Login or
create account to post reply or comment.
Anonymous wrote on Feb. 17, 2014 @ 02:22 GMT
Robert H McEachern wrote on Feb. 17, 2014 @ 04:37 GMT
"The time it takes for the signals to get to the brain and then through the motor system, back to the response, couldn't work. And yet..."
It does work!
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy"
Trouble is, the brain is not merely generating after-the-fact conscious reactions, but is responding to its own subconscious predictions of upcoming events, such as a tennis player hitting a ball, BEFORE the predicted event occurs, but not before the prediction itself.
"I think all of this is pretty fascinating stuff."
I agree, but there is nothing mysterious about it. This is, after all, what brains evolved to do.
Rob McEachern
report post as inappropriate
Akinbo Ojo wrote on Feb. 17, 2014 @ 11:11 GMT
To rephrase the first question and answer, on the stated assumption that as Paul Davies says
"Time and Space are the framework in which we formulate all of our current theories of the universe" (and as what is good for the goose is good for the gander and both have even been married by some and called space-time)...
Is the motion of a place real or an illusion?The motion of place is an illusion, and I don’t know very many scientists and philosophers who would disagree with that, to be perfectly honest. The reason that it is an illusion is when you stop to think, what does it even mean that a place (like a car) moves? When we say something moves like a river, what you mean is an element of the river at one moment is in a different place of an earlier moment. In other words, it moves with respect to place. But a place can’t move with respect to its place—place
is place. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that the claim that place does not move means that there is no motion, that motion does not exist. That’s nonsense. Motion of course exists. We measure it with speedometers. Speedometers don’t measure the motion of place, they measure intervals of space. Of course there are intervals of space between different places, that’s what speedometers measure.
Then,
"… if we have a multiverse with other universes, whether each one in a sense comes with its own time—you can only do an inter-comparison between the two if there was some way of sending signals from one to the other". So a universe can have its own time? Who then is picking quarrels with Sir Isaac Newton's Absolute Time as our own time?
Akinbo
*The above rephrasing was from
Sir Isaac Newton, p.10/11, The parts of space are motionless...)
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew wrote on Feb. 17, 2014 @ 17:48 GMT
“The flow of time is an illusion…The reason that it is an illusion is when you stop to think, what does it even mean that time is flowing?”
“Time of course exists. We measure it with clocks. Clocks don’t measure the flow of time, they measure intervals of time. Of course there are intervals of time between different events, that’s what clocks measure.”
Time according to...
view entire post
“The flow of time is an illusion…The reason that it is an illusion is when you stop to think, what does it even mean that time is flowing?”
“Time of course exists. We measure it with clocks. Clocks don’t measure the flow of time, they measure intervals of time. Of course there are intervals of time between different events, that’s what clocks measure.”
Time according to Davies is what clocks measure, which are intervals of time. Time is therefore intervals of time, or time is time, which is circular. We often define time as being time in lots of complex recursions, which of course are all circular but certainly true. It really is not that useful to say that time is time, though.
Of course, time is an axiom and therefore is really not like any other single thing. However, time as an axiom can be defined by the other axioms of the universe. In fact, time is defined as both an interval and as an integration of those intervals, which is an action. The key is to not use time to define time.
Rather, define an interval as matter. The mass of a grain of sand in an hourglass, for example, represents a moment of time as matter. The accumulation of those grains represents the integration grains in time, which is the action of that clock. Thus, time is formally defined as the differential of action with matter, the accumulation of matter divided by the matter of a moment.
It is very useful to define time as the differential of action with matter. Not only is that dimensionally correct, it is actually a universal definition of a clock. The atomic clock is formally set to record 9,192,631,770 or nine billion cycles of the cesium 133 atom hyperfine resonance per second. Each moment of the atomic clock then represents a very small energy equivalent matter of 1.1e-41 kg. This is a matter moment and the accumulation of these moments as matter over one year amount to about the action of three hundred hydrogen atoms.
Now, that is finally defining time without using time!
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman wrote on Feb. 17, 2014 @ 18:39 GMT
Having made this point way too many times before, it almost seems futile to keep making it, but the actual physics makes much more sense if we think of it, not as some 'flow' from past events to future ones, but the process by which events go from being in the future to being in the past. Ask yourself, does the earth 'flow,' from yesterday to tomorrow, or does tomorrow become yesterday because the...
view entire post
Having made this point way too many times before, it almost seems futile to keep making it, but the actual physics makes much more sense if we think of it, not as some 'flow' from past events to future ones, but the process by which events go from being in the future to being in the past. Ask yourself, does the earth 'flow,' from yesterday to tomorrow, or does tomorrow become yesterday because the earth rotates?
As Davies points out, "When we observe the world, what we see is an apparently consistent and smooth narrative, but actually the brain is just being bombarded with sense data from different senses and puts all this together."
The "apparently consistent and smooth narrative" is that personal neurological perception of a sequence of events, ie. prior to subsequent. It, that 'flow,' is the narrative , past to future perception, not the constant rearranging of 'data' by which those events are being created and dissolved! The events are flowing through our perception, future to past, not us flowing from past to future, because we only exist in what is physically real and it doesn't move along any metaphysical dimension. Duration doesn't exist as an external 'dimension' to the 'point of the present,' but is the condition of what is present between particular events.
If we understand time in this sense, it is no more mysterious than temperature, as a basic effect of action, ie. change. Keep in mind that temperature is every bit as foundational to reality as change/time. From elemental background radiation to the process of entropy, where energy seeks that thermal median.
Different clocks run at different rates because they are distinct actions. Reality doesn't branch out into multiworlds because it is the collapse of possibilities that yields actualities.
Now I can understand why those firmly wedding to certain physical theories, such as anything depending on a physically real spacetime(not just correlations of measures of duration and distance), may not wish to consider this point, but those less wedded to orthodoxy might want to think it through, just out of curiosity's sake.
Regards,
John M
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on Feb. 17, 2014 @ 19:40 GMT
Actually, I am with you up until temperature...where you said,
"Temperature is every bit as foundational to reality as change/time."
Time is an axiom, but temperature is not an axiom and you seem to imply that temperature is axiomatic or foundational. Dimensionally, time is the differential of action with matter. Temperature is a property of matter, since dimensionally, temperature is the average kinetic energy of a large number of highly interacting particles or objects. Since energy is equivalent to matter, temperature is then a kind of matter and matter is the axiom, not temperature.
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Feb. 17, 2014 @ 21:56 GMT
Stephen,
Think of them as frequency and amplitude. The point is that if you can explain time as an aspect of action, then it's not an axiom. While we think of temperature as an average measure, on mass scales, temperature is the state to which energy reaches equilibrium, given more energetic particles give energy to less energetic ones, until the equilibrium state is reached. On the other hand, we think of time as more foundational than it is because our thought processes are sequential. Think how important the effect of temperature is to our metabolic functions. If you go to the most elemental state of energy, say the cosmic background radiation, or vacuum fluctuation, it would be described thermally, not temporally. It would only be when you began to isolate particular frequencies that any temporal measure could be ascribed to it.
I realize there is a lot of mental friction to seeing time and temperature on the same basis, but ask yourself, if that isn't due to mental processes being temporally based, whether narrative, or cause and effect logic. Temporal sequence is not actually causal. For instance, one day doesn't cause the next, nor does one wave cause the next. The sun shining on a rotating planet and wind across the water, vibrations, etc. are causal. It is the direct transfer of energy, not temporal sequence.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on Feb. 18, 2014 @ 00:52 GMT
“…temperature is the state to which energy reaches equilibrium.”
Temperature is a property of matter. If you heat something up, it gains mass. That is not only how we think about heat and temperature, that is actually what happens when something heats up. An object does not have to be at equilibrium to have a temperature and an object can be at one temperature and still be far from its energy equilibrium.
“If you go to the most elemental state of energy, say the cosmic background radiation, it would be described thermally, not temporally.”
The most elemental state of energy is likewise described as matter, and also not as time.
“Temporal sequence is not causal…The sun shining is causal…”
It is true that time is not causal, action is. It is just not clear what that has to do with temperature. All action is in essence changes in energy of one kind or another or equivalently as changes in matter of one kind or another.
An axiom like time can only be defined in terms of all the other axioms, like the differential of action with matter is time. Time is not like just action and time is not like just matter. That doesn't mean that its not an axiom...that is the very definition of an axiom, that they define each other.
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Feb. 18, 2014 @ 02:43 GMT
Stephen,
"All action is in essence changes in energy"
So wouldn't both amount of energy and frequency of change be measures/aspects of action?
The difference between time, as in frequency and temperature, as in amplitude, is that we tend to think of time in terms of the particular and temperature in terms of the aggregate. We try measuring time in terms of particular changes, such as frequency of a cesium atom, yet the cumulative effect of change is a lot of such rates and the problem is we assume there must be some universal clock/rate of change, but the only universal rate is cumulative.
With temperature, we instead focus on the cumulative, but it is based on the energy levels of lots of different particles/waves. Yes, they don't have to be in equilibrium to have a temperature, anymore than all the clocks and frequencies have to be synchronized to effect change. I'm only using that to point out the similarities. When we talk about something like the background radiation and say it's 2.7k, that is its temperature, but it's also a measure of the amplitude of the waves of radiation.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on Feb. 25, 2014 @ 06:22 GMT
"We try measuring time in terms of particular changes, such as frequency of a cesium atom, yet the cumulative effect of change is a lot of such rates and the problem is we assume there must be some universal clock/rate of change, but the only universal rate is cumulative."
Perhaps a definition of time is in order. With the trimal of matter, time, and action, the differential of action by matter defines time without using time to define time. Therefore, time has both an action and a matter, once again, time is kind of two dimensional.
In terms of a clock, each moment of the cesium clock is 1/9,192,631,770th of a second and is equivalent to matter moment of 1.1e-41 kg, which is the matter equivalent of one photon of the Cs-133 hyperfine line. Then, we accumulate those moments as matter and that is the action of that clock. Thus we can hold the past action of any clock as matter in our hand or in our memory. The quotient of that action and the moment of matter provides time as a count of moments.
This serves to define time and to define the nature of clocks. What we assume is that there is a time as an axiom and that we can measure its passage.
report post as inappropriate
hide replies
John R. Cox wrote on Feb. 17, 2014 @ 20:56 GMT
Whether spacetime has a prehistory fundamentally, how it emerges does not mean it is not real and that there exists a direct association with energy and thence, matter. I think it time to revisit the 'holy writ' of conservation laws and restrict the general application to the 'closed system' as meaning a discrete volume of energy existing as a field which can include a continuum of density variation precipitating (a) relative rest mass. Cosmologically, Hoyle deserves another look, and it is just as reasonable to conjecture energy as being a profoundly transit manifestation of continual recreation of the stress between the curvilinear and rectilinear geometrically when any tri-vector of space changes and so also projects a uni-vector (tensor) of time. Operationally the modern deficits observed in cosmology beg a 'continual creation' rationale. Count me among the uncommitted to the standard model. jrc
report post as inappropriate
Pentcho Valev wrote on Feb. 19, 2014 @ 17:30 GMT
Einstein not even mentioned? Hmm... Lee Smolin is more courageous:
"Was Einstein wrong? At least in his understanding of time, Smolin argues, the great theorist of relativity was dead wrong. What is worse, by firmly enshrining his error in scientific orthodoxy, Einstein trapped his successors in insoluble dilemmas..."
Philip Ball: "Einstein's theory of special relativity not only destroyed any notion of absolute time but made time equivalent to a dimension in space: the future is already out there waiting for us; we just can't see it until we get there. This view is a logical and metaphysical dead end, says Smolin."
Pentcho Valev
report post as inappropriate
Roy Johnstone wrote on Feb. 20, 2014 @ 02:49 GMT
I think the first thing we need to do to really get to the heart of the fundamental nature of reality is to separate clearly the notion of what I call "operational time", which is what clocks measure, and actual *fundamental time*, which clocks cannot measure because they and the physical processes they are calibrated by can only occur *in* time.
For instance, the term "arrow of time" which is commomly framed in the context of thermodynamics or as Paul says the "asymmetry of time" has nothing to do directly with time, otherwise you get the absudity of time occuring in time!!
I think of time as purely a dimension in the same sense as space in that it is perfectly symmetric and notions of direction only emerge in the physical processes of objects in time as well as space, ie there are no directions of space only directions *in* space, the same applies with time.
Greater insights into the apparent time reversal symmetry violations in weak interactions might be gained if we approach it purely in relational terms using only the physical variables involved in the process themselves and not framing it in terms of varying "time" (operational only) intervals.
On the question fundamental or emergent? I there may be some sort of pre-space and/or pre-time, all I would say is the a timelike dimension must be a-priori to anything else that requires dynamics because without it *nothing* can happen. Wheeler said " time is what prevents everything from happening at once" (in the context of a GR "block universe" presumably). I would put it this way " time is what allows anything to happen at all"!
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Feb. 20, 2014 @ 04:33 GMT
Roy,
There is very much a mental space of time all around us, memories, books, information, paths, virtually every perception is based on some continuity of events, but where is this dimension physically? Do the past and future physically exist and how, given the energy which manifested prior events was in a constant dynamic process of change to even make it physically real? If all those electrons and atoms and molecules and people were not moving about, then could they even exist? So since they are not in those prior moments, but are in the now moment, what is there to make those other moments real? What is more real; The event, or the present? Relativity treats the present as an illusion in order to say all events are eternally real, but it would seem from so much of the evidence around us, that it is only what is present which is real and it is constantly creating and dissolving those ephemeral circumstances, of which we all have spatially different perceptions and even orders.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on Feb. 22, 2014 @ 16:01 GMT
________________________________________
”I think the first thing we need to do to really get to the heart of the fundamental nature of reality is to separate clearly the notion of what I call "operational time", which is what clocks measure, and actual *fundamental time*, which clocks cannot measure because they and the physical processes they are calibrated by can only occur *in*...
view entire post
________________________________________
”I think the first thing we need to do to really get to the heart of the fundamental nature of reality is to separate clearly the notion of what I call "operational time", which is what clocks measure, and actual *fundamental time*, which clocks cannot measure because they and the physical processes they are calibrated by can only occur *in* time.”
________________________________________
I agree with you that fundamentally, there are two dimensions in time. You call them operational and fundamental, but I prefer to call them event or proper time and action or atomic time. What is not clear in what you say, though, is that when you go down the road of a 2-D time, there is a very different interpretation of space. That is, given two dimensions for time along with the two dimensions that we already accept for matter, those four dimensions provide a universe of action without any a priori Cartesian space.
As a result, a lot of the problems with microscopic reversibility have to do with how we project space from time. If we remember that all action is due to the exchange of matter between objects, space becomes a projection of action, time, and matter as opposed to the empty void in which we imagine that action occurs.
Event time or proper time is the time that dimensions the universe pulse of matter. That matter pulse determines the arrow of time, proper time, and we project thermodynamics from the pulse of the universe. Event time is like the time of past, present, and future or what is sometimes called B or static time. Event time seems like a video tape with predetermined frames of past, present, and future.
Action time or atomic time is the time of the action of events. Action time is sometimes called A or dynamic time, which is the time of the present moment. Unlike proper time, action time is all about the dynamics of the present moment where any of the many possible futures can occur and no future is not predetermined. You see, proper time allows all of the possibilities that do not occur to decay or dephase just like the possibilities of an object decay away once that object is realized.
However, there is still just one time norm along with a phase factor just as there is just one matter norm for an object along with a phase factor. The quantum action of the Schrödinger equation relates the phases of time and matter by –i, which is the Euler angle of 90 degrees. This reduces the four dimensions of time and matter to the three from which we project the three dimensions of our Cartesian space with the machine of our mind.
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Fred Diether replied on Feb. 22, 2014 @ 20:02 GMT
Main page of blog is broken since you put that line there. Will this fix?
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Feb. 23, 2014 @ 18:30 GMT
Steve,
I'm not sure how action time and event time are truly distinct. You relate Roy's fundamental time with your proper time, but while Roy's fundamental time seems much more a static background, your proper time seems a bit more in the foreground, with a universal pulse. Which seems a bit like Newton's absolute flow.
To try putting this in the context of my argument against a universal time; If there are multiverses, would they each have their own pulse and if so, is there some even deeper pulse, for which the pulses of the separate universes are a form of action time, on the universal scale? If there is no overall proper time for the multiverses and they truly do represent their own clocks, than why would a proper time be necessary on our scale? Why wouldn't each pulse be its own clock and the only universal time be a composite of all the pulses occurring in the present?
I keep arguing that it is only our sense of the passage of time from past to future which makes the dimension of time necessary. You need that dimension for sequence to occur, but if you see it as simply a dynamic process, there is no need for that larger dimension. There is not 'an absurdity of time occurring in time,' because time is only occurring in the present/that which physically exists.
It is these events which are coming and going, future to past, not the present moving from past to future. The present does not move in any time dimension!!!!!!! The effect of time is created in the present. Just like temperature. Think of them as tangential. Frequency and amplitude.
Then what determines the asymmetry of time is the inertia of this action creating it.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on Feb. 24, 2014 @ 05:42 GMT
“I'm not sure how action time and event time are truly distinct. You relate Roy's fundamental time with your proper time, but while Roy's fundamental time seems much more a static background, your proper time seems a bit more in the foreground, with a universal pulse. Which seems a bit like Newton's absolute flow.”
Event time is the time of our commoving frame of reference, and so yes,...
view entire post
“I'm not sure how action time and event time are truly distinct. You relate Roy's fundamental time with your proper time, but while Roy's fundamental time seems much more a static background, your proper time seems a bit more in the foreground, with a universal pulse. Which seems a bit like Newton's absolute flow.”
Event time is the time of our commoving frame of reference, and so yes, it is a little like Newton’s flow. Roughly speaking, that is like the absolute motion that we have against the CMB, about 550 km/s or so. Action time has to do with the actions of common experience. We experience motions on the order of maybe 0.001 km/s or so, which are roughly five or six orders of magnitude different. That means that the norms of time are fairly close to proper time, but we can measure action time or atomic time very precisely, albeit relative to other atomic actions. We therefore confuse time reversibility or time stoppage as a result of this time differential with the overall time norm.
“If there are multiverses, would they each have their own pulse and if so, is there some even deeper pulse, for which the pulses of the separate universes are a form of action time, on the universal scale?”
My job ends at the edge of the box and proper time is still inside of the box. Beyond the box, anything goes with multiverses that are outside of our universe.
“There is not 'an absurdity of time occurring in time,' because time is only occurring in the present/that which physically exists.”
Time is an axiom, but it is not the only axiom. The other axioms of matter and action have similar circularities or absurdities. Matter, after all, is the stuff that the universe is made of, and what is that stuff? Matter. Action is how stuff gets done, and how does stuff get done? By action. These absurdities or circularities are simply what occurs when you try to define an axiom as like something else. An axiom can only be defined as combinations of other axioms, which is then a reflection of the symmetry and self-consistent closure of the universe.
“The effect of time is created in the present. Just like temperature. Think of them as tangential. Frequency and amplitude.”
Temperature is certainly a product of time, and so it should be possible to back fit time using temperature as an axiom like Rosseli has proposed. My feeling is that this simply will result in very complex differential equations for action and matter and a tensor algebra that will make GR look like kindergarten. But, I could be wrong…
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Feb. 24, 2014 @ 23:13 GMT
Steve,
"Roughly speaking, that is like the absolute motion that we have against the CMB, about 550 km/s or so. Action time has to do with the actions of common experience. We experience motions on the order of maybe 0.001 km/s or so, which are roughly five or six orders of magnitude different."
We use measures of actions as time. Whether it is our local frame through the CMB, or a...
view entire post
Steve,
"Roughly speaking, that is like the absolute motion that we have against the CMB, about 550 km/s or so. Action time has to do with the actions of common experience. We experience motions on the order of maybe 0.001 km/s or so, which are roughly five or six orders of magnitude different."
We use measures of actions as time. Whether it is our local frame through the CMB, or a car driving down a road, what is happening is a classic physical process, without even any quantum uncertainty. Say it is the car driving between mile markers; There is a constant physical process of pumping cylinders, turning tires, wind resistance, etc. We compare this to an electronic or mechanical clock, which also is a regular physical process, all of which is physically occurring in this state called the present. The event of passing the initial marker has 'faded into the past,' ie. physically dissolved as the patterns change, as the physical occurrence of passing the succeeding marker occurs. So what has happened is the occurrence of a sequence of events, within a larger physical dynamic, in which many non-linear thermal factors have come into play; atomic, molecular, chemical, atmospheric, of propulsion, resistance, substance, etc. If any of those factors had been markedly different, then the rate of change in this situation would have been different. It is not that time and temperature are the same thing, anymore than frequency and amplitude are the same thing, yet they are complimentary features of the process. Amplitude doesn't determine frequency, nor the opposite, but in real world conditions, they can affect one another.
As I ask Roy, where does that dimension of 'time' actually physically exist, if our only evidence of the past is its physical record in the present and the only proof of a future is a projection of the current state? I have no problem with accepting axioms, but if they seem to be explained by other axioms, it would seem they are not a first order. Is the color blue an axiom, even if the light and space required to create it are axioms?
Regards,
John M
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on Feb. 25, 2014 @ 06:00 GMT
"It is not that time and temperature are the same thing, anymore than frequency and amplitude are the same thing, yet they are complimentary features of the process."
You can back fit temperature into a time. The question is whether this will be useful or not and my feeling is that temperature as time will be very complex. Since what we have now is already very complex and internally inconsistent, it is hard to see how temperature as time will improve that situation.
"...I have no problem with accepting axioms, but if they seem to be explained by other axioms, it would seem they are not a first order."
You are correct and I have been a little sloppy in my wordage. The symmetry of three is just such a powerful allure that it really almost demands a presence. The three axioms are really matter, time, and the action equation, but matter, time, and quantum action complete the universe so nicely. Any two of these axioms determines the third as emergent from the other two as long as the action equation is really the third axiom.
I like keeping the three as axioms, a trimal, since even though only two are really axiomatic, you can choose which two according to the problem that you want to solve as long as the action equation remains the third axiom. This is what I call a trimal tautology, but I am still searching for better words.
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Feb. 25, 2014 @ 17:50 GMT
Steve,
It's not a matter of fitting time into temperature. Would you try and squeeze frequency into amplitude? As Einstein said, simple as possible, but no simpler. (or something to that effect)
The problem is our logical thought processes are based on temporal sequence, so it takes some looking into the mental mirror to think of it as the changing configuration turning future into...
view entire post
Steve,
It's not a matter of fitting time into temperature. Would you try and squeeze frequency into amplitude? As Einstein said, simple as possible, but no simpler. (or something to that effect)
The problem is our logical thought processes are based on temporal sequence, so it takes some looking into the mental mirror to think of it as the changing configuration turning future into past. My experience with trying to explain this, is the more educated someone is, the more it grinds their gears. A cardiologist friend of mine told me I was hurting her head when I pointed this out, while a teenager responded, 'Well, duh.' Keep in mind we still live in a reality where the sun rises and sets, but we can also think of it as the world turning.
I also see the tripartite relationship as foundational and as you describe it; The two fundamental sides defining a larger/complex whole. Eastern philosophy/religion is largely based on that with the yin and yang comprising a larger whole. The Christian trinity as another obvious example and, I suspect, grew out of the nature of time; That God the Father represented the past order, God the Son to represent the present state and when things didn't pan out as they planned, God the Holy Ghost as hope for the future. I was first seriously puzzling over the nature of time, back in the early nineties, when Complexity theory started to emerge from Chaos theory and it did seem to correspond to the issues with time. With order as the past, chaos as the future and complexity as the present, that line between order and chaos. I would though, use 'energy' as a replacement for chaos and information goes in the order category. This goes to my
entry in the essay contest.
Energy tends to seem chaotic because it is complimentary to order. When something is very ordered, it is not dynamically changing and so its constituent energy is very stable and addition of more energy is limited. So excess energy is destabilizing to order. Now think of this in terms of the past, which is logically ordered and unchanging, the present, which is the conflict state between prior order attempting to define the energetic state and then the future, which is wherever the energy flows, since it must manifest the physical reality, even if it destroys prior order. So we have those two directions of time; The order coalescing out of the present and receding into the past, while the energy is constantly moving onto succeeding configurations.
Another point I'd make is this leaves space in its own category. It seems there has been an effort over the generations to dismiss it as nothing more than an abstraction, since it lacks any physical aspect to grasp. I think that eventually we will have to accept space as far more of an elemental axiom than just about anything else. Even the speed of light as C is measured in the vacuum of space. Math dismisses it as three dimensional, but three dimensions are a coordinate system. Unless you specify the actual set of coordinates, space is infinitely dimensional, since any set of coordinates can be used to define the same space. For example, the Israelis and Palestinians use different coordinates, growing out of different temporal narratives, to define the same space.
It is argued in math that an infinite number of dimensionless points make a line, but that's flawed. Even an infinity multiplied by zero is still zero, so you would have to give those points some dimension, ie. space, in order for them to add up to anything. One only has to go out on a cloudless night to appreciate the enormity of space and no matter if it is filled with waves of energy and matter, all vibrating at their different amplitudes and frequencies, creating the effects of temperature and time, it is still the frame of all frames.
Obviously this then gets into issues of cosmology and since I'm already arguing against 'the fabric of spacetime' being physically real, the notion of an expanding universe becomes problematic. For instance, in order for this expansion to actually be relativistic, the speed of light would have to increase as space expands, in order for it to remain constant. Otherwise it's not expanding space, but simply increasing distance in stable space, as measured by the speed of light. Yet that would refute the premise of explaining expansion, since it would not appear to expand, if the speed of light increased.
Then there is the fact that overall space appears flat, as gravity and expansion balance out. This must mean those galactic 'space sinks' are not just inert points of reference in an expanding universe, but effectively contracting that which expands inbetween them at an equal rate. This suggests much more of a convection cycle of expanding radiation and contracting mass. Two sides defining a larger whole
I will leave it at that, since it has probably started to grind a few gears.
Regards,
John M
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on Feb. 26, 2014 @ 03:37 GMT
Man, is this blog a challenge or what? Links keep getting gathered and posts reordered, it is difficult to keep up with what is what.
I like where you are going...except for space. Unless you view space as emergent and time as axiomatic, you will be stuck in the same blind alley that space time is now, beating their heads against the brink wall of the infinitely divisible nature of the empty void of space.
Once you accept space as emergent, the universe will then open up, but you will lose your temperature...but that is okay. There is a new thermodynamics of pure matter coming...internal matter, entropy matter, and free matter.
You mentioned the yin and yang, but forgot the qi, the essence of the dao that completes its trimal. you got the Christian trimal right, but failed to mention Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva of the Hindu Vedic tradition. Then there are the three jewels of Buddhism as the trimal of Buddha, Dharma (teachings), and Sangha(teachers). And don't forget the three quarks that make up each bayron and the three dimensions embedded in the standard model!
The symmetry of three is actually an inherent piece of reality, but it is that symmetry that projects space. Space is a result of the basic symmetry of the primitive universe and emerges from it and does not cause it.
As far as the speed of light varying, of course it varies...along with the fine structure constant and Planck's constant, they all vary together and since they all vary together, the galaxy spectra appear to be red shifted when in fact they are just from an earlier time.
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Feb. 26, 2014 @ 11:04 GMT
Steve,
I like the way you think as well, but my opinion on space is the opposite. It doesn't have to be emergent because, lacking any physical features to explain, it doesn't need explanation. This lack of physically malleable features means it doesn't move and has no limitations, therefore it is absolute, as in zero and infinite. These are the yin and the yang of the universe, with the energy/mass cycling between the inertia of structure and the radiation expanding to infinity as the qi contained within it.
Otherwise we are left trying to explain how space emerges from a dimensionless point, ie. the lack of space. The idea this expansion of space is relativistic overlooks the fact that in order to be relative, the speed of light would have to increase proportionally, in order for it to remain constant, but since it is assumed to be stable and those distant galaxies move away in terms of lightyears, this begs the question of where that vacuum defining the speed of light comes from. Since it seems to be the actual denominator of this equation, that makes the expansion the numerator and that is just an increasing amount of stable space.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on Feb. 28, 2014 @ 02:50 GMT
That space is emergent and not axiomatic in matter time is a very tough thing to swallow I admit, but the math works with beauty and simplicity. For you (and everyone else on the planet less one) space is axiomatic and space is self evident and space seems therefore to be the most natural and intuitive of all of the axioms. Einstein certainly believed in space as an axiom.
However, the...
view entire post
That space is emergent and not axiomatic in matter time is a very tough thing to swallow I admit, but the math works with beauty and simplicity. For you (and everyone else on the planet less one) space is axiomatic and space is self evident and space seems therefore to be the most natural and intuitive of all of the axioms. Einstein certainly believed in space as an axiom.
However, the concept of space has its many problems dating back to Zeno’s paradox and how space can be the infinitely divisible nothing that it seems to be.
"It doesn't have to be emergent because, lacking any physical features to explain, it doesn't need explanation."
Space has many features that need explanation and today we have quantum entanglement issues and, of course, gravity still resists the renormalization, which by the way, is an artifact of space. How do you explain the space inside of a black hole?
You and the whole world have simply grown accustomed to space as we all have, myself included. Space is a very deeply imbedded projection of our Cartesian mind and even though our projection of objects in space is necessary and very useful for nearly all of what we do…that is all space is…a projection.
The beauty and symmetry of zero and infinity, of a single point, a line with zero radius, an plane with zero thickness, and an empty volume are all very useful infinitely divisible idealizations, but that is what they are… Euclidean idealizations, albeit useful ones.
“Otherwise we are left trying to explain how space emerges from a dimensionless point, ie. the lack of space.”
Space does not emerge from a dimensionless point…you see, that very statement already has the Euclidean logic of a point built in since there are an infinity of points that exist as an empty space. The action of a point moving becomes a line, a line sweeping is a plane, and a plane revolving is a volume. These are the actions that we actually sense as objects change or their image edges form details and then we project those changes as Cartesian objects in our mind.
In matter time, all objects exist as matter that is changing in time, i.e., matter, time, and quantum action predict all changes for objects without any direct use of space. You see, the universe itself is an object as a pulse of largely boson matter in time and we fermions are just along for the ride.
The three axioms of matter, time, and quantum action result in three dimensions as the norms of matter and time along with a phase that ties them together. It is from those three primal dimensions that the machine of our Cartesian mind projects the three dimensions of space.
So the question, “What is space filled with?” is preloaded with the answer–space must be full of something and the question already presumes that space exists as an axiom. The real question is what separates objects from each other and not what fills space. For the matter time scheme to work, though, the universe is an object that is made up of mostly boson matter, about 1e7 times more boson matter than fermion matter. Actually, the math works quite well…or at least I have not yet found a fatal flaw.
And it is such a pretty and simply theory of three, the trimal of matter, time, and action. One immediate consequence of this approach is that all action is Lorentz invariant by definition. All of the dilation effects of relativity apply to matter and time and so their projection into space means that space dilation therefore follows.
There are two things to look for in any TOE: falsifiability and utility. You need to have a way to falsify the model with an observation or test to show that it is more than just pure belief, and even if it passes that test, the model must still be more useful than what exists. Matter time passes both tests...
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Feb. 28, 2014 @ 17:44 GMT
Steve,
The only way Zeno's paradox even makes sense is if the runner and the tortoise are slowing in proportion to the percentage of distance they cover. Otherwise both cross the finish line at the rate they are traveling.
"all objects exist as matter that is changing in time,"
If there was no change, would time still exist? The reason time doesn't exist at the speed of light is because there is no change for anything traveling at the speed of light, since any internal processes have stopped. I'm still seeing time as a measure of change, not some dimensional basis for it.
"The real question is what separates objects from each other"
We can look out across space, but we can't look out across time, as we only see evidence of prior changes, not even future ones.
"How do you explain the space inside of a black hole?"
I see black holes as mathematical artifacts of only looking at the matter falling into them, not the energy radiating away from them. Since Einstein's time, we have detected enormous amounts of energy ballooning, jetting and just plain radiating away from the cores of galaxies. Star sized black holes are the sources of pulsars. Like I've said, it seems to be a cosmic convection cycle of expanding radiation and collapsing mass. Two sides defining the larger whole.
"In matter time, all objects exist as matter that is changing in time, i.e., matter, time, and quantum action predict all changes for objects without any direct use of space."
If the occupation is space, but then wouldn't that logic also refute the need for time, that its action is time?
"so their projection into space means that space dilation therefore follows."
"projection into space"? You don't seem to be able to completely shed the need for space.
What if you have two completely independent projections and they happen to encounter one another; would that imply a common space?
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on Mar. 1, 2014 @ 00:08 GMT
You are very patient to have stayed with me for so long. Usually I get thrown out of the bar by now... Space has been around a long time and it is not easy to see through the powerful illusion of our machine. Look, we really do not understand our mind or consciousness very well yet, and the amazing machine of cognition allows us to imagine and predict action with sometimes great...
view entire post
You are very patient to have stayed with me for so long. Usually I get thrown out of the bar by now... Space has been around a long time and it is not easy to see through the powerful illusion of our machine. Look, we really do not understand our mind or consciousness very well yet, and the amazing machine of cognition allows us to imagine and predict action with sometimes great precision.
However, there are flaws in our machine, holes and blindspots and we are subject to any number of illusions. But since we get by just fine most of the time, we ignore the illusions and assume that the reality the machine projects is not somehow fundamentally flawed.
So imagine that I have this TOE and that I can predict all actions and all changes of objects, within some uncertainty, without ever using space as a dimension. Would you believe that is possible? If you believe that it is possible, that would show that space is not therefore axiomatic.
If you ask me where an object is when I am in matter time, I run a machine that will spit out the Cartesian location for you from matter time. That is what I mean by my TOE. I can do that.
"We can look out across space, but we can't look out across time, as we only see evidence of prior changes, not even future ones."
Yes, of course. Now you ask me to predict where that object will go? I use my machine to back calculate where the object is in matter time, use matter time to predict that action, and recalculate the new Cartesian location. Sure enough, my machine agrees with your machine.
And what I would say is that we can look out across time to an object, but I need my machine to project that object out across space.
"What if you have two completely independent projections and they happen to encounter one another; would that imply a common space?"
I am not saying that objects do not exist in the universe...they do. Objects do exist and they are separate and they do collide and they do exist in my machine's projection of space as well. But when I do the calculation of two objects colliding in matter time, I will still use my machine to project their positions in space. Space is still very useful for keeping track of objects since that is how our mind works.
It is very interesting to closely examine exactly what the neural signals are that come from our retinas. Our neurons are keyed to sense motion and difference and therefore action and our whole neural machine is geared up for change. For example, you mentioned the yin and yang, also a favorite of mine. Okay, black and white...or any single color has the exact same retinal signature.
In other words, we cannot actually see pure color with our eyes but we imagine that we do. We actually only sense color changes or get other cues for color. For example, if there is white light, we see objects. If it is dark, we do not see objects, and so on.
Correspondingly, we actually do not see any object directly, we infer an object is where it is by its edges and textures and its difference from the background. In other words, our machine is getting shine from the object and we are shining on the object as well. That matter exchange with the object is therefore a bond with the object and that bond is something that we do not necessarily see. Our machine simplifies the relational complexity of sensation quite nicely with a Cartesian projection that only actually exists in our mind.
The object does exist, but just not quite like our machine works. But the machine works well enough for most predictions of action.
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Mar. 1, 2014 @ 02:01 GMT
Steve,
Join the club. If you don't ruffle their feathers, you will be ignored. Everyone has their own model and will stand by it, because it is their sense of who they are and how their world works.
"Look, we really do not understand our mind or consciousness very well yet, and the amazing machine of cognition allows us to imagine and predict action with sometimes great precision."
"If you ask me where an object is when I am in matter time, I run a machine that will spit out the Cartesian location for you from matter time. That is what I mean by my TOE. I can do that."
Are you sure these are not the same machine?
"Correspondingly, we actually do not see any object directly, we infer an object is where it is by its edges and textures and its difference from the background. In other words, our machine is getting shine from the object and we are shining on the object as well. That matter exchange with the object is therefore a bond with the object and that bond is something that we do not necessarily see. Our machine simplifies the relational complexity of sensation quite nicely with a Cartesian projection that only actually exists in our mind."
Yet what you describe is light bouncing around in space.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
Anonymous replied on Mar. 1, 2014 @ 05:07 GMT
Okay, so we are reaching the end of the trail.
"Yet what you describe is light bouncing around in space."
When I say a photon is moving in matter time, what I mean is that one object loses matter and another object gains matter in time. Therefore, matter changes in time, and if I want to project those actions into Cartesian space, I can do that. but I don't have to use space to make the predictions.
You should have first of all have said very simply that you do not believe that any TOE can predict action without space. Then you should have given an example where that was not true, and matter time would either fail or succeed in that prediction. Photons moving through space is really not a serious problem for any theory.
I did not think that we were in the business of simply saying that we do not want to believe in a new concept, rather we are in the business of saying that we want to understand how mother nature works. If she works this way, so be it. If she works that way, I am okay with that too. Just please let me know which way.
Look, matter time is a simple theory, but does have significant differences with space time, notably in how it deals with space. It can be easily disproven since matter time predicts a decay of matter, which actually has been observed but not believed, but those measurement are not yet precise enough, but will be soon.
Matter time also addresses many of the issues of contemporary science...dark matter, black holes, solar cycles, the role of the liguid drop model in nuclear physics, and the role of quantum states for awareness.
