing, like the "one-dimensional" set you've drawn at different stages in the two figures in your essay, but I can't think of those two instants if the monads don't exist. And in order for objective time to pass uniformly throughout the Universe, which is what I've argued for in my essay despite relative proper duration, etc., I don't think random discrete particle creation and annihilation in the Universe could be the cause of this uniform absolute duration.
That's why I think 'it from bit' has to fail, despite the possibility that bits (monads) are the fundamental building blocks of everything in the Universe. But I'm no stick in the mud, and as I said I can appreciate your position, and I enjoyed your essay.
Best of luck in the contest,
Daryl
Yuri Danoyan wrote on Jul. 28, 2013 @ 04:25 GMT
Dear Daryl
Time is the denominator of existence....if time is the circle.
Cheers
Yuri
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Aug. 3, 2013 @ 21:23 GMT
Dear Yuri,
You know, there is a sense in which I agree with that. Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I hope you liked the essay.
Daryl
Marcoen J.T.F. Cabbolet wrote on Aug. 1, 2013 @ 09:07 GMT
Hi Daryl,
Your essay is an interesting read.
I have one question, though. On page 9 you write at the end: "the former interpretation ... ultimately disproves itself by contradiction". From the context I understand that by "the former interpretation" you mean Einstein's interpretation of relativity. Correct me if I'm wrong. But if so, could you elaborate on that? How do you derive a contradiction from Einstein's relativity? Do you mean logical contradiction, or do you mean that it yields a contradiction with an assumed meaning of a term, that is, with a meaning that you give to some term?
I'm interested in the answer.
Best regards,
Marcoen
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Marcoen J.T.F. Cabbolet wrote on Aug. 2, 2013 @ 20:12 GMT
Hi Daryl,
Your essay is an interesting read.
I have one question, though. On page 9 you write at the end: "the former interpretation … ultimately disproves itself by contradiction". From the context I understand that by "the former interpretation" you mean Einstein's interpretation of relativity. Correct me if I'm wrong. But if so, could you elaborate on that? How do you derive a contradiction from Einstein's relativity? Do you mean logical contradiction, or do you mean that it yields a contradiction with an assumed meaning of a term, that is, with a meaning that you give to some term?
I'm interested in the answer.
Best regards,
Marcoen
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Aug. 3, 2013 @ 21:19 GMT
Dear Marcoen,
Thanks for reading my essay. You've asked a very good question, which puts me on the spot for having made a very strong claim at the end of my essay, and requires me to be accountable for it, although I had hoped it was justified sufficiently well from what I had previously written in the essay.
I think Einstein's deduction of the relativity of simultaneity is more of a reductio ad absurdum than the derivation of a truly interesting result because he begins with the operational definition of simultaneity, and eventually shows that this is relative, which comes to mean that not only is each particular instant so described "simultaneous" in the representative frame, but really the whole block of events that occur throughout eternity has to be simultaneous all at once.
The standard argument for this is given, e.g., in Ken Wharton's essay, and I've argued against that both here in my essay and again at length on Ken's page. Furthermore, since any meaningful definition of "simultaneity" at an instant already assumes a dynamical passage of time, I've argued for a different position in which passage is really fundamental, whereas Einstein began his first relativity paper by defining "simultaneity", and then went on to derive a picture in which the definition is meaningless anyway, for all intents and purposes.
I hope that clarifies what I meant by that statement.
All the best,
Daryl
Member Ken Wharton wrote on Aug. 3, 2013 @ 19:35 GMT
Hi Daryl,
Thanks for introducing yourself at the conference this week... and for the interesting conversations!
And while our disagreements *have existed*, I'm getting the feeling that we have many fewer disagreements that *exist*, and perhaps only modest disagreements *will exist* in the future.
Or, in my language, perhaps our views "are" converging. (if not our terminology...) :-)
Interesting essay... although I'm afraid I don't have much more to say about it that I didn't tell you in person, or in discussions on my page.
All the best!
Ken
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Aug. 3, 2013 @ 20:50 GMT
Hi Ken,
Thanks for dropping by and commenting. Yes, it was really nice to meet you at the conference. I agree that while our views remain ontologically very different, they are physically (i.e., not just empirically) equivalent, which from my point of view is a really good thing. As you know from my essay, and our discussions on- and off-line, that means something to me because I think (and I think you agree) that a lot of people on both sides of the dynamical/adynamical divide have the physical picture completely messed up--e.g., growing block-ers, and people who think of consciousness as crawling upwards along world-lines, or of the block as warping and changing, etc. It's good to have a consistent interpretation of the physics!
No worries about not commenting on the essay directly here. I think we've sufficiently hashed out our views for now, although I do hope to keep in touch, and look forward to more discussion with you about the nature of time in the future.
Good luck in the contest, and best wishes!
Daryl
Antony Ryan wrote on Aug. 3, 2013 @ 19:48 GMT
Hello Daryl,
I've lost a lot of comments and replies on my thread and many other threads I have commented on over the last few days. This has been a lot of work and I feel like it has been a waste of time and energy. Seems to have happened to others too - if not all.
I WILL ATTEMPT to revisit all threads to check and re-post something.
For now I will rate your essay very highly and hopefully get back to comment later.
Hopefully all the posts will be able to be retrieved by FQXi.
Best wishes,
Antony
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Aug. 3, 2013 @ 20:27 GMT
Dear Antony,
Thanks so much! I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to respond to your earlier post before now, but thanks very much for what you wrote there. I'm glad you liked my essay so much, and really appreciate your comment!! I've been really busy the past few weeks, on top of which I was staying in places with really poor wifi, so wasn't able to contribute to the contest much. I've read a few essays today, and yours was the next on my list after the one I'm currently reading, so you can expect to hear from me soon.
All the best,
Daryl
Antony Ryan replied on Aug. 4, 2013 @ 04:06 GMT
Dear Daryl,
No worries glad to help.
I can appreciate the situation as I was stuck in the middle of Bulgarian countryside a few weeks ago, with very weak intermittent wifi too!
Also Portugal where I had to read while in cafes - much to my wife's disapproval ;o)
FQXi seems to have fixed the current bug - seems it was a server migration issue.
The earlier rating drought was also a drama on here too! haha.
Hope you like the essay, if you do get the chance - as it isn't very mainstream. No problem if you don't.
Best wishes,
Antony
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Hugh Matlock wrote on Aug. 4, 2013 @ 06:37 GMT
Hi Daryl,
I very much appreciate your close analysis of time, existence, and our models for it. There is one point I would like to pick up on.
> If true reality is timeless, where does the illusion of succession come from?
I have an answer to this implied in my essay
Software Cosmos, in which I develop a computational model that addresses several outstanding cosmological puzzles. I hope you get a chance to read the essay, as it provides a specific model for the observer's account of "being" in space and time as well as the timeless realm that links these separate accounts into a coherent whole.
My conclusion (perhaps this will be clearer after you see my model) regarding the "problem of now" is: If we accept the simulation paradigm, then we can think of the physical world as a layer of a multi-layer system. The physical "material" layer operates by the well-defined rules of physics that incorporate concepts of space and time.
But Mind could operate at a different layer than Matter. Conventionally, Matter is taken as the ground of being, and life and mind seen as emergent. But what if it is the other way around? In a model in which Mind and Life are below Matter, then the phenomenology of "now" can be understood in reference to agents in those layers viewing the dance of matter in space and time.
Hugh
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Aug. 4, 2013 @ 14:56 GMT
Hugh,
I like that quote from Capek, too. I think it addresses a significant issue with relativity. I am puzzled by your comment, though, because this is an issue that I went on to directly address in my essay, and you've said nothing about that. I don't think reality is timeless, and I think succession is very real, due to a fundamental passage that I attempted to reconcile with relativity in my essay. If your model is both timeless AND incorporates a dynamical flow of consciousness, then I fear you've got an idea like Weyl (there's a famous quotation by him in my essay as well), which is really five-dimensional.