For better or for worse, a TOE really does have to explain everything...
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on Mar. 1, 2014 @ 06:00 GMT
I think that they need some work on the mechanics of this blog.
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Mar. 1, 2014 @ 11:02 GMT
Steve,
What I don't believe in is a theory of everything. A theory is a distilled principle and everything isn't everything if its distilled. As Stephen Wolfram said, you would need a computer the size of the universe to compute the universe. The problem I see with making any predictions about the future is that while the laws determining the outcome are necessarily deterministic, the input into that process/the present, cannot be fully known prior to the event, because much information is traveling at the speed of light, so you would need to have information about the information travel to your machine faster than light and if that were possible, then input into the event could also travel faster than light and you still have the problem of gathering input prior to its arrival. Only the occurrence of the event can fully calculate the outcome of that event. Which is not to say predictions are not valid, but only that they remain predictions.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on Mar. 1, 2014 @ 15:59 GMT
“…you would need a computer the size of the universe to compute the universe. “
The term TOE has simply become a colloquialism and semantically, you are correct, one always must be careful when using particular words. Like everything and nothing…or always and never…or black and white for that matter. Is there every anything that is truly black? No.
“…the laws...
view entire post
“…you would need a computer the size of the universe to compute the universe. “
The term TOE has simply become a colloquialism and semantically, you are correct, one always must be careful when using particular words. Like everything and nothing…or always and never…or black and white for that matter. Is there every anything that is truly black? No.
“…the laws determining the outcome are necessarily deterministic…”
You slipped into a parallel universe with this statement.
“…the input into that process/the present, cannot be fully known prior to the event …Which is not to say predictions are not valid, but only that they remain predictions.”
Now you have come back into this universe. Welcome back.
Predictions are what it is all about. The better we predict the actions of objects, the better we survive. Science is good with predictions of simple objects, but is still limited by the uncertainty of quantum action. Science is not as good at predictions with the chaos of complex objects, like people and weather and galaxies, but that does not mean that science cannot do any predictions. It can and it does. There is no absolute determinism, but things generally do happen pretty much as we predict.
I look for two characteristics in any theory: falsifiability and utility. A theory is based on axioms, which are self-evident statements of belief. However, if there are too many axioms, that theory turns into pure belief. So although the axioms need to be self evident, we also need to be able to falsify each of the axioms by some observation or test.
However, even if a theory is correct, if it ends up so obscure and complex, it may not therefore be that useful for predictions. So it is important to have the mechanics of model useful for those who need to make predictions.
If matter time is right, atomic time gains one second every 64 years, at 0.28 ppb/yr, and matter decays at 0.28 ppb/yr. This perfect complement is the symmetry that drives all force. Since we hold time constant, that means that matter will appear to decay at 0.57 ppb/yr and the international kilogram standard, the IPK, has inexplicably lost about ~0.53+/-0.05 ppb/yr over the last 110 years.
No one has even suggested that this mass loss reveals a new axiom, rather they blame the measurement. The secondary standards, it is believed, have gained mass because of cleaning artifacts and the primary standard has not changed at all. Now a new measurement, the watt balance, will become our mass standard. The watt balance essentially weighs electricity as the energy equivalent mass gained by an object with an electrical current. In a sense, this is like weighing temperature.
The expected result is that this matter energy equivalent will be constant and matter will not decay after all and so all will return to normal in the universe. But it will still take about five to ten years of measurements to get the precision needed for matter time falsification. If matter does end up constant, I will need a new TOE. There are new atom interferometers that people are developing are really cool and it should be possible to get much higher precision from these devices than the watt balance, but the measurement really needs to be done in space at the Lagrange point.
If science does show that matter decays at 0.57 ppb/yr, the simplicity of matter time will become the basis for all force in the universe. However, things will no longer be normal in the matter time universe…
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Mar. 1, 2014 @ 17:23 GMT
Steve,
"You slipped into a parallel universe with this statement."
It a matter of the definition of the terms. What is past has been determined, so it is that the processes by which this past are generated that are deterministic. The future remains probabilistic, until it occurs and becomes past.
"Since we hold time constant, that means that matter will appear to decay at...
view entire post
Steve,
"You slipped into a parallel universe with this statement."
It a matter of the definition of the terms. What is past has been determined, so it is that the processes by which this past are generated that are deterministic. The future remains probabilistic, until it occurs and becomes past.
"Since we hold time constant, that means that matter will appear to decay at 0.57 ppb/yr and the international kilogram standard, the IPK, has inexplicably lost about ~0.53+/-0.05 ppb/yr over the last 110 years."
As I keep arguing, it's a convection cycle of collapsing mass and expanding radiation, so it would be natural that any stable unit of mass, that has no source of input, will still lose energy and thus mass.
Einstein originally argued gravity would cause space to collapse to a point and galaxies do pull mass points into a black hole. Hawking described the expansion of the universe as an arrow of time. So I would argue these are essentially opposing arrows of time. One is structure collapsing and the other is energy expanding. Now consider a clock has two components, the hand(s) and face. The hand represents the present, constantly moving around the face, from one unit of time to the next, so it goes from past to future, ie. prior to succeeding units of temporally limited structure. Meanwhile those units are going the other direction, relative the hand/present. They come into being and eventually dissolve, ie. go from being in the future to being in the past.
So mass is the units of structure, that like Einstein's direction of gravitational attraction, coalesce out of the clouds of radiation and cosmic gases, build up complexity, until they fall into those cosmic vortices and their final forms break down and the energy is radiated back out across the universe. So these two directions balance each other, like yin and yang, the form starting in the future and falling into the past, while the constituent energy is constantly building new forms, building them up and then breaking them down, to go onto another, the present moving from past to future.
The IPK is going future to past.
Regards,
John M
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on Mar. 1, 2014 @ 18:26 GMT
It is apparent that you have a lot of energy on this subject...or I should say that you have a lot of matter on this matter. Your intuition is very good and you articulate your ideas very well...you just have to stop believing so much in space and the universe of matter and time will open up to you.
The past is definitely determined, but deterministic is a term that we normally use in...
view entire post
It is apparent that you have a lot of energy on this subject...or I should say that you have a lot of matter on this matter. Your intuition is very good and you articulate your ideas very well...you just have to stop believing so much in space and the universe of matter and time will open up to you.
The past is definitely determined, but deterministic is a term that we normally use in reference to the future, not the past. This is just semantics.
"Now consider a clock has two components, the hand(s) and face."
Good. All clocks are made up of a moment of matter in the present and the action of that matter, which is an object of past matter. In fact, this defines the axiom time as the differential of action with matter. Your clock hands are my moment and your clock face is my action.
Do we actually agree? My heart be still...
"Einstein originally argued gravity would cause space to collapse to a point and galaxies do pull mass points into a black hole. Hawking described the expansion of the universe as an arrow of time. So I would argue these are essentially opposing arrows of time. One is structure collapsing and the other is energy expanding."
Okay, but now I have to pull a matter time card out of the deck, because that is the game that we are actually playing even though you do not yet know that. In matter time, the universe is shrinking, not expanding, and that shrinkage does indeed point the arrow of time. Time just points in and not out and so my arrows both point the same way.
Distant galaxy light appears red shifted because the speed of light, fine structure constant, and Planck's constant all vary together over time, at 0.26 ppb/yr for c and alpha and 0.26^2 for h. Since they all vary together, distant galaxies appear red shifted because they are from an earlier eon and not because they are in expansion. In fact, the universe is shrinking at the speed of light...in fact, that is what defines the speed of light and why it necessarily changes over cosmic time.
Since matter time shows all force coming from the decay of matter, there are no longer any singularities like black holes in matter time. Instead, the large matter accretions popularly known as black holes actually are boson stars, which are still not widely accepted but that is a large literature on them anyway. Boson matter is the basic matter of the universe and boson stars are the ultimate destiny of the universe, and this is indeed the yin and yang of the universe.
Your intuition led you to expect that the universe should shrink just like the galaxy shrinks and just like the solar system shrinks and just like we shrink. Since the universe shrinks at the speed of light, in matter time radiation is actually the only matter that is not moving. Light is just a form of the basic suite of bosonic condensates that are the destiny of matter in the universe.
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Mar. 1, 2014 @ 21:58 GMT
Steve,
It's hard not to take space seriously. We live on this little blue orb, in an extremely vast expanse, in which if all matter and energy were equally distributed, would not be much more than the 2.7k of the background radiation. Given that, it seems easier to take what fills space less seriously than space.
As for time, ask yourself; Does the earth really travel some fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, or does tomorrow become yesterday because the earth rotates? If you think the second seems the more logical answer, then you do see how time rises from action.
so my arrows both point the same way.
"Your intuition led you to expect that the universe should shrink just like the galaxy shrinks and just like the solar system shrinks and just like we shrink. Since the universe shrinks at the speed of light, in matter time radiation is actually the only matter that is not moving."
I think you lost me there, in terms of efficiency of explanation. To say the sun is not radiating energy/light, of which some passes through my eyes, but that everything is shrinking together doesn't seem a very relatable description. How does the very idea of shrinking make sense, when you have eliminated space? And why do you have a thing against space? To say the time arrows all point to shrinkage doesn't seem very balanced. All yin and no yang. It seems your model starts out as lots of space, with very thin mass and then contracts to the point. I do see this as unbalanced as the opposite, that the universe began as a point and expands.
For me, it's not so much a matter of belief, as efficiency. There is this radiant energy that seems to have attractive and repulsive tendencies, giving it the propensity to contract and expand and does this in an otherwise featureless void and relative to this void, is not very dense. I don't see the efficiency in writing off the void.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Mar. 1, 2014 @ 22:23 GMT
Steve,
There is this tendency in physics to write of intuition, but that only shows a lack of understanding of intuition. It is our cumulative knowledge and how it manifests as a scalar, rather than linear. Such as what rises to the surface of our perception in a given context, as opposed to a specific chain of circumstance and logic.
Everyone possesses intuition, even physicists and it is all different, because we all have different stores of knowledge.
Part of the problem with the process of accumulating knowledge is that our foundational knowledge is much less than that which we accumulate, yet we tend to subconsciously view that much more limited initial knowledge as more accurate and truer than what comes after, because it is the prism through which all subsequent knowledge is filtered. For example, older religions are venerated for their age, yet their foundations are little more than the filtered imaginings and stories of borderline stone age peoples and the primal insights they chose to remember. So what physicists meant when they first dismissed intuition was a lot of cumulative folk wisdom, but this initial insight from a hundred years ago has, like those religions, grown to encompass any form of logic that doesn't accommodate the particular theories of today's theorists.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on Mar. 2, 2014 @ 03:00 GMT
"Does the earth really travel some fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, or does tomorrow become yesterday because the earth rotates? If you think the second seems the more logical answer, then you do see how time rises from action."
You are mixing decks of the games up again. Obviously the earth travels through the single dimension of time, but not through space so a fourth...
view entire post
"Does the earth really travel some fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, or does tomorrow become yesterday because the earth rotates? If you think the second seems the more logical answer, then you do see how time rises from action."
You are mixing decks of the games up again. Obviously the earth travels through the single dimension of time, but not through space so a fourth dimension has no meaning since time is not space...time is time. You have shifted back into space again.
So for time, I don't know why you skipped today but the earth had a yesterday that we can measure and know. Although GR gravity necessarily acts in space, quantum gravity is simply an exchange of matter in time with a phase. A bound or stable orbit or cycle is just where phase is some multiple of 2pi, and so theta is a pure quantum phase. A matter exchange between objects is equal to the total matter decay in time, i.e., KM = PM for a stable orbit, kinetic matter = potential matter.
Notice that I am using spatial terminology, orbit, but this is colloquial since it is a quantum phase, theta. Notice that all energy is matter and so there is no velocity in space per se, there is just a change in mass.
The action time of an orbit of bound objects is periodic, but that bound object is still evolving in proper time and is still moving in the universe in a hierarchy of orbits with other objects and other action times.
The earth's rotation is an equivalent two body orbit with KM = PM with a one day period, but with a quantum exchange action. So the rotation of earth is now a quantum phase theta that projects into the Cartesian phase if we want to, so its no wonder our mind works so well that way.
We can make this prediction without space and we can project back into space whenever we feel like it. So, did earth travel through time from yesterday to today. Yes, that is certain. Will earth travel through time and matter to tomorrow? It is very likely but not absolutely certain.
Now without time, obviously, you can project time from the action of earth in space instead of in time. The problem is that the quantum exchange force for gravity just does not pretty in space...it is ugly. Look at the complexity of GR, for example. It is really amazing that old Al got that beast to work with the patchwork of 4-space.
In order to get action in space to work, you need to reformulate the quantum action without time and that will require a proper or absolute 3-space along with an action 3-space. Then you will need a set of proper 3x3tensors and action 3x3tensors to handle all of the off diagonal interactions between spatial coordinates.
There will be six dimensions of space, two of time, and a 2D spinor for phase or a ten dimensional reality, with another 12 off diagonal tensor elements. It just does not sound like fun, but it should be possible.
"How does the very idea of shrinking make sense, when you have eliminated space? And why do you have a thing against space?"
Shrinking simply means shrinking in matter, not space. The math works very nicely without space and is unworkable with space, so mother nature simply does not quite work the way that our minds work.
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Anonymous replied on Mar. 2, 2014 @ 14:25 GMT
Steve,
" Obviously the earth travels through the single dimension of time,"
Yet where is that dimension physically, since wherever it is manifest, is the present. Duration is simply the state of the present between the particular designations of events. For instance, it might be evening here, but morning of the next day in the far east, yet it is still the same present. It is the...
view entire post
Steve,
" Obviously the earth travels through the single dimension of time,"
Yet where is that dimension physically, since wherever it is manifest, is the present. Duration is simply the state of the present between the particular designations of events. For instance, it might be evening here, but morning of the next day in the far east, yet it is still the same present. It is the events and configurations that vary, not the present. So that 'dimension' of time exists within the changing present.
As for the pure quantization of mass and energy,
Eric Reiter posted some interesting experiments in his entry in the Questioning the Foundations contest.
A point I keep making about quantization is that we can only perceive and measure distinctions, differences, etc, but if there were not fundamental underlaying connectivity, not only wouldn't the larger reality not exist, but the measurements wouldn't be possible. So there is that dichotomy of distinctions and connections. It's not all quantum nodes, there is a network tying it all together. Just because we cannot precisely measure that network, in the same way we can reductionistically measure/weigh/judge the nodes, doesn't make it any less fundamental. I suspect they will eventually decide it's not supersymmetric particles balancing out quantum particles, but that essential background network.
"Shrinking simply means shrinking in matter, not space. The math works very nicely without space and is unworkable with space, so mother nature simply does not quite work the way that our minds work."
Given that math is reductionistic, the first thing to go is space, when you are seeking to concentrate matter. Think electronics; They are constantly trying to put ever more circuits in an ever smaller space. Gravity is also just such a concentration of mass in less space. I've argued that since releasing energy from mass creates pressure/expansion, chemical/nuclear, etc, wouldn't the concentration of energy into mass have the opposite effect, a vacuum? Therefore the reason gravity is difficult to isolate is because it a composite effect across the entire spectrum of the various forms of energy forming mass and then ever more concentrated mass.
So is it the nature of reality, or simply the nature of math, that space is so ethereal?
Regards,
John M
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on Mar. 2, 2014 @ 18:52 GMT
"Yet where is that dimension (time) physically, since wherever it is manifest, is the present."
The present moment is just one part of time and has no meaning without a past action. That is, we live in a world of objects that are the past and without those objects, there would not be a universe nor a present moment.
"Duration is simply the state of the present between the particular...
view entire post
"Yet where is that dimension (time) physically, since wherever it is manifest, is the present."
The present moment is just one part of time and has no meaning without a past action. That is, we live in a world of objects that are the past and without those objects, there would not be a universe nor a present moment.
"Duration is simply the state of the present between the particular designations of events."
Duration or the present moment is very well defined for each action. What is it? It is matter, a matter moment. All objects are after all integrations of matter over time, i.e., action. So if we know the matter moment and know that that object grew uniformly in time, that is what we call a clock and that is what we call time.
What is the human moment? For our bodies, a moment is the matter equivalent energy of a heartbeat. For our minds, it is the matter equivalent energy of the EEG delta wave, i.e. the heartbeat mode.
"They are constantly trying to put ever more circuits in an ever smaller space."
...and they are also therefore trying to put more and more information as structure into the mass of a silicon chip. If you want, I can tell you the volume, but I don't need volume to say or predict that.
And if you ask where the electron matter is in the silicon, quantum effects are even easier to do without space than are gravity effects since we already have an exchange force for action.
"Therefore the reason gravity is difficult to isolate is because it a composite effect across the entire spectrum of the various forms of energy forming mass and then ever more concentrated mass."
The reason that gravity is difficult is that it is not renormalizable into an exchange force. In so many words, all that means is that paths in GR are deterministic save for chaos so there is need or even a way to renormalize. Quantum paths for action have infinite possibilities and so we just ignore most of them by renormalization.
When you simply invent a gravity boson, a graviton, its simple presence in space means that it will collapse into itself and form a microscopic black hole due to that pesky singularity at r=0. This is the conundrum of space time and gravity and the crux of Xeno...as long as you can infinitely divide 4-space, there is no room for anything else.
So what matter time does is set space aside and then a gravity exchange particle is actually the same as charge force, just scaled to a folded universe in proper time by the matter size of the universe. Now that is just one action law, quantum, for matter, time, and quantum action.
In principle, you can turn time and space around and do the same thing with gravity in space. Without time, there will be no collapse for the graviton. What I did not make clear before is that these two approaches, one with time and another with space, are logically complementary and therefore not different. Space as an axiom is just as self evident as time as you rightly point out.
By the way, space without time has the same two dimensional logic as time without space. In other words, there would be a proper space that represented the integration of all action in the past and an emergent space that would be a matter particle. Otherwise you run into the Xeno thing again...
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Mar. 3, 2014 @ 14:57 GMT
Steve,
"we live in a world of objects that are the past"
Yes, but they are not in the past. Only those objects whose physical form has not been dissolved by prior events continue to exist in the present.
"Duration or the present moment is very well defined for each action. What is it? It is matter, a matter moment. All objects are after all integrations of matter over time,...
view entire post
Steve,
"we live in a world of objects that are the past"
Yes, but they are not in the past. Only those objects whose physical form has not been dissolved by prior events continue to exist in the present.
"Duration or the present moment is very well defined for each action. What is it? It is matter, a matter moment. All objects are after all integrations of matter over time, i.e., action. So if we know the matter moment and know that that object grew uniformly in time, that is what we call a clock and that is what we call time."
Very much so. As those actions occur, they then fade into the past and new actions occur. It is the physical being of the actions which come into being and fade, that we are measuring, as they coalesce out of integrations and dissolve in separations.
We all have our models to explain the world around us and they are not always the same model, because we all have different needs. For me, I live in a very spatial world and if I were to ignore it, I would get quite disoriented. To go back to my argument against conventional theory, it argues space is collapsed by gravity and intergalactic space is expanding and these balance out in an overall flat space. Which is perfectly alright by me. But then they go and insist the universe as a whole is expanding, because the space between galaxies is growing and eventually the distant galaxies will no longer be visible because their light can no longer reach us. The problem I have with this is that it completely overlooks the relative nature of space put forth in the first part and assumes some form of absolute space in which those other galaxies move away in absolute terms, rather than one in which the growth of intergalactic space is balanced by the contraction of galactic space. Consider that the light of the more distant galaxies that we see, is only that which managed to travel between intervening galaxies and thus mostly through the expanded areas.
Put this in terms of the rubber sheet and a ball description of gravity and place the sheet over water, so that in the areas where the ball is not pushing it down, the water pushes it back up and the overall effect is balanced. So this push back up amounts to Einstein's cosmological constant, balancing the effect of gravity. The light from those distant sources has to travel this 'high ground,' otherwise it falls into the gravity wells. So the light we see is only that light which has been expanded, not the sum total, that has been balanced out.To use a rough analogy, this light has had to walk down the up escalator. The floors are not moving apart, even if it seems so to the light. When light is bent around gravity wells, we say the space is curved, but we don't argue that it actually moves and distorts the source of the light, only the path it has taken. The same applies here. It's not moving the source, only expanding the path its taken. All this is reflective of the fact that what we measure is mass and energy and while mass contracts, energy expands and so the same applies to the space being measured by using them as reference.
So in your world, space may not be as important as time and it can be disregarded, but in my map of reality, space remains foundational and I put time in there with temperature, as an effect of action.
Regards,
John M
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on Mar. 6, 2014 @ 05:32 GMT
“"we live in a world of objects that are the past"
Yes, but they are not in the past. Only those objects whose physical form has not been dissolved by prior events continue to exist in the present.”
Well, yes they are the past because that is what the past means. The object represents its past at each moment of time.
Remember that you said that time was both the hands of a clock as well as its face. The clock face an object that represents the past while the movement of the hands are the matter of the moment.
“As those actions occur, they then fade into the past and new actions occur.”
The action of a grain of sand in an hourglass becomes the integrated sand of the hourglass, which is an object that represents the past for each grain of time. So the grain becomes part of an object that is the past and does not go out of existence. Neither the sand grain alone nor the accumulated sand of the hourglass have meaning independent of each other, but together they define time.
“So in your world, space may not be as important as time and it can be disregarded, but in my map of reality, space remains foundational and I put time in there with temperature, as an effect of action.”
I must admit that I also find the intuitive notion of space quite useful and that is because it is the way our minds work. But accepting the limitations of space as an axiom is no more counterintuitive that accepting the very counterintuitive concepts of time and space dilation. On this note, we can then simply agree to disagree…
report post as inappropriate
hide replies
Fred Diether wrote on Feb. 22, 2014 @ 20:02 GMT
Nope. One more should fix. Someone can delete these two posts.
report post as inappropriate
Jim George Snowdon wrote on Feb. 25, 2014 @ 21:09 GMT
The Earth`s rotational motion is the fundamental physical mechanism responsible for maintaining our confusion over the nature of time.
Our rotational surface motion is approximately 1600 kilometers per hour at the equator. We live on a gigantic merry-go-round. We are physically immersed in this constant motionary milieu, at the same time, as we use this same motion, to measure duration elapsing.
We use the constant period of duration of our planet`s rotational motion, as the measurement baseline for our time keeping system. Duration elapsing is what our clocks measure. Duration elapsing is what we consciously experience.
report post as inappropriate
Jim George Snowdon replied on May. 25, 2014 @ 02:35 GMT
We have motion in our timeless Universe.
report post as inappropriate
Jim George Snowdon replied on Aug. 12, 2014 @ 16:16 GMT
Time does not exist as a thing or force in reality.
Space/time is really space/nothing. Real things exist, they endure, they happen. We consciously engage with what happens.
In the sense that one can say there is only the `now`, one can say there is only the `nothing`. We do have motion in our timeless Universe.
The title of my short essay in the first essay contest is `Things Happen`.
report post as inappropriate
Jim George Snowdon replied on Sep. 1, 2014 @ 18:53 GMT
We are permanently in the `now`. Everything that has ever happened, happened in the `now`. Remnants of all those happenings are still here with us, in the `now`. While it seems difficult to disprove time exists, it`s possible to prove it`s unnecessary, and not foundational.
report post as inappropriate
Jim George Snowdon replied on Sep. 2, 2014 @ 22:56 GMT
Hi Akinbo,
You asked, "Has time flowed?"
In our conscious experiencing of duration elapsing, we assume that time is passing.
Please see my initial post, immediately above, that is dated February 25th, 2,014.
report post as inappropriate
Jim George Snowdon replied on Mar. 1, 2015 @ 23:02 GMT
Things happen. Real things, occur. Real things, endure. Real things, happen.
Time is not a real thing.
What actually happens, is that duration elapses. Our clocks measure duration elapsing. Our conscious experience is of duration elapsing.
The Earth`s rotational motion is the fundamental physical mechanism responsible for maintaining our confusion over the true nature of time.
We do have motion in our timeless universe.
report post as inappropriate
Jim George Snowdon replied on Jul. 22, 2015 @ 02:17 GMT
A subject worth discussion, is the question of what `now` means, in relation to the nature of time.
report post as inappropriate
Akinbo Ojo replied on Jul. 22, 2015 @ 09:07 GMT
- the question of what `now` means, in relation to the nature of time
- We are permanently in the `now`
Can 'now' cease to exist? That is, can 'now' become a 'never'?
Can a universe that exists NOW become a universe that NEVER existed after the Big Crunch has happened? Can a universe that NEVER existed become a universe that NOW exists?
Regards,
Akinbo
report post as inappropriate
Jim George Snowdon replied on Jul. 24, 2015 @ 02:41 GMT
Hi Akinbo,
Yes, we are permanently in the `now`.
"Can `now` cease to exist?" No.
The Earth has been around for a long time. The whole of that time, it`s been in the `now`.
There is no such `thing` as time. We can look at `now`, as `nothing`, rather than as a situation of `time passing`.
What is really going on, is that duration is elapsing.
report post as inappropriate
Akinbo Ojo replied on Jul. 24, 2015 @ 09:31 GMT
Jim,
"Can `now` cease to exist?" You said No.
If the Universe perishes in a Big Crunch, will there still be a 'now' after the event?
Before the universe emerged from nothing in a Big bang, was there a 'now'?
Unless you are of the view that the Universe is eternal, I believe 'now' can perish.
Regards,
Akinbo
report post as inappropriate
hide replies
Jonathan Kerr wrote on Mar. 10, 2014 @ 16:35 GMT
I have a question for Paul Davies, on illusion time/emergent time. Either approach takes the apparent flow of time as a comparatively superficial effect, which presumably arrives 'after' the deeper physics, in the ordering of the layers that make up the world. It is block time, which comes directly and inevitably from Minkowski spacetime (via the Rietdijk-Putnam argument), that leads to this idea...
view entire post
I have a question for Paul Davies, on illusion time/emergent time. Either approach takes the apparent flow of time as a comparatively superficial effect, which presumably arrives 'after' the deeper physics, in the ordering of the layers that make up the world. It is block time, which comes directly and inevitably from Minkowski spacetime (via the Rietdijk-Putnam argument), that leads to this idea of time as a more superficial effect.
The problem with this is that some physical laws, like simple laws of motion, need time if they are to work. If the underlying structure is the block universe, which is what led many to this idea of time as a superficial effect, then my question is this. What were the laws doing there, implied in the ordering of the slices in the block, and apparently waiting for some more superficial effect to come along later and make them work, by running the slices in a sequence? Because something did run the slices in a sequence, or make them appear to run in a sequence. And if this illusion (or emergent effect) appeared 'later' it was very appropriate in what it happened to do. The laws were merely implied before it arrived, but they were implied in a very specific mathematical way. They were waiting in the block in a 'just add water' sort of way, for something to run them in a sequence. That looks contrived.
If the world is seen as a series of layers, each more superficial than the last, and each emerging from the deeper one underneath it, then it seems some sort of flow of time (however hard to define that is) must come before laws of physics like laws of motion - even though Minkowski spacetime seems to be telling us to put the flow of time after the laws of physics.
Special relativity is of course right, and has been extremely well confirmed by experiment. But spacetime is untested and untestable, and leads to major contradictions of the kind I've mentioned.
Another is that the future already exists in the block universe, but in quantum mechanics it doesn't yet exist, because of the fundamental randomness we find, accepted by the large majority for 80 years. If a given small-scale event is truly random, then what will happen is not decided until a certain point, even if the exact position of this point has been blurred by aspects of QM. That basic randomness still means an unfixed future, which allows us to be shaping what happens, as we seem to be.
A slight error in the spacetime interpretation - and it is only an interpretation - and ALL of these major conceptual contradictions could go. And spacetime was founded on a set of assumptions about time, ie. a set of assumptions about something we don't yet understand. Spacetime creates no problems on the mathematical side, on the contrary, it has simplified many theories. But for those of us who are concerned with the conceptual side of physics, it plays havoc with the conceptual picture. The mathematics is a kind of shorthand for the full conceptual picture, and in spacetime we treat time as very like space. This works fine in the mathematics, but it has arguably failed in conceptual physics, and with the time issues, we have to get to grips with the conceptual side.
That is why a rapidly growing number of us are now questioning spacetime, and block time, including Lee Smolin, George F R Ellis and others. It may be that to move forward we must let go of an untestable, unfalsifiable set of assumptions about time. Any comment from Paul Davies on this, whose work I have respected for many years, would be much appreciated, thank you.
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
amrit wrote on Mar. 11, 2014 @ 17:34 GMT
Time is duration of change which run in a timeless quantum vacuum
see our book at NOVA and article attached
https://www.novapublishers.com/catalog/product_info.
php?products_id=48104
attachments:
2_Special_theory_of_relativity_postulated_on_homogeneity_of_space_and_time_and_on_relativity_principle.pdf
report post as inappropriate
amrit wrote on Mar. 31, 2014 @ 18:40 GMT
amrit wrote on Apr. 10, 2014 @ 13:24 GMT
Time for sure is not 4th dimension of space. SR can be described in a 3D Euclidean space.
attachments:
About_a_new_suggested_interpretation_of_special_theory_of.pdf
report post as inappropriate
Marcel-Marie LeBel wrote on Apr. 20, 2014 @ 21:06 GMT
Jonathan,
We cannot both physically describe and logically understand the same subject matter at the same time. They are two different and mutually exclusive approaches. How something appears and is conceived by us is way different from what things need to exist and operate logically and spontaneously as a universe.
Each time science has asked "why" the procedure has returned a "how". It is an asymptotic curve reaching for something outside its grasp. The conceptual, understanding and metaphysical lies beyond that line.
The question remains. What do YOU want?
Do you want to know the universe enough to be able to DO something with it?
(science, engineering, physics...)
Or, do you want to know what the universe is made of and understand logically why it DOES what it does?
(logic, material methaphysics,...)
An answer is always determined by the question. The proof must be tested within the system and domain holding both the question and the answer.
Marcel,
report post as inappropriate
Jason Mark Wolfe replied on Apr. 21, 2014 @ 18:51 GMT
What will really boil the physics community's noodle is that the laws of general relativity, the physics constants G, h and c appear to have been imprinted upon something that closely resembles "spirit". Energy is stored in a tiny rolled up space-time; but when the laws of general relativity are created, they can only begin from nothingness: which is what happened with the big bang. I would say that the odds of a Creator are very good.
report post as inappropriate
Marcel-Marie LeBel replied on Apr. 29, 2014 @ 02:10 GMT
Jason,
The universe may have started from nothingness. Of course, there cannot be nothingness and something at the same time. This would violate the non contradiction rule. There cannot be something and nothing at the same time. "Same Time" are the keywords here. The only thing that can exist without being at the same as nothingness is .... time itself. A universe abiding by the rule of non-contradiction and born from nothingness can only contain fleeting time and its variations. Early moments packed as much as possible into time variations leading to the highest orders of time curl. Then these variations replaced fleeting time itself that resumed expansion unrolling our space-time.
Time is continually created and does not follow conservation laws. On the other hand, the original time variations created in the first moments as particles and waves have been conserved. That's how I see it.
This logic gives no answer as to what/who caused the first spark of time....
Your call..
Marcel,
report post as inappropriate
Jason Mark Wolfe replied on Apr. 29, 2014 @ 05:05 GMT
Hi Marcel,
In order to explain things like the origin of the big bang, how the physics constants are sustained, and why the standard model is it's present configuration, I decided to borrow from the paranormal. There are countless reports of activity of ghosts, spirits, grey aliens, psychic phenomena, remote viewing, astral projection, near death experiences, angels, demons and the list goes on. All of these things, including God, require the existence of an invisible substance called "spirit". Wave-functions, quantum fields and Higgs fields are all as ghostly as the ghosts that haunt their victims. Since Michelson-Morley can be discredited by realizing that they were looking for a particulate medium, not a quantum field medium, then really physics can quite easily steal "spirit" from the spiritualists and call it an n-dimensional field of unlimited n. Lots of strange and eerie things can happen in invisible n-dimensional fields, including the creation of the laws of physics and physics constants. By some strange mechanisms, the physics constants, Maxwell's equations, Einstein Equations and other necessary physics laws are imprinted upon spirit. Whether as a planned event by a Creator or just the laws of the universe in action, a clump of spirit became so imprinted by the natural laws of nature that it exploded and and gave birth to our universe.
The multiverse that gave birth to our reality can be as mysterious and inexplicable as it wishes.
Jason Wolfe
report post as inappropriate
Jason Mark Wolfe replied on Apr. 30, 2014 @ 12:52 GMT
When ghosts are proven to exist, the intellectual madness of the scientific community will be revealed. How can you all fail to see that the building blocks of reality are particles and fields. If lifeforms can be made of particles, then why can't they be made of quantum fields. Quantum field theory suggests that lifeforms made of quantum fields should exist.
report post as inappropriate
hide replies
Jason Mark Wolfe wrote on Apr. 29, 2014 @ 23:03 GMT
Marcel,
If you think that an underlying spirit or aether is unfathomable, then take a look at the wave-function solution to the hydrogen atom.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hydrogen_Density_Plot
s.png
Truthfully, doesn't it look fuzzy, aetheric? Now imagine that the quantum vacuum also look the same way.
report post as inappropriate
James Dunn wrote on May. 14, 2014 @ 14:02 GMT
Referencing Quantum Entangled Singularities
QESdunn
Time is the numbers of evolving quantum causality step events relative to Space as systems of non-evolving systems of quantum causality step events; all moderated by a space/time singularity. As a crude model, similar to a crystal growing in a causal media where impurities moderate crystal growth.
Non-evolving steps of...
view entire post
Referencing Quantum Entangled Singularities
QESdunn
Time is the numbers of evolving quantum causality step events relative to Space as systems of non-evolving systems of quantum causality step events; all moderated by a space/time singularity. As a crude model, similar to a crystal growing in a causal media where impurities moderate crystal growth.
Non-evolving steps of quantum causality moderated by a causally connected relativistic singularity in relation to non-evolving steps of quantum causality forming Space/Time relationships used throughout most expressions of energy, power, force, momentum ... physics.
The problem with using the relative perspective (observable physics) is that one cannot see the underlying non-relativistic foundations. Locking perspective in observable physics hides the foundation of causal relationships.
The Big Bang is proposed to represent a cycling through a shift in alternate dimensional states; the shifting of physics constants (relativistic singularities) as quantum causality systems of conjoined non-evolving connected systems evolve toward the next system of relativistic physics constant shifts.
In a causal system Entropy is an indicator of changing from one system toward another system. From the creation of the "properties of causality" of our physics constants toward a shift in the "properties of causality" of those same physics constants. This includes one or more physics constants that may not be dominant in our systems of relativity (everything observable).
So relativity as systems of relative causality evolve with reference to non-evolving connected systems toward another Big Bang.
Big Bangs are just "Relativistic" (observable) perspectives within smooth and continuous systems of non-relativistic quantum causality as Relativistic perspectives (observable physics) cycles from one alternate dimensional space to the next.
Foundation of mathematics related to relativistic physics:
Axiom of Choice extended to include Relativity
http://vixra.org/pdf/1402.0041v1.pdfFatalism and Non-Deterministic Cosmology Concurrently Existing
http://jamesbdunn2.blogspot.com/2014/05/fatalism-non
-deterministic-physics.htmlProposal for creating the economic systems to build the tools for manipulating space/time
http://vixra.org/pdf/1205.0021v1.pdf
Based on the ability to create tools to manipulate space/time relationships (warping space, singularity power production, remote manipulation, teleportation, weapons to kill anyone anywhere in the universe, weapons to annihilate civilizations ...), who is going to control who has access to these tools?
Top/Down method to eliminate all corruption and self-destructive tendencies before tools to manipulate space/time are produced:
Elected doctors of science and philosophy developing & managing equilateral ethical use of NSA collected data
http://eliminate-all-corruption.pbworks.com
Bottom/Up method to eliminate all corruption and self-destructive tendencies before tools to manipulate space/time are produced:
Teaching Common Sense
http://www.ua-kits.com
Common Sense = Self-Esteem (social group skills) + Logic + Predicting Consequences
CORRUPTION = UNETHICAL/ILLEGAL ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES AND/OR OPPORTUNITIES
END TREASON IN THE UNITED STATES
TREASON = ANY REPRESENTATIVE OF THE UNITED STATES ACTING WITH INTENTION TO WEAKEN NATIONAL SECURITY FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROMOTING UNETHICAL/ILLEGAL ALLOCATION OF NATIONAL RESOURCES AND/OR OPPORTUNITIES
RACKETEERING = ANY COALITION OF TWO OR MORE PERSONS AND/OR CORPORATIONS ACTING WITH INTENTION TO PROMOTE UNETHICAL/ILLEGAL ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES AND/OR OPPORTUNITIES
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Anonymous wrote on Jun. 7, 2014 @ 21:02 GMT
Nobel Laureate David Gross in an interview
"What is in the space-time" talking about the need to build "general framework structure". In my essay
"The Absolute Generating Structure" I gave an extended version of the ontological conception "general framework structure", substantiation of structure and the nature of space. In my essay
«Return of Logos: Ontological Memory-Information-Time» I defined the nature of "informtion" and "time" as a
multivalent phenomena of the Ontological (structural, cosmic) memory substantiating the essential unity of the world on the "horizontal" and "vertical". To "grasp" the nature of time is necessary to return to dialectics and ontology "coincidence of opposites" -the absolute (unconditioned) states of matter and the generation of new structures.
report post as inappropriate
Akinbo Ojo replied on Jun. 8, 2014 @ 12:08 GMT
For English speakers, the David Gross interview is also
here
report post as inappropriate
Vladimir Rogozhin replied on Jun. 10, 2014 @ 10:12 GMT
Hello Akinbo! Thanks for the link! Conceptual crisis, understanding crisis is available. Deepening in the ontologic beginnings of the Universum is necessary. Key concept in both interviews - "structure". It is necessary on the basis of a method of ontologic construction to "grab" primordial structure of the Universum. Here it is necessary to go on the way of ontologic unification of a matter on all levels of the Universum as whole. It is necessary
to "grab" the nature of all forces of the Universum, the nature of fundamental physical constants. Therefore it is necessary to "dig" more deeply
in philosophical ontology, in dialectics of Nature. Today actual as never before becomes the philosophic legacy of A. Einstein:
"At the present time, physicist has to deal with philosophic problems to a much greater extent than physicists of the previous generations" and the philosophic legacy of J. Wheeler
"Philosophy is too important to be left to the philosophers".Philosophical ontologic revolution in the physics base is necessary. When physicists will construct "the general framework structure" Universum, then the nature of time, forces, fundamental constants, information will be clear. Here the first assistant -
"language of geometrical representations", instead of formulas.
report post as inappropriate
N Campling wrote on Jun. 17, 2014 @ 18:32 GMT
Can you tell me why DB Larson's Reciprocal Sytem theory of time (having 3 dimensions) is wrong?
report post as inappropriate
Vladimir Rogozhin replied on Jun. 19, 2014 @ 09:45 GMT
DB Larson's Reciprocal System theory - phenomenological theory. It does not have deep ontology and dialectic "coincidence of opposites" - absolute rest and absolute motion of matter. In order to "grab" (understand) the nature and essence of time must first be "grab" the structure of space. "Understanding - grasping structure" (( G.Gutner
Ontology mathematical discourse).