Regards,
Daryl
eAmazigh M. HANNOU wrote on Aug. 5, 2013 @ 22:34 GMT
Dear Daryl,
We are at the end of this essay contest.
In conclusion, at the question to know if Information is more fundamental than Matter, there is a good reason to answer that Matter is made of an amazing mixture of eInfo and eEnergy, at the same time.
Matter is thus eInfo made with eEnergy rather than answer it is made with eEnergy and eInfo ; because eInfo is eEnergy, and the one does not go without the other one.
eEnergy and eInfo are the two basic Principles of the eUniverse. Nothing can exist if it is not eEnergy, and any object is eInfo, and therefore eEnergy.
And consequently our eReality is eInfo made with eEnergy. And the final verdict is : eReality is virtual, and virtuality is our fundamental eReality.
Good luck to the winners,
And see you soon, with good news on this topic, and the Theory of Everything.
Amazigh H.
I rated your essay.
Please visit
My essay.
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Torsten Asselmeyer-Maluga wrote on Aug. 6, 2013 @ 19:35 GMT
Dear Daryl,
interesting essay but more importantly I read your comment of Sean Grybs essay.
Therefore I thought that you are maybe interesting in a geometric approach to the accelaerated expansion. May I point your interest on
my essay?
Best wishes
Torsten
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Torsten Asselmeyer-Maluga wrote on Aug. 6, 2013 @ 20:33 GMT
Dear Daryl,
now I rated your essay with a very high note.
All the best
Torsten
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Aug. 6, 2013 @ 20:41 GMT
Thanks Torsten!
I'm part-way through your essay now, reading on my phone on the highway home.
Best, Daryl
Member Sean Gryb wrote on Aug. 7, 2013 @ 13:34 GMT
Dear Daryl,
Nice meeting you to in Munich. Thanks for the post.
Let's keep in touch. My email is: sean.gryb@gmail.com .
Cheers,
Sean.
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John Brodix Merryman wrote on Aug. 8, 2013 @ 10:52 GMT
Daryl,
I'm certainly more than willing to continue that particular conversation.
About where I left off;
"It is still the same problem; The coordinates grow further apart, while the speed of light remains constant. Which is the measure of space in this equation and which is the distance being measured?"
On another note, I'm currently engaged with Tom Ray, at the
contests thread, over how this contest can be used as the basis for some sort of proceedings or publicizing the efforts made. So since it seems to be devolving into one of our usual spats, maybe you would like to innocently steer it back onto the subject of how to make the topic topical to a broader audience.
Regards,
John
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Author Daryl Janzen replied on Aug. 10, 2013 @ 00:16 GMT
John,
Thanks for posting, and sorry I didn't get to your discussion with Tom. I think it would be a great thing if some sort of proceedings of these contests could get published.
And sorry to be slow in responding here again. I was hoping to read through our discussion again in order to re-wet my feet, but it seems that I may never get the time, so I'm going to try to wing it. I think I remember the point that I think should make all the difference. It has to do with calling c the 'speed of light', and all this issue with calling the speed of light constant.
I think you'd admit that we're converging on an understanding here. I'm going to ask you to refer back to my last two posts on the 19th of July--the almost-Aha! posts--keeping a few extra points in mind.
In those posts I explained why it makes sense to refer to c as the 'speed of light'. And you'll admit that c is a constant. However, as you've noted there's a real sense in which the speed of light is not constant in an expanding universe. However, c is constant, and null lines are invariant. Those are the invariants in the theory, and in that sense the 'speed of light' is an invariant quantity. But calling the speed of light a constant is a loose way of speaking, and maybe it's just too misleading and confusing when talking about an expanding universe.
Now, please consider the following from the
Postulates of special relativity Wikipedia page:
"Also Hermann Minkowski implicitly used both postulates when he introduced the Minkowski space formulation, even though he showed that c can be seen as a space-time constant, and the identification with the speed of light is derived from optics."
Now, thinking of c as a space-time constant and the null lines as invariants of the metric, please have a look at the posts I mentioned, and let me know how that sits.
Daryl
Antony Ryan wrote on Aug. 11, 2013 @ 17:14 GMT
Hello Daryl,
I've just seen your reply on my thread. I'll ponder the question and re-read your essay in that context, then get back to you. As I said above, it's a great approach to consider time's role in reality!
Regards,
Antony
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Antony Ryan replied on Aug. 19, 2013 @ 16:01 GMT
Hi Daryl,
I've read over your essay several more times.
You wrote:
"If time objectively passes in the way that I've described, as opposed to not passing at all (in the case of a real block universe), then the usual justification for the collapse scenario is invalid, because it takes reality to be synchronous in general reference frames".
I'm not 100% sure what you mean by collapse scenario. Is it wave function collapse? However, I like that you've examined relativity so critically, especially the example of the sun 8 minutes away. Are you saying that reality doesn't exist because of relativity?
Please excuse my ignorance here, as I think you've a very good essay and I'm just struggling with the above question a point a little.
If you can clarify or give an example, I'd love to discuss further!
Best wishes and thanks for the comments on my thread.
Antony
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Anonymous replied on Aug. 20, 2013 @ 22:02 GMT
Hi Antony,
Sorry for not responding right away. I actually had the reply started, but then my computer began acting up so I restarted it. Then I got sidetracked.
Regarding "collapse scenario": No, I meant gravitational collapse scenario. A standard example is in Hawking and Ellis, where they consider spherical collapse by examining a situation in which one of two observers initially...
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Hi Antony,
Sorry for not responding right away. I actually had the reply started, but then my computer began acting up so I restarted it. Then I got sidetracked.
Regarding "collapse scenario": No, I meant gravitational collapse scenario. A standard example is in Hawking and Ellis, where they consider spherical collapse by examining a situation in which one of two observers initially outside, heads in while the other stays put. If you have access to the textbook, it would help. Basically, everything in that description assumes things are happening as Eddington-Finkelstein advanced time passes; i.e., they describe the passage of time according to the description, in the context of an Eddington-Finkelstein foliation of space-time, which is not justified.
This has been the standard way of conceiving of black holes and gravitational collapse since Finkelstein's paper was published. Kip Thorne gives a good description of this in Black Holes and Time Warps. He says Evgeny Lifschitz told him once that the paper was a revelation to everyone at the time, that it was like a fog was lifted (or something to that effect), and that it's what convinced Wheeler, Landau, et al. that black holes exist.
In my opinion, this is an instance where physics took yet another wrong turn, and plunged further down the rabbit hole. Einstein had set everything going in that direction with the relativity of simultaneity; but at least he had understood the consequence of that. Time can't actually "pass" as described by whatever foliation you want to assume. If you assume relativity describes reality as what's described as synchronous in whatever frame you choose to look at, then reality is all of space-time--all of eternity--all at once, and time doesn't pass at all. There can be no dynamical flow of time if you also want to agree with Einstein about the relativity of simultaneity. Ken Wharton's essay makes this point as well, except that he's okay with it.