Ontological basic structure of the Universum - it is the triunity of absolute states of matter: absolute rest (linear state) + absolute motion (vortex state) + absolute becoming (wave state). Each absolute state of matter has its way ("vector" absolute state). Basic structure («general framework structure» or Absolute generating structure) substantiates the triune (absolute) structure of space and time ("arrow of time" - "vertical" of the Universum, its hierarchy) three linear measurements + three vortex measurements + three wave measurements + three time measurement. Triune structure of the Universum has its ontological (structural, cosmic) memory-measure being the Universe as a whole, "quality quantity " absolute forms of existence of matter (absolute state). "Information" and "time" are multivalent phenomena of the Ontological (structural, cosmic) memory substantiating the essential unity of the Universum on the "horizontal" and "vertical". Idea of generating structures - central. It is based on the idea of N.Bourbaki about the maternal structures.(N.Bourbaki "Architecture of Mathematics")
report post as inappropriate
Darius M wrote on Jun. 22, 2014 @ 18:36 GMT
Time is what Kant called the act of spontaneity which generates the representation 'I think'. This act performs synthesis. I.e. time is mind processing information. Space is the medium where information is processed.
https://www.academia.edu/7347240/Our_Cognitive_Fra
mework_as_Quantum_Computer_Leibnizs_Theory_of_Monads_under_K
ants_Epistemology_and_Hegelian_Dialectic
report post as inappropriate
Vladimir Rogozhin replied on Jun. 23, 2014 @ 17:33 GMT
Darius,
Kant's ideas require deeper ontologization otherwise immediately possible to "fall" in psychologism. Justification of knowledge requires extreme transcendence limit unification of matter on all floors being to "grab" the primordial structure of the universe, the nature and essence of time. It works well Kant's idea of conceptual and figure synthesis. Overcoming the "crisis of...
view entire post
Darius,
Kant's ideas require deeper ontologization otherwise immediately possible to "fall" in psychologism. Justification of knowledge requires extreme transcendence limit unification of matter on all floors being to "grab" the primordial structure of the universe, the nature and essence of time. It works well Kant's idea of conceptual and figure synthesis. Overcoming the "crisis of understanding" in Fundamental Science, «the crisis of interpretations and representations»"- this is a deep, limit conceptual - figurative synthesis.
Thank you very much! Very interesting research. But I got a slightly different way to arrive at a "general framework structure" (Absolute generating structure, the parent company General Structure mother) and understanding of "time" as a multivalent phenomenon of the Ontological (structural, aerospace) memory: Heraclitus (dialectic, the doctrine of the Logos) - Parmenides (identity of being and thinking) - Plato (idea and matter, "Platonic Solids") - Aristotle (the study of form, mind-prime mover) - Plotinus (dialectics three main ontological substance - One, mind and soul, an emanation) - Cusa (dialectical "coincidence of opposites) - Descartes («vortices»,«cogito ergo sum», geometrization) - Spinoza («more geometrico»)- Kant (Apriorism, conceptual - figurative synthesis) - Fichte (dialectical process of deconstructing and his "taking off" followed by a spirit of the act, the ideality of space and time) - Hegel (the dialectic of absolute ideas, triad, updated the concept of "measure" as a quality quantity) - Husserl (intentionality of consciousness, «LebensWelt», the original meaning of geometry, "origin of geometry", "philosophy as rigorous science")") - Bergson (matter and memory) - Heidegger (fundamental ontology, the doctrine of sense,"language-house being», "topology of being») - Losev (dialectics of «eidos» and «logos») - Bourbaki ("mother structure", generating structures of mathematics). I believe that the "Monad" Leibniz does not help "draw" and justify the primordial structure of the Universum, to construct a "general framework structure" of Universum – framework, carcass and base of knowledge.
I agree with Alexander Zenkin: «The truth should be drawn and should be presented to "an unlimited circle"of spectators.»(
Scientific Counter-Revolution in Mathematics.
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Jerrold Kodish wrote on Jun. 27, 2014 @ 00:44 GMT
I have a short Amazon book "The Mental Creation of Time." It's a physics-based development of Leibniz's relationist concept that all physical activity is more fundamental than time. I argue that moments are the observer's mental unification of events (infinitesimal motion elements). In the end I argue that time is an emergent dimension of mind. The summary is free for you to read.
report post as inappropriate
Akinbo Ojo replied on Jun. 27, 2014 @ 17:52 GMT
Hi Jerrold,
Read the summary and congratulations on your book. The idea that "Thus all events (infinitesimal motion elements) are regarded as not being in time but instead as a basis for our sense of time" sits well with me.
But note that observation itself is an event and therefore must comprise of 'motion elements', how does this fit with you?
'Motion elements' meaning what? Motion from where to where?
'infinitesimal', is there ultimately a smallest possible size?
And by the way, what is the procedure to get published by Amazon books?
Thanks and regards,
Akinbo
report post as inappropriate
Jerrold wrote on Jun. 27, 2014 @ 20:33 GMT
Akinbo: Observation is a complex physical and mental process rather than a simple event (as I define the latter in "The Mental Creation of Time").
Until the very speculative idea that space is quantized is confirmed, I will stick with the reasonable view that it is a continuum.
With "infinitesimal motion elements" I am referring to all things in relative motion.
Re publishing on Amazon, go to their kindle publishing site.
report post as inappropriate
Petio Hristov wrote on Jul. 6, 2014 @ 18:58 GMT
3.1. Time
A definition:
The time is initial and primordial. In generates all and can be looked upon as the mother of all that is to come. Everything has its own time. Time is a perceptible quantity and has a circular configuration with two separate, developing halves. The first half we see as real time and not only do we come from it but we also are a part of it. The other half is most recently considered by scientists as imaginary time even thought it is no more real than the real time. The two parts of time (real and imaginary) are different in their nature from the primordial time. The primordial time generates eight other times as each is a product of the previous. The time from which we spawn is of the sixth level of the All-harmony.
Hristov P., FATE OF THE WORLD 21.12.2012 the ancient knowledge of the cycles of time, 24, 29-31, Five Plus, 2012.
http://www.amazon.com/WORLD-21-12-2012-ancient-knowledg
e-cycles-ebook/dp/B008833DKA
report post as inappropriate
Anonymous wrote on Aug. 4, 2014 @ 22:46 GMT
The semantics of time flowing seems specious to me. The way we experience the dimension of time is by the metaphore of flow. We stand in a stream. There is water coming at us - the future - and water that passed us by - the past.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on Aug. 5, 2014 @ 00:50 GMT
I'snt it experienced more like standing blindfolded in the water seeing neither the future approaching or the past behind but just feeling the water around the ankles in the present? Then I question whether there is a future and a past or just the -Now of the water stimulating the sensory receptors on my skin. Then after the signal reaching my brain and being processed into sensation, experiencing that as my present within the -Now, in which the water is still stimulating my skin as yet un-felt.
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on Aug. 5, 2014 @ 04:38 GMT
The key to understanding time is in understanding objects. Objects are both the fossil record of past matter action as well as the matter action of the present moment. There is no way to understand objects without both dimensions of time...
report post as inappropriate
amrit wrote on Aug. 21, 2014 @ 15:16 GMT
Time has only a mathematical existence.
report post as inappropriate
Vincent Vesterby replied on Oct. 29, 2016 @ 23:16 GMT
Hello Amrit,
You wrote: “Time has only a mathematical existence.”
My work involves developing methodology for multidiscipline-spanning transdisciplinary understanding that enhances communication between the disciplines. To develop the methodology it is necessary to examine and compare the real-world subject matters of the various disciplines.
Part of the...
view entire post
Hello Amrit,
You wrote: “Time has only a mathematical existence.”
My work involves developing methodology for multidiscipline-spanning transdisciplinary understanding that enhances communication between the disciplines. To develop the methodology it is necessary to examine and compare the real-world subject matters of the various disciplines.
Part of the procedure for comparing the subject matters of the disciplines is to ask certain specific questions that are particularly useful for focusing the analysis
When analyzing the intrinsic nature of something that exists, I ask What is it?, Where is it?, and What is it made of? I ask these questions about the subject matter of every discipline.
The first question, What is it?, is usually the initiator for the analysis: What is time?
Your answer to that question is that time exists only with the math.
The next questions then are (1) What is math?, (2) Where is math? and (3) What is math made of?
(1) What is math? Math is an artificial man-made construct, a tool that is used to work with quantities, a tool that enables the process of interrelating quantities.
Everything that exists has quantitative aspects of that existence—how big it is; how much matter it is composed of; how long it exists; how many subcomponents it has; and so on. Naturally existing things, rocks, crocodiles, stars, while they have many quantitative aspects of their existence, they do not have mathematical aspects of their existence. Math does not play any roles in their origins, structures, or processes.
(2) Where is math? Existing as a man-made artifact, math occurs only where humans and human artifacts occur. Math occurs within the minds of humans. It occurs as symbols written in pencil, ink, or some other medium suitable for writing on paper, blackboards, or some other surface suitable for writing symbols. It occurs in computers and their algorithms. And it can occur in other situations that humans create, such as a process, the sequential manipulation of the beads on an abacus for example.
If you look to see where in the universe humans and their artifacts occur, it is observationally evident that the distribution of humans and their artifacts is extremely limited—restricted to the solar system. The solar system looks big from the personal human viewpoint, but it is only one of many such systems that we now know about scattered throughout an immense region of space.
Time occurs throughout that immense region. It is possible to watch a distant star, and observe that it not only exists, but that it continues to exist with time as the observation continues.
Time can be observed to occur beyond the limits of the region of space, the solar system, where math is used as a tool by humans. Math is too limited in its distribution to account for the much greater observable distribution of the occurrence of time.
Math is inadequate as a basis of time in the universe.
(3) What is math made of?
There are two fundamental modes-of-being, two foundational ways something can exist—immaterial and material.
Space and time are immaterial. Everything else that is known to exist has a material (substantial) basis to its existence.
When observing space and matter, it can be seen that matter occupies space. Space provides an existential-context, a place-to-be, for matter. Space exists as the extension of three-dimensional spatial-place.
Spatial-place appears to be immaterial. The role of space of providing a place in which matter can exist does not require that space be a medium of any sort. Spatial-place does not require a material basis for its existence.
To ascribe a material basis for space is anthropomorphic, and anthropomorphism is disallowed in science.
Everything else that is known to exist has, and requires, some form of material basis to its existence.
For example, processes are sequences of interrelations between material components.
Mathematical procedures are processes of interrelating mathematical symbols. To exist, those symbols require a material basis. Math only exists where its material basis exists—brains, ink, chalk, blackboards, computers, abacuses, and so on. All the known material bases of mathematical procedures exist within the solar system.
The known distribution of the material basis of math is too limited to provide a basis of time in the universe.
There is a paper at ResearchGate and at Academia.edu that reports the identification of the basis of time in the universe. This paper explains what time is, making it clear why time is not based in any way on math.
Vesterby, Vincent. 2014. The Identification of the Intrinsic Nature of Time.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299437469_The_
Identification_of_the_Intrinsic_Nature_of_Time
Vesterby, Vincent. 2014. The Identification of the Intrinsic Nature of Time.
https://www.academia.edu/21710898/The_Identification_of
_the_Intrinsic_Nature_of_Time
Regards,
Vincent
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
amrit wrote on Aug. 21, 2014 @ 15:27 GMT
Time travel are out of question.
One can travel in space only.
report post as inappropriate
Amrit Srecko Sorli wrote on Aug. 30, 2014 @ 12:44 GMT
time has only a mathematical existence, change run in a timeless quantum vacuum there is always NOW.
report post as inappropriate
Amrit Srecko Sorli replied on Aug. 30, 2014 @ 12:46 GMT
Amrit Srecko Sorli wrote on Sep. 2, 2014 @ 07:49 GMT
The Physics of NOW - where time has only a mathematical existence.
attachments:
1_The_Physics_of_NOW.pdf
report post as inappropriate
Akinbo Ojo wrote on Sep. 2, 2014 @ 10:02 GMT
Jim, Amrit et al., Peter J you may have something to say as well,
Concerning this enduring but interesting mental agitation about Time and the physics of 'NOW', it appears mathematics cannot save us. In my opinion what will save us is dialectic, discussing all the possibilities and reductio ad absurdum type arguments.
Jim says, "We are permanently in the `now`", "We have motion in our timeless Universe.."
And I ask,
if you are permanently in your NOW and tomorrow moves and comes to meet you where you are, how is this to be described? Has time flowed?How is this to be differentiated mathematically and philosophically from you leaving your Now and meeting tomorrow?
These appear to be the bones of contention. I may be wrong.
Akinbo
*Jim, will take a look at your essay soon and comment if I can make sense of it.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on Sep. 2, 2014 @ 10:48 GMT
Tomorrow doesn't move Akinbo it doesn't exist. When it comes into being it is -Now. Time has not flowed but the configuration or arrangement of the Object universe has changed. From what it is to what it is, ahead of the observed present formed from received sensory data. There is no time dimension in that reality but we can imagine a time line along which events are spread.
That does not contradict the concept of space-time which is useful for describing what is observed or will be observed and depends on the transmission of sensory data from source objects to observer. The sensory data pool is a part of the Object universe. The Object universe being that which exists rather than that which is observed, the Image (or visible )universe.
report post as inappropriate
Akinbo Ojo replied on Sep. 2, 2014 @ 12:23 GMT
Georgina, thanks for sharing your thoughts. Call it an illusion or whatever name, it is a very persistent one as Einstein says. From your response, firstly you have a name for what you claim doesn't exist. Second, I am sure you have told someone today, (the Now), "goodnight and see you tomorrow". Why do you say this of what you know does not exist? Third, when you say, "Time has not flowed but the configuration or arrangement of the Object universe has changed", what does it mean for arrangement to change? If arrangement does not change is there no sense in wondering 'how long' an arrangement has remained unchanged? If the Earth stops spinning does that make Time come to a stop just because nights (or days) become permanently so?
I agree "There is no time dimension in that reality but we can imagine a time line along which events are spread". It would appear that without 'events' there would be no timeline. And it also appears that without 'motion' there can be no 'events'. And 'motion' implies 'change of place', bringing space (place) into the picture.
Finally, when you say (rephrasing), "When tomorrow comes into being it is - Now", what does 'comes' mean? In ordinary language motion is implied, can something that doesn't exist move?
While understanding your position, I still view this as a difficult topic.
Regards,
Akinbo
report post as inappropriate
Peter Jackson replied on Sep. 2, 2014 @ 13:51 GMT
Akinbo,
I have no 'mental agitation' about time, until I have to understand how others can ascribe qualities to it only applicable to entities.
To me it's clear than such qualities may only be applied only to 'signals', some of which are emitted by metronomic mechanisms we've decided to call "clocks". All 'signals' may be changed after emission, but how we can imagine that changes the mechanisms emission rate is quite beyond me. Fluctuations are either focussed or propagate spherically.
It seems more misleading still to imagine some 'entity' called time and ascribing terms like 'flow', 'dilation', 'motion', 'direction', 'curvature' or 'arrow'. Only once we separate emitted 'signal' fluctuations from the metaphysical 'concept' do I find our rational understanding of nature, motion and 'change' can significantly advance.
I believe Amrit takes the same simple logical position.
I wonder if other creatures (whose planet may rotate and orbit faster or slower than ours, and have divided those durations into equal periods of 'Glurg') may also cling on to the ancient and misleading concepts and beliefs which so many of us seem to. I somehow doubt even if any other creatures ON this planet have any 'mental agitation' about it!
Best wishes
Peter
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on Sep. 3, 2014 @ 00:01 GMT
Thank you for your questions Akinbo.
1. Yes the imagined future has names. It is not a prerequisite that something actually exist for it to have a name. Unicorns are imaginary things with a name. 2. Morrow is an old English word for morning so I imagine tomorrow means the morning that we are "going to". I will see you tomorrow does not mean I will see you tomorrow but next today, morning. I actually think Nexttoday is a better name.
3.
Rethinking a Key Assumption About the Nature of Time by J. C. N. Smith We can superimpose a temporal view point on to a material change. Lets say an egg has gone from raw to cooked with solid white and runny yolk.The pan of water has gone from cold to just boiling. The two material changes can be correlated. that is how I cook boiled eggs. It might also be done this way. The egg will be cooked as before but instead of comparing the state of the water I will compare the position of the hands on a clock. Now I can say the egg will be cooked when 3 minutes have elapsed on the clock. ( I think that's about right, I never use that method.) It is comparison of change that is being used in both methods not actually the flow of time though you and I could call it that and know what we mean.
If the Earth stopped spinning there wouldn't be days and nights, so if its night , to morrow or next morning would not arrive, messing up calender time but there would still be other measurable changes occurring. So change in configuration of the Object universe, "passage of time", has not stopped.
"Comes into being" is just a turn of phrase. I mean when the configuration of nexttoday exists it isn't tomorrow it is today. It doesn't exist as tomorrow except in our minds.
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on Sep. 3, 2014 @ 04:39 GMT
All of these different words about time seem to be saying pretty much the same thing. The Smith essay argues that time flows since the universe evolves and that is somehow a different explanation from a time that is what clocks measure or a blocktime.
It always seems to me that defining a moment of time, i.e., what now means, is very important. You must avoid the knife edge of an infinitely divisible moment resulting in an infinity of moments. As soon as you have a finite moment, it doesn't matter what word you use for it.
An operational definition of time is what clocks measure, just as in Smith's essay, but the complete definition of time is embedded in the fossil record of each and every object of the universe. Time is not only the evolution of the universe, a flow, but time is in the evolution of each object as the flow of time moments.
Thus, although time is continuous, matter is not. Matter objects are discrete lumps of matter and the size of those lumps defines a moment of matter and a moment of time. What we call clocks are objects with very regular matter moments that accumulate into an object like a second. A second only has meaning as an amount of matter and each object in the universe is made up of the same concept of time.
report post as inappropriate
Akinbo Ojo replied on Sep. 3, 2014 @ 11:17 GMT
Georgina, I actually gave your response further thought and I kind of agree about, "configuration or arrangement of the Object universe has changed". Perhaps, if we know why or what causes configuration or arrangement to change we can apprehend time wherever it may be hiding. That is if it exists.
Akinbo
report post as inappropriate
Matthew Marsden replied on Sep. 5, 2014 @ 11:05 GMT
Dear Akinbo, (Steve, Georgina, Jim, Amrit, et al Hi :)
I don’t always join discussions like this but yours seem to be sensible and open minded. I came across your discussion because I have entered 3 videos in the FQXI “Show Me the Physics” on this site, and they are all about “time”, or more accurately "the possibility that we may be completely wrong to assume something...
view entire post
Dear Akinbo, (Steve, Georgina, Jim, Amrit, et al Hi :)
I don’t always join discussions like this but yours seem to be sensible and open minded. I came across your discussion because I have entered 3 videos in the
FQXI “Show Me the Physics” on this site, and they are all about “time”, or more accurately
"the possibility that we may be completely wrong to assume something like “time” exists in anyway at all". (e.g.
"Does Time exist? How 'Time travel Paradoxes' can't happen without "the past". "On that matter, Akinbo, you suggest a
dialectic (“discussing all the possibilities and reductio ad absurdum type arguments.”), and I think you are very much on the right track, and have written the book 'A Brief History of Timelessness', in that format – i.e. a (imo) very thorough investigation of the truth of opinions re the theory that a thing called time may exist.
However, (with respect), to varying degrees you each may have ’automatically’ incorporated a critical error in to the discussion, from the very outset, making it (imo) impossible to resolve unless the (possible) error is seen, and very carefully considered.
Fundamentally, the error may be that you are sure you are discussing to some degree at least,
"a thing called time", and, trying to work out what
"it" is...
The problem being, if "it", is absolutely nothing, (other than a useful idea), then even where the conversation gets close to seeing how the theory of “time” may be completely unfounded, people try to explain and describe this... in terms of a thing called “time”. (i.e. there seems to be an ingrained assumption, which just won’t quit).
Can I suggest therefore that you start any dialectic with a mind free from every rumor or theory you know, and starting from the most basic observations of what you
in actual fact, actually, directly observe.
I would suggest that what we seem to actually and only observe is...
1- that matter exists, and,
2- matter is able to move, interact and change.What I would also suggest is movement, change and interactions only happen where there is energy/momentum present, and they happen in essentially simple physical ways e.g. as a bowling ball hits some pins ( as a large scale example).
But... what , in my opinion, as things are existing and moving etc, we do
not observe in any way at all that there is also a thing called “time” that exists, and is needed for, or part of, motion etc.
i.e. despite hearsay and opinion,
I personally do not see anything “come out of a future”, or “disappear into a past”, or extra to energy "need an intangible thing called 'time' to be happening". – And therefore, if you want the conversation to be scientific, and logical, I would suggest it is invalid for anyone to “just” use terms like “
time, or “
the past” or “
the future”, without providing a clear explanation of exactly what they think they are talking about – and – detailing a scientific experiment , as per the scientific method , that they think proves the existence of the “thing” they think needs explaining or incorporating into our understanding of the world.
(this complete lack of science , by the scientific community, re the apparent subject of “time” , is what I call “the elephant in the room, wearing the emperor’s new robe”, - i.e. its amazing that so many experts are happy to talk about something no one can see or describe, and ignore the fact no experiments exist to prove any aspect of it : )
( this (with respect Georgina : ) may avoid confusions like
"Tomorrow doesn't move Akinbo it doesn't exist. When it comes into being it is -Now."as - "the term
Tomorrow is useful but(unless prove to exist), scientifically, completely invalid - the sun is emitting light, and the earth IS spinning, and we may be constructing thoughts about how the universe IS, and calling them thoughts about a place or thing called 'Tomorrow'.
But for the sun to shine, and the earth to spin, and for us to have any thoughts , or label them in any way (imo) proves only that matter exists and can interact.
To expect there to be a valid explanation for a term like "tomorrow", the questioner would have to define what this thing "
is", and provide reasonable
proof that it exists, and justifies explanation, or incorporation into any understanding of the world )
The key thing to consider here, imo, is that part of the matter that exists, moves and changes in the universe, is of course, the physical matter that make up ourselves and our minds.
If we consider very fully, and carefully how every single “memory” we have, is in fact something that just exists, and thus proves only that matter exists, and can be in stable (or unstable) formations – then we may see how – (no matter how strongly we may feel otherwise), the patterns we “call” , memories of “the past”...
1- do show that matter exists and can form stable formations in our minds...but
2- do not show in any way at all that there is a thing called “time” – OR – that there is a thing or placed called “the temporal past” – or “the temporal future”.
In short (Akinbo), if you wish to have a valid dialectic, it might be worth you considering what I call (in abh Timelessness) the Key Question, specifically.
“If the universe is just filled with matter moving, changing, and interacting, including the matter in our own minds, would this be enough to mislead us into thinking ‘a past’, and thus ‘time’ exist”?
Or to put it another (falsifiable) way, “Can you produce an experiment to show that matter does NOT just exist, move and interact etc (but also needs a thing called time) ?”
All the best,
not quite sure how links work here, I`ll post some separately also to the FQXI videos, in case anyone’s interested.
Matthew Marsden
(auth "A Brief History of Timelessness")
link:http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/224
5]"Does Time exist? How 'Time travel Paradoxes' can't happen without "the past". "
(please post video comments on the FQXI site
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on Sep. 6, 2014 @ 04:49 GMT
Matt,
you wrote quoting me"( this (with respect Georgina : ) may avoid confusions like
"Tomorrow doesn't move Akinbo it doesn't exist. When it comes into being it is -Now." That is not at all a confusion but a response to Akinbo's particular question worded in a particular way which you have read and taken out of contexrt. I replied further to Akinbo, "Comes into being" is just a turn of phrase. I mean when the configuration of nexttoday exists it isn't tomorrow it is today. It doesn't exist as tomorrow except in our minds. It is it because it refers to the material configuration of the Object universe, material patterns and relationships not disembodied time.
report post as inappropriate
hide replies
Amrit Srecko Sorli wrote on Sep. 3, 2014 @ 18:32 GMT
Time is duration of motion in timeless space.
report post as inappropriate
Jim George Snowdon replied on Sep. 9, 2014 @ 02:28 GMT
Hi Amrit,
I agree with your definition.
I said in my post on this thread, dated February 25th, 2,014, "We use the constant period of duration of our planet`s rotational motion, as the measurement baseline for our time keeping system. Duration elapsing is what our clocks measure. Duration elapsing is what we consciously experience."
report post as inappropriate
Matthew Marsden replied on Sep. 9, 2014 @ 16:37 GMT
ps: sorry for all the "actually"s
mm
report post as inappropriate
Matthew Marsden wrote on Sep. 5, 2014 @ 11:07 GMT
(couldn't see where original response went, so added it to main stream, links to follow , m.m.)
Dear Akinbo, (Steve, Georgina, Jim, Amrit, et al Hi :)I don’t always join discussions like this but yours seem to be sensible and open minded. I came across your discussion because I have entered 3 videos in the
FQXI “Show Me the Physics” on this site, and they...
view entire post
(couldn't see where original response went, so added it to main stream, links to follow , m.m.)
Dear Akinbo, (Steve, Georgina, Jim, Amrit, et al Hi :)I don’t always join discussions like this but yours seem to be sensible and open minded. I came across your discussion because I have entered 3 videos in the
FQXI “Show Me the Physics” on this site, and they are all about “time”, or more accurately
"the possibility that we may be completely wrong to assume something like “time” exists in anyway at all". (e.g.
"Does Time exist? How 'Time travel Paradoxes' can't happen without "the past". "On that matter, Akinbo, you suggest a
dialectic (“discussing all the possibilities and reductio ad absurdum type arguments.”), and I think you are very much on the right track, and have written the book 'A Brief History of Timelessness', in that format – i.e. a (imo) very thorough investigation of the truth of opinions re the theory that a thing called time may exist.
However, (with respect), to varying degrees you each may have ’automatically’ incorporated a critical error in to the discussion, from the very outset, making it (imo) impossible to resolve unless the (possible) error is seen, and very carefully considered.
Fundamentally, the error may be that you are sure you are discussing to some degree at least,
"a thing called time", and, trying to work out what
"it" is...
The problem being, if "it", is absolutely nothing, (other than a useful idea), then even where the conversation gets close to seeing how the theory of “time” may be completely unfounded, people try to explain and describe this... in terms of a thing called “time”. (i.e. there seems to be an ingrained assumption, which just won’t quit).
Can I suggest therefore that you start any dialectic with a mind free from every rumor or theory you know, and starting from the most basic observations of what you
in actual fact, actually, directly observe.
I would suggest that what we seem to actually and only observe is...
1- that matter exists, and,
2- matter is able to move, interact and change.What I would also suggest is movement, change and interactions only happen where there is energy/momentum present, and they happen in essentially simple physical ways e.g. as a bowling ball hits some pins ( as a large scale example).
But... what , in my opinion, as things are existing and moving etc, we do
not observe in any way at all that there is also a thing called “time” that exists, and is needed for, or part of, motion etc.
i.e. despite hearsay and opinion,
I personally do not see anything “come out of a future”, or “disappear into a past”, or extra to energy "need an intangible thing called 'time' to be happening". – And therefore, if you want the conversation to be scientific, and logical, I would suggest it is invalid for anyone to “just” use terms like “
time, or “
the past” or “
the future”, without providing a clear explanation of exactly what they think they are talking about – and – detailing a scientific experiment , as per the scientific method , that they think proves the existence of the “thing” they think needs explaining or incorporating into our understanding of the world.
(this complete lack of science , by the scientific community, re the apparent subject of “time” , is what I call “the elephant in the room, wearing the emperor’s new robe”, - i.e. its amazing that so many experts are happy to talk about something no one can see or describe, and ignore the fact no experiments exist to prove any aspect of it : )
( this (with respect Georgina : ) may avoid confusions like
"Tomorrow doesn't move Akinbo it doesn't exist. When it comes into being it is -Now."as - "the term
Tomorrow is useful but(unless prove to exist), scientifically, completely invalid - the sun is emitting light, and the earth IS spinning, and we may be constructing thoughts about how the universe IS, and calling them thoughts about a place or thing called 'Tomorrow'.
But for the sun to shine, and the earth to spin, and for us to have any thoughts , or label them in any way (imo) proves only that matter exists and can interact.
To expect there to be a valid explanation for a term like "tomorrow", the questioner would have to define what this thing "
is", and provide reasonable
proof that it exists, and justifies explanation, or incorporation into any understanding of the world )
The key thing to consider here, imo, is that part of the matter that exists, moves and changes in the universe, is of course, the physical matter that make up ourselves and our minds.
If we consider very fully, and carefully how every single “memory” we have, is in fact something that just exists, and thus proves only that matter exists, and can be in stable (or unstable) formations – then we may see how – (no matter how strongly we may feel otherwise), the patterns we “call” , memories of “the past”...
1- do show that matter exists and can form stable formations in our minds...but
2- do not show in any way at all that there is a thing called “time” – OR – that there is a thing or placed called “the temporal past” – or “the temporal future”.
In short (Akinbo), if you wish to have a valid dialectic, it might be worth you considering what I call (in abh Timelessness) the Key Question, specifically.
“If the universe is just filled with matter moving, changing, and interacting, including the matter in our own minds, would this be enough to mislead us into thinking ‘a past’, and thus ‘time’ exist”?
Or to put it another (falsifiable) way, “Can you produce an experiment to show that matter does NOT just exist, move and interact etc (but also needs a thing called time) ?”
All the best,
not quite sure how links work here, I`ll post some separately also to the FQXI videos, in case anyone’s interested.
Matthew Marsden
(auth "A Brief History of Timelessness")
link:http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/224
5]"Does Time exist? How 'Time travel Paradoxes' can't happen without "the past". "
(please post video comments on the FQXI site
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Matthew Marsden replied on Sep. 5, 2014 @ 11:17 GMT
Dear Akinbo, Steve, Georgina, Jim, Amrit, et al
The FQXI link system here seems rather odd – you can link to the discussion on a video, but it doesn’t show the video at the top of the page !
You can see all the videos in the
FQXi FORUM: FQXi Video Contest
here.
(mine, relating to my work on the possibility of timelessness as per the discussion, are...
Does Time exist? How 'Time travel Paradoxes' can't happen without "the past". Time Travel,Timeless Answers to Prof Brian Cox's Science of Dr WHO Time travel, Worm hole, billiard ball' paradox, Timelessly. (re Paul Davies- New scientist article) Note: FQXI requests of course that any comments are made on the FQXI pages relating to the videos).
M.Marsden
report post as inappropriate
Matthew Marsden replied on Sep. 5, 2014 @ 11:22 GMT
Matthew Marsden replied on Sep. 5, 2014 @ 11:31 GMT
(I followed the instructions, but no joy, anyone interested please look under contests, or cut paste http://fqxi.org/community/forum/category/31423)
mm
FQXi web site
report post as inappropriate
Anonymous replied on Sep. 5, 2014 @ 12:34 GMT
Matt,
I agree time doesn't 'exist' in the way 'exist' applies to matter or effects (as my above comments).
Unfortunately that means I had no time to watch your videos. However I found it also allowed way round assumptions and am still listening to your 'light clock' video as I write this.
The technique also seems to have allowed me to draw some diagrams a few years ago agreeing with your synopsis, and indeed derive a full description of exactly what may be going on at the quantum level to produce the effects found.
I think the Fig attached below is largely self explanatory, but as it was drawn some time ago so will need much updating and expansion. I've just popped back and put some consistent comments in my 2011 essay "2020 vision", which suggests that after some 10 circuits of the sun mankind may be able to understand it!
fqXi 2020 Vision.The subsequent essays expand. But of course you seem to already be aware of much of it!
Thanks. Enjoyed what I saw. Score coming. Thanks for a great time.
Peter
report post as inappropriate
Matthew Marsden replied on Sep. 5, 2014 @ 14:16 GMT
Hi Peter,
Very nice to hear from you, i hope you can check out each of the videos re scoring ( they work as a set ), I`ll have a look at your essay, seems interesting,
My first thoughts are that whether Nature is Continuous or Discrete shouldn't conflict with what i am suggesting.
it seems to me we have a tremendous amount of confirmation bias instilled in the area of...
view entire post
Hi Peter,
Very nice to hear from you, i hope you can check out each of the videos re scoring ( they work as a set ), I`ll have a look at your essay, seems interesting,
My first thoughts are that whether Nature is Continuous or Discrete shouldn't conflict with what i am suggesting.
it seems to me we have a tremendous amount of confirmation bias instilled in the area of science that assumes a thing called time must exist, i.e. many people may jump to the conclusion that pretty much everything confirms their conjecture ans assumption that an invisible intangible thing called time
must exist.
(this is why I see the theory of time as analogous to "the emperors new robe".
Re your paper, (imo) nature may be Continuous or Discrete, but this may not prove there is a past, a future and a thing called time that may 'flow' in a Continuous or Discrete way.
my first thought on your text is re,
"A glass box with mirror floor and ceiling is in uniformmotion with respect to an external observer O. A light pulse reflects, vertically with respect to the box,which represents an inertial frame. But as it moves, O must observe the pulse at more than c on a diagonaltrack, so time must dilate to slow the pulse down," re
"time must dilate"i would say only that
"the oscillator oscillates in a dilated way, or more 'slowly' than expected".this is extremely different to suggesting there is a thing called time, which is dilated in its passage from a past to a future,
re this i think it is extremely important to consider how Einstein only seems to assume time exists in "on the electrodynamics of moving bodies" - and in no way proves this in relativity - but - many many people assume time is proven in relativity.
you can find more inf on this at my www.timelessness.co.uk site ( cant get links to work here :(
Specifically
https://sites.google.com/site/abriefhistoryoftimelessness/sp
ecial-relativity
and
https://sites.google.com/site/abriefhistoryoftimelessness/co
mments-on-time-books/-einstein-s-relativity
yours
Matthew Marsden
(auth: a brief history of timelessness)
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Peter Jackson replied on Sep. 5, 2014 @ 17:05 GMT
Matt,
The comment; "so time must dilate" was Einstein's view (along with the box "contracting" not the coherent solution which followed.
It appears you didn't understand or rationalise the solution. No length contraction or dilation of 'time' is needed. The 'signals' emitted by n mechanisms we call 'clocks' can indeed be Doppler shifted (but only 'on arrival'), so giving the same results.
It seems I forgot to add the attachment. I've stuck it below here. Let me know if you understand it. It's all abut Raman scattering (1930 Nobel), which is absorption by electrons and re-emission each time at the new c using the electron 'centre-of-mass' rest frame as the datum. Far too simple to be understood it seems!
It seems community members can only score as 'public'! bit I'll try to find some time to look through the other video's and score them. The trouble is I don't appear to have any. Any ideas where I can find some?
Best wishes
Peter
attachments:
Light_Box2.jpg
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Sep. 6, 2014 @ 08:57 GMT
Matt,
My argument against time is that as individual beings, we experience change as a sequence of events and so think of it as this point of the present moving from past events to future ones. Physics then further reduces this impression to measures from one event to another, as compared to the progression of other, seemingly more stable units of duration, but there doesn't seem to be an...
view entire post
Matt,
My argument against time is that as individual beings, we experience change as a sequence of events and so think of it as this point of the present moving from past events to future ones. Physics then further reduces this impression to measures from one event to another, as compared to the progression of other, seemingly more stable units of duration, but there doesn't seem to be an actual, universal measure and all specific measures seem to vary according to physical circumstance.
Yet since it is this dynamic of change, these events are being formed and dissolved, so that it is the events which are actually going from future to past. To wit, the earth does not travel some dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, rather tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth turns.
The obvious problem is that since the linear, rational component of our brains evolved as a navigation tool from this sense of linear sequence, this observation doesn't compute for very many people. (Plants don't have that linear rational thought process, but are largely thermodynamic.)
Now what this means is that time is an effect of motion, similar to temperature. In fact, time is to temperature, what frequency is to amplitude. It's just that we experience time as an individual sequence, while we experience temperature as a cumulative effect, but this goes back the realization that there is no universal measure of time, but only the cumulative effect of lots of different rates of change. A faster clock rate doesn't move into the future more rapidly, but ages/burns quicker and so fades into the past faster.
Also the non-linear, emotional side of the brain is effectively a thermostat and so functions as a scalar, as in pressure and temperature, hot cold, stress, etc. Effects like intuition come from the wave effect of these actions creating connections, interactions, etc that don't have an obvious linear sequence.
This linearity is why we associate time with motion and thus space.
Regards,
John M
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Sep. 6, 2014 @ 08:59 GMT
PS, Sorry I haven't seen the videos. I live out in the country and have a lousy satellite connection and slightly out of date computer, so video is more trouble than its worth, even when it does program.
report post as inappropriate
Akinbo Ojo replied on Sep. 7, 2014 @ 09:52 GMT
Hi Matthew Marsden,
Thanks for sharing your ideas about Time. Your post was a bit lengthy and contained links to sites that I wanted to visit to make my response coherent. Yes, I agree that Time is a useful notion but I disagree that it is just that and no more. A careful scrutiny of the meaning of words used in your own description may be enough to show up some inadequacies, viz.
"Time does not really exist", "that matter exists", "matter is able to move, interact and change".
What does 'exist' mean in physics? Is it only things that are made of atoms that exist?
What does 'move' mean? You Matthew is matter and you are also a place. Does Matthew move from Matthew? Or is Matthew not always in a place called Matthew Marsden? And if you advocate that in Matthew Marsden, there are two places, one made of matter and the other not made of matter, when the one made of matter moves, it must move to another place not made of matter leaving the previous place not made of matter behind. When you scrutinize the absurdities further, you will find that you actually do not move. What happens is that your destination and yourself approximate each other because what lies between you and destination disappears giving you the illusion that you Matthew are leaving that place which is your inalienable and inseparable property.
Further, if Newton is correct that matter remains in a position of rest, what makes matter move? Don't mention force from an impacting matter because the follow up question is what moved the impacting matter as well… ad infinitum
It is my view that we cannot fully apprehend what Time is, whether and how it exists, until we equally apprehend what 'move' is, which by implication knowing what space or a place is? And I have my pet theories about this.
Regards,
Akinbo
report post as inappropriate
Matthew Marsden replied on Sep. 7, 2014 @ 14:33 GMT
Hi John Brodix,
RE Sorry I haven't seen the videos. I live out in the country and have a lousy satellite connectionsorry to hear that, but fyi if you are interested the www.timelessness.co.uk site is pretty low bandwidth - ie mainly text and simple diagrams and pictures. ( also the ebook 'a brief history of timelessness' is on kindle and not a big file.
thanks for your comments , ill get back to you in more detail.
yours matt marsden
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Sep. 7, 2014 @ 15:48 GMT
Matt,
"If matter could just exist ,move, and change... would this be enough to explain all that we observe and attribute to 'time'?"
We seem to be in agreement on the physical premise, though I would emphasize time as an effect, very much like temperature. That process of change does create a sequential effect and our rational thought processes are based on it, so there is a strong intellectual and emotional bias toward viewing time as fundamental.
As you say, it undermines the "whole fabric of spacetime" premise, while explaining how clock rates can vary. It also explains why time is asymmetric, due to basic inertia. Much of reality is that energy propelling change and it doesn't stop and go the other way.
But the human mind is deeply wrapped up in narrative and this point of view seems to mostly cause irritation.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on Sep. 7, 2014 @ 23:50 GMT
John, Matt,
It doesn't undermine space-time. It happens as well as. Change in arrangement of the Object universe (what is rather than what is observed) gives passage of time and the asymmetry of time. That is uni-temporal time, the same everywhere in the universe as only one iteration of the universe, the youngest, exists. Spread within the Object universe is EM potential sensory data. Receipt and processing of that data gives the experienced present and the order in which it is received gives the world line of the observer. The observer sees space-time because data that has taken different lengths of time to reach the observer arrive together and are amalgamated into a manifestation. Observers deal with what is seen, the space-time output reality, relying on signal transmission so relativity applies.In the space-time,Image (or visible) universe the position of an object in space relative to an observer is inseparable from its apparent position in time, so time is "Woven In " rather than a process of change.
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Sep. 8, 2014 @ 01:27 GMT
Georgina,
I very much agree with your understanding of this pattern, but the premise of "the fabric of spacetime" is an entirely different creature.
It assumes what is commonly referred to as "blocktime," that there physically exists this dimension of all events and that through discovering the right mathematical formula, we could time travel through 'wormholes' to other times.
Obviously in the view you, I and Matt are considering, this would be impossible, because those past events have necessarily physically dispersed and we are seeing the evidence, not only of their existence, but their dissolution, since this residue is now in our present reality.
Epicycles were a similarly stable pattern which could be effectively modeled using geometric patterns and relations, but the following assumption that there must be giant cosmic gearwheels to which these points of light were attached, was a flawed assumption. Yet it is conceptually similar to what is being assumed with this concept of spacetime as a physically real property and not just an emergent pattern of how we measure various distance and duration effects.
It is a situation where the measurements are being treated as more real and foundational to the actual properties being measured. The mathematical map is being treated as more real than the physical territory. Then all sorts of physical effects are being attributed to this assumed property, including an expanding universe. Though, as I keep pointing out to Tom, it overlooks its own foundational premise, in arguing space expands, while the measure of time remains constant, since the assumption is that light will take longer to cross this expanded distance and thus is not constant, with a big C, to it.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Sep. 8, 2014 @ 01:32 GMT
Edit;
" while the measure of time remains constant to a stable dimension, since the assumption is that light will take longer to cross this expanded distance"
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on Sep. 8, 2014 @ 04:23 GMT
John, Matt,
the description I gave is very much at odds with the view of eternalism Quote "Eternalism is a philosophical approach to the ontological nature of time, which takes the view that all points in time are equally "real", as opposed to the presentist idea that only the present is real, Wikipedia. Though it isn't the present that is real but that arrangement preceding the observed present, with no temporal delay component at all. That is not to say observation of former arrangements and events are not real but it is a different kind (or facet)of reality. I think the eternalist block time idea is a mistake, taking the ability to observe past events and objects as evidence of the continued existence of such things. Where it is actually only the EM and other sensory data persisting in the environment. So the past can be seen but not visited, allowing both non simultaneity of events for different observers and no grandfather paradox.
That is why I will not be giving up my view that there are two distinct kinds of reality despite Tom's supposition that I might. Having decided that we are not dealing with the material reality existing -Now, when participating in astronomy we must be dealing with the second kind the output of data processing.What is present to the observer are images of things and events that have already passed. In that space-time image reality things can appear that do not happen to the material source objects in space. For example the image of a galaxy may be stretched out of shape as the sensory data has been affected by the gravity of objects, as the sensory data has passed near, but the material galaxy itself has not been stretched in that way.
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Sep. 8, 2014 @ 08:57 GMT
Georgina,
I agree with your position that both these understandings of the reality, the perception and its cause, have to be considered. For example, It's not just perceptions of distant galaxies, versus their physical reality, but virtually everything else. We will always see the sun as moving across the sky, from east to west, yet we now know it is the earth turning west to east. As individual beings, we will always perceive change as a sequence of events and so rationally consider it as the present 'moving' from past to future, when it is the creation and dissolution of these events, which moves them from the future column to the past column. As I've been pointing out, it is a form of dichotomy, as energy goes from past form to future form, the form goes past to future.
There are many ways we have to consider reality on different levels and interconnections and not expect it to be just one lump of perception, because this reality isn't an object lump, but connections between different fields, objects, models, etc. There is no one reality, from the perceptual point of view, because perception is inherently subjective. Like taking a picture, we constantly have to focus, to isolate the signal from the noise, while different signals could be extracted from the same or related light/noise, etc, trying to combine them only reduces it back to noise. Knowledge is emergent, not universal.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
Matthew Marsden replied on Sep. 8, 2014 @ 10:28 GMT
Hi Georgina,
Re "you wrote quoting me"( this (with respect Georgina : ) may avoid confusions like - "Tomorrow doesn't move Akinbo it doesn't exist. When it comes into being it is -Now." That is not at all a confusion but a response to Akinbo's particular question worded in a particular way which you have read and taken out of contexrt. My apologies if i took that out of context. My point is that, imo, there seems to be a massive amount of confusion and differing opinion, about a "thing" people suspect exists, called "time".
And, one of the main problems i have found (and you may spot in many of the sensible and well written suggestions in this forum for example), is that people seem to start from the outset buy assuming that there "is" a thing called time - and carry the conversation on from there.
The problem being, if there is no such thing as time, and if instead matter just exists and interacts, then we may wast a lot of energy trying to explain (invalid concepts like) "yesterday", or "tomorrow" (or nexttoday as you suggest).
If we stop, and consider that perhaps the world is just rotating, the sun is just shining, we are just existing and interacting with the matter around us - and patterns are forming, and dissolving, at various rates in our minds, then we may see that the concept of "tomorrow" is completely unfounded, and does not need to be explained or explained away, or accounted for in any way.
also, we may see that the patterns in our minds that may lead us to think the term "yesterday" is valid , do no such thing. those patterns (we might call memories) - are just also "here".
Thus we may be wrong to assume there is a future, or past, or anything like them, and wrong to assume there is a thing called "time" that "passes", or needs to be explained or included in any understanding of the world.
mm
report post as inappropriate
Matthew Marsden replied on Sep. 8, 2014 @ 10:33 GMT
Hi Peter,
thanks for your reply,
re
The comment; "so time must dilate" was Einstein's view (along with the box "contracting" not the coherent solution which followed. It appears you didn't understand or rationalise the solution. Yes, sorry, as i say that was just a quote i picked up on quickly scanning your pdf just as i downloaded it, so i hadn't rationalised your solution, thanks for the light clock link, i can read it with your essay.
mm
report post as inappropriate
Anonymous replied on Sep. 8, 2014 @ 11:43 GMT
Hi John, Georgina, et al
(this page may help with what I am trying to suggest here https://sites.google.com/site/abriefhistoryoftimelessness/th
e-arrow-of-time/star-light-and-raindrops )
Dear John, RE> your post .... what is commonly referred to as "blocktime," that there physically exists this dimension of all events and that through discovering the right mathematical...
view entire post
Hi John, Georgina, et al
(this page may help with what I am trying to suggest here https://sites.google.com/site/abriefhistoryoftimelessness/th
e-arrow-of-time/star-light-and-raindrops )
Dear John,
RE> your post .... what is commonly referred to as "blocktime," that there physically exists this dimension of all events and that through discovering the right mathematical formula, we could time travel through 'wormholes' to other times.Obviously in the view you, I and Matt are considering, this would be impossible, because those past events have necessarily physically dispersed and we are seeing the evidence, not only of their existence, but their dissolution, since this residue is now in our present reality.
(My view is slightly, but significantly different to how you suggest, e.g.) Where ever I give talks on the possibility of timelessness, ( the latest just completed at the Edinburgh festival , http://youtu.be/RIPLcEIQZ68 ) I consistently try to get people to
1 - be wary of certain mental traps, and
2 - try to get them to really consider a very precise, particular possibility, because in this way I think ALL problems relating to the idea of a thing called time can be seen to be invalid.
Specifically, (re traps) I'm suggesting
we avoid (unscientifically) including any terms in a conversation that we have not scientifically proven to be valid, and we don’t expect unvalidated terms to need to be explained or incorporated into our description of the world. (e.g. terms like “past” or “future”)And, re the possibility, I'm suggesting
we consider...“what if the universe is just filled with matter existing and interacting... would this be enough to mislead us into thinking terms and ideas like ‘the past’ and ‘the future’, and thus ‘time’, are valid?”So, where you say...
Obviously in the view you, I and Matt are considering, this would be impossible, because those past events have necessarily physically dispersed and we are seeing the evidence, not only of their existence, but their dissolution, since this residue is now in our present reality.
To be very clear, while we are all suggesting similar things, my details differ importantly here, specifically...
I am suggesting there are
no “past events” – instead the universe
is (may be, imo), JUST filled with a load of matter moving and interacting – misleading us into thinking the term ‘past’ is valid and needs to be incorporated or explained.
so
Re “those past events have necessarily physically dispersed and we are seeing the evidence, not only of their existence, but their dissolution, since this residue is now in our present reality.”That’s almost exactly what I'm suggesting, but we can still simplify it further, say we are looking at the fragments of a shattered vase.
In this case it
seems very sensible to say “[the vase] has necessarily physically dispersed and we are seeing the evidence, not only of their existence, but their dissolution, since this residue is now in our present reality”
But consider further, we are just seeing what we are seeing, we certainly have the
idea that “the fragments were different in the past” – and I fully understand that , and the sense it makes – but here I am suggesting we really, really, really, consider the following question very carefully indeed...
“is there a past, or is there NOT a past?”And (imo) one has to be very clear on the answer – while most people are happy to ignore the question or leave it vague (i.e. well there kind of has to be a past).
(its important to consider, logically, and scientifically, that even the IDEA "there may, or must be a past", is something that exists here, and only proves matter exists here, and can be in a formation, in a persons mind),
Re the vase it can help to consider that no part of the collection of atoms that make up “the vase” ever does not exist, or is not somewhere, or is not doing something... whether there are fused into a shape a person likes or not , or scattered in the winds , and we should also be aware that our thoughts “that the vase ‘was’ whole” are in fact also here ‘now’, and prove only that matter can exist and interact.
So, to be very precise,
“this residue” , (e.g. shards of china) , “IS” the thing we are talking about.. it is not evidence that something else existed in a thing or place called “the past”, it is evidence that matter exists and can be integrated or disintegrated, or be being integrated, or be being disintegrated. period
Similarly Georgina, where you suggest...
"when participating in astronomy we must be dealing with the second kind the output of data processing. What is present to the observer are images of things and events that have already passed."I suggest a different, more rigorous analysis. e.g. if we are looking through a telescope at Jupiter’s moon io, we might
"say" we
are seeing it as it “
was” in “the past” some 40 minutes ago.
But logically that is not true... what we
are seeing is, what we
are seeing... i.e. the light that is physically here, coming out of the telescope and hitting our own retinas, here on earth.
And, imo, we should be very careful
not to confuse the image we are seeing, i.e. the light from an object,
with the object.
In other words, IO is doing what ever it is doing, and the light in transit from IO to earth is doing whatever it is doing, and the light we “are” seeing is in whatever formation it is in – but (imo) nowhere
is there a “
past”.
So, i suggest, we are not seeing IO
“as it ‘was’, in ‘the past’ ”, we are seeing
a bunch of photons as they are. And nothing disperses into a thing or a place called “the past”. E.g. burn a cigarette, just because it is breaking up into little pieces that disperse and cannot be seen, this doesn’t prove “it” is now “in the past”, or that there is “a past”, etc.
Similarly, we might say we are seeing a star that "no longer exists", but in fact we are sampling a couple of 5mm circles of a massive expanding shell of light - and refocusing them to form the "image" of a star... seeing the light as it is, and - very far from the star not existing - science tells us the precise opposite, i.e. that all of the matter and energy that makes up "the star" all, always exists, and is all somewhere, doing something... and none of it is "in" a place or thing called "the past".
As I say this link may be of interest...
https://sites.google.com/site/abriefhistoryoftimelessness/th
e-arrow-of-time/star-light-and-raindrops
And to summarise, what I am suggesting is that we may live in a sea of matter moving and changing such that we mistakenly thing the terms “past” and “future” and “time” may be valid”, but it may all just literally be here “now” changing timelessly...
- Not eternally, as in endless “time”
- Not an infinite “block” of “space-time”
- Not “Presentist” ( with a “past” that has “gone”, or a “future” that has not “yet” arrived)
- Not an infinitely thin slice of a thing called time... but...
Just everything, all here now, exactly as directly and only observed, matter existing moving changing and interacting, misleading us into thinking (much like the unseen emperors new robe), there is an invisible thing called time “passing”.
mm
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Sep. 8, 2014 @ 18:08 GMT
Matt,
while I agree with you on the physics, I think you are missing the the psychology and the physiology.
Our rational thought processes are very much a consequence of that sequential effect of individual experience. That's why it is so difficult to examine the issue of time objectively. Consider the construct of language; these sequential notations, letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, etc, all ordered in a sequential fashion.
If you try to present an intent which is clearly counter to the functioning of those you wish to convince, you only create resistance and that is not beneficial to your original purpose.
It would be like trying to persuade people not to consider the sun as moving across the sky and that they could only think of it as the earth turning. The larger need here is to teach people to be flexible in their thinking and not just fit everything into inflexible boxes and models. It is only when you have managed to expand their ability to examine reality from multiple points of view, that they can move out of whatever frame they are comfortable with and see that even it has its biases.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on Sep. 8, 2014 @ 22:55 GMT
Matt,
you have very clearly set out your point of view, which does correspond to the viewpoint of myself and others including J.C.N.Smith who have been discussing them on this site for a number of years. I refer you to J.C.N.Smith's essay rethinking a key assumption about time Just removing time, as it is, as you point out, superfluous, and talking only of changes of configuration or...
view entire post
Matt,
you have very clearly set out your point of view, which does correspond to the viewpoint of myself and others including J.C.N.Smith who have been discussing them on this site for a number of years. I refer you to J.C.N.Smith's essay
rethinking a key assumption about time Just removing time, as it is, as you point out, superfluous, and talking only of changes of configuration or arrangement is not sufficient to explain what is going on. The reality you describe contains the potential to form a different experienced reality into which time is woven.
You quoted me "when participating in astronomy we must be dealing with the second kind the output of data processing. What is present to the observer are images of things and events that have already passed." and then you wrote, Quote: "I suggest a different, more rigorous analysis. e.g. if we are looking through a telescope at Jupiter's moon io, we might 'say' we are seeing it as it 'as' in 'the past' some 40 minutes ago. But logically that is not true... what we are seeing is, what we are seeing... i.e. the light that is physically here, coming out of the telescope and hitting our own retinas, here on earth."End quote
First, I didn't say we are seeing events that are
in the past but events that have passed, meaning have happened. I disagree with you on what I am seeing; What I am seeing, looking into a telescope, is not the light hitting my retina, that is what is happening but is not what I am seeing. I am seeing the output of the processing of that sensory data (the photons) into images by the visual cortex together with other brain areas allowing cognition , recognition and additional information such as the associated names. That image is my present experience though as you say it may be an image of an arrangement that existed 40 minutes ago.
Past present and future all belong to space-time. The present is the images being seen. The past for one particular observer is the images that he has already seen but now replaced by his new present. Due to the non instantaneous transmission of light the event that is the past for one observer may be another's present or the as yet to arrive data that will form yet an other observer's present, so it is what I call his pre-written future. Not in any way suggesting destiny or fate but only that the potential data to form those images already exists in the environment prior to receipt. That data from the event that has "past" is yet to be observed by some observers and so is their not yet present experience, not
in the future but existing within the Object universe as a part of its arrangement, as the pre-written future, potential presents.
As the speed of light is extremely fast we are not generally troubled by this in everyday life. The slower speed of sound makes the phenomenon more easily understood. Beneath a thunder storm flash and bang may seem top occur simultaneously but a distant observer hears them separated, seeing the flash before the bang though to the first observer they occurred together. There isn't one present for both observers. Though they are both constituents of the same arrangement of the universe.
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on Sep. 8, 2014 @ 23:51 GMT
John ,
thanks for your reply. I agree with you about lumping all kinds of perception together being an oversimplification. It has been important for me to stress that what is occurring is not purely psychological but a phenomenon that also occurs for inanimate devices and sensitive materials. The Prime Reality Interface, the human sensory system, is not just a passive receiver though but active co-creator of experience. Filling in gaps, interpreting what is there, and generating an output. The gaps can be incorrectly filled, the interpretation can be incorrect and the output differs in a number of ways from the external reality represented.
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Sep. 9, 2014 @ 01:32 GMT
Georgina,
It goes to idea I've been considering, that form and information are entirely a quantization of energy. Whether it is a thought, or a photon, what we think of as an entity, seems more of a connection. That the process of absorption gives what is absorbed as much its form as that which is absorbed.
Consider light striking a material surface: What really has the greater structure, the light, or the material absorbing it? So logically the absorbing material is not a neutral partner in this interface. Much as Robert McEachern points out, how much stored information in the mind is required to process even the most basic data, yet often the assumption is that the received input is carrying all the information. So just as you say, much of what we think we receive is really our interpretation of it, how much on that basic physical levels of photons, is the essential quantization more a function of its receipt, than its transmission? Now obviously the receiver does determine much of what is detected, such as movement will affect frequency, what spectrums are absorbed, vs. radiated, but is there any level at which this is not true, that there is some objective form, such as photons, or are even they a product of relationships? It seems the primary evidence photons are a unit is their standard quantization, but lots of things, drops of water at surface level for instance, are fairly standard.
While there are a lot of things in physics I know I am not going to wrap my head around, because my interests and approach to physics are more organic and social, than mathematical, that the field not only accepts such concepts as blocktime, but succumbs to fairly basic herd behavior in doing so, makes me somewhat skeptical about a lot of other assumptions.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
hide replies
Eckard Blumschein wrote on Sep. 5, 2014 @ 17:23 GMT
Science needs relevant and feasible clarifications rather airy-fairy opinions:
Is time an objective and ubiquitous measure? Obviously yes, if we ignore SR:
Correction for delay and Doppler shift provided, the time seen by A equals to the time seen by B and vice versa. This corresponds to the assumed equality of A and B as well as to any experience so far.
While there is no known natural point of reference in space, and any (usual) event-related time scale does also need an arbitrarily chosen point zero, current elapsed time and time to come have a natural zero, the point now. See my last but one essay
While future durations cannot be actually measured in advance, not just any clock is designed to measure duration of something that happened in the past.
Time is a measure that permanently grows and doesn't loop.
Even if there was a Big Bang, further speculations are unfounded and useless.
Objections? Additions?
Eckard
report post as inappropriate
Eckard Blumschein replied on Sep. 5, 2014 @ 17:34 GMT
I forgot mentioning that Heaviside managed to seemingly provide future data by analytic continuation in order to use complex Fourier transformation with nonsensical integration from minus to plus infinity.
Use of real-valued Cosine transformation is sufficient if one prefers to analyze only the already available past data.
This avoids redundancy and imperfections in signal processing, in particular of the spectrogram, and it has been successfully used in coding, e.g. MPEG.
Eckard
report post as inappropriate
Eckard Blumschein replied on Sep. 6, 2014 @ 06:23 GMT
Maybe, quantum physical tenets are effected? Let me first explain something correct but not very obvious: Redundancy in the sense of too much of data, does not contradict to incompleteness, i.e. not enough data.
I criticize that the use of time as a line that is infinitely extended to both sides instead of the two half-lines (rays) of past time and time to come implies using a (redundant) complex-valued rather than real-valued description.
That's why I early suspected that Schroedinger's heuristic trick (cf. his 4th communication in Ann Phys. 1924?) might be to blame for being a redundant i.e. incomplete description. Meanwhile, I got aware that Einstein correctly asked what does determine the lifetime of an atom if its description is complete, and he had the idea of a guiding (Fuehrungs-) wave even before de Broglie. Einstein's rejection of any spooky action at distance is certainly also correct, even if I question his SR.
Pleas check these arguments carefully. They may have unwelcome to many consequences.
Eckard
report post as inappropriate
Eckard Blumschein replied on Sep. 6, 2014 @ 14:22 GMT
I enjoyed Al Schneider's video "Is the Big Bang a Hoax" because of the possibility to easily understand the argumentation even without sound. I would appreciate the possibility to discuss with him anything of relevance concerning time.
Eckard
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on Sep. 7, 2014 @ 01:17 GMT
Time is an objective and ubiquitous measure, and time is consistent with SR as well. Time, just like matter, has two dimensions, not just one. The time of SR is action time, the time of the atom. Our proper time is the time of gravity. The time that we experience is the norm of these two dimensions.
Alternatively, time can be an amplitude and phase, completely complementary with matter's amplitude and phase. This permits a very nice action relationship with Schrödinger equation, which reduces the four dimensions of matter and time to the three that we experience as Cartesian space.
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Sep. 7, 2014 @ 16:06 GMT
Steve,
While Einstein's theories effectively made gravity the direction of time, Hawking stated the expansion of space amounted to a direction of time as well. I would argue they are complimentary.
Think in terms of a factory, where the product goes from start to finish, while the production line points the other direction, consuming raw material and expelling finished product.
Now relate that to biological organisms, where the individual goes from birth to death, while the species is constantly moving onto the next generation, while the old dies off.
So defined entities, like the product and individuals, start in the future and eventually fade into the past, as the dynamic process constantly moves into the future.
This then ties into the argument I've been making over on the Why Quantum forum posting, as to the dichotomy of energy and information, in that energy is constantly creating and dissolving form. So that while energy moves from prior forms to subsequent ones, thus past to future, the forms come into being, then dissolve, thus going future to past.
Which then goes to the observations about gravity and light/energy, as being two sides of a larger cycle. So the energy, as Hawking said, is constantly expanding out, leading onto the new. Meanwhile gravity is first coalescing form, then eventually crushing and dissolving it, radiating away the energy.
Of course, Einstein had it all ending in the black hole, but I think that amounts to a vortex and what energy hasn't been previously radiated away, such as by starlight, is ejected out the poles.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
Eckard Blumschein replied on Sep. 9, 2014 @ 05:41 GMT
John M,
Could you please comment on the video "Is the Big Bang a Hoax"?
Steve,
You are objecting to my clarification that time is an objective and ubiquitous measure on condition we ignore SR.
Einstein's Poincaré synchronization denies a ubiquitous now.
In "Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Koerper" he explained how he defined "simultaneity" and "time" on p.894, and on 897 he denied the possibility to attribute an absolute meaning to the notion of simultaneity. Einstein's time is not an ubiquitous but an observer-related and hence subjective, not an objective measure.
Perhaps in order to benefit from widespread desire to somehow agree with Einstein, you introduced two dimensions of time: proper time and action time.
SR did already distinguish between proper time and coordinate time. Is your action time identical with coordinate time? Are you the first one who claims that these two notions of time can be imagined as a single complex quantity?
Do you envision any practical relevance?
I wonder if your suggested opinion can explain Einstein's worry about the now.
My explanation is quite simple: Any model of reality is incomplete. The future is therefore open and qualitatively different from the past although this essential difference is of course not to be seen in theories that do not distinguish between past and future.
Eckard
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Sep. 9, 2014 @ 10:45 GMT
Eckard,
I'll have to check it later, though I've been arguing against BBT for years. In fact, Zeeya put up a
post on my suggestion about the topic.
Hopefully more people start to look at the logical basis for it a little more closely.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
Matthew Marsden replied on Sep. 9, 2014 @ 13:08 GMT
Dear Eckard.
I hope you dont mind an interjection, but I think you may find a very significant error here, re your post,
*Einstein's Poincaré synchronization denies a ubiquitous now.
In "Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Koerper" he explained how he defined "simultaneity" and "time"*
Because I think I fact
Electrodynamics does not provide a...
view entire post
Dear Eckard.
I hope you dont mind an interjection, but I think you may find a very significant error here, re your post,
*Einstein's Poincaré synchronization denies a ubiquitous now.
In "Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Koerper" he explained how he defined "simultaneity" and "time"*
Because I think I fact
Electrodynamics does not provide a valid definition of time or similarity, and provides no proof of time – but only assumes times existence. Specifically...
In the translated version of Einstein’s paper
(On The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies), ( https://sites.google.com/site/abriefhistoryoftimelessness/sp
ecial-relativity/the-electrodynamics-of-moving-bodies )
In section 1 “KINEMATICAL PART, § 1.
Definition of Simultaneity”, it says...
*If we wish to describe the motion of a material point, we give the values of its co-ordinates as functions of the time. Now we must bear carefully in mind that a mathematical description of this kind has no physical meaning unless we are quite clear as to what we understand by “time.”*
* 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 think if you look at this very logically and scientifically, it starts by stating *
If we wish to describe the motion of a material point, we give the values of its co-ordinates as functions of the time.”*, but in fact the example given just, and only compares the *”motion of a material point”*... to *the motion of another material point*.
i.e. the claim is made that we compare
motion to a thing called
time, but in fact all that is shown is that the location and motion of a large motor, i.e. a train, can be compared to the location and motion of a *”small hand”* attached to a small motor.
(
just “calling” a small motor a “watch”, is not scientific proof that a thing called time exists and passes).
Also, in saying , “The pointing of the small hand of my watch to 7 and the arrival of the train are
simultaneous events.”, the paper uses the word “simultaneous”, and thus, the paper implies (but does not prove in any way at all) that the concept of “different” times is valid.
In fact, the observable truth is that the matter that makes up the train and the “Small hand”, always seem to exist, and are always somewhere doing something, whether they are near or far from each other, or are being compared or not. i.e. no proof is given that “different times” or non simultaneity is a valid concept.
If I am wrong about the above please do let me know, but if I am right, consider the consequences.
You might assume the above must be wrong because SR proves “time dilation” and therefore time must exist, But, a proper examination of Electrodynamics ( SR ) (imo) shows
it does not prove the existence of time, but only assumes the existence of time.
Thus, what is shown mathematically, and in thought experiments such as the moving light “clock”, is imo, not that a thing called time exists, and is dilated with motion, but only that a photon can be set to oscillate between 2 mirrors, and the oscillation is dilated if the box is moving.
i.e, imo, Relativity does not prove the existence of time, or that it can be dilated, or that the concept of non-simultaneity is valid. And thus Minkowski is wrong to conclude that SR shows "only a kind of union" of space and time exist.
Just thought I mention the possibility,(I have a video re what I'm suggesting on the FQXI contest if its of any interest), If I am wrong, and if there is a part of Electrodynamics etc, that actually does not actually just assume "time" exist, but actually shows a valid reason to say "time" exists and passes, i'd appreciate a pointer to which section.
Yours
Matthew Marsden
"Does Time exist? How 'Time travel Paradoxes' can't happen without "the past". "
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2245
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Eckard Blumschein replied on Sep. 9, 2014 @ 17:03 GMT
Mathew,
Maybe, I didn't understand what "very significant error" you are referring to. I maintain that SR denies an ubiquitous objective now.
Einstein wrote on p. 894 [We] "have evidently obtained a definition of “simultaneous,” or “synchronous,” and of “time".
On p. 897 he concluded:
"that two events which, viewed from a system of co-ordinates, are simultaneous, can no longer be looked upon as simultaneous events when envisaged from a system which is in motion relatively to that system."
In German he twice wrote "betrachtet":
"dass zwei Ereignisse, welche von einem Koordinatensystem aus betrachtet, gleichzeitig sind, von einem relativ zu diesem System bewegten System aus betrachtet, nicht mehr als gleichzeitige Ereignisse aufzufassen sind."
The interpreter translated "betrachtet" in the first case with viewed and in the second case with envisaged. "Look upon" is also not quite the same as auffassen.
Actually, simultaneity cannot at all be directly observed. Einstein claimed: "we cannot attach any absolute signification to the concept of simultaneity, and this is due to his Poincaré synchronization. In other words, this very basis of SR is not justified at all.
Eckard
report post as inappropriate
hide replies
Matthew Marsden wrote on Sep. 10, 2014 @ 09:46 GMT
Just some comments on the actual lead article to this forum.
Professor Davies says,
"time of course exists. We measure it with clocks. Clocks don’t measure the flow of time, they measure intervals of time. Of course there are intervals of time between different events, that’s what clocks measure".But this seems to be jumping to conclusions, if we consider...
view entire post
Just some comments on the actual lead article to this forum.
Professor Davies says,
"time of course exists. We measure it with clocks. Clocks don’t measure the flow of time, they measure intervals of time. Of course there are intervals of time between different events, that’s what clocks measure".But this seems to be jumping to conclusions, if we consider
“time of course exists. We measure it with clocks.”, then that’s great because we can have a close look at a “clock” and really work out what it “measures”.
As far as I can tell, any “clock” is typically a “motor”, driven by a store of energy in a clear and specific place ( e.g. a spring or electrical cell). And, with the power supply in place the hands on the motor will rotate, depleting the energy source as they do so.
Without the power source the motor consistently wont be running.. so the machine clearly measures something to do with the spring, or cell etc
So a “clock” is a motor that “measures”, and releases
energy through its mechanism in a clear 3d path. Such a motor also displays examples of smooth regular
motion as its hands rotate.
Taking “
dimension” to be a “
A measurable extent of a particular kind”, we can see the measurable, or comparable motion of the tip of a rotating hand, and usefully compare that motion to some other motion (e.g. the motion of a runner on a track).
But while a close examination of a “clock” seems to show, the existence and flow of the measurable and store-able energy in it’s spring or battery etc, such a motor does not seem to also show, at all, is the existence of a “temporal record of all events existing in some way in a ‘
past’ “.
Likewise such a motor does not seem to show the existence of a “
future”, and does not seem to show that extra to the flow of energy through its mechanism, in clearly defined physical paths, there is also a thing called “time” that exists and is “passing”. Also such a motor does not seem to actually show “intervals” of “time”, or to measure them
As far as I can tell, all a clock seems to actually show is that a set of hands can be made to rotate on a numbered dial without significant acceleration.
Thus, given this is a scientific forum, we have to consider it may be very widespread “confirmation bias” that leads us to assume that the
dimension ( measurable fact or quantity) of a rotating hand (i.e nothing more than
motion) in some way
also measures "intervals" of an unseen “thing” passing in its own invisible
dimension.
( i.e. whether time exists or not, observing the simple motion of a rotating hand , and just "calling" that example of motion "time" is not a scientific proof, just as it is illogical for some one to observe a dog, "call" it a dragon, and start thinking they have proof "dragons" exist, and wondering whether dragons are real or emergent) .
Where the professor says
“Of course there are intervals of time between different events, that’s what clocks measure.” This may be worth looking at closer. “Of course there are intervals of time between different events” implies it is in some way obvious, or a priori, that there are “intervals” between “events”... and thus time exists... and may be dilated.. and a 4th dimension... and part of space time... etc ( so a lot is at stake on this small point).
But consider the apparent “interval of time” between receiving a very hot coffee, and it being cool enough to drink safely. You may get the coffee, and notice a
clocks big hand pointing straight up. The coffee cools, and the clock hands rotate. As the “big” hand rotates, you find that as it is 30 degrees from the top, the coffee is cool enough to drink.
But, here consider very, very carefully what is actually observed, and what is not observed. It is observed that coffee in a coffee pot can
be being heated and getting hotter. And that cups of coffees can
be very hot. And that cups of coffee in a cooler room can
be cooling down loosing their heat to their surroundings.
It is also observed that motors can
be running if they have a power source, and that motorised hands can rotate on numbered dials... and that people can
be observing and comparing both things (coffee cooling, hands rotating) , or not.
But whether motorised hands are rotating or not, and if coffee is heating, or cooling or not, what does not actually seem to be observed is that there is also a thing called “time” passing between a “future” and a “past”, or that an “interval” of this time thing passes as coffee is cooling... or as anything is happening.
What I think is observed (in this experiment and everywhere else), is that everywhere, everything
is “constantly” doing something... be it gaining or loosing heat from its surroundings, having energy flow through its mechanism, integrating, disintegrating or being stationary, or moving etc, etc, etc. But in all cases, everywhere , it seems matter
is existing, and energy is flowing through it, and there is no indication that extra to quantities of energy things also take “intervals” of a thing called “time”.
(an important point here, what I am saying is falsifiable, so if anyone reading can scientifically prove to a reasonable degree,(as opposed to just "claim", or duplicate famous quotes), that there is a past, or a future, or that extra to energy a thing called "time" must be present for things to be moving and changing... or if anyone can prove matter/energy does not just exist and move in all directions,as constantly observed, then my suggestion is moot). So, with respect, I think it may be extremely important for anyone wanting to scientifically understand this aspect of the universe, to first consider that despite common assumptions...
, we do
not seem to actually directly or indirectly observe
“ intervals of a thing called time passing from an invisible future to an invisible past in a 4th dimension” ( or how ever each person tries to describe this concept)
But we
do seem to observe
1- Matter existing, and
2- Matter moving changing and interacting in all directions.(this leaves the mathematics of Special Relativity valid and intact... but more about the fact that moving oscillators run slow, than being a proof that there is a thing called “time”, merged with space, that can be traveled through or dilated etc).
And to consider that while all that is said about a thing called “time” may seem to be true, none of it seems verifiable, or falsifiable... i.e. “time” seems to be something that looks valid if we make the evidence fit the idea... and yet we seem to have no scientific experiments, as per the scientific method, to prove the existence of time, or the past or the future. This is why I think the theory of time may be “the elephant in the room, wearing the emperor’s new robe”.
Please note, I respect Professor Davies, I’m only posting this here because he expresses some common assumptions re “time existing” (that I think can be seriously questioned), and because I entered a video in the FQXI competition, expanding on the above, and which happens to reanalyse an article by the professor on “the wormhole billiard ball paradox”.