The thing about me is that I'm not. So to answer your question about the Sun: No--I'm very much a realist, and more than that I believe that physical reality can truly make sense. Ken doesn't care about making any sense, as long as there is objective reality: he thinks he gets off on a technicality any time anyone starts talking about consciousness and things "making sense", because that gets into philosophy of mind rather than physics. I think conscious experience is empirical evidence that can be interpreted correctly or incorrectly, just as much as any other more hard-won bit of evidence, such as the evidence of a 125 GeV particle; and I think a theory that runs completely against conscious experience should be denied just as much as one that might require that a 125 GeV particle absolutely can't exist, because the scientific evidence now indicates that one does exist. Ken thinks it's enough that the world according to his view should "save the appearances", just as the Ptolemaic model was supposed to "save the appearances"; but I think there has to be something wrong with any theory that doesn't explain why we should
expect the appearances to be as they are. As I understand it, this is our main point of disagreement.
Now, the way for relativity to make sense is to assume that time truly passes and simultaneity is absolute, regardless of the fact that simultaneous events won't be described as synchronous in just any given reference frame.
But I see that I failed to make this point obvious in my essay. The structure of the essay was as follows. I first of all wanted to take a neutral stance on the relativity of simultaneity, and argue that in no sense does space-time exist; that the dynamical existence of space-time that warps and changes and gets holes punched in it and all of that constitutes five-dimensional physics. That if you want Einstein's version of simultaneity, you end up with Ken's view of reality, which is not dynamical. In this view, nothing can really exist, because the timelike dimension in the description of all the events that are supposed to occur, is supposed to be all real all at once, and time isn't supposed to pass.
Therefore, I argued that in order for anything to actually exist, and for time to really pass, we need to assume an absolute simultaneity-relation amongst the events that occur. And then I showed how that would work relativistically, by looking at a classic thought-experiment. The synchronous events in Henri's frame of reference didn't really occur simultaneously. According to Albert and Henri both, the Sun really exists "now", which is the same thing for each of them; but at any instant, the set of events that occur at the same time as described in Henri's proper coordinate system doesn't coincide with that "now", which is an instant of absolute time--a three-dimensional slice of his description of space-time that extends throughout his "past" and "future". I think I did a really good job of showing this in the thought experiment in my previous essay.
Anyway, the thing regarding black holes is that if you're going to assume that relativity gives the metrical relation between all the events that occur as a three-dimensional universe exists and time passes, then you can't also assume that reality is three-dimensional synchronous space in whatever frame you choose to describe things in, which evolves as time passes. Because if you want to assume that, relativity comes to require the reality of the entire block.
But that is exactly the interpretation that's made in order to justify saying black holes presently exist.
I hope that helps. Please keep asking if you're at all unclear on my position. I really appreciate having the opportunity to explain what that is.
All the best,
Daryl
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Edwin Eugene Klingman replied on Aug. 21, 2013 @ 22:44 GMT
Hi Daryl, Tony,
I really like Daryl's statement:
"The way for relativity to make sense is to assume that time truly passes and simultaneity is absolute, regardless of the fact that simultaneous events won't be described as synchronous in just any given reference frame."
Simultaneity is the fact, synchronicity is the communication of the event over distances at the speed of light, obviously synchronous only for equidistant observers, or other equivalent special relations between frames.
I have put enough thought into it to convince myself that there's absolutely no way our universe could "hold together" in stable fashion for 14 giga-year unless simultaneity spans the universe. This is why the "ict" formalism is appropriate (despite MTW). The orthogonality of time is a different order of orthogonality than that between the three spatial dimensions. Thus the signature: (-,+,+,+).
I also agree with Daryl's realist position that things should "make sense". I've often heard that "our brains evolved" in the classical world and we shouldn't expect to make sense of a quantum universe, or relativistic universe, etc." But if consciousness is as I propose in my essay, an inherent property of creation, then one would expect things to make sense.
I've begun reading a new book, "Bankrupting Physics" by Unzicker and Jones, which I recommend other realists.
Thanks for keeping comments going after the voting has closed.
Edwin Eugene Klingman
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Antony Ryan replied on Aug. 30, 2013 @ 09:37 GMT
Hi Edwin/Daryl,
I'll take a look at this book! It is indeed good to continue discussions. I'm still re-reading essays and the many, many comments.
Antony
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