Just my thoughts
Matthew Marsden
(auth “A Brief History of Timelessness”)
"Time travel, Worm hole, billiard ball' paradox, Timelessly. (re Paul Davies- New scientist article) "http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2244
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Eckard Blumschein wrote on Sep. 11, 2014 @ 07:00 GMT
Let me defend Paul Davies. I guess your will not get much support. If I recall correctly some years ago I also used the expression "zeitlose Physik" but in a rather mocking attitude, in a critical meaning. In English I preferred "tense-less".
Kant, Poincaré, and Minkowski, the fathers of spacetime adopted the very old abstract concept of time scale along which the now is moving allegedly without any relevance for physics. They considered time as an a priori pre-existing dimension like space. Please find my explanation of the confusion in Fig. 1 of my 2012 essay "Questioning Pre-Mathematical Intuitions".
Did you enjoy seeing a movie running backward? This may illustrate how physics differs from reality. Physics always just provides models of reality.
Eckard Blumschein
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Sep. 11, 2014 @ 10:35 GMT
Eckard, Matt,
I think there is a lot of the dynamics of psychology involved. As I've been arguing, structure is necessarily static, while energy is inherently dynamic and since physics prides itself in being intellectually structured, it has a built in preference for very ordered forms and structured arguments. The result being a form of academic obsession with increasingly arcane points, such as teasing out how the math could prove non-locality and whether it means it is physically real, when physical intuition is obviously opposed, yet leave increasing numbers of conceptual issues, especially surrounding the issue of time, which was the topic of the very first contest, unanswered, because this static conclusion has been reached and presumably settled, to the members in standing of the community.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
Eckard Blumschein replied on Sep. 11, 2014 @ 14:37 GMT
John M,
"Obsession with increasingly arcane points" surrounding the issue of time? Yes, when I checked the winning essays of the first contest, I was disappointed. Most of them dealt with efforts to reconcile time with what I indeed consider rather arcane: quantum gravity. Carlo Rovelli even dealt with Loop Quantum Gravity. Considering spacetime a gospel is common to the whole establishment. George Ellis tried what I consider impossible: unification of what is obvious with theory. While at least Sean Carroll preferred a "Heraclitean Universe", Klaus Kiefer spoke of "fundamental timelessness, and Julian Barbour meant that "duration and the behavior of clocks emerge from a timeless law that governs change".
While I don't see any reason to doubt that there are timeless laws, they all missed a perhaps decisive point: reality is different from even the most sophisticated models in that according to Popper, the border between past and future is open to a limitless multitude of memories from past processes.
That's why I don't expect any relevance of the winning essays in science and technology. They missed the chance to reveal possibly decisive basic mistakes.
Incidentally, did you meanwhile check the video "Is the Big Bang a Hoax"? Even if the presentation may be a bit simplifying, I regard it worth looking at, not just for kids. Can you recommend other videos, too? To me it looks as if a discussion is not welcome.
Eckard
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Sep. 12, 2014 @ 00:46 GMT
Eckard,
I will get to it, though it might be a little bit. I think I'm going to get myself a new computer for xmas. Right now various programs are out of date and some of the recent videos won't download and tell me to download the latest version, but that never seems to fully work on my satellite connection. It is one of my ways not to get too drawn into the online world.
Most of my finds, raising issues with current cosmology, I've posted here in various discussions. I suppose you saw where Zeeya put up a
blog post, where I subsequently gathered them and added ones since.
For now I think it still has a few years before either the cosmological community comes to accept there is a real issue, or, more likely, has it thrust on them by overwhelming evidence, or a larger movement in the broader physics community, so I find myself more drawn to current events and how these various disparate historical narratives and their resulting political frames are bumping into one another and raising the social temperatures around the world, in a form of political global warming. The credit bubble sustaining the economic status quo looks far more unstable than the cosmological speculative bubble.
Regards and Best Wishes,
John M
report post as inappropriate
Eckard Blumschein replied on Sep. 13, 2014 @ 03:39 GMT
John M,
Best wishes for improving your computer abilities! According to Magicpedia, Alvin Duane Schneider was born in 1943 and has a BS in physics. This seems to confirm that Al Schneider offered in his BB video his own reasoning rather than already scrutinized careful work. However, I am not aware of better presented alternatives to the BB. Perhaps, you can point us to such heresy.
Pondering about your distinction between static and dynamic, I see the latter corresponding to the Heraclitean view in contrast to Einstein's Parmenidean view. An a priori given timescale is static; this structure was imagined to extend eternally from minus infinity to plus infinity until the hypothesis of a BB reintroduced the belief in genesis. According to Augustinus, God's BB created the time. Seeing the future, Bee Hossenfelder's video mystifies the logical way out: The universe must be deprived of its original all-inclusive meaning and vaguely envisioned as onion-like embedded into something infinite. For my taste, such hopes for ultimate unitarity provide a questionable basis for physics.
Instead, I maintain my suggestion to conceptually distinguish between what can be measured and what was abstracted from this measure and then extrapolated.
You are calling the only measurable, reality-bound actually elapsed time dynamic but Einstein's abstract and therefore arbitrarily modifiable event-related ordinary time static. Don't you?
Common to both scales is the notion of a positive temporal distance alias delay. Just the chosen points of reference and the directions of increase are different. Natural reference is zero elapsed time. Ordinary time needs an arbitrarily chosen point zero. So called flow if time refers to the latter.
Regards,
Eckard
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Sep. 13, 2014 @ 10:42 GMT
Eckard,
I have to say I'm following the dynamics of the status quo, as much as those offering alternate viewpoints, because so much of it is group psychology and how they deal with these increasingly fantastical solutions to the many problems, since questioning the foundations isn't tolerated. It is somewhat similar to the current political and economic dynamic, where they have themselves so buried in the consequences of short term thinking and patching over past mistakes that the detachment from reality is becoming obvious to all, but it cannot be admitted.
I posted a short version of what I see as most obviously wrong with cosmology on the Why Quantum thread, Sep. 13, 2014 @ 02:32, on a subthread that starts Sep. 12, 2014 @ 09:01, but you have probably heard it before.
I think the whole issue of measurement does have to be put in context of what is being measured, or it takes over the whole debate and the underlaying reality is lost. It becomes all map and the territory becomes incidental. For one thing, time is dynamic, so any point zero has to be conditional.
As I keep saying, there really are two, opposing directions. Energy goes from prior forms to succeeding ones, past to future, while these forms go from potential, to actual, to residual, thus future to past. So would you consider the zero point in terms of the energy, which is physically present, but doesn't have a point of reference that is not in some way transitional form, or is the zero point a particular configuration which will rapidly fade into the past?
Measurement creates its own limitations.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Sep. 13, 2014 @ 10:53 GMT
Ps,
Of course there have to be measurements, maps, models, etc, but they are descriptive, not some platonic basis for what is being described. It is human ego to assume these mental constructs are more real than what is being perceived.
report post as inappropriate
Eckard Blumschein replied on Sep. 14, 2014 @ 06:20 GMT
John M,
If we say reality is always right, we are referring to a dispute of physics or other models with reality.
I prefer the metaphor of family trees as to illustrate different properties of past and future. While everybody has exactly one mother and one father, predictions are always more or less uncertain. You mentioned the future that becomes past. I would like to object: Is there really just one future as there is only exactly one past?
I maintain, causality means: Only existing effects (traces of previous processes) may influence new effects. Even an existing expectation does already belong to reality, i.e. to the past. The physically relevant time is the actually elapsed one, not the anticipated one, cf. Fig. 1 in
this essay. Regards,
Eckard
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Sep. 14, 2014 @ 09:01 GMT
Eckard,
The future as not determined also goes to space being foundational, in that all these currently existing effects are scattered about space and since they can only communicate at the speed they can travel, the speed of light limits communication of input into any event. So we can perceive potential input that travels much less than the speed of light by light transmitted from it, but there can be no knowledge of input traveling at the speed of light.
We could only postulate the existence of some all-knowing frame that can communicate instantly between all points in space to truly know the future.
Now obviously much physical input has great material inertia, whether it is mass, or a pre-existing source of light and the laws governing the outcomes are, by definition, laws, so there is much that is predictable.
It is only our consciousness that is most in the present, while our perception and intellect has to function from the input into these senses and we function best with those most trained, so these trained in the physical senses can better operate very close to the present, while those trained to mental abilities, "think too much" and so exist much more in a determined reality.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Sep. 14, 2014 @ 10:08 GMT
Then keep in mind while those events in the past do not change in theory, they do provide that information while makes continuing events predictable and so are constantly being recycled.
Part of this is even the act of memory, which is itself an event and so becomes a lens through which the particulars become further infused with additional connections and input.
Even on their occurrence, events are a consequence of being perceived from a particular perspective and so further reflection amounts to a change of perspective.
So while we tend to think of the past as a linear accretion, the reality is far more dynamic and fluid.
report post as inappropriate
Eckard Blumschein replied on Sep. 15, 2014 @ 02:07 GMT
John M,
Does the future really go to space? My dictionary tells me that the future is understood as "the period of time that comes after" the current moment. In other words, the position of the current moment on the abstract time scale divides this line into a growing backward arrow of past and a shrinking arrow of future.
Therefore the notions past are never independent from that moment. The future can only become the past if we change its meaning by attributing it to an event.
According to pre-Einsteinian understanding, there is only one common current moment for all locations in the universe and no paradox-free alternative to this reasonably postulated and confirmed in all experience so far ubiquitous synchrony.
You imagine time as something like a signal that propagates. Don't you take a subjectively biased position as did Einstein's use of Poincaré synchronization?
Eckard
report post as inappropriate
Eckard Blumschein replied on Sep. 15, 2014 @ 02:12 GMT
"Therefore the notions past are" should read "Therefore the notions past and future are"
report post as inappropriate
Eckard Blumschein replied on Sep. 16, 2014 @ 16:21 GMT
John M,
You often argued that the future becomes past because the earth rotates. Let me object to a second flaw in this utterance. How fast the earth rotates does measurably depend on influences, if for instance the shape of earth changes because the ice at its poles is melting. The measure time is independent from what gave rise to introduce the notion time. Please don't take my corrections amiss.
If clocks are running equally fast then this is not based on any permanent exchange of information between them but we have little reason to doubt that this quality is inherent to the universe.
Eckard
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Sep. 16, 2014 @ 18:42 GMT
Eckard,
Actually what I said is tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth turns. This is not any general reference to future or past, but a specific, common occurrence and the effect creating it.
Time is an effect, not foundational, so possibly a way to understand it is as it functions.
As I relate it to the concept of temperature, consider how you would perceive...
view entire post
Eckard,
Actually what I said is tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth turns. This is not any general reference to future or past, but a specific, common occurrence and the effect creating it.
Time is an effect, not foundational, so possibly a way to understand it is as it functions.
As I relate it to the concept of temperature, consider how you would perceive temperature. You know it is energy being transmitted as the rate at which lots of molecules and even their atomic basis are vibrating and so shedding energy. In a pot of water they are also moving about.
Now in this perception, did the idea of change and thus time necessarily occur? I would say not necessarily. There is just the impression of activity in a particular frame.
As change does occur, how would you measure it? There could be lots of methods. If you could attach a meter to each molecule and record every vibration, that would be one way. You could record the rate steam leaves the pot, or the slowly declining weight of this body of water, as it boils away.
Now all that is really occurring is changes of state. Energy and water radiated or evaporated and gone elsewhere. Stuff moved about. None of this occurred in some extra dimension. It all happened in the present. One set of relations evolved into another.
So this state of the present moves from one configuration to another. We think of it as the present moving from past to future, but it was actually these changes occurring in the present, so it is they which go from being potential, to actual, to residual.
Neither past or future physically exist, because they are not present. It is only our sense of memory and continuity which makes this complicated, since we are like just one of those molecules of water, bouncing from one encounter to the next, in what we experience as a single sequence of events and our memory is that record of encounters we experienced. So we have this sense of moving from distant past events to recent past events and think of it as then moving to future events, but past is residual and future is potential, so it doesn't make sense to think of it as moving from residual to potential, but then we have forgotten all the past possibilities that didn't happen and only remember what did actually occur and so those past events now seem more real than they are, given the physical material moves to other events and there is only the dust and smoke of memory, as these events move ever further into the past, driven by that continuous activity of what is present.
Hope this helps some.
Regards,
John M
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Eckard Blumschein replied on Sep. 16, 2014 @ 22:28 GMT
John M,
Davies doesn't call time an effect. Perhaps you are at best one of very few people to believe so. I rather understand elapsed time as the measurable delay between a moment A attributed to a cause, and moment B attributed to its effect. This distance is always positive if counted from B to A. In so far, elapsed time is indeed similar to temperature which also has a natural absolute zero. Units of elapsed time are arbitrarily chosen as also are units of temperature. Both scales are reasonably considered continuous (IR+).
However, the natural zero of elapsed time, i.e. the actual moment cannot be pinpointed at a particular moment, and intervals of time can endlessly be added. When Newton imagined God winding up again and again his big clock the universe, he attributed God as the cause to time. Your idea of time as an effect of motion like temperature provides a still naive but already less mystical explanation of obvious simultaneity. I doubt that such speculative analogy is of any use. Instead it might be necessary to clarify how event-related and now-related time relate to each other and to reality. Doesn't a question become foundational if something of relevance can be based on its solution?
Regards,
Eckard
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Sep. 17, 2014 @ 01:58 GMT
Eckard,
Physics values precision over explanation, so measurement matters more than what is being measured. What is being measured are particular events that come into being and dissolve, but what creates them is that underlaying process and energy. Remember energy is conserved, even if it doesn't have some exact shape or form. So the present is that energy, but all that can be measured is the form it takes. So measures of time are that energy transitioning/evolving from one form to another. Duration is just what the energy is doing between one event and the next.
As I argued in
the recent contest, not only is reality that dichotomy of energy and information, but it manifests in our physiology, with a central nervous system to process information and the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems to process energy. This then manifests on many aspects of our social functions, with academics and other thought based disciplines largely concerned with products of the information process and thus distinctions, more than the dynamic creating them. So there is a natural bias toward platonic ideal forms, even though they are evidently emergent. Since we can't measure the basis, the reductionist position is to just ignore it. "Shut up and calculate."
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
hide replies
Matthew Marsden wrote on Sep. 13, 2014 @ 11:28 GMT
Hi Eckard,
in reply to
Maybe, I didn't understand what "very significant error" you are referring to. I maintain that SR denies an ubiquitous objective now. The post attached below, that I made on the "what is space-time" video, may explain what i mean.
(I realllly cant type it all out again in a different format :)
Essentially I am suggesting there...
view entire post
Hi Eckard,
in reply to
Maybe, I didn't understand what "very significant error" you are referring to. I maintain that SR denies an ubiquitous objective now. The post attached below, that I made on the "what is space-time" video, may explain what i mean.
(I realllly cant type it all out again in a different format :)
Essentially I am suggesting there
may be some serious,
false assumptions right at the start of SR, which change it's entire meaning.
critically, if the paper does not in fact prove the existence of "time", but just calls motion time, and moves on, then all talk of (ubiquitous) simultaneity , or non- simultaneity is moot.
we can line up the rotating pointers on numbered dials, as much as we want and move them around as much as we want, and observe that some may move slower than others in transit ( dilate) - but...
in my opinion...unless you, or others can point to an actual proof that there is a thing called "time" that is indicated by a rotating hand, then Relativities assumptions about such machines called "clocks",(or more sophisticated version of them) , do not imo, show
-that there are "different nows", or
-"anything but now", or
-"that a thing called time exists and can be dilated"...m,marsden
auth “A Brief History of Timelessness” > http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I09XHMQ
-----------the "what is space time?" post ----Dear Mr Durand,
Thank you very much for your very well presented video
"what is space-time?"I wish you luck in the contest, but rather excitingly, our entries are in direct conflict, (which at least makes for interesting science).
Concerning this, I would like to take this opportunity to ask you a question, which I believe, if you can’t resolve, may show that your presentation may not be about a genuine phenomena at all. i.e. with respect how it may be wrong.
Specifically, re your video “What is Space-Time?” you say at the start...
“One of the fundamental discoveries of Relativity is that contrary to what our senses tell us we do not live in a 3 dimensional space but a space-time that has four dimensions”.The validity or not, of the concept of
space-time has massive consequences, and many, many scientists accept it, so I’m sure as a physicist it’s important to you to be certain via your own analysis, that its foundations are actually solid.
So, to check our most basic assumptions as to what
“Special Relativity” reasonably proves (and does not prove), concerning “Time”, we check Einstein's seminal paper on Special Relativity,
“Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper”. In English.
“On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” (http://goo.gl/FzwvmB),where,
section 1 “The Definition of Simultaneity” clearly says...
If we wish to describe the motion of a material point, we give the values of its co-ordinates as functions of the time... [so we must be]... quite clear as to what we understand by “time.”
...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.”And here, either I have missed something, or there is a potentially massive, unverified, yet critical assumption at the heart of SR, which (imo) changes the essential meaning of the paper
very significantly.Specifically, the paper says...
“if we wish to describe the motion of a material point, we give the values of its co-ordinates as functions of the time”
... but the paper in fact, clearly
only describes comparing the
values of the [spatial] coordinates of one material object ( a train), to
the values of the spatial coordinates of another material object – i.e.
“the tip of a motorised hand rotating on a dial” – so, in fact, effectively electrodynamics, just refers to one example of motion, “
motion”, and another example of motion “
time”.
-------------------------- Questionable assumptionsIn other words, at this precise point, in an extremely important paper, leading to the conclusion of “space-time”, that your own, and countless other talks, refer to at the start:
- “The existence of a thing called Time, is in no way explained, but just, and only assumed”.
As far as I can tell, all that could be said to actually be observed in the "train" scenario is that...
-One material object/point e.g. “a train”, exists, and can be moving or stationary...
-Another material object/point, “the rotating hand”, exists, and can be moving or stationary.
-And, the location and/or velocity of two objects can be being compared, if one so chooses.
What does
not seem to be observed, but seems only to be (unscientifically) just
assumed is...
-It is assumed, but not shown that as an object exists and/or moves, a thing called “time” exists and passes.
-it is assumed but not shown, that a rotating hand on a numbered dial, marks the existence and “passing” of this time thing.
-It is assumed The concept of “time”, and, apparently “different times” (i.e. non- synchronous events) is legitimate.
Critically, concerning the motorised hand, the paper
calls it a
“watch hand”, and if we take “
dimension” to be
“A measurable extent of a particular kind” (OED), then (imo) Relativity seems to just take the “dimension” of pure and simple motion in a physical direction... and just consistently
refer to is as a
“dimension called time” – i.e. correct me if I'm wrong but the paper seems to just “
call”
motion, time.
For well understood reasons Special Relativity shows us that the components of any moving oscillator will have further to travel, and thus interact in a dilated fashion ( e.g. photons between opposing mirrors).
But (imo) it is not shown in the paper how the proof that moving things, are changing more slowly, confirms the (blind) assumption, that “a rotating hand” marks the passage of an invisible intangible thing called “time”, through an invisible, intangible 4th “temporal/spatial” “dimension”.
Likewise it is not shown in Relativity how a rotating hand, or the (agreed) fact moving objects are changing more slowly, proves that there is “time”, and that the concept of “different times” is valid.
------------------------- Critical conclusionsAs you yourself note at the start of our video,
‘our senses tell us we live in 3 dimensional space’, to which I would add, “in which matter/energy seems to exist, move and interact in any physical direction”.
So, given what our senses tell us, and your belief that the concept of
“an extra dimension of time” is valid, and the fact Einstein's “Electrodynamics” paper itself only “assumes”, but does not “confirm” the existence of a thing called “time”,
my question to you is...Q- Professor Durand, with respect, can you in fact justify your statement that,
“One of the fundamental discoveries of Relativity is that ... space-time that has four dimensions”.
do you have a specific reasonable proof, as per the scientific method, that, extra to just matter, space, and motion, an extra “thing”, or “dimension”, called “time” also exists?...
Or,
Is your reason for assuming this “extra dimension” exists, based on the assumption that, by referring to motion as “time”, and, by showing how moving things are changing more slowly than expected, – Relativity itself proves there is a “temporal past”, and/or “future”, and thus time, and four dimensional “space-time”?(in other words, can you yourself cite a reasonable proof (e.g. actual experiment), that matter is not “just” existing and interacting, as actually, and only observed, but, that Relativity is right to just assume the existence of a thing called “time”? And thus, that matter is in fact, not just existing, moving and changing, but “evolving through a [4d] space time”? )And as I say, with respect, I think if you don’t actually show workings to address the critical issues these questions (imo) expose, it may appear that the conclusions, your video indicates you accept, may not actually be in accordance with the scientific method.
(And (imo) with a claim that an extra “dimension” called “Time” genuinely exists, showing actual logical reasoning, as opposed to just accepting foundations that others seemed to have “just assumed”, and accepting conclusions based on those assumptions, is, in meaningful science, critically important).
Yours very sincerely,
Matthew Marsden.
Auth: A Brief History of Timelessness
(My entries to the competition)
Time Travel,Timeless Answers to Prof Brian Cox's Science of Dr WHO
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2243
Answers to Prof Brian Cox's Science of Dr WHO Does Time exist? How 'Time travel Paradoxes' can't happen without "the past".
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2245
'Time travel Paradoxes' can't happen without "the past". Time travel, Worm hole, billiard ball' paradox, Timelessly. (re Paul Davies- New scientist article)
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2244
billiard ball' paradox, Timelessly “A Brief History of Timelessness” > http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I09XHMQ
M.Marsden. www.timelessness.co.uk
timelessness.co.uk
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Eckard Blumschein replied on Sep. 14, 2014 @ 05:04 GMT
Temporal distance differs from spatial distance mainly in that it is forward directed while space has no naturally preferred direction. Both distances are independent of chosen objects and always positive measures in contrast to measures like e.g. velocity of motion that refer to a particular chosen object.
I see the very significant error in the application of the biased because observer-related and therefore paradoxically asymmetric so called Poincaré synchronization on two objects that are moving relatively to each other. Compare Fig. 2 with Fig. 1 in
my last essay. This so called conventional synchronization corresponds to length contraction which was hypothesized by Lorentz in order to explain Michelson's Potsdam/Cleveland 1881/87 null result.
Therefore I don't see SR a discovery.
Eckard
report post as inappropriate
Matthew Marsden replied on Sep. 15, 2014 @ 10:18 GMT
Hi Eckard,
e.g. Re your use of the term “Temporal distance”. you seem to be missing my point. For any scientific discussion about some “thing”, or “phenomena”, to be valid, ( e.g. a thing called “time”), one needs to establish that the phenomena can reasonable be said to exist.
I like posting on
FQXI, because it calls itself the...
view entire post
Hi Eckard,
e.g. Re your use of the term “Temporal distance”. you seem to be missing my point. For any scientific discussion about some “thing”, or “phenomena”, to be valid, ( e.g. a thing called “time”), one needs to establish that the phenomena can reasonable be said to exist.
I like posting on
FQXI, because it calls itself the
Foundational Questions Institute, ( the X symbol stands in for "Physics and Cosmology," our focus).
So this is a valid place to
ask foundational questions, i.e. questions about the very roots of our assumptions and theories, and not a place where it ok to just avoid foundational questions, and act as if their answers just exist elsewhere.
( anyone avoiding questions about the foundations of theories etc, here is missing the entire “foundational” point of the institute).Re this, you start your post above with the word “
Temporal”,
As in “Temporal distance”.I think it is extremely risky in science if we just casually use terms , e.g. “temporal”, as if they certainly relate to existing phenomena, while in fact we are unable to provide proof that the term is valid if asked.
The word “
Temporal” implies that you think
the concept of “time” is in some way not just a useful idea, but in some way a genuine phenomena.
Therefore, would you please explain...
Q-
precisely what your foundational reason is to believe that there is an invisible intangible thing called time, that exists, or “spans” or “passes” etc, such that your use of the term, and thoughts about ,“Temporal distance” is justified.Many thanks
m.marsden
FQXI video contest entry(s)
Time Travel,Timeless Answers to Prof Brian Cox's Science of Dr WHO
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2243
Answers to Prof Brian Cox's Science of Dr WHO Does Time exist? How 'Time travel Paradoxes' can't happen without "the past".
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2245
'Time travel Paradoxes' can't happen without "the past". Time travel, Worm hole, billiard ball' paradox, Timelessly. (re Paul Davies- New scientist article)
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2244
billiard ball' paradox, Timelessly (auth “A Brief History of Timelessness” > http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00I09XHMQ )
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Eckard Blumschein replied on Sep. 16, 2014 @ 16:02 GMT
I agree on that FQXi invited and hopefully will go on inviting new questions that may shutter tacit basic assumptions of science. Questioning the existence of time is certainly not new. Most winners of the first contest demonstrated their academic proficiency by efforts to defend space-time and denying some time notions of common sense.
If you ask whether or not something exists you mean is it something real, something actual. Mathematics shows that this is often a tricky and rather futile question. Does the square root of a negative number exist? Obviously not, unless one allows for imaginary numbers.
I feel ignored because I consider the usual, so called scientific notion of event-related time insufficient as soon as one considers how something exists in reality. Common sense has it: There is a complemenrary notion: elapsed time.
Einstein is often quoted having said: "Time is what the clock reads". Nobody can read future time. Any clock shows always only past time.
Eckard
report post as inappropriate
Eckard Blumschein wrote on Sep. 22, 2014 @ 06:33 GMT
Steve Agnew,
On Sep. 13, 2014 @ 00:18 GMT you stated in Why Quantum:
1) There is a past because we have a memory of it, and so the matter of our memory represents an object of past time.
2) All objects represent past time and that is called proper time.
3) The present moment is just as you [John M] suggest, the second dimension of time, action time.
4) The...
view entire post
Steve Agnew,
On Sep. 13, 2014 @ 00:18 GMT you stated in Why Quantum:
1) There is a past because we have a memory of it, and so the matter of our memory represents an object of past time.
2) All objects represent past time and that is called proper time.
3) The present moment is just as you [John M] suggest, the second dimension of time, action time.
4) The future only exists as the possibilities of an object and there is no single future that is certain.
While I am aware that mainstream physics postulates a fatalistic closed block of time and space which is the opposite of (4), I as an engineer cannot see any good reason to perform Fourier analysis of a signal by an integration that includes not yet existing in reality future data.
Writing in (1) “there is a past because” you did perhaps mean “there is a past, we know it because”. I understand the past as something objective. As Shannon explained it, past processes are unchangeable but in principle measurable. I accept that you used the word “memory” for what I prefer calling material “traces”.
Your interpretation in (2) of past time as proper time is close to my view that elapsed time includes all past and has therefore a natural point of reference, the actual moment. Presumably, you are still following the convention to count time increasing from earlier to later. Elapsed time counts in opposite direction, and it doesn’t relate to an arbitrarily chosen event.
When you used the expression “proper time” in (2), did you distinguish it from coordinate time in the sense of SR?
The “action time” that you introduced in (3) seems to be meant as an actual value at the scale of conventional time. Aren’t you aware that conventional time is block time?
I agree on that the conventional time scale is insufficient as to describe reality. However, if you dare introducing a point on a scale that is moving relative to it as a dimension, then I would expect you to clarify what the notion dimension does mean in physics. Orthogonality?
I consider Fig. 1 of my
essay 1364 a more radical alternative that clearly reveals how the abstract block time differs from original reality.
Eckard
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Lee Bloomquist wrote on Oct. 3, 2014 @ 23:55 GMT
For some reason years ago I bought a book from a library sale for an old corporate research lab in physics-- Geoffrey M. Dixon's Division Algebras: Octonions, Quaternions, Complex Numbers and the Algebraic Design of Physics.
The idea seemed so simple. The Universe is made of distributed information systems, which follow the basic law of the Universe: Whatever's been created, can be destroyed.
I keep scanning the book for high school student level reading, but can find none. Turning the pages is like looking at a kaleidoscope. I'm blinded by spinning fibers of light and color. They draw me closer and closer the faster I turn the pages of the book. The pages spin like a wireframe water wheel, in an architecture of glittering mathematical intricacies.
Clearly, there was structure enough here, and a clear description of how one creates systems from parts, without damaging any of the parts.
And, how one can destroy a system simply by disassembling it, part by part, without damaging a single part.
For example, multiplying would be a model for assembling a system. Dividing would then be disassembling the system, very cleanly, by factoring a part away.
Each part was never harmed during assembly.
And each part was never harmed during disassembly.
That was all of the story I needed. Dixon had handled all the details.
And now it seems the same has happened in string theory.
So it seems
The Universe isn't made of particles and neither is it made of strings.
The Universe is made of systems that can be nondestructively assembled and disassembled into parts.
The Division Algebras model this kind of Universe in terms of multiplication and division.
post approved
John Brodix Merryman replied on Oct. 5, 2014 @ 10:46 GMT
Lee,
We exist at a very complex, intermediate level. Would those recycling information systems exist in an even broader spectrum of creation and dissolution? What is conserved is energy, but our only knowledge of it is as information. It seems the breakdown in our information models, uncertainty principle, quantum theory, etc, are because the dynamic energy cannot be fully encompassed/modeled within the context of an inherently static information paradigm.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
John Brodix Merryman replied on Oct. 5, 2014 @ 11:22 GMT
cannot be fully encompassed/modeled within the context of an inherently static information paradigm, no matter how small the scale, or complex the pattern.
report post as inappropriate
Lee Bloomquist wrote on Oct. 6, 2014 @ 14:04 GMT
All of this is the context for Time.
As illustrated by the Twins' paradox from Relativity, the data show each thing has its own time. And in such a context it would be easy to install more structure into Time (for further mathematical analysis)--
Now = ( theUniqueMonadOfTime, Now )
where
theUniqueMonadOfTime = ( nonstandardPast, standardPresent, nonstandardFuture)
("nonstandard" per Abraham Robinson's book.
"non-wellFoundedSets" in Vicious Circles by Barwise and Moss)
And,
Each thing that exists has its own Now.
(Later the Nows will be linked together by various gearing interactions between relative possibilities.)
The process is "unfolding."
Unfolding a Now, we find aUniqueMonadOfTime, and the Now is like a flower--
The flower unfolds, but all the while, it is still one and itself, never stopping being the flower it is during the entire unfoldment.
Unfolding a "Now," you, the being, are at each instant always within the same Now, as long as you exist. So when you unfold a Now, Now stays with you throughout the entire process. That is to say, as something that exists in the Universe, you have to yourself a unique experience of unfolding your Now.
Each cycle of unfoldment may reveal a UniqueMonadOfTime, if you are so lucky as to maintain existence in the Universe.
After all, anything created, can be destroyed in a very clean fashion, as above.
But in this Universe, my awareness of Now unfolds into UniqueMonadsOfTime, one after another in a stream of unfoldment...
"UniqueMonadOfTime"
"UniqueMonadOfTime"
"UniqueMo
nadOfTime"
And so on.
While for each Unique Monad, I am aware of experiencing Now as always being itself within me, being for me the same and unchanging throughout the process of unfolding UniqueMonadsOfTime, for each thing that exists in the Universe.
post approved
John Brodix Merryman replied on Oct. 6, 2014 @ 23:08 GMT
Lee,
Time is how we experience this process of assembly and disassembly. Since we are only one point of perspective, we frame this process into a continuum of events and so we think of it as this now moving from past to future, yet it is these configurations being created and dissolved which come and go, so it is actually the future becoming past. To wit, it isn't the earth traveling some vector or dimension from the event that was yesterday to the event that will be tomorrow, but this planet turning relative to its light source which creates and dissolves these events called days.
As you say, each event is an unfolding, a blooming. Like the previous event was the seed casing from which the current event springs. That is because the energy is leaving that prior event, like the energy leaves a day, as the sun moves around to other's sunrises, so it fades from ours, as the new one gathers force. We think of one event leading to the next, but this sequence isn't causal. Yesterday doesn't cause today, but simply precedes it. Energy is causal. Light shining on a spinning planet causes these events of our perception called days. and it pours into us from all directions and we radiate it back out in all directions. It is just that we are mobile organisms and not plants, so we think of direction and momentum as being more elemental than they are, so we like sequence and narrative as explanations. Nature is much more thermodynamic.
Regards,
John M
report post as inappropriate
Lee Bloomquist wrote on Oct. 13, 2014 @ 19:25 GMT
I get the idea from Dixon's work on the normed division algebras that more basic than particles, waves, or strings are *systems* made of parts, which can be assembled (by multiplication) and disassembled (by division). But this still leaves us with the parts to think about. I will make the attempt!
I get the idea from Barwise's work on non-well founded sets that a formula for time which is...
view entire post
I get the idea from Dixon's work on the normed division algebras that more basic than particles, waves, or strings are *systems* made of parts, which can be assembled (by multiplication) and disassembled (by division). But this still leaves us with the parts to think about. I will make the attempt!
I get the idea from Barwise's work on non-well founded sets that a formula for time which is maybe more intuitive, but less amenable to calculation, would be the stream Now = (monadOfTime, Now). Where by "monadOfTime" I mean Abraham Robinson's nonStandard monad. MonadOfTime has a central standard point and a halo of nonStandard points. To be compatible with the received model of time as point moving on line, in front of the standard point in the monad there must be a halo of nonStandard points I've taken to calling the nonStandardFuture. And behind the standard point in the monad there must be a halo of nonStandard points I've taken to calling the nonStandardPast. Which in effect posits a tiny room of time that accompanies each system (something different than a manifold).
After thinking about it I have to admit that assembly and disassembly of systems comprised of parts is not really the creation and destruction of the parts themselves. Some more thinking about it--
From Herbert Green's, student of Max Born, book Matrix Mechanics I get the idea that complex numbers in quantum physics
represent possibilities.Again from Barwise (Information and Impossibilities), I get the idea that a possibility is really a possible *state.* I now realize that when I say that a system comprises parts, I most likely connote that the "parts" are "particles." But that would be wrong. The parts involved are really *states." Further a system of states is really itself a state (actually, a "possible state" or a "possibility").
Now back to creation and destruction of system parts. I wonder if what I'm seeing inside the above tiny room of time for each system is what's called "wave function collapse" in the Schrodinger picture (where the wave function changes continuously in time). However to visualize the collapse I have to see it by looking at the Heisenberg picture, where the wave function is constant in time. Here's the idea:
The Born rule is a map from a complex number to a real number:
c -> r r
view post as summary
post approved
Amrit Srecko Sorli wrote on Jan. 19, 2015 @ 11:32 GMT
time has only a math exitence, see www.fopi.info
attachments:
1_On_the_origin_of_the_observer.pdf
report post as inappropriate
Pentcho Valev wrote on Apr. 28, 2015 @ 11:19 GMT
Feynman Wrong about the Twin Paradox
Tim Maudlin: "...so many physicists strongly discourage questions about the nature of reality. The reigning attitude in physics has been "shut up and calculate": solve the equations, and do not ask questions about what they mean. But putting computation ahead of conceptual clarity can lead to confusion. Take, for example, relativity's iconic "twin...
view entire post
Feynman Wrong about the Twin Paradox
Tim Maudlin: "...so many physicists strongly discourage questions about the nature of reality. The reigning attitude in physics has been "shut up and calculate": solve the equations, and do not ask questions about what they mean. But putting computation ahead of conceptual clarity can lead to confusion. Take, for example, relativity's iconic "twin paradox." Identical twins separate from each other and later reunite. When they meet again, one twin is biologically older than the other. (Astronaut twins Scott and Mark Kelly are about to realize this experiment: when Scott returns from a year in orbit in 2016 he will be about 28 microseconds younger than Mark, who is staying on Earth.) No competent physicist would make an error in computing the magnitude of this effect. But even the great Richard Feynman did not always get the explanation right. In "The Feynman Lectures on Physics," he attributes the difference in ages to the acceleration one twin experiences: the twin who accelerates ends up younger. But it is easy to describe cases where the opposite is true, and even cases where neither twin accelerates but they end up different ages. The calculation can be right and the accompanying explanation wrong."
Einstein also taught that the youthfulness of the travelling twin was due to the turn-around acceleration:
Dialog about Objections against the Theory of Relativity, 1918, Albert Einstein: "During the partial processes 2 and 4 the clock U1, going at a velocity v, runs indeed at a slower pace than the resting clock U2. However, this is more than compensated by a faster pace of U1 during partial process 3. According to the general theory of relativity, a clock will go faster the higher the gravitational potential of the location where it is located, and during partial process 3 U2 happens to be located at a higher gravitational potential than U1. The calculation shows that this speeding ahead constitutes exactly twice as much as the lagging behind during the partial processes 2 and 4."
John Norton teaches the same story:
John Norton: "Then, at the end of the outward leg, the traveler abruptly changes motion, accelerating sharply to adopt a new inertial motion directed back to earth. What comes now is the key part of the analysis. The effect of the change of motion is to alter completely the traveler's judgment of simultaneity. The traveler's hypersurfaces of simultaneity now flip up dramatically. Moments after the turn-around, when the travelers clock reads just after 2 days, the traveler will judge the stay-at-home twin's clock to read just after 7 days. That is, the traveler will judge the stay-at-home twin's clock to have jumped suddenly from reading 1 day to reading 7 days. This huge jump puts the stay-at-home twin's clock so far ahead of the traveler's that it is now possible for the stay-at-home twin's clock to be ahead of the travelers when they reunite."
Feynman, Einstein and Norton are wrong of course but the problem is more serious than that. We all live in a schizophrenic world where the youthfulness of the travelling twin is due to the turn-around acceleration, on the one hand, and is not due to the turn-around acceleration, on the other:
Don Lincoln: "Some readers, probably including some of my doctoral-holding colleagues at Fermilab, will claim that the difference between the two twins is that one of the two has experienced an acceleration. (After all, that's how he slowed down and reversed direction.) However, the relativistic equations don't include that acceleration phase; they include just the coasting time at high velocity."
Gary W. Gibbons FRS: "In other words, by simply staying at home Jack has aged relative to Jill. There is no paradox because the lives of the twins are not strictly symmetrical. This might lead one to suspect that the accelerations suffered by Jill might be responsible for the effect. However this is simply not plausible because using identical accelerating phases of her trip, she could have travelled twice as far. This would give twice the amount of time gained."
Pentcho Valev
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Pentcho Valev replied on May. 5, 2015 @ 10:03 GMT
Abc2000ro: "Why is Einstein solution to the twin paradox different from the one on the internet? The solution to the twin paradox found on the internet is that the twin on Earth is on 1 frame the entire journey, while the twin in space is in 2 frames for the duration of the journey. However, in his own paper:...
view entire post
Abc2000ro: "Why is Einstein solution to the twin paradox different from the one on the internet? The solution to the twin paradox found on the internet is that the twin on Earth is on 1 frame the entire journey, while the twin in space is in 2 frames for the duration of the journey. However, in his own paper:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dialog_about_Objections_agains
t_the_Theory_of_Relativity
Einstein gives a totally different explanation. He says that what matters is the moment of acceleration. So even if the acceleration happens in 1 second from 0 to 290.000km/s that's the only second that truly matters. So if Einstein says like this, how can anyone bring other explanations? (...) You can talk about the frame switching without saying anything about acceleration. You just draw 2 lines in a Minkowski diagram and that's it. Then you just apply the equations of special relativity and presumably you obtain the correct result. But Einstein says otherwise. That you have to use the equations of general relativity for the moment of acceleration (even though it is only 1 second or 1 year) and only then you obtain the correct results. So who should I trust?"
Abc2000ro asks the fatal question. Einstein was well aware that, unless the acceleration ("gravitational potential") camouflage is used, the clock (twin) paradox is an obvious absurdity:
Dialog about Objections against the Theory of Relativity, 1918, Albert Einstein: "During the partial processes 2 and 4 the clock U1, going at a velocity v, runs indeed at a slower pace than the resting clock U2. However, this is more than compensated by a faster pace of U1 during partial process 3. According to the general theory of relativity, a clock will go faster the higher the gravitational potential of the location where it is located, and during partial process 3 U2 happens to be located at a higher gravitational potential than U1. The calculation shows that this speeding ahead constitutes exactly twice as much as the lagging behind during the partial processes 2 and 4."
Nowadays most Einsteinians do not understand the problem but clever (even though dishonest) Einsteinians do:
Introduction to Classical Mechanics With Problems and Solutions, David Morin, Cambridge University Press, Chapter 11, p. 14: "Example (Twin paradox): Twin A stays on the earth, while twin B flies quickly to a distant star and back. Show that B is younger than A when they meet up again. (...) For the entire outward and return parts of the trip, B does observe A's clock running slow, but enough strangeness occurs during the turning-around period to make A end up older. Note, however, that a discussion of acceleration is not required to quantitatively understand the paradox..."
Pentcho Valev
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Pentcho Valev replied on May. 9, 2015 @ 06:56 GMT
The twin paradox has a simpler (one way) version in Einstein's 1905 paper:
ON THE ELECTRODYNAMICS OF MOVING BODIES, A. Einstein, 1905: "From this there ensues the following peculiar consequence. If at the points A and B of K there are stationary clocks which, viewed in the stationary system, are synchronous; and if the clock at A is moved with the velocity v along the line AB to B, then on...
view entire post
The twin paradox has a simpler (one way) version in Einstein's 1905 paper:
ON THE ELECTRODYNAMICS OF MOVING BODIES, A. Einstein, 1905: "From this there ensues the following peculiar consequence. If at the points A and B of K there are stationary clocks which, viewed in the stationary system, are synchronous; and if the clock at A is moved with the velocity v along the line AB to B, then on its arrival at B the two clocks no longer synchronize, but the clock moved from A to B lags behind the other which has remained at B by tv^2/2c^2 (up to magnitudes of fourth and higher order), t being the time occupied in the journey from A to B."
SCIENCE AT THE CROSSROADS, Herbert Dingle, p.27: "According to the special relativity theory, as expounded by Einstein in his original paper, two similar, regularly-running clocks, A and B, in uniform relative motion, must work at different rates. (...) How is the slower-working clock distinguished?"
Dingle's question is rhetorical - the slower-working clock cannot be distinguished on the basis of Einstein's 1905 postulates alone. The postulates entail that, as judged from the respective system, either clock runs slower than the other. That is, for an observer in the moving clock's system, the stationary clock at B lags behind the moving clock; for a stationary observer, the moving clock lags behind the stationary clock at B.
So Einstein's famous conclusions that made him a superstar, "moving clocks run slow" and "travel into the future is possible", are based on two flaws. Initially Einstein advanced his false constant-speed-of-light postulate, which allowed him to validly deduce that:
moving clocks run slow, as judged from the stationary system.
Then he illegitimately dropped the second part of the above conclusion and informed the gullible world that:
moving clocks run slow, that is, travel into the future is possible.
Pentcho Valev
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Pentcho Valev replied on May. 10, 2015 @ 18:56 GMT
Brian Cox (03:56): "Time travel into the future is possible".
Comment:
Pentcho Valev 3 months ago:
Jim Al-Khalili is no time traveller in this experiment - the postulates of special relativity do NOT entail time travel into the future. The confusion goes back to 1905 when Einstein informed the gullible world that, although time dilation is symmetrical (either observer sees...
view entire post
Brian Cox (03:56): "Time travel into the future is possible".
Comment:
Pentcho Valev 3 months ago:
Jim Al-Khalili is no time traveller in this experiment - the postulates of special relativity do NOT entail time travel into the future. The confusion goes back to 1905 when Einstein informed the gullible world that, although time dilation is symmetrical (either observer sees the other's clock running slow - this is what validly follows from the two postulates), it is still asymmetrical - the stationary clock runs faster than the moving one (this does not follow at all from the postulates):
ON THE ELECTRODYNAMICS OF MOVING BODIES, A. Einstein, 1905: "From this there ensues the following peculiar consequence. If at the points A and B of K there are stationary clocks which, viewed in the stationary system, are synchronous; and if the clock at A is moved with the velocity v along the line AB to B, then on its arrival at B the two clocks no longer synchronize, but the clock moved from A to B lags behind the other which has remained at B by tv^2/2c^2 (up to magnitudes of fourth and higher order), t being the time occupied in the journey from A to B."
This is tantamount to saying that, although elephants are unable to fly, they can still do so by just flapping their ears. Yet the breathtaking impliciations of Einstein's blatant hoax (time travel into the future etc) enchanted the public:
John Barrow FRS: "Einstein restored faith in the unintelligibility of science. Everyone knew that Einstein had done something important in 1905 (and again in 1915) but almost nobody could tell you exactly what it was. When Einstein was interviewed for a Dutch newspaper in 1921, he attributed his mass appeal to the mystery of his work for the ordinary person: "Does it make a silly impression on me, here and yonder, about my theories of which they cannot understand a word? I think it is funny and also interesting to observe. I am sure that it is the mystery of non-understanding that appeals to them...it impresses them, it has the colour and the appeal of the mysterious." Relativity was a fashionable notion. It promised to sweep away old absolutist notions and refurbish science with modern ideas. In art and literature too, revolutionary changes were doing away with old conventions and standards. All things were being made new. Einstein's relativity suited the mood. Nobody got very excited about Einstein's brownian motion or his photoelectric effect but relativity promised to turn the world inside out."
_________________________________________________
[end of quotation]
Pentcho Valev
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
LLOYD TAMARAPREYE OKOKO wrote on May. 9, 2015 @ 07:08 GMT
Every era of the scientific realm is endowed with masters or progenitors ;each with his own truth that cannot be ignored.The Upanisads constitute an often overlooked set of that truth that must needs be explored.
Best Wishes,
Lloyd Tamarapreye Okoko.
report post as inappropriate
Pentcho Valev wrote on May. 13, 2015 @ 09:10 GMT
Einsteiniana: The youthfulness of the travelling twin is due to the turn-around acceleration, but at the same time it is not due to the turn-around acceleration:
Dialog about Objections against the Theory of Relativity, 1918, Albert Einstein: "During the partial processes 2 and 4 the clock U1, going at a velocity v, runs indeed at a slower pace than the resting clock U2. However, this is...
view entire post
Einsteiniana: The youthfulness of the travelling twin is due to the turn-around acceleration, but at the same time it is not due to the turn-around acceleration:
Dialog about Objections against the Theory of Relativity, 1918, Albert Einstein: "During the partial processes 2 and 4 the clock U1, going at a velocity v, runs indeed at a slower pace than the resting clock U2. However, this is more than compensated by a faster pace of U1 during partial process 3. According to the general theory of relativity, a clock will go faster the higher the gravitational potential of the location where it is located, and during partial process 3 U2 happens to be located at a higher gravitational potential than U1. The calculation shows that this speeding ahead constitutes exactly twice as much as the lagging behind during the partial processes 2 and 4."
John Norton: "Then, at the end of the outward leg, the traveler abruptly changes motion, accelerating sharply to adopt a new inertial motion directed back to earth. What comes now is the key part of the analysis. The effect of the change of motion is to alter completely the traveler's judgment of simultaneity. The traveler's hypersurfaces of simultaneity now flip up dramatically. Moments after the turn-around, when the travelers clock reads just after 2 days, the traveler will judge the stay-at-home twin's clock to read just after 7 days. That is, the traveler will judge the stay-at-home twin's clock to have jumped suddenly from reading 1 day to reading 7 days. This huge jump puts the stay-at-home twin's clock so far ahead of the traveler's that it is now possible for the stay-at-home twin's clock to be ahead of the travelers when they reunite."
Don Lincoln: "Some readers, probably including some of my doctoral-holding colleagues at Fermilab, will claim that the difference between the two twins is that one of the two has experienced an acceleration. (After all, that's how he slowed down and reversed direction.) However, the relativistic equations don't include that acceleration phase; they include just the coasting time at high velocity."
Gary W. Gibbons FRS: "In other words, by simply staying at home Jack has aged relative to Jill. There is no paradox because the lives of the twins are not strictly symmetrical. This might lead one to suspect that the accelerations suffered by Jill might be responsible for the effect. However this is simply not plausible because using identical accelerating phases of her trip, she could have travelled twice as far. This would give twice the amount of time gained."
Subtle practitioners of doublethink"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated. The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. Doublethink lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies - all this is indispensably necessary. (...) It need hardly be said that the subtlest practitioners of doublethink are those who invented doublethink and know that it is a vast system of mental cheating. In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is. In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion ; the more intelligent, the less sane."
Pentcho Valev
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Pentcho Valev replied on May. 15, 2015 @ 10:20 GMT
Einstein's 1905 postulates entail that, as shown in
this picture, a single MOVING CLOCK SHOWS LESS TIME ELAPSED than multiple stationary clocks as it passes them consecutively. However, if the single clock is stationary and the multiple clocks moving, Einstein's postulates entail that this time the STATIONARY CLOCK SHOWS LESS TIME ELAPSED than the multiple moving clocks. Clearly Einstein's 1905 postulates do not entail that moving clocks run more slowly than stationary clocks, or that the travelling twin will return younger than his stationary brother.
Pentcho Valev
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 16, 2015 @ 04:38 GMT
Important to realize is that
the clock device itself is never seen but an image is produced, from the sensory data emitted or reflected from the device. Sensory data is received and processed by the observer and the output of that is what is seen, within a space-time Image reality output.
So to clearly illustrate what is happening and avoid the confusion of time the regular...
view entire post
Important to realize is that
the clock device itself is never seen but an image is produced, from the sensory data emitted or reflected from the device. Sensory data is received and processed by the observer and the output of that is what is seen, within a space-time Image reality output.
So to clearly illustrate what is happening and avoid the confusion of time the regular interval change of hands on clock face or digital output could be replaced by a not temporally associated, visual, Object universe configuration origin tag ( CO -tag ). Have a single coloured em source that changes tag at appropriate intervals, a symbol of any kind (e,g, geometric shapes, animal outlines, alphabet etc.) from a sequence, representing the actualised configuration of the Object universe, each symbol matched to a colour chart. The tags received can be converted into the matching colours. With overlaid texture to indicate observed red or blue shift, that is showing alteration of data input rate, not alteration of data CO-tag
Motion towards the source increases the frequency of encountering em waves, so data is input sooner ( data receipt delay reduction ) but this is also advancing in time terms of the experienced present output, as younger data is being incorporated into the present that is output. Due to change in spatial position relative to source. Moving away from the source deceases the frequency of waves being intercepted, data is input later ( data receipt delay increase ) but also older data is incorporated into the present output due to change in spacial position relative to the source.
There are thus differences in the colours of the outputs, related to the tags of the sensory data received. And different textures relate to advances and delays in receipt.
The space-time output produced from data emanating from a number of differently located sources in relative motion will be a multicolored and textured 'map' indicating the differences in Object universe configuration origin of the recieved data and alterations in signal input rates of the various signals. Whereas each uni-temporal -Now relates to just one CO stamp and one corresponding colour. All of the output reality represented by the coloured textured space-time map is within uni-temporal -Now, the existing configuration of the Object universe.
As the speed of light is so fast this only becomes important at high speeds and at large distances.
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 16, 2015 @ 22:56 GMT
Having replaced the clock time in the output space-time Image reality, replacing it with a not temporally associated tag, it is easy to see that the reality that emerges from processing of that data is an amalgamation of data pertaining to different configurations of the Object universe, an emergent space-time map.
The sense of vision that allows production and utilization of such maps is an important survival attribute for living organisms. That the map is emergent space time is just a consequence of its production from received sensory data but that distant objects also appear smaller due to visual angle enables decisions about proximity of predators, competitors and resources to be 'calculated' which is greatly advantageous for a living organism. Not only does light take minutely longer to reach an organisms sensory system, so does it take time for a predator or competitor to traverse that space interval and it also takes time for the organism to move itself towards resources. By time I am referring to sequential change in the arrangements of the constituents of the Object universe.
Non simultaneity of events for different observers can be regarded as a difference in their emergent space-time maps that have been produced from sensory data within the uni-temporal external reality.It is not an indication that the events witnessed in each observers present still exist as interactions of substantial bodies in external reality, IE persisting for all time within an external space-time continuum.
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on May. 17, 2015 @ 01:18 GMT
It is very nice to see how close you are getting to the truth and all without math.
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 16, 2015 @ 04:38 GMT"Important to realize is that the clock device itself is never seen but an image is produced, from the sensory data emitted or reflected from the device. Sensory data is received and processed by the observer and the output of that is what is seen, within a space-time Image reality output."Remember also...all objects are clocks. Some objects are more useful for keeping time because they have very regular actions, but all objects tell time. You need not tie telling time to a particular sensation like sight. After all, our neural clock tells reasonably good time and that clock we sense as moments of thought along with the decay of memory.
There are two fundamentally incompatible ways of telling time; quantum and gravity. Once science can tell the same time between gravity and quantum times, presumably that will be a unification of those forces.
report post as inappropriate
Eckard Blumschein replied on May. 17, 2015 @ 03:25 GMT
Pentcho,
"the more intelligent, the less sane."? Could this provide a link between G. Cantor and Einstein? No, I strongly object. While Cantor's "more than infinite" is as insane as is Einstein's "Relativity of time", their fallacies have clearly traceable historical roots and are still accepted as hard to grasp genial ideas, Georgina and Steve managed distracting from the logical contradiction your sources pointed to and mystify the notion of time. Are they therefore more intelligent?
Steve can perhaps not provide links to serious arguments for his guess "incompatible ways of telling time; quantum and gravity" in order to explain twin and grandfather paradoxes away.
I maintain my opinion: Revelation of mandatory fallacies is a hard but necessary work, even if the required line of reasoning is seemingly obvious.
Eckard
report post as inappropriate
Anonymous replied on May. 17, 2015 @ 05:01 GMT
Dear Eckard and Pentcho,
the relativity of time is not insane, but has been misinterpreted by its early discoverers. The misinterpretation has been taught alongside the insight and that is the problem IMHO. It is necessary in the case of Einstein's work to replace certain aspects of the
interpretation with something that works better. I accept Tom's argument that Einstein's work is...
view entire post
Dear Eckard and Pentcho,
the relativity of time is not insane, but has been misinterpreted by its early discoverers. The misinterpretation has been taught alongside the insight and that is the problem IMHO. It is necessary in the case of Einstein's work to replace certain aspects of the
interpretation with something that works better. I accept Tom's argument that Einstein's work is a complete scientific model that successfully matches experimental results to the theory. Nevertheless the paradoxes show that there is something fundamentally wrong with it. Einstein knew it and SR and GR are not the final model he wanted.
As you may see from my most recent posts on other pages
I am certainly not mystifying time but demystifying it. In fact time can be completely removed if desired and mere sequence of configurations of founadational space and mix of apparent configurations in emergent space-time be considered instead.
The experienced present of the observer is the output of the processing of received sensory data, which is always within the only existing configuration of the Object universe. That is not difficult or mysterious. Its like Present-ism but conserved with the underlying foundational reality, the source of the Presents observed. Its saying there is no substantial past, there is no substantial future but one substantial arrangement within which there is potential sensory data to form emergent space-time maps. Those maps are representations made from an amalgamation of data originating in different previously existent configurations.
This means, it turns out, the Present is not the division between past and future as you have often asserted but uni-temporal Now (the temporal pseudonym of the existing Object universe configuration) is the division. It is the causality front where interaction between particles and objects happens and potential sensory sensory data is produced.
As for intelligence and insanity I think they are irrelevant. This explanatory framework has taken years of trial and error ( I have probably been wrong as often if not more often than I have been right) and near relentless tenacity to develop. As witnessed by the countless pages, I have no ides how many, posted on this site, including the development of the explanatory framework diagrams.
The explanatory framework requires that all current emergent, experienced or portrayed, space-time Image realities exist within the uni-temporal Object reality. If represented by sets this is strange, perhaps a unique mathematical structure. Which maybe why it has eluded discovery for a long time. Hopefully you will consider it more favorably than Cantors strange sets. I don't feel it is insane to suggest such a structure as it is a necessary consequence of the explanatory framework that works. It must be kept in mind that foundational space Object reality and emergent space-time Image reality are distinctly different categories.
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 17, 2015 @ 05:05 GMT
Anonymous replied on May. 17, 2015 @ 05:01 GMT, that was me, Georgina
Sorry I keep getting logged out.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 17, 2015 @ 08:07 GMT
Dear Eckard and Pentcho,
I meant to say -Its like Present-ism but concerned with the underlying foundational reality,....... Rather than 'conserved'.
Thinking on I do think it is necessary to have some doubt that what is observed is the external reality itself. Some experience of visual disturbance whether by drugs, medications, alcohol, or mental illness would aid clarity of thought regarding the status of the output of the human visual perception system. Though that doubt may be regarded as insanity by some it is in fact correct and sane clarity of thought. Whereas the general belief that what is seen is the external substantial reality itself, as if we have windows in our skull, is mass delusion. Richard Feynman was a very intelligent man and yet he trivialized the philosophical debate over whether you see only light or objects themselves.
Richard Feynman on hungry philosophers. Which seems to have been a popular response with his audience, who no doubt share his unfortunate dismissive"sane"opinion.
report post as inappropriate
Akinbo Ojo replied on May. 17, 2015 @ 11:04 GMT
Georgina,
It is unfortunate the comical statements of Richard Feynman on "When you are looking at something do you see only light or do you see the object?"
Can something be seen without light?
Can light be seen without something?
He (Richard) is always seeking to distort the truth. Seeing is just a sensory perception just as sound is. Moreover, in some electromagnetic spectrum light can be emitted by something and transmitted to the observer and yet nothing is seen (outside the visible spectrum). This does not imply the absence of an object.
Akinbo
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on May. 17, 2015 @ 15:08 GMT
I agree that sensation is a constant stream of neural impulses that are what informs us about the world.
Akinbo Ojo replied on May. 17, 2015 @ 11:04 GMT "Moreover, in some electromagnetic spectrum light can be emitted by something and transmitted to the observer and yet nothing is seen (outside the visible spectrum). This does not imply the absence of an object."However, we do not sense space and yet we are more sure about space and motion in space than we are about the objects and time delays that we actually do sense. As you said, some objects we do not see, but like a transparent window, we know a window by other sensation. All that we do sense are objects and their backgrounds and those neural impulses represent time delays.
Time delays as neural spikes from exchange of object matter fill sensation and are the most primitive form of time and space and motion emerge from these streams of neural spikes. A major flaw of relativity is in setting time as a mere coordinate of spacetime because in so doing, all motion becomes deterministic geodesic paths.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 17, 2015 @ 22:45 GMT
Hi Akinbo, Steve, All,
the question put to professor Feynman was a profound one. Another question might be: As we are receiving light emitted or reflected from objects, does alteration in the way the light is received alter the object itself? The correct response to which will help clarify that the barn pole type paradoxes are about manifestations (Image reality) not actualized objects...
view entire post
Hi Akinbo, Steve, All,
the question put to professor Feynman was a profound one. Another question might be: As we are receiving light emitted or reflected from objects, does alteration in the way the light is received alter the object itself? The correct response to which will help clarify that the barn pole type paradoxes are about manifestations (Image reality) not actualized objects (Object reality).
Re your questions Akinbo's Q1. "Can something be seen without light?" It depends on what you mean by 'things' and 'seen'. Light is needed to form visual representations of objects that are in external reality. However sound can also be used as by dolphins and bats and some blind humans.Visions and hallucinations that give the appearance of things that do not exist as objects in external reality can also occur. Not formed from data from the external environment but internally generated.
Re. Akinbo's Q2."Can light be seen without something?" Light can be seen without receiving it from the external environment. If the visual cortex is stimulated that can be sensed as sensations of light called phosphenes.
Visual sensations produced by intracortical microstimulation of the human occipital cortex Lights associated with migraine and epileptic aura are also internaly generated. This is all fascinating to me and suggests that what we regard as light is usually the output of stimulation of the retina and thence the brain, not a quality of the carrier of the sensory data itself. The representation that is generated allows us to navigate, it provides illumination. Without processing the presence of external visible wavelength electromagnetism and objects reflecting it can not be seen.
It would probably be good for clarity in physics to refer to un-received light as (visible) EM and the visual sensation, the observation, as light. I used to reliably refer to external visible EM as 'EM' or 'em' but light is used by physicists in general parlance and so I have become less pedantic. However there is a significant difference. Visible EM in the external environment (Object reality) is not the sensation of light (Image reality). So I should acknowledge their belonging to different categories of reality by using the different names. Steve re.your "However, we do not sense space and yet we are more sure about space and motion in space than we are about the objects and time delays that we actually do sense." I refer you to the below post, if you are looking at most recent first order- Anonymous replied on May. 17, 2015 @ 05:01 GMT addressed to Eckard and Pentcho which may possibly be of interest to you.
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
James A Putnam replied on May. 17, 2015 @ 23:14 GMT
Hi Georgina,
In response to your inclusion of "all", while not wanting to interfere with the ongoing conversation, but, rather to place myself, for the record, in disagreement with "The correct response to which will help clarify that the barn pole type paradoxes are about manifestations (Image reality) not actualized objects (Object reality)." Length contraction is a physical effect that occurs with the same result regardless of whether the object is moving away from or toward the observer. This is both what the Lorentz transform predicts and what I have found, while not relying upon relativity theory, to be correct. In any case, you are presenting your ideas very well and I recognize they have received positive response from others here. Good luck.
James Putnam
report post as inappropriate
Anonymous replied on May. 18, 2015 @ 06:21 GMT
Hi James,
it is good to hear from you. Thank you for your kind words of appreciation.
The specific question I asked was: does alteration in the way the light is received alter the object itself? By object itself I am referring to the substantial source of the manifestations seen by observers. That is the nourishing steak, made of atoms, using Professor Feynman's example. Perhaps I...
view entire post
Hi James,
it is good to hear from you. Thank you for your kind words of appreciation.
The specific question I asked was: does alteration in the way the light is received alter the object itself? By object itself I am referring to the substantial source of the manifestations seen by observers. That is the nourishing steak, made of atoms, using Professor Feynman's example. Perhaps I should have been more explicit.
May I ask, what is it you consider is transformed in reality rather than mathematically IE what is the equivalent phenomenon in physics? Some choices for what is transformed 1.The substantial object, such as " Feynman's Steak" (that is the source of the sensory data received by an observer) 2. the potential sensory data in the environment 3. the relationship of the observer to potential sensory data in the environment 4. the seen output of the sensory data processing.
I would choose 3 which leads to 4. 3. is how a transformation physically occurs, a different viewpoint obtaining a different selection of potential sensory data and 4. is the outcome of the transformation. What is seen in both reference frames is manifestations, IE the outputs of sensory data processing as substantial source objects can not be directly seen, or so it seems to me, you may still wish to disagree.
I may have been wrong to equate Galilean relativity with the Object reality of things but it seems that at normal speeds and local distances there is little difference between where something is and where it is seen to be because the speed if light is so fast. However that is ignoring optical effects.
Since relativity and optics deal with the emission or reflection of light and how it is received and output of that, why aren't the two branches of physics combined, giving a complete depiction of relativity. The various relations of observers to potential sensory data in the environment and the outputs obtained, varying in "TEMPORAL ORIGIN" and in SCALE and GEOMETRY. For example there is the physical equivalent of foreshortening, used by artists to represent what is seen. The dimensions of an object's manifestation being shorter along the line of sight relative to across the line of sight
Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeingand And clearly the more distant an object( the source) the smaller it ( the manifestation) appears to be.
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 18, 2015 @ 06:25 GMT
Sorry -Anonymous replied on May. 18, 2015 @ 06:21 GMT, that was me, Georgina, I seem to be unable to stay logged in long enough to write a reply.
report post as inappropriate
James A Putnam replied on May. 18, 2015 @ 22:17 GMT
Georgina,
It was your second statement I responded to because it is unrelated to your question:
"As we are receiving light emitted or reflected from objects, does alteration in the way the light is received alter the object itself? The correct response to which will help clarify that the barn pole type paradoxes are about manifestations (Image reality) not actualized objects (Object...
view entire post
Georgina,
It was your second statement I responded to because it is unrelated to your question:
"As we are receiving light emitted or reflected from objects, does alteration in the way the light is received alter the object itself? The correct response to which will help clarify that the barn pole type paradoxes are about manifestations (Image reality) not actualized objects (Object reality)."
The answer to your question is No. That answer is unrelated to length contraction.
Length contraction occurs to objects such as the pole in the barn pole example. The pole shrinks in the direction of its velocity. That shrinkage occurs in the Lorentzian manner and not linearly. That shrinkage also is not dependent upon the position of an observer. The barn pole example is not a example of special relativity. The reason is because the barn is not in free space, but rather is stationary on the surface of a planet. There is no paradox because the barn is not moving relative to the surface of the planet.
The effect called 'length contraction', in the example, is unrelated to and unchanged if the observer is given a velocity relative to the surface of the planet. Doppler effects are not examples of length contraction. Doppler effects are dependent upon the direction of relative velocity, with respect to the pole, of the observer. The length contraction of the pole is independent of the direction of that velocity. It is independent of the observer's velocity, either with respect to the pole or the barn, regardless of the observer's direction or speed.
Here is an example of the a consequence of length contraction due to velocity relative to the surface of the planet. There is a wire with a constant current in it. The wire is stationary on the surface of the planet. The wire has the same number of negative charges as it does positive charges. It is electrically neutral. The electrons moving in the wire have a velocity with respect to the wire and to the surface of the planet. Because the electrons have this relative velocity, they experience length contraction. The wire does not and the observer does not and the planet does not, in this example, experience length contraction. Relativists can predict the existence of a magnetic field around the wire by a calculation that begins with length contraction. The magnetic field exerts a well defined force, based upon changes of velocity of a test particle having electric charge. That force is not the same as electric force. It is very different.
I find relativity theory to be obviously wrong. For this reason I have deliberately and repeatedly mentioned velocities with respect to the surface of the planet because those are what really matter for real effects in the barn pole example. In the case of the magnetic field example I do find that the magnetic field varies its strength due to a length contraction. My explanation is different from relativity theory. However, it doesn't matter because you are offering to explain the effects that are attributed to relativity theory. I mentioned that length contraction is independent of the direction of relative velocity. The effect known as time dilation is also independent of the direction of the relative velocity. In other words, it makes no change in the effects known as length contraction and time dilation whether an object is moving away from or toward an observer. The effects are the same in both cases.
James Putnam
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 19, 2015 @ 01:28 GMT
Hi James,
Yes I agree the answer is no. In which case
any alteration of the "thing "
observed, is alteration of the manifestation,
the output of the sensory data processing. By my reasoning, but you have a different observer independent ? understanding of the paradox.
As I understand it, the barn pole problem is about non simultaneity of events for different...
view entire post
Hi James,
Yes I agree the answer is no. In which case
any alteration of the "thing "
observed, is alteration of the manifestation,
the output of the sensory data processing. By my reasoning, but you have a different observer independent ? understanding of the paradox.
As I understand it, the barn pole problem is about non simultaneity of events for different observer reference frames. Try this simple presentation.
The barn pole paradox :Non simultaneity illustrated with colour changes © Mark L. Irons
Quote" The hidden assumption in the apparent paradox is that when we envision "the pole", we imagine an actual pole. In our daily existence poles don't change from moment to moment, so our mental model of a pole is of something uniform, something always the same at every moment for all observers. Once we recognize and break that assumption, it becomes easier to comprehend how observers in different frames can disagree about an object's appearance." © Mark L. Irons, last updated 10 August 2007 I find this presentation easy to understand and have linked to it several times on this site. I'm not sure why you say "I find relativity theory to be obviously wrong." The above presentation does not appear obviously wrong to me but enlightening: )
As I see it each colour relates to a different time or iteration in the sequence of configurations of the Object universe; because the pole illustrated is going through a regular sequential colour change. The manifestations produced by each observer are constructed of data from different "temporal"origins ( Object universe configuration origins,IE different CO-data).The manifestations differ in colours and length. The same applies to both pole and barn. Changing from one observer perspective to the other does not alter the source object at all but alters the manifestation observed.
James forgive me for not addressing your reply directly. I know you dislike reading feedback containing half baked attempts to understand your work. There is a lot in there and I will have to think carefully about what you have said. Kind regards, Georgina
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
James A Putnam replied on May. 21, 2015 @ 01:33 GMT
Georgina,
"I know you dislike reading feedback containing half baked attempts to understand your work."
No, I never had a problem with that.
"Yes I agree the answer is no. In which case any alteration of the "thing " observed, is alteration of the manifestation, the output of the sensory data processing. By my reasoning, but you have a different observer independent ?...
view entire post
Georgina,
"I know you dislike reading feedback containing half baked attempts to understand your work."
No, I never had a problem with that.
"Yes I agree the answer is no. In which case any alteration of the "thing " observed, is alteration of the manifestation, the output of the sensory data processing. By my reasoning, but you have a different observer independent ? understanding of the paradox."
I may not understand your point. There can be alterations to either the pole or the barn that exist before reflected light leaves and is affected otherwise.
Relativity theory is wrong for many reasons that I have debated a long time mostly with Tom. So, I'll just stick with responding to the idea that: "...the barn pole problem is about non-simultaneity of events for different observer reference frames." I can offer an explanation for why relativists have not solved their paradox. Lets first see if I describe the problem satisfactorily:
There is a pole with a velocity aimed directly into a barn. The pole, when it is stationary with respect to the barn is too long to fit into the barn. The Lorentz transform for length-contraction predicts that when the pole has a sufficient magnitude of velocity, it shrinks enough to fit inside the barn as it passes through. There is a paradox that exists due to relativity theory allowing for the relative velocity of the pole to be applied in reverse for the barn. In that case it is the barn that shrinks instead of the pole. Relativity theory allows for them to both be true for the same event. As you pointed out, non-simultaneity is credited with explaining that the pole will both fit into the barn and not fit into the barn depending on which of the two has the relative velocity. Sometimes the wording is weak and it can seem that the relativists are speaking about appearances. However, they are speaking about physical changes to either the pole or the barn that occur independent of whatever may affect the light that is reflected away. Usually observers are included and their perspectives on what is occurring are given. For example, if the barn is said to have entrance and exit doors that will be closed simultaneously for an instant while the pole is in the barn, if it fits, there is offered the opposite perspective of one observer, traveling with the pole, who sees the doors not operating simultaneously. The observer perspectives are offered as proof that the two predictions of the Lorentz transform for length-contraction are both correct about what happens physically to the pole and the barn for the same single event.
My own description of the problem includes the barn being stationary on the surface of the Earth. I am not including that for this discussion. Please let me know your opinion of the description given above. Thank you.
James Putnam
James Putnam
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 21, 2015 @ 04:33 GMT
OK James. I just don't want to upset you by having you think I'm misrepresenting your work by feeding back my misunderstandings.
James I think you have set out the paradox OK. However a few things to bear in mind. The Lorentz transformation that predicts the pole will fit is from the perspective of "Barney" at the barn only, not "Polly" with the pole. Its to do with reference frame not just speed. For "Polly" at the pole the barn appears to be moving and the pole stationary giving the appearance of shrinking of barn instead. From that reference frame but not the other, Barney's.
You wrote"Sometimes the wording is weak and it can seem that the relativists are speaking about appearances. However, they are speaking about physical changes to either the pole or the barn that occur independent of whatever may affect the light that is reflected away." If that is the case there is a paradox because a substantial Object can not be simultaneously short and long BUT from two different observer perspective the manifestations of the object can be different without paradox. Regarding the doors, there is no agreement about simultaneity from the two different reference frames.
Barn pole © Mark L. IronsHappy to hear your alternative explanation of the paradox as you have set it out.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 21, 2015 @ 04:45 GMT
I have in many posts pointed out that we never see substantial objects themselves. Always emergent reality outputs of EM data processing. The analogy can be given of a building observed by a near observer and a far observer; Each sees it as having a different height to the other. The substantial Object itself in Object reality does not change size at all how ever the observers look at it. Each observer receives a sub set of EM data from which their manifestation is fabricated and in this (house) case of varying size the visual angle gives the size of the object on the retina and consequently the image presented to the visual cortex.
There is a widespread problem of not differentiating substantial objects made of atoms,and the emergent Image reality manifestation of an object. All are called by the name of the object. Swapping of observer perspective is not a problem as shown by the house size analogy above. Different observers see different things depending upon their relation to the substantial object ( that affects which sensory data is received to form the manifestation of the object that is seen.) As another analogy consider the perceived length of a pole like object seen head on and same pole seen from its side held horizontally in front of the observer standing midway between the ends. IMHO the paradox comes only from not differentiating object from emergent image. Non simultaneity of perceived events can account for both different perceived sizes of the objects (Images) and different reckoning of the opening and closing of the doors.
report post as inappropriate
James A Putnam replied on May. 21, 2015 @ 06:10 GMT
Georgina,
"OK James. I just don't want to upset you by having you think I'm misrepresenting your work by feeding back my misunderstandings"
I have never been upset by you or anyone else by feedback to me about my work. Do you want to color our past disagreement in your favor or do you want to discuss the barn-pole problem? I am interested in discussing only the barn-pole problem....
view entire post
Georgina,
"OK James. I just don't want to upset you by having you think I'm misrepresenting your work by feeding back my misunderstandings"
I have never been upset by you or anyone else by feedback to me about my work. Do you want to color our past disagreement in your favor or do you want to discuss the barn-pole problem? I am interested in discussing only the barn-pole problem. Here is one more attempt at discussion.
"James I think you have set out the paradox OK. However a few things to bear in mind. The Lorentz transformation that predicts the pole will fit is from the perspective of "Barney" at the barn only, not "Polly" with the pole. Its to do with reference frame not just speed. For "Polly" at the pole the barn appears to be moving and the pole stationary giving the appearance of shrinking of barn instead. From that reference frame but not the other, Barney's."
The pole and the barn are sufficient for the problem to be resolved. Perspective is fine for discussion between observers, but observers are neither necessary nor functional in the barn-pole paradoxical problem. There is no need for a Barney nor a Polly for the purpose of learning about what happens mechanically. Relativists do have a need for a Barney or Polly for diversionary purposes. Is it your position that what a Barney or Polly sees or thinks they see affects the mechanical outcome of the pole-barn paradox? We need to agree what the problem is, otherwise any solution is irrelevant. My position is that there is a pole with an approaching velocity relative to a stationary barn. The question to be answered is: Is there a velocity at which the pole approaches that is sufficient, when substituted into the Lorentz transform equation for length-contraction, to allow an otherwise 'too-long' pole to fit within the length of the barn?
You wrote"Sometimes the wording is weak and it can seem that the relativists are speaking about appearances. However, they are speaking about physical changes to either the pole or the barn that occur independent of whatever may affect the light that is reflected away." If that is the case there is a paradox because a substantial Object can not be simultaneously short and long BUT from two different observer perspective the manifestations of the object can be different without paradox. Regarding the doors, there is no agreement about simultaneity from the two different reference frames.
Yes there is a paradox for relativists and the relativists' proposed solution fails.
James Putnam
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 21, 2015 @ 07:50 GMT
James, ?: ) My intention was only to state up front that I don't intend to cause offense to you in this discussion and I feel hesitant to address your work for that reason. No ulterior motive or offense intended by my comments : )
You ask "Is it your position that what a Barney or Polly sees or thinks they see affects the mechanical outcome of the pole-barn paradox?" As I said a...
view entire post
James, ?: ) My intention was only to state up front that I don't intend to cause offense to you in this discussion and I feel hesitant to address your work for that reason. No ulterior motive or offense intended by my comments : )
You ask "Is it your position that what a Barney or Polly sees or thinks they see affects the mechanical outcome of the pole-barn paradox?" As I said a substantial object can not be simultaneously short and long BUT from two different observer perspectives the manifestations of the object that are seen can be different without paradox. I'm not sure what you mean by mechanical outcome of the paradox. The outcome is what it is said to be in the description of the paradox. If you mean what is happening to the pole object and barn object IE substantial objects made of atoms, then observer reference frame is not affecting those objects. Just like a substantial object house is not affected by an observer viewing it from a distance.
You haven't quoted me quoting you which makes it look like, according to you, I wrote what you wrote.For the record it was you who wrote Quote "Sometimes the wording is weak and it can seem that the relativists are speaking about appearances. However, they are speaking about physical changes to either the pole or the barn that occur independent of whatever may affect the light that is reflected away."
From what you have written it seems to me that 1. you do not consider the problem to be about observer reference frames; 2. do not accept that the non simultaneity of events that would be experienced by observers at each position is sufficient to describe what is occurring; 3.do not accept that the paradox is resolved if related to what is seen rather than substantial objects (my viewpoint) as you do not consider it to be about appearances. I don't agree with you but am happy to hear your resolution of the problem.I don't understand how the Lorentz transformation applies if not switching between different reference frames.Or will we be?
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
James A Putnam replied on May. 21, 2015 @ 15:31 GMT
Georgina,
The problem I have interest in addressing is the problem of the pole-barn paradox and its solution as relativists understand it and solve it. There has to be agreement on the problem. Perhaps there are others who can present the problem as relativists understand it and solve it.
James Putnam
report post as inappropriate
John R. Cox replied on May. 21, 2015 @ 16:44 GMT
James,
If I may briefly interject, here...
While I address SR as the mechanics (mathematic mechanism) of measurement, there always exists the psychology of any individual encountering pondering what it says about reality. Much confusion arises, I think, from Eienstein's famous euphemism of riding on a beam of light and 'time stops'. uhhhh.... no. I mean if 'time' stops at light...
view entire post
James,
If I may briefly interject, here...
While I address SR as the mechanics (mathematic mechanism) of measurement, there always exists the psychology of any individual encountering pondering what it says about reality. Much confusion arises, I think, from Eienstein's famous euphemism of riding on a beam of light and 'time stops'. uhhhh.... no. I mean if 'time' stops at light velocity, how can light continue to propagate at light velocity across space where time stops for no man? Here-in lies all the paradoxical psychologisms that plague modern relativity.
Let us dissect the Einsteinian euphemism. Starting with the old joke that the 'speed of time' is one second per second. Okay (...?). So if that is the universal rate, how do we know if it is that rate we ourselves experience? We don't. What is 'one second'? For looking closer we distinguish that for the Einsteinian euphemism to hold, it means that we track the change in rate of passage of time in relation to our velocity from the human experience of how much effort it takes to push a stone up the eternal hill, starting from rest and ever increasing our speed as we go higher up the hill. In short the euphemism rates the speed of times passage as 1 sec/sec @ rest; up to 0 sec/sec @ light velocity.
Where I find your 'A New Gamma' applicably interesting, is in looking at the Lorentzian in the reverse. That is, from light velocity dropping to ~relative rest. Mass is only a 'mass of energy' (energy en-masse) until a unit quantity specific to a unit volume is determined which exhibits inertia as a function of density in universal proportion to the total rest quantity. So gravitationally, the rate of passage of time would be 0 sec/sec at ~rest; and progress Lorentz fashion to 1 sec/sec @ light velocity. In a rest mass of particulate matter, the greatest density would exist in a core volume at constant density because time would not extend in relation to the space of that core volume, but as the distance increased from the core horizon, the density would decrease as a coeffeciency of greater space and increase of the rate of passage of time without the energy quantity extending spatially to infinity, but only to a limit minimum density where the rate of passage of time is 1 sec/sec.
Looking at it from that paradigm, SR makes better sense. At rest we measure mass, but at light velocity we measure energy. Taken literally, energy is mass existing at light velocity. And if density is a function of inherent velocity, a small enough quantity of mass does become accelerated to light velocity as EM because it ceases to be 'mass' as velocity transforms it to enegy, without the necessity theoretically to extend spatially in all directions to infinity. Hence, light is a unidirectional physical volumetric phenomenon. If I decide to produce a paper, I may well incorporate your extrapolation of (c)sqrt 1-(v^2.c^2) and cite your 'A New Gamma'. Thanks, but don't hold your breath. jrc
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
John R. Cox replied on May. 21, 2015 @ 16:53 GMT
OOOPS, oh drat! Sorry James, I should have done a final proof-read, I had hit the period key instead of the slash. Your extrapolation of (c)sqrt 1-(v^2/c^2) jrc
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 21, 2015 @ 22:29 GMT
Hi John, excuse me commenting on your post to James, I mean it to be helpful and not disparaging. You wrote- "Much confusion arises, I think, from Eienstein's famous euphemism of riding on a beam of light and 'time stops'. uhhhh.... no. I mean if 'time' stops at light velocity, how can light continue to propagate at light velocity across space where time stops for no man? Here-in lies all the...
view entire post
Hi John, excuse me commenting on your post to James, I mean it to be helpful and not disparaging. You wrote- "Much confusion arises, I think, from Eienstein's famous euphemism of riding on a beam of light and 'time stops'. uhhhh.... no. I mean if 'time' stops at light velocity, how can light continue to propagate at light velocity across space where time stops for no man? Here-in lies all the paradoxical psychologisms that plague modern relativity."
If an event (A) is encoded in a set of EM data that is propagating at light speed and the man travels with it at light speed, he is keeping pace with the encoded event (A) It is not being superseded by younger, more recent EM data that would up date the man's present experience. It is his experience of a changing present that stops. Despite this there is still passage of time external to his experience, the sequential change in configuration of the Object universe, which includes change in position of EM sensory data.
There is a presumption in this thought experiment that I think is probably a flaw, the assumption that he cannot simultaneously keep pace with the light beam and receive EM from elsewhere, that would give him changing present experience. EM being waves can pass through each other, the light beam is not like a solid object that would exclude others from that space.
You wrote "Let us dissect the Einsteinian euphemism. Starting with the old joke that the 'speed of time' is one second per second. Okay (...?). So if that is the universal rate, how do we know if it is that rate we ourselves experience? We don't." I have recently linked an FQXi talk by David Eagleman, What is time to the brain... (See below the link seems to activate when the post is expanded) He provides evidence that human experience is an another level of emergent reality beyond mere amalgamation of sensory inputs according to time of arrival. There being additional delays and synchronization of sensory data from different senses giving causal 'story' consistency.Mentioned because you asked" how do we know if it is that rate we ourselves experience? " The experience of passage of time is variable for a human observer.
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
John R. Cox replied on May. 22, 2015 @ 00:09 GMT
Georgina.
As you say, (at light velocity) "It is his perception of a changing present that stops." That is, his perception of the passage of time in the stationary frame through which he is passing. Though time keeps ticking right along in his experience as an energy entity, because he has become a gigantic strand of photons. If we remove ourselves from the equation and look at the existential reality in terms of Albert's Euphemism, if time stops at light velocity then mustn't time move at light velocity for a relative rest quantity? SR is mathematically complete as a measurement scheme, but here it is the time metric that I take issue with. For the hypothetical observer to continue to experience the passage of time while moving at light velocity, as consistent with the postulates, while perceiving time as static in the (K) stationary reference frame; light velocity is that experimentally measured absolute value because that must be a fast as time can extend. Therefore, Einstein's Euphemism was an ambiguity uttered in the excitement of the Eureka moment, and stuck.
Encoding data or not. The metric rate at which time extends relative to the velocity of a real physical particle would be 0 sec/sec @ ~rest, and 1 sec/sec @ c. What paradox? jrc
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 22, 2015 @ 06:00 GMT
Hi John, some thoughts on what you wrote from my own point of view.
It's said to be impossible to accelerate a body to the speed of light because of the problem of increasing inertia. I don't know that the light beam rider becomes a stream of photons in the scenario of riding a light beam. Imagining he can be accelerated to that speed, he can also be imagined as still being a corporeal observer, accustomed to his high velocity. In that state he should still be able to intercept EM already emitted from objects far ahead, traveling at the speed of light, that crosses the path of his light beam. Though the EM sensory data he is travelling with is remaining the same only diminishing in intensity with distance.
I think you are right in a way- the updating of the sensory data from which the present of an observer at rest is fabricated will be happening at light speed. That is to say the rate of photon data arriving is the speed of light but there has to be processing time added to that to get to the rate at which the present that is experienced is intermittently updated. Which is very much slower. See David Eagleman's FQXi talk.
When you talk of time in relation to a real physical particle you are now no longer talking about the perception of time, time within the emergent reality of the observer, but passage of time in external substantial reality. These are different categories of time. Particles themselves do not experience a present, the emergent Image reality, they just always are at uni-temporal -Now what ever speed they are travelling. (uni-temporal-Now is the temporal analogue of the existing (youngest)configuration of the Object universe)
report post as inappropriate
John R. Cox replied on May. 22, 2015 @ 15:56 GMT
Georgina,
Have I said congratulations yet, Ms. Parry? Best wishes.
But yes... "talk of time in relation to a real physical particle you are now no longer talking about the perception of time, time within the emergent reality of the observer, but passage of time in the external substantial reality."
That is physics prior to the *information age* which I recognize has its own...
view entire post
Georgina,
Have I said congratulations yet, Ms. Parry? Best wishes.
But yes... "talk of time in relation to a real physical particle you are now no longer talking about the perception of time, time within the emergent reality of the observer, but passage of time in the external substantial reality."
That is physics prior to the *information age* which I recognize has its own validity in examining the roles of information as we devise its criteria, and the vast investments in information theory due to the global addiction to ever increasing computational capacity at no increase in cost. And which despite the rosey promises of the Quants that by the time 5G hits the shelves they'll have given us 'quantum computers', I doubt. After the collapse of the functional financial wave in 2008 leaving the too big to fail boys uncertain about their principal, I don't think the Saudi's are banking on it. They want to sell as much oil as they can, while they still can. My small investment strategy concurs.
Though differing in our perspectives, I think we both agree that Einstein's famous gedanken is indeed flawed, but its curious because Einstein then immediately introduces as postulates the conclusions of Maxwell's results; the universal constancy of light velocity, and that the laws of physics are identical in any frame of reference. Which of course includes the passage of time in the light velocity frame, and which in the hard physics of his day treats the role of humanity in the observer role as a given. SR is simple geometry and a little algebra, NOT simple arithmetic.
Maxwell's silver hammer came down on Newton's head, Einstein just used it to put the last nail in his coffin. You have to do some digging to get an understanding of Maxwell beyond the tired homage that his equations 'give a complete understanding of Electromagnetism', which is only true enough. But Maxwell's electrodynamic theory upon which Einstein founded all his work, is not itself a complete theory. Like GR, Maxwell's equations produce a mathematical singularity which cannot exist as a physical reality or all the intensity would be concentrated at a zero dimensional point and there would be no volume of field to observe. That is why QM hangs onto the *zero-point particle* and evolves to non-locality, superposition, entanglement and etc. since it took the quantum leap of faith.
Many like to argue against Relativity by contesting the validity of the postulates because Einstein doesn't lay out the theoretical and mathematical proofs for them. But Maxwell had already done so (in spades) , and Einstein cites Maxwell's theory. To argue against the postulates of SR, one must disprove Maxwell and offer a consistent, full theoretical treatment that explains all of the technology higher than Volta's chemical cell. That's physics.
Which brings me back to my point to James. Einstein's ride gedanken has the time metric backward's. Not that it doesn't grab people's attention and illustrate that given Maxwell's never-disproven conclusions, it is time and space that are not absolute. But so does the metric of 0 sec/sec @ ~rest >> 1 sec/sec @ c, and that metric dispels the psychological paradox and might well be taken as the fifth dimension which Klein and Kaluza hypothesized but failed to provide a theoretical rationale for its existence. I don't have the math to explain it, but in the Klein-Kaluza 5D application to GR, Maxwell's equations emerge. KOOL!
Please forgive me for not engaging in the layered perceptual-informational arena, I'm an old guy on short time and quite frankly miss the world before ninetendo. Best wishes, jrc
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 22, 2015 @ 23:36 GMT
Hi John,
with respect, re. time for the particle itself, You wrote "That is physics prior to the *information age* " No it is modern physics, which requires foundational passage of time due to change in configuration of the Object universe underlying the perception of passage of time via information input.
I don't see why you say the time metric is backward. If we have a sensor at rest receiving a bombardment photon data that is travelling at c that will give an output passage of time. The image of a nearby clock produced from the photon data detected by the sensor would show marking time as you put it at one second per second. Instead of considering the man travelling with a photon stream how about if we consider the photon stream alone to be encoding the time on a clock. The data is unchanging, it is not being updated and so the time encoded does not change." Clock time
apparently stands still". That's two different photon streams; one with changing data content and one without changing content; one showing passage of time and one not.
Yet for a traveler at relative light speed (relative to an observer deemed to be rest )time passes normally. He gets hungry, he gets bored, etc. because physiologically there is still change occurring. Worth mentioning I think, his velocity is only relative to something deemed to be at rest.It could be something moving away from him at high speed and so his absolute velocity is much less than c. Photons travelling within the apparent rest frame of the high velocity traveler behave just like any other photons and would be measured to be travelling at the speed of light.
Perhaps it needs to be accepted that the speed of light is always the speed measured by the local observer; and THAT speed can not exceed the speed of light. A far observer would not be able to measure the speed of those particular photons themselves, because he is not there but far away.
report post as inappropriate
Anonymous replied on May. 23, 2015 @ 00:22 GMT
Hi James,
please forgive my intrusion. I wasn't expecting my comment to John to turn in to a another discussion, though I appreciate the replies. It would be very good if you and John discuss your work because you two seem to be 'on the same wavelength'. The by standers might learn a thing or two.
It would also be enlightening for me to actually hear you explain the outcome of the barn-pole paradox in your own words. I don't think you need someone to argue with about it in order to set it out as an alternative explanation. So far you have set out the problem as you see it for me, I'm OK with what you wrote( I set out my own thoughts on that but they are incidental). You say you have already has discussion with Tom, so do you really need another strict relativist to try to convince? Couldn't you just explain it and leave it for other people to ponder? If you do that other people, pro or anti, may wish to join the discussion and discuss it with you. (Meant only as an encouraging, helpful suggestion.)
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 23, 2015 @ 00:25 GMT
Anonymous replied on May. 23, 2015 @ 00:22 GMT, that's me Georgina
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 23, 2015 @ 06:09 GMT
John, All,
Just to clarify, I wrote, "That's two different photon streams; one with changing data content and one without changing content; one showing passage of time and one not." The important difference is what the observer is doing relative to the EM data as the observer's motion determines whether the data content is changing relative to him or not. Being at rest relative to his surroundings receiving data traveling at c relative to him (changing data and corresponding experienced passage of time) OR traveling with the EM data at c that is consequently unchanging in that reference frame.(No experience of passage of time
from that data.) Time can be seen to be passing differently depending on reference frame because that kind of time is emergent from the data content of the EM received.
While light beam traveler and stationary observer are not becoming separated in foundational, uni-temporal time because of their motion and consequently different EM data receipt. They both always stay within the configuration of the Object universe that exists, not one in the future relative to the other because he has
seen time passing faster.
report post as inappropriate
Akinbo Ojo replied on May. 23, 2015 @ 11:41 GMT
John Cox, Georgina, James et al.
- Concerning Maxwell and the equations purportedly endorsed by him and besring his name you may wish to read and store for keeps 90 year old Thomas Erwin Phipps's essay this year before it is removed. I think it clarifies more than a bit.
- Concerning travelling at light speed, you may want to consider the 'photon existence paradox' discovered by Armin Nikkah Shirazi with whom I had some discussions on his forum also in this years essay contest. If time does not flow for a photon or if 'time' stops at light velocity as John puts it, then the time of emission of a photon is the time also of its absorption, how then can photon exist?
It follows therefore that since photon exists, time does not stop for photons contrary to the Lorentz formula
t' = t √(1 - v
2/c
2)
where for a photon t is the time it reads on its own clock and t' is the time the photon reads on an observer's clock. But for both photon and observer, photon must have a duration of existence, if not we are led into contradiction. Light would not be observed to reach us from the Sun if it is from observer viewpoint, and Light would not be able to leave the Sun from photon perspective.
Akinbo
report post as inappropriate
John R. Cox replied on May. 23, 2015 @ 15:49 GMT
Akinbo,
Thanks for bringing Tom Phipp's essay to my attention, I had only browsed a few entries meaning no disrespect for anyone. I'll have to give some thought and study to it, but have also limited my focus to loose ends and unresolved issues in classical physics which evolve into the morass of modernity.
I have also always objected to the standard application of LT producing the scenario you concisely illustrate that if time 'stops' at light velocity the time of emission and absorption of a photon (wavelength, really) would be the same. Which is what I mean by the time metric being backwards. Time does not stop at light velocity, the closer you get to light velocity the closer you are to the limit of how fast time can progress. But, enough if this for me, for now. Cordially, jrc
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 24, 2015 @ 01:01 GMT
Akinbo, All
Akinbo you make a good point regarding the existence of a photon when "time stops". I will address that issue.
The problem here is lack of differentiation of different kinds of time.
There needs to be at least 4 kinds acknowledged and differentiated in physics, though there are more kinds of time if we include different representations of time such as time that...
view entire post
Akinbo, All
Akinbo you make a good point regarding the existence of a photon when "time stops". I will address that issue.
The problem here is lack of differentiation of different kinds of time.
There needs to be at least 4 kinds acknowledged and differentiated in physics, though there are more kinds of time if we include different representations of time such as time that only exists mathematically, internal biologically time, as kept by circadian rhythms adjusted by light exposure times: important for biological organisms, and "Father time" that only exists symbolically and mentally.
The kinds of time important for physics are:
1. time in foundational Object reality, that is passage of time synonymous with the sequential change in configuration of the Object universe. OR.configuration time. Any highly regular sequential change with unchanging accuracy of repetition can be use
to represent this such as clock time but
only very close to the position of a stationary observer, to avoid significant data transmission and processing delay and affects of motion upon the timekeeping of the clock. This can be likened to "Proper time".
2. time information carried by potential sensory EM data primarily (but also other forms of sensory data ) in Object reality, OR. data time.
3. The time as experienced by an organism or displayed by a processing device. Which is Image reality time. It may be helpful to split that time into outputs that retain the data receipt order and those that do not necessarily.
That's a Basic IR. time and a subjective IR. time.
Now as regards the "stopped" photon. That it is stopped is the relative perception of the observer travelling with it. Yes from that perspective the photon ceases to have a frequency or wavelength because the observer is travelling with the wave keeping pace with it. But the photons in the beam are not themselves changed. There is no Basic IR. or subjective IR.Passage of time that can be formed from the photons in that reference frame.So in that respect there is no time. However the photon beam is still carrying OR. data time that could give Basic or subjective IR. time output to observer's crossed by it's path not travelling with it. Also there is still the foundational OR. configuration time: Object universal passage of time in which these scenarios are happening, that is independent of relative perceptions and data transmission.
That time is both stopped and not stopped is only paradoxical if no differentiation between kinds of time is made.
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
James A Putnam replied on May. 24, 2015 @ 04:35 GMT
Georgina,
I should begin at the beginning with removing the indefinable mass from f=ma. It involves the speed of light directly. However, I have found that physicists have lost an understanding of their own definition of an indefinable property. They can no longer see what their predecessors wrote clearly about in physics texts. The wording in texts has changed so students no longer learn...
view entire post
Georgina,
I should begin at the beginning with removing the indefinable mass from f=ma. It involves the speed of light directly. However, I have found that physicists have lost an understanding of their own definition of an indefinable property. They can no longer see what their predecessors wrote clearly about in physics texts. The wording in texts has changed so students no longer learn about it. So, even though the Lorentz transforms are not the beginning of the problem with theoretical physics, they do show their own error sufficiently, at least it seems clear to me.
Take the Lorentz transform for length contraction as an example since it is a principle part of the pole barn paradox. It definitely is a paradox as it currently is explained by physicists. They say that both perspectives are equal and correct for a single event. The point I will be making is that the two perspectives are not equal and cannot both be correct for the same single event. Here is the reason: Taken from a single perspective, the transform is said to be from the viewpoint of an observer who has no assigned velocity. A second observer is said to have a velocity relative to the first observer. The effects predicted by the Lorentz transforms occur to the second observer and not to the stationary observer. It is only when the observers' roles are reversed and the transform is applied again that it is predicted that the relativity type effects switch from the second observer to the first observer. Here is where I raise objection. I argue that the roles are not reversible. This point has to do with crediting the physical environment with causing the effects and not the stationary observer's gaze. The physical circumstances are determined by electric permittivity and magnetic permeability and not because the stationary observer is watching. ...
I'll pause here. Tomorrow I will review what I wrote thus far, respond to criticisms, and resume. Jumping ahead a little, I can provide the explanations for what are electric permittivity and magnetic permeability. Those explanations follow from removing the indefinable status of mass, the same for temperature, and removing the circular definition for electric charge.
James Putnam
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 24, 2015 @ 06:34 GMT
I just need to add to my previous post that: OR.configuration time is not affected by gravitation or motion , unlike Einstein's proper time. OR.data time and subsequent Basic IR. time is affected due to the curving of the EM data paths within a gravitational field and the Doppler effect.
If substantial atomic clocks
themselves are running slow when in motion as shown by a permanent change in time shown compared to a relatively stationary clock it is necessary to separately categorize clock time, for moving clocks.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 24, 2015 @ 06:53 GMT
Thank you James.
I look forward to your next installment.( I too think the environment is vital to the outcome, as it contains the sensory data from which the observer outputs are formed.) Though by bringing up electric permitivity and magnetic permeability I feel you are going to raise physical constraints that I have not contemplated. I think we could come back to the definitions after you show us how those factors are contributing to the scenario. (To keep it simple.) Unless there is someone else here who would like to look at that first.
report post as inappropriate
James A Putnam replied on May. 24, 2015 @ 19:16 GMT
Georgina,
I mentioned electric permittivity and magnetic permeability in order to emphasize that the background conditions are what determine the speed of light. Those two properties are what what Maxwell used to establish the speed of light demonstrating that light is electromagnetism. So I followed convention and mentioned them to support the point I wanted to make. When I derived...
view entire post
Georgina,
I mentioned electric permittivity and magnetic permeability in order to emphasize that the background conditions are what determine the speed of light. Those two properties are what what Maxwell used to establish the speed of light demonstrating that light is electromagnetism. So I followed convention and mentioned them to support the point I wanted to make. When I derived replacement equations for Maxwell's equations I learned what those two properties are. I know they have already been presented in one of my contest essays. They are not the cause of the speed of light. They are results that occur from the cause of the speed of light. The cause of the speed of light is the first property I identify in my work. It goes back to defining mass. However, I didn't start this communication all the way back there, so I referred to electric permittivity and magnetic permeability in the conventional sense as the two properties that determine the speed of light within any particular environment. In any case, the point is that it can conventionally be said that the speed of light for any observer is determined by the background environment in which they are located. The stationary observer referred to when applying the Lorentz transforms establishes the background environment for themselves and the second observer who is assigned the relative velocity through that background environment. Their velocity through the background environment is what results in their length contraction and the other relativity type of effects. The transform equations cannot be applied in reverse for that same event. An observer cannot both have a velocity with respect to the background environment and simultaneously be stationary in that background environment. This last point raises the question of the role of simultaneity. I see that subject being discussed as if it is settled. So, I will address the use of simultaneity in relativity solutions for problems like the barn pole paradox. It occurs to me to say at this point that I have not yet given my own understanding resulting from my work about why the effects identified as length contraction and time dilation occur. My understanding is not the relativity theory understanding. But, one can't say everything at once, so I temporarily rely upon some conventional understandings.
James Putnam
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
James A Putnam replied on May. 24, 2015 @ 23:54 GMT
Georgina,
In the barn pole paradox there are two perspectives presented using the Lorentz transforms. One is that of an observer with the pole and the other is that of the observer with the barn. (I know you know these things, but, I must lay my bricks. Besides, there may be other readers.) From either perspective, the complete forms of the Lorentz transforms predict length contraction for...
view entire post
Georgina,
In the barn pole paradox there are two perspectives presented using the Lorentz transforms. One is that of an observer with the pole and the other is that of the observer with the barn. (I know you know these things, but, I must lay my bricks. Besides, there may be other readers.) From either perspective, the complete forms of the Lorentz transforms predict length contraction for either the pole or the barn and time dilation for both of those plus it differentiates between the beginning of of the pole, or the barn, and the end of the pole, or the barn. Time dilation is different for the two ends. My point is not to debate those results of applying the Lorentz transforms to the pole barn paradox. My intention is to move on to one more step require by relativity theory in order to resolve the paradox from its point of view. That extra step is to introduce simultaneity.
The Lorentz transforms are applied from each observers perspective. The results are contradictory, giving rise to the existence of the paradox. Up to this point, the velocities that have thus far been acknowledged to exist are credited with causing the results. However, the paradox cannot be permitted to persist or relativity's correctness for predictions must be denied. The solution is to introduce speed of light dependent observations to show that the observer's see things occurring differently. Without showing any physical source of cause, relativists claim to achieve physical results. Physical results are those that either change the forms of objects or cause their velocities to change (local changes to the atoms involved). It is a case of relativists arguing that appearances are equivalent to actualities. In other words, to see it different proves that it is different.
Now I reconsider the role of simultaneity from my own viewpoint. The introduction of simultaneity introduces additional changes of time into the paradox. My point is that, for the purpose of generating physical results to the objects involved, viewpoints don't matter but, physical causes do matter. Simultaneity doesn't show its physical cause for its claimed physical results. In order for time to change further than what had been previously predicted by the Lorentz transforms, another velocity must be introduced. There is no new additional velocity. Without the relativists showing it to exist the paradox remains. What is left is the claim that what one sees occurring is what really is occurring. I leave this now for your consideration. I will mention that although we have opposing viewpoints, I recognize that yours is more consistent than is that of the relativists.
James Putnam
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 25, 2015 @ 00:51 GMT
Hi James thank you once again.
Could you please explain to me why the introduction of [relativity of] simultaneity requires in your opinion further changes to time in the problem? I think the coloured pole illustration nicely illustrates the passage of time that will have been captured within the EM sensory data during the scenario and the relationship of the observers to it. Aren't they seeing different events as simultaneous because of their particular reference frames( And the sensory that they encounter within)?
I agree that there is no physical cause to alter the dimension of the [substantial] objects themselves,( if we discount friction warming the pole and causing expansion). They are seeing the objects differently and making assumptions about the source objects based upon what is seen. In my opinion that is what is happening - relative perception, different emergent Image realities being produced within the same foundational Object reality. In which case there is no paradox. Is there another solution James? Or is it enough that the paradox as initially conceived, differences in susbstantial objects themselves, can not physically occur? -that is why it has been a paradox, is it not?.
report post as inappropriate
James A Putnam replied on May. 25, 2015 @ 01:55 GMT
Georgina,
Lets take your first point for this message: "Could you please explain to me why the introduction of [relativity of] simultaneity requires in your opinion further changes to time in the problem?"
A version of the pole barn paradox includes having an entrance door and an exit door for the barn. They are said to open and close simultaneously for the observer with the barn. They are unnecessary for the purpose of answering the question: Will the pole, due to sufficient relative velocity, fit inside the barn? It will fit or it won't fit because of its length and not because doors open and close. However, the doors are necessary for simultaneity. The idea is that the approaching pole observer will receive light from the two doors at different times which is, of course, true. If the observer is at the midpoint of inside the barn, it is argued that that observer will see the exit door operate at a different, earlier, time than the entrance door. It is this claim that for the pole observer, the doors are observed to not operate simultaneously, that introduces an additional variation of times that did not exist in the problem when only the Lorentz transforms were predicting results. The simultaneity argument is added on ad-hoc with no explained cause for real physical results, to atoms if that makes matters clear. The relativists are mixing actual local physical changes to objects with perceived changes to objects. That is why I commented that your view is more consistent than is theirs. My own view requires that changes be physically real if the problem is to remain a physics problem. My interest is in a physics solution. My conclusion is that the correct physics solution is to admit that the paradox exists and relativists cannot physically, again to atoms if that makes this clearer, resolve the paradox.
James Putnam
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 25, 2015 @ 05:10 GMT
Hi James,
agreed the doors are an unnecessary addition but they are added to help illustrate the non simultaneity of the two views.
I'm am glad you think my resolution of the paradox is an improvement. It is consistent with the explanatory framework I have developed. I consider my resolution to be a physics solution. The potential sensory data consists of EM radiation that is within the environment, that is as real as the substantial objects made of atoms also within the environment.
You wrote" My own view requires that changes be physically real if the problem is to remain a physics problem. My interest is in a physics solution. My conclusion is that the correct physics solution is to admit that the paradox exists and relativists cannot physically, again to atoms if that makes this clearer, resolve the paradox." Do you have a physics "related to atoms" solution to the paradox or are you just refuting relativity James?
report post as inappropriate
James A Putnam replied on May. 25, 2015 @ 12:14 GMT
Georgina,
I took my time to think about this:
"I think the coloured pole illustration nicely illustrates the passage of time that will have been captured within the EM sensory data during the scenario and the relationship of the observers to it. Aren't they seeing different events as simultaneous because of their particular reference frames( And the sensory that they encounter within)?"
The space-time idea is something I wonder how it survives. It can't be physically real. There is no empirical evidence for it. However, it does survive and there are illustrations offered that apparently make it seem real. With regard to the quote above and thinking about your description of the colored pole illustration, I think that you analysis of it is correct.
James Putnam
report post as inappropriate
James A Putnam replied on May. 25, 2015 @ 13:42 GMT
Georgina,
Quoting me: "My conclusion is that the correct physics solution is to admit that the paradox exists and relativists cannot physically, again to atoms if that makes this clearer, resolve the paradox."
You: "Do you have a physics "related to atoms" solution to the paradox or are you just refuting relativity James?"
The paradox exists. It cannot be resolved. Even if...
view entire post
Georgina,
Quoting me: "My conclusion is that the correct physics solution is to admit that the paradox exists and relativists cannot physically, again to atoms if that makes this clearer, resolve the paradox."
You: "Do you have a physics "related to atoms" solution to the paradox or are you just refuting relativity James?"
The paradox exists. It cannot be resolved. Even if both the pole and the barn were located in space the paradox would continue to exist. If the barn is said to be stationary with regard to the combined effects of all the rest of the matter in the universe, then the pole has a relative velocity with respect to that background. Space has values of electric permittivity and magnetic permeability, meaning that the background of space determines the speed of light and that that speed is not affected by the gaze of either observer.
The controlling background description leads to a result that contradicts predictions of special relativity. If there are two observers with a relative velocity between them, special relativity predicts that they will each observe the other as experiencing length contraction and time dilation while they themselves remain unchanged. Speaking about time dilation in particular: It is predicted that they will each see the others clock running slower. Now have them both moving horizontally near the surface of the Earth, and give them both the same magnitude but opposite in direction velocities relative to the Earth with the Earth's environment serving as the background. They would have relative velocities with respect to each other of twice that magnitude. Now getting to the point: Applying the Lorentz transform for time dilation from each of their perspectives, the prediction is that they would see the other's clock running slower. Alternatively, taking into consideration that it is their velocities with respect to the background that causes relativity type of effects, the result is that they would both experience equivalent time dilation effects. They would see the other's clock running at the same rate as does their own.
Add a third observer, with a third clock, standing stationary on the Earth. Both of the two observers in motion would see the stationary clock running equally faster than their clocks. (I reluctantly use the physics name for the effect known as time dilation but only to describe what happens to clocks or rates of activity in general)
With regard to your question about whether I have a solution to the barn pole paradox, the answer is no. The paradox is a relativity paradox that in my opinion remains unsolved by relativity theory. Without the relativity viewpoint, there is no paradox. If the barn is stationary on the surface of the Earth, the moving pole could fit inside the barn. I don't solve the paradox, but I can explain why the pole undergoes real length contraction. I might have difficulty trying to explain my reasoning in messages because the explanation goes back to the beginning of my work when I remove the indefinable status of mass and give a definition for it. I will think about it though.
With regard to evidence for the existence of length contraction, I have offered evidence here before. It is commonly observed evidence that physicists do not know about. They are well aware of the evidence but have an alternative explanation for it dating back to when Bolztmann introduced the kinetic theory of gases. I don't know if I want to repeat it again here. It was ignored without response. It is given at my website and maybe that is the best place for it to remain. Perhaps if there was genuine interest from professionals, it would be worth the effort to explain it. I would have to first convincingly refute their alternative explanation.
James Putnam
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 25, 2015 @ 23:11 GMT
Hi James,
thank you very much for thinking about what I wrote concerning the coloured pole illustration. Your feedback that you think I am considering it in a correct way is much appreciated. I think the concept of space-time as a persisting external reality has been an error. I did read, in a book called "E = Einstein" by Donald Goldsmith and Marcia Bartusiak (Editors), that Einstein and Godel had many discussions regarding the conundrum of time, and whether space-time should be regarded as external reality or "mind space" was something Einstein thought about - coming to the conclusion that it is external reality. The actual answer, as I see it, isn't so black and white. Certainly the EM sensory data that encodes events(that can be decoded by the recipient )exists and persists within the external environment. Not as events themselves involving substantial objects or that could be revisited but as fluctuation in frequencies and intensities of photon streams emitted or reflected from objects in the environment. Yet the space-time output is only generated when the sensory data is received and processed by organism or device. The EM data has to exist somewhere and to overcome the Grandfather type paradoxes (and not needing a substantial past as a part of the explanatory model) a uni-temporal foundational universe suffices.
report post as inappropriate
Anonymous replied on May. 26, 2015 @ 00:02 GMT
James,
from your second post I understand that in your opinion if [Einstein's] relativity is rejected the paradox becomes an irrelevance. And yet relativity can't be entirely discounted as it is apparent in everyday life.
It would still be interesting to hear why you think the pole will shrink to fit the barn. If you don't wish to explain could you just link to your web site again to make it really easy for other's to visit?
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 26, 2015 @ 00:15 GMT
Anonymous replied on May. 26, 2015 @ 00:02 GMT, that was me, Georgina
Kind regards.
report post as inappropriate
James A Putnam replied on May. 26, 2015 @ 12:57 GMT
Georgina,
Ok. :) Lets see if I can give a productive answer in a single message:
All objects vary in size all the time. The reason this occurs is because the speed of light varies everywhere at all times. The control for the speed of light is mass. The matter of the universe is all in motion. Their combined effects form the background control unless one approaches close to an...
view entire post
Georgina,
Ok. :) Lets see if I can give a productive answer in a single message:
All objects vary in size all the time. The reason this occurs is because the speed of light varies everywhere at all times. The control for the speed of light is mass. The matter of the universe is all in motion. Their combined effects form the background control unless one approaches close to an individual body of matter. It is light that binds particles together and atoms together and molecules together, etc. Light is quantized and quantized light varies in length. Bodies of matter vary as the light that binds them varies. When the speed of light slows, the quantized light shortens. When an object moves through the controlling background, its local speed of light slows. Its local speed of light is its mass. Mass in f=ma is the inverse representation of the acceleration of light in-so-far as that body of matter affects the speed of light.
In one of my contest essays, I put forward a very simple model representing a quantum of light. I described it as being like a very short piece of wire. The introductory mathematics of that model is analogous to that of a right triangle. The essay that I posted introducing a New Gamma makes use of right triangle math because that new gamma results from that simple model of a piece of wire. I don't assume that this short description is convincing by itself. That is why it usually doesn't seem like a useful practice to give short answers. What I will say is that all of the results that I have presented in my contest essays for years are all derived as part of a fundamentally unified theory that uses only changes in the speed and direction of light as its cause for all effects. Those effects include gravity and electromagnetism. The properties that reappear most often throughout the derivation process are those of the hydrogen atom. The most useful single quantity that binds it all together is the time required for light to travel the radius of the hydrogen atom. It appears everywhere as the term
delta tc. The second most useful term is the length of the radius of the hydrogen atom
delta xc. That length is also the length of the wire model of a photon of light. That length varies and is the root cause of length contraction. My website is
newphysicstheory.com.
James Putnam
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 27, 2015 @ 11:36 GMT
James thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to set that out, I also appreciate what you gave said about it being part of a self consistent body of work. Looks like I have some reading to do : )
report post as inappropriate
hide replies
Georgina Woodward wrote on May. 19, 2015 @ 10:21 GMT
What is time to the brain ? Perception of time delation,FQXi Talk by David Eaglemen This is great. David Eagleman mentions the very different processing of different types of sensory data. Eg.Sound sensory data being processed more quickly than visual sensory data. He presents a number of different kinds of data input types that cause perceptual time "delation", including anything novel or...
view entire post
What is time to the brain ? Perception of time delation,FQXi Talk by David Eaglemen This is great. David Eagleman mentions the very different processing of different types of sensory data. Eg.Sound sensory data being processed more quickly than visual sensory data. He presents a number of different kinds of data input types that cause perceptual time "delation", including anything novel or looming, which presumably require more analysis than the familiar and non threatening. So the perceived time delay may relate to greater brain activity than the suppressed activity accompanying familiar stimuli. He mentions the neurological matching of sensory data occurring within 80ms resulting in perceptual synchronization of stimuli in the output reality.
Not only is there the Object reality of passage of time, the sequential change in configuration of the Object universe; and the effect of an observer or observers receiving different sensory data input with different Object universe configuration origins- giving space-time maps that are 'temporal 'amalgamations; there are also processing affects that can alter the temporal sequencing that would be output from data receipt time alone. This gives another type of emergent reality compared to the device such as a camera that does not think about relevance or have to compile sets of data from different stimuli that are synchronised in the output to give a credible causality "story'. Causality could have survival implications to a living organism, and there is an advantage to studying novel stimuli carefully which could be threats or resources that aid survival or reproductive success.
Therefore the Prime reality interface of a human being is qualitatively different from non living reality interfaces, that lack complex processing capabilities that
further affect the space-time output Image reality.( That is subjective temporal experience, IE the content and duration of events within the experienced present in the case of a human's Image reality output ). It is likely that the complex stimuli processing of human beings is shared by other sentient higher organisms and perhaps even less complex organisms. The extent of "temporal adjustment", synchronization of stimuli and 'delation' within the animal kingdom would be interesting to investigate.
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 19, 2015 @ 10:42 GMT
It is necessary to add the neurological effects to the output that would be obtained from sensory data receipt times alone or the output that would be obtained by a device treating all sensory data input in the same way *. This leads to yet another higher level of emergent reality * IE with out adding and diminishing delays, according to the particular stimulus, or causing synchronizations of outputs pertaining to stimuli received at different times.
David Eagleman asks what is t in our equations? I think from his very enlightening talk it is very important to segregate the Object reality of passage of time and the Image reality of time produced by brain processing of sensory data input.
From David Eagleman's work it can be seen that the Image reality produced depends upon the type of reality interface and possibly even the individual. Sensory data receipt alone does not always alone determine the temporal (Object universe Configuration origin ) amalgamation that is output. The sequence of sensory data input is modified by the complex processing prior to output leading to the experienced present in the case of the human Prime reality interface and quite likely all sentient's reality interfaces, aiding survival.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 19, 2015 @ 11:01 GMT
The higher level, biological affects, giving a sentient being's reality interface output, a further level of emergent reality, can be added to any simulation of conversion of source Object reality to Image reality via sensory data receipt alone, or including only a simple processing time equally applicably to all sensory data, as might apply to an inanimate device.
report post as inappropriate
James A Putnam wrote on May. 23, 2015 @ 15:13 GMT
Hi John,
Thank you for referencing
A New Gamma. That essay plus the lengthy discussions that followed under
Alternative Models of Reality:James A Putnam wrote on Feb. 21, 2015 @ 16:44 GMT A Pythagorean Geometry Proof of the Falsity of Relativity presented most of my view about the Lorentz Transforms. Most but not all. I am glad the essay sparked your imagination although our views seem to digress sharply. :) Your thoughts were very interesting to read. The essay shows that I find time to be unaffected.
James Putnam
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 23, 2015 @ 23:45 GMT
Hi James,
I will try to make time to read your essay. I'm sorry for not already doing so. I read more than I commented upon but not yours. When you say "I find time to be unaffected" I wonder if we are so much in disagreement, as at the foundational level of reality, in the explanatory framework I have been using, passage of time happens regardless of what the constituents of the Object universe are doing. But I must read what you have written first before jumping to conclusions.
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew wrote on May. 24, 2015 @ 21:09 GMT
Yes, you are getting very close. Your object reality time is absolute and your image reality time is relative. Excellent.
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 24, 2015 @ 06:34 GMT, "I just need to add to my previous post that: OR.configuration time is not affected by gravitation or motion , unlike Einstein's proper time. OR.data time and subsequent Basic IR. time is affected due to...
view entire post
Yes, you are getting very close. Your object reality time is absolute and your image reality time is relative. Excellent.
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 24, 2015 @ 06:34 GMT, "I just need to add to my previous post that: OR.configuration time is not affected by gravitation or motion , unlike Einstein's proper time. OR.data time and subsequent Basic IR. time is affected due to the curving of the EM data paths within a gravitational field and the Doppler effect. If substantial atomic clocks themselves are running slow when in motion as shown by a permanent change in time shown compared to a relatively stationary clock it is necessary to separately categorize clock time, for moving clocks."There are two very different ways for telling time. You can count a time period of the spin period of the electron or the earth or a pulsar. Or you can measure the very slwo decay of that period. The IR time is atomic time and varies with velocity and gravity, just as you say. The period of OR time is decay (or growth) and represents an absolute frame like the CMB.
Your IR time is completely compatible with MEE and gravity, but your OR time is a new beast. With an absolute OR time, a traveler can now know their velocity relative to the CMB by only measuring atomic time decay and knowing CMB time. This principle, of course, violates general relativity, but retains MEE and gravity slowing of time, the two principles that have been amply demonstrated.
Not unlike the aether of ancient lore, OR or decay time is the thread that ties gravity and charge forces together. Unlike ancient lore, aether does not fill space...rather space emerges from the aether principle of matter decay. Sensation of time delays and other kinds of changes in objects are from where space and motion emerge. The two dimensions of absolute and relative times are what unite gravity and charge into a single quantum dictum. Space emerges as time delays and motion as time decays; once again the two dimensions time.
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 24, 2015 @ 23:27 GMT
Hi Steve, All,
I'm glad you like it steve. I think there is an important difference between what time is and how we measure time. You have mentioned some regular periods but in practice adjustments need to be made regarding astronomical periods because of relativity and variation of the period. Individual atomic clocks also vary in period. A number of atomic clocks at different locations...
view entire post
Hi Steve, All,
I'm glad you like it steve. I think there is an important difference between what time is and how we measure time. You have mentioned some regular periods but in practice adjustments need to be made regarding astronomical periods because of relativity and variation of the period. Individual atomic clocks also vary in period. A number of atomic clocks at different locations on the Earth are used for World timekeeping. This can be regarded as representing OR.configuration time though it is not OR. configuration time. It's just one regular 'local' change representing another (Object universal) change.
You say IR.time is atomic time. We don't see atoms. Image reality is the output of sensory data processing. If substantial clocks are slowed by gravity and acceleration (possibly due to inertia) then there has to be a category of clock time. That is not slowing of OR. configuration time but is change to the source object, affecting timekeeping, from which IR time is produced and subsequent Basic IR. time is produced.
OR.configuration time is not a frame of reference as such because it applies to the Object universe not the visible Image universe. We can not see the Object universe due to the way in which vision works. We detect things via the output of processing of sensory data already received. We can't detect distant bodies directly. I don't see violation of General relativity. Relativity it seems to me to be all about what is observed and that isn't changed by having a foundational 'absolute' time underlying the emergent space-time that is seen. Though Einstein has claimed that it is proper time that is slowed, whereas it seems to me more likely just clock time that has been affected, affecting the sensory data output and hence Basic IR output. Experiment to test this alteration in time do not distinguish between 1. alteration of proper time affecting clock rate and hence alteration of Basic IR time :and 2.alteration of clock rate (possibly due to inertia) in turn altering Basic IR time.
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 24, 2015 @ 23:30 GMT
Steve, All,
Steve wrote" Sensation of time delays and other kinds of changes in objects are from where space and motion emerge." I agree with this with the proviso that this is emergent Image reality space and motion and not the external, foundational Object reality.
Steve also wrote " The two dimensions of absolute and relative times ......" The object universe doesn't have a time dimension being only the youngest iteration of a sequence of configurations that can be imagined but do not have substantial existence. This structure is important for overcoming Grandfather like paradoxes. The time line along which the sequence of configurations can be imagined is imaginary though it can still be useful to illustrate during which iteration an event occurred.
Potential sensory data spread within the Object reality environment provides the semblance of a time dimension as it encodes events that have occurred 'over time' within it. But it is just sensory data spread within Object reality space. The output IR. basic or subjective is a space time output because it contains manifestations formed from data taking different lengths of time (iterations of the Object universe ) to arrive together or very close together, the further away the object the further back in time the origin of the data forming the image, and in that sense it has a time dimension.
Steve wrote "Not unlike the aether of ancient lore, OR or decay time is the thread that ties gravity and charge forces together. Unlike ancient lore, aether does not fill space...rather space emerges from the aether principle of matter decay. I don't understand this. I presume this pertains to your own model of reality. Please explain further if you wish.
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on May. 25, 2015 @ 01:01 GMT
Yes, your various outlooks have a rather complex web of explanations. I jumped on the one explanation of a dual time because it made a lot of sense to me.
You do not seem to like the word dimensions for time, but prefer the phrase "OR time has a sequence of configurations that can be imagined but don't have substantial existence."
It is the philosopher in you that prefers elaborate explanations instead of simple word definitions. You mention that the OR timeline is imaginary...meaning that it doesn't exist outside of our mind. Which of course is the definition of objective reality. Of course it is imaginary. However, you did seem to say that OR configuration time is not affected by velocity or gravity...which means to me that it is absolute...but now you say it does not really exist.
Now you are taking that back...too bad...I liked the notion of an absolute time. It flies in the face of relativity but squeaks by as long as your IR time lets by-gones-be-bygones.
The grandfather paradox is very simple to dismiss with a decaying time. There is no sense to a past time as a dimension, only as a memory. Time's dimensions are a clock period and a period decay. The period decay keeps the clocks going in one direction because the are not quite reversible.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 25, 2015 @ 04:41 GMT
Steve, All,
simple words are fine when they accurately describe what is being discussed. If the word doesn't fit an alternative description is required.
If we consider block time; that 4D geometric object has a dimension which is the time dimension as well as its space dimensions. The Object universe however is not spread over time but is only the youngest configuration of objects...
view entire post
Steve, All,
simple words are fine when they accurately describe what is being discussed. If the word doesn't fit an alternative description is required.
If we consider block time; that 4D geometric object has a dimension which is the time dimension as well as its space dimensions. The Object universe however is not spread over time but is only the youngest configuration of objects and relations within it. So it does not have time as a dimension, and is unlike the block universe in that respect. However there is passage of time as the configuration is always changing - the Object universe's contents are in continual motion. But only the most recent arrangement has substantial existence.
This is like Presentism but subtly different as it is about what actually exists rather than what is seen to exist -Now, the Object reality rather than the Image reality. A series of former configurations of the Object universe could be imagined along a time line but the sequence and the line do not actually exist unlike the block universe model. The time line is imaginary but the change in configuration of the universe is not. The time line can be useful for considering the historical sequence but there is no substantial past or future. This is important as it prevents Grandfather like paradoxes. Yet
the distribution of potential sensory data within the Object universe allows relativity, non simultaneity of events for different observers and resolution of other paradoxes. The OR.(Object reality)data time (events encoded within the potential sensory data gives the different Basic and subjective IR.(Image reality )times.Steve wrote "However, you did seem to say that OR configuration time is not affected by velocity or gravity...which means to me that it is absolute...but now you say it does not really exist." Yes it is absolute not relative and uni-temporal meaning it is the same time everywhere. That one time is synonymous with the existing substantial configuration. It is the change in configuration that gives passage of time. That passage of time does not have an existence independent of the changing configuration of the universe and is not a dimension of the 3D configuration. So without paradox: OR. configuration time may be regarded as foundational absolute time and might also be considered not to exist as it is just a temporal description of the overall spatial changes in a substantial configuration.
Steve wrote:"The grandfather paradox is very simple to dismiss with a decaying time. There is no sense to a past time as a dimension, only as a memory. Time's dimensions are a clock period and a period decay. The period decay keeps the clocks going in one direction because the are not quite reversible." It would be good if you could explain period decay further, as this related to your own model of reality. Also you say "there is no sense to past time as a dimension, only as a memory" and yet past times are observed. This is very apparent when considering astronomic bodies. So how do you reconcile that with your two time dimensions?
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on May. 28, 2015 @ 03:07 GMT
Easy, easy on the ism's. Simplicity...simplicity is what it is all about, not complexity. We must find a simple description of reality that reveals reality for what it is but does not lock us into space and motion as typically conceived.
You have a nice conceptual model...but now you need to close the loop and bring it back onto itself. There is no grandfather paradox because the universe is in decay or shrinkage and that slight decay points time in the right direction.
Decay time is simply a notion that closes the universe. Decay determines all force and is the arrow of time. Decay also is the ultimate clock that tells us when it is all over.
We observe past times only as fossil objects that tell us time. That means that the past is only a memory and not really a timeline of possible futures. We think of time as continuous, but we only sense time delays for objects and from those time delays, we predict the universe.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 28, 2015 @ 08:14 GMT
Steve you wrote "We observe past times only as fossil objects that tell us time. That means that the past is only a memory and not really a timeline of possible futures." Yet Steve, as we form our present experience from the sensory data we receive, it is, while still in the environment, the pre-written future. Data that can become present experience but not yet received. So both past in the sense...
view entire post
Steve you wrote "We observe past times only as fossil objects that tell us time. That means that the past is only a memory and not really a timeline of possible futures." Yet Steve, as we form our present experience from the sensory data we receive, it is, while still in the environment, the pre-written future. Data that can become present experience but not yet received. So both past in the sense that the substantial events have occurred and are no more but not yet observed and so not yet present experience and not yet memory. There might be a Supernova event but we would not experience it until the sensory data reaches the Earth. This also allows non simultaneity of events, one observer can receive sensory data before another. So what is past for one may yet still be the pre-written future of another. Think of a thunder storm for near and far observers.
The order actualization, data, manifestation, memory is important.
I'm not sure what you mean by decay or shrinkage or closing the universe. There is no stopping it. The Object universe in motion continues in motion. Certainly there is ongoing change giving the foundational passage of time but it is as much re-organisation as dis-organisation, assembly as much if not more than dis-assembly and destruction as can be seen in the complexity and scale of the structures within the visible universe and life on Earth.
There are two imaginary arrows of time as I see it neither correlated with decay. The one that is the sequence of change of the Object universe from oldest to youngest iteration. The youngest in the sequence of configurations being where change happens, the causality front. This one is the actual changes of the relations between matter (and particles) of the Object universe giving new configurations which is an irreversible arrow of time.
The other imaginary arrow is the experienced arrow if time which is at its most basic the order of receipt of sensory data from which experience is fabricated, though the brain does adjust the timing of the outputs from the accumulated data to give consistent causality stories. ( As described by David Eagleman.) This arrow is theoretically reversible if the speed of the observer exceeds the speed of production of the sensory data. I suggested an experiment using sound and microphone bullets as proof of principle in my essay. With data receipt in reverse the output experienced would be reversed. Of course this is not travelling back in time as the reversal experience happens within the uni-temporal Object universe with unchanging passage of time.
Thank you for appreciating the "conceptual model", I call it an explanatory framework as it gives a structure within which physics occurs.
Reality in the context of Physics - Webs (Realityinphysicswebs.com)
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on May. 31, 2015 @ 13:25 GMT
There are many possible futures and not just one pre-written future.
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 28, 2015 @ 08:14 GMT: "As we form our present experience from the sensory data we receive, it is, while still in the environment, the pre-written future. Data that can become present experience but not yet received."This is a perspective or a different point of view....
view entire post
There are many possible futures and not just one pre-written future.
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 28, 2015 @ 08:14 GMT: "As we form our present experience from the sensory data we receive, it is, while still in the environment, the pre-written future. Data that can become present experience but not yet received."This is a perspective or a different point of view. An object can appear quite different from different perspectives and to different people. Those differences include differences in time delay, but there still is no path to a past event and therefore there is no grandfather paradox.
"So both past in the sense that the substantial events have occurred and are no more but not yet observed and so not yet present experience and not yet memory. There might be a Supernova event but we would not experience it until the sensory data reaches the Earth. This also allows non simultaneity of events, one observer can receive sensory data before another. So what is past for one may yet still be the pre-written future of another. Think of a thunder storm for near and far observers."You seem to say that time exists without objects, but you can only know about time through objects. Time is what you sense about an object and so you necessarily only sense the past since that is how an object is put together. We predict the future based on a superposition of possible futures for an object.
"I'm not sure what you mean by decay or shrinkage or closing the universe. There is no stopping it. The Object universe in motion continues in motion. Certainly there is ongoing change giving the foundational passage of time but it is as much re-organisation as dis-organisation, assembly as much if not more than dis-assembly and destruction as can be seen in the complexity and scale of the structures within the visible universe and life on Earth."The single dimension of atomic time is completely reversible and it is that reversibility that confuses a foundational passage of time. In our practical world, there are plenty of arrows that point time for us and so we never are confused about the direction of time. The earth rotates at once per day and that rotation period slows by 0.28 ppb/yr and so the day provides our period and its decay points us to one of many possible futures.
To close the universe, time needs both the cycle of the day and its very slow decay as well. The universe of objects are always changing and motion emerges from some of those changes.
"There are two imaginary arrows of time as I see it neither correlated with decay. The one that is the sequence of change of the Object universe from oldest to youngest iteration. The youngest in the sequence of configurations being where change happens, the causality front. This one is the actual changes of the relations between matter (and particles) of the Object universe giving new configurations which is an irreversible arrow of time."You and I are both growing older and our time arrows are directly correlated with decay. Growth from birth occurs before we eventually decay with age, and that theme replays again and again as a part of the overall decay of matter. Matter bonds to other matter and those bonds release light in the overall decay of matter that is what drives the universe to one of its many possible futures.
"The other imaginary arrow is the experienced arrow if time which is at its most basic the order of receipt of sensory data from which experience is fabricated, though the brain does adjust the timing of the outputs from the accumulated data to give consistent causality stories. ( As described by David Eagleman.) This arrow is theoretically reversible if the speed of the observer exceeds the speed of production of the sensory data."Once again, these are just issues of perspective and do not violate any causal principle. An object can grow by accumulating matter or it can shrink by losing matter, but the overall time arrow is never confused if we have a universe in slow decay.
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 31, 2015 @ 22:48 GMT
Steve thank you for your reply.
I agree that there is not just one pre-written future. The pre-written future refers to the EM and other sensory data within the environment that must first be received by an observer in order to fabricate present experience. However this explanatory framework does not suppose that that data got into the environment at the beginning of time and lasts there...
view entire post
Steve thank you for your reply.
I agree that there is not just one pre-written future. The pre-written future refers to the EM and other sensory data within the environment that must first be received by an observer in order to fabricate present experience. However this explanatory framework does not suppose that that data got into the environment at the beginning of time and lasts there perpetually. Instead there are actualized substantial bodies in the foundational reality from which EM radiation is emitted or reflected which are the Source for the pre-written future data pool. There is also an unwritten future, that breaks the complete determinism of block time type models. The Future is a concept of events and things existing beyond what is and what is occurring Now. In this explanatory framework it is unwritten, which is to say does not exist. As there is only what exists at uni-temporal Now, the future is entirely open as regards the arrangements and relations that might evolve. The constrains being the laws of physics and how they pertain to the existing structure, the forces within it and momentum across the sequence of changing configurations.
You wrote "You seem to say that time exists without objects, but you can only know about time through objects." I'm sorry if I somehow gave that impression. There are two different kinds of time that are of prime importance. One is passage of time due to change in configuration of the Object universe, absolute same time everywhere in the Object universe.That requires objects in order to be a configuration of them. The other is perceived passage of time from the receipt of sensory data, which is relativistic, as it takes different times for sensory data to arrive according to position and relative motion compared to the source/s. This time also requires Source objects to provide the sensory data, as it was not all put into the universe at the beginning of time.(Sensory data can be provided as signals such as TV and VR and the observer can use that data source to create the observed manifestations.But these signals too were not placed in the environment at the beginning of time but have required the existence of substantial matter for their creation.)
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on May. 31, 2015 @ 22:53 GMT
Steve,
I think your choice of the word decay gives an overly bleak connotation which may be unintentional. The growth arrow and the "decay" arrow are pointed in the same direction one might say. Creative process can be both additive and subtractive, though additive processes may be more easily likened to growth they can also add to increasing malfunction of complex organisms. Such as addition of methyl bonds to DNA, Advanced Glycation End products cross linking proteins and addition of tangles and plaque to brains. These are chemical processes like any other but which result in outcomes that are not beneficial. I would say the gradual creation of a non viable organism from a viable is not decay but just the result of creative processes with a result we dislike, ageing and eventual death.
You wrote " An object can grow by accumulating matter or it can shrink by losing matter, but the overall time arrow is never confused if we have a universe in slow decay." With uni-temporal time whatever happens whether an additive or subtractive process it alters the configuration of the universe and becomes part of the new existing configuration. Even if a part of the arrangement reverts to a former arrangement it is always a part of the new youngest configuration of the Object universe. This gives one way only foundational unitemporal OR-Time.
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on Jun. 2, 2015 @ 03:55 GMT
As usual, you are much better attuned to the subtleties of language than am I. Decay is a harsh word, but I have not yet found one better.
Both gravity and charge forces are attractive and together they result in the decay of matter into light. The decay of the universe is simply a reflection of the overall attraction of matter to itself. The fusion of hydrogen into helium is a part of life and the gravity containment of hydrogen enables that thermal energy.
It seems really crazy to have a universe that is obviously accretive and then have it expand because of the Hubble red shift. Instead, I prefer a different interpretation for the Hubble red shift and therefore a shrinking or decaying universe.
Preceding decay is always growth and that is the cycle of life...growth and decay. However, the driving force for both growth and decay has to be decay because decay provides the attractive driver for all force.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on Jun. 2, 2015 @ 08:13 GMT
Hi Steve,
thank you for further explaining your use of the word decay. Do you mean it to refer just to getting light from matter? Work in energy out? You wrote "Preceding decay is always growth and that is the cycle of life...growth and decay. However, the driving force for both growth and decay has to be decay because decay provides the attractive driver for all force." Can you explain this some more? All force?
You wrote"It seems really crazy to have a universe that is obviously accretive and then have it expand because of the Hubble red shift. Instead, I prefer a different interpretation for the Hubble red shift and therefore a shrinking or decaying universe." Your own interpretation of the Hubble red shift would be interesting to hear.
As I see it: The expanding universe that is observed is an emergent fabrication from received sensory data it is not the substantial universe existing -Now. The visible universe is Image including optical distortions, and artistic renderings. For very distant parts of the image the substantial Source objects no longer exist. So there is no physical relationship between the source object and receiver. What does exist is the relationship between the near EM and receiver. The Earth and Hubble are not stationary but in motion rotating and orbiting the Sun and moving with the solar system. That combined turning and orbiting motion makes me think that they are always moving away from the sensory data that is approaching, the receivers are not stationary. Though it feels stationary to us the Earth is moving very fast relative to the Sun. That makes more sense to me than all of the stars moving away.It should be possible to calculate whether that works. Perhaps the calculation has already been done. It would be interesting to me to know if that possibility has already been ruled out.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Woodward replied on Jun. 3, 2015 @ 01:00 GMT
A few thoughts: The red shift may have to do with the rotations of the Earth and Hubble,altering the relationship to the incoming data. The greater red shift of galaxies outside the milky way could be due to the speed of the Earth's rotation with the Milky way. With each increase in scale there is more motion of the receiver to incorporate. The increasing apparent expansion of the (visible) universe could be due to the increase in speed of the Earth with changing relationship to the rest of the mass within the galaxy.
report post as inappropriate
Steve Agnew replied on Jun. 6, 2015 @ 17:44 GMT
Decay really has two components for light and for all objects as well; what is called homogeneous decay is a pure dephasing process while inhomogeneous decay is an energy transfer or loss from a state.
Georgina Woodward replied on Jun. 2, 2015 @ 08:13 GMT, "Thank you for further explaining your use of the word decay. Do you mean it to refer just to getting light from matter? Work...
view entire post
Decay really has two components for light and for all objects as well; what is called homogeneous decay is a pure dephasing process while inhomogeneous decay is an energy transfer or loss from a state.
Georgina Woodward replied on Jun. 2, 2015 @ 08:13 GMT, "Thank you for further explaining your use of the word decay. Do you mean it to refer just to getting light from matter? Work in energy out? You wrote "Preceding decay is always growth and that is the cycle of life...growth and decay. However, the driving force for both growth and decay has to be decay because decay provides the attractive driver for all force." Can you explain this some more? All force?"You are referring here to energy loss type of decay, but with a closed universe, energy or matter can not be lost or decay inhomogeneously. Pure dephasing occurs with transfer of phase alone and a laser pulse trapped in a cavity can seem to disappear due to pure dephasing. As long as the phase memory persists, that pulse can reappear if the conditions are right for rephasing and this technique is used all of the time in NMR spectroscopy with radiowaves. It is also used with visible light and lasers as well.
You do ask really good questions and I realize now that I have not made this simple notion very clear for civilians who are not well versed in spectroscopy.
Georgina Woodward replied on Jun. 2, 2015 @ 08:13 GMT, "You wrote 'It seems really crazy to have a universe that is obviously accretive and then have it expand because of the Hubble red shift. Instead, I prefer a different interpretation for the Hubble red shift and therefore a shrinking or decaying universe.' Your own interpretation of the Hubble red shift would be interesting to hear."Closing the universe with a universal decay necessarily means the very slow variation of a set of
constants as we look back in time. Early galaxy appear red shifted because c, h, and alpha all varied together and of course, looking back in time, there is more mass in those distant galaxies as well. Ironically, though, gravity and charge forces are weaker in the early universe despite there being more mass.
The notion of a variation of constants over time is then consistent with the Hubble red shift, but such a theory must be consistent with the observed variation of alpha, the fine structure constant. Alpha does appear to vary looking back in time, but it is actually alpha^2 that science measures in distant galaxy spectra, not really alpha. Suffice it to say, I have addressed the variation of alpha as well in my matter time theory.
The variation of these
constants looking back in time means that the universe itself acts like a spherical lens and distorts the apparent sizes of distant galaxies. Just like gravitational lenses change how distant galaxies appear by gravitational time delay of light, the lens of universal time delay also distorts the apparent size of the early universe.
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
hide replies
FractalWoman wrote on Oct. 1, 2015 @ 01:47 GMT
Time is an emergent property of change, and change is built into the equation.
The Universe is an iterated function system (IFS), and it is the iteration process that generates change. One cannot undo change any more than one can undo an iteration. This is the reason for the "arrow of time". This is the reason for evolution. Time is an emergent property of change and endless undoable change is built into the equation. That is it. Mystery solved.
report post as inappropriate
Steve Dufourny replied on Oct. 1, 2015 @ 10:26 GMT
Hello dear Ms Fractalwoman,
Could you develop please a little,Id like to know more if you want well.
Do you consider this time like irreversible linked with the entropical Arrow of time respecting our second law of thermodynamics or reversibleconsidering the mathematical extrapolations of geometrical algebras breaking our symmetries?
Regards
report post as inappropriate
John wrote on May. 21, 2016 @ 07:35 GMT
The only way to look at it is philosophically. It will not make any sense to say it's emergent. That's just a fancy way of not knowing.
So philosophically, If God decides to create beings to share in his existence he might want them to *Grow instead of just *Know.
There might not be a reason for Time if we just Know everything. But to have Thoughts move and build in a physical world that moves- with things to discover that can be stored in memory as to draw on them and formulate ideas....well thats a reason for Time. Especially a blank slate--- a mind designed to bring forth Questions, Premises, so conclusions can be made, stored, and brought forth again to be combined with other conclusions in order to form even more complex ideas and if the person is not crippled by Bias.....Truth.
None of this is possible without free will. We collect, accept or reject, collect, store, grow and repeat until we are the person we chose to be. Time allows us ultimately reveal ourselves but it also allows us to change
report post as inappropriate
DURGA DAS DATTA. wrote on Jun. 29, 2016 @ 04:11 GMT
Let us just assume that time is a property in our universe. We can look at time as entropical , perception in our brain, measurements in atomic clocks, relativistic as per Einstein, absolute as per Newton etc. But what is real time ? Measurements of time by atomic clocks does not qualify time. Satellite time is not earth based lab time and we require GPS correction. But do you believe time dilates or rather tuned atomic clocks just vary their ticks/frequency due to change of gravity/reference frame. Here time is dilating or our measurement is dilating? We say time is a measurement between two events. Here comes the question of rate of flow from one event to another event. Event is changing due to a entropy gradient as cause and effect is a new event. Here the rate of flow may vary if the gradient pressure varies as we see in flow of water. If nothing changes in this universe, then does it mean that time stops or flows . Is there any universal absolute time or even multi- universal absolute time? We sometime perceive time differently. A week on vacation at a sea resort goes quickly than a week in a sea voyage. All matter and material in our universe is in motion and there is no absolute rest. As such we may not know absolute time , but that does not mean absolute time never exists. Therefore we have to be happy with only reflections of absolute time in various perspectives of entropy or relativistic or in our perception or in measurement by atomic clocks etc etc. When reality is impossible in a universe of reflections which is a variable from point to point ,then I do not know what can be done except imagining an absolute time.
report post as inappropriate
Vincent Vesterby wrote on Oct. 5, 2016 @ 18:34 GMT
There is a paper posted to ResearchGate.net and to Academia.edu that reports the identification of the basis of time in the universe. The paper provides the answers to the questions, What is time?, Why does time occur?, and Why does time have the specific qualities that it has?
People have been wondering about the nature of time for thousands of years. Nevertheless, no one has ever been...
view entire post
There is a paper posted to ResearchGate.net and to Academia.edu that reports the identification of the basis of time in the universe. The paper provides the answers to the questions, What is time?, Why does time occur?, and Why does time have the specific qualities that it has?
People have been wondering about the nature of time for thousands of years. Nevertheless, no one has ever been able to find the basis of time in the universe. There is a specific reason for this—it is not possible to discover what time is by examining the observable qualities of time.
Trying to find the basis of time by way of the qualities of time is a top-down process. The problem is that those qualities do not reveal what time is or why it occurs.
I did not find the basis of time intentionally. I was not then working on the question of time. Rather I was studying space, specifically the continuing-existence of space. (This is the continuing-existence of space as measured by a clock, not the extension of three-dimensional space as measured by a ruler.)
While looking at space, I came upon the basis of time unexpectedly—by way of a bottom-up approach.
My work involves developing methodology for discipline-spanning transdisciplinary understanding that enhances communication between the disciplines. To develop the methodology it is necessary to examine and compare the real-world subject matters of the various disciplines.
When listing the intrinsic qualities of the continuing-existence of space, for transdisciplinary purposes, it became evident that these qualities of an aspect of space were the same as the qualities that can realistically be attributed to time.
In the universe, spatial-continuing-existence plays all the roles of time, and is thereby the basis of time in the universe
Spatial-continuing-existence is time due to the general role of spatial-continuing-existence in the universe. This role is a consequence of the role in the universe of space itself.
In the real-world, space can be observed to exist as extensional three-dimensional immaterial place. Spatial-place provides an existential-context, a place-to-be, for all that exists. For example, matter occupies, exists in, spatial-place. The three-dimensional extensional qualities of matter occupy the three-dimensional extension of spatial-place.
Continuing-existence is a form of change. The general role of spatial-continuing-existence is that it provides an existential-context, a place-to-occur, for all forms of change. All forms of ongoing change occur in concert, simultaneously, with the continuously ongoing change-existential-context provided by the continuing-existence of the spatial-place in which those changes are occurring.
The reason I keep referring to the universe, and to roles in the universe, is because the discussion here, and in the paper, is not about concepts. It is about the reality-referents of concepts. It is not about the concept of time. It is about time itself. Concepts are recognized to be mental tools that are used by the mind to achieve understanding of the world outside the mind, outside the brain.
Regards,
Vincent Vesterby
thegeneralist@themoderngeneralist.com
ResearchGate: The Identification of the Intrinsic Nature of TimeAcademia: The Identification of the Intrinsic Nature of Time
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Vincent Vesterby replied on Oct. 5, 2016 @ 19:01 GMT
Cannot get the links to work. will try again.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299437469_The
_Identification_of_the_Intrinsic_Nature_of_Time
https://www.a
cademia.edu/21710898/The_Identification_of_the_Intrinsic_Nat
ure_of_Time
report post as inappropriate
Vincent Vesterby replied on Oct. 19, 2016 @ 16:00 GMT
Regarding the flow of time, Davies is correct, time does not flow.
The analogy between a flowing river and time probably originated because it was recognized that both the river and time are cases of continuous ongoing change.
This analogy, however, introduces a significant confusion because the ongoing change of flowing involves movement of matter, but the ongoing change of time...
view entire post
Regarding the flow of time, Davies is correct, time does not flow.
The analogy between a flowing river and time probably originated because it was recognized that both the river and time are cases of continuous ongoing change.
This analogy, however, introduces a significant confusion because the ongoing change of flowing involves movement of matter, but the ongoing change of time does not involve matter or motion. Flow and time are significantly different forms of change.
With the flowing river part of the analogy there is the river flowing along between its banks. There is a specific place on the bank, usually with a person standing there watching the river flow by. In the analogy the place where the person is standing represents the present, where the water is currently flowing by. The water upstream represents the future because it has not yet reached the person on the bank. The water downstream from the person represents the past because it has already passed by the person.
In the analogy, the water is flowing with respect to a specific location on the bank. The flow upstream is the future because it has not yet arrived at the specific location on the bank. The flow currently passing by that location is the continuously changing present. And the flow downstream is the past because it has passed that location.
This analogy is clear—the water flows with respect to a location on the bank which represents the present.
Davies gives a confused misinterpreted version of the analogy. He said, “In other words, it [the water] moves with respect to time.”
That is wrong. It completely confuses the point of the analogy. But it does give Davies the opportunity to say, “But time can’t move with respect to time—time is time.”
This sophistry is Davies’ way to eliminate the concept of time as a flowing form of change (which is a valid objective).
The problem here is that Davies does not know what time is, why time occurs, or why time has the specific qualities (properties) that it has, such as what kind of change time is. He does not know what constitutes the basis of time in the universe.
The important point here is that it is necessary to know what kind of change time is in order to know why time is not a flow.
Davies’ comments about why time is not a flow are speculation.
________________________________________________
_________________
Recognition of the basis of time in the universe—recognizing what time is—removes the need for speculation, and makes it possible to understand what kind of change time is.
The use of the type of transdisciplinary methodology that results in multi-discipline-spanning understanding and that enhances communication among the disciplines revealed the basis of time in the universe from a bottom-up approach. Using transdisciplinary methodology to investigate the intrinsic nature of space revealed that the intrinsic qualities of the continuing-existence of space are the same as the qualities that can be realistically attributed to time. It became evident that spatial-continuing-existence plays all the roles in the universe that are commonly thought of as temporal roles.
(This is the continuing-existence of space as measured by a clock, not the extension of three-dimensional space as measured by a ruler.)
Spatial-continuing-existence, was being studied and described before it was realized that it was the basis of time.
When the realization occurred that spatial-continuing-existence was the basis of time, it became evident why the basis of time in the universe had not been previously recognized. Viewing the known qualities of time does not lead to the understanding that spatial-continuing-existence is that basis. The basis of time could only be discovered inadvertently, by a bottom-up approach, by studying the basis and describing it, and only then recognizing that it is the basis.
Once it is known what time is, what form of ongoing change it is, then it is possible to understand why time is not a flow.
Spatial-continuing-existence is the form of change by which time occurs. So what kind of change is continuing-existence? Why is continuing-existence a form of change?
This is a form of change that is not much discussed.
(The following discussion is not about concepts. It is about the reality-referents of concepts. It is not about the concepts of space or spatial-continuing-existence. It is about space itself and spatial-continuing-existence as they exist as intrinsic qualities of the universe. Concepts are recognized to be mental tools that are used by the mind to achieve understanding of the world outside the mind. The discussion avoids abstraction and all forms of speculation from presuppositions and assumptions to hypotheses and theories.)
The human visual sense has evolved such that it can detect the presence of space.
When looking at space, it can be seen that space is there, and that it continues to be there.
It can be observed that spatial-continuing-existence is a continuance of being-there.
Continuing-existence is a form, a type, of continuance.
All forms of continuance have parts, for example, a limited form of continuance has a beginning part, a middle part, and a final part, as occurs with a broom handle from the upper end down to the lower end, or as occurs with a single rotation of the earth.
The parts of a continuance occur sequentially, each part occurring after the previous part and before the following part.
_______________________________________________________
__________
With the case of the broom handle, all the sequential parts are there together—it is possible to see them all together at the same time, the full length of the handle.
Each part is individually unique—the upper part, the middle part, and the lower part—each sequentially different from a following part or from a prior part.
With the broom handle, the parts are sequentially different, coexistent, and constitute a situation of coexistent-sequential-difference.
With the case of the rotating earth, the sequentially occurring parts of a rotation are not there together—it is not possible to see them all together at the same time, the full rotation from beginning to end.
Each part of the rotation—the first part, the middle part, and the final part—is individually unique, sequentially different from a following part and from a prior part.
With the rotation of the earth, the parts are sequentially different, are not sequentially coexistent, and constitute a situation of noncoexistent-sequential-difference.
________________________
_________________________________________
With the coexistent-sequential-difference that exists along the handle of a broom, there is difference from place to place, but there is no occurrence of change.
With the noncoexistent-sequential-difference that occurs from part to part with rotation, the difference that occurs does so in the form of change.
As with rotation, flow and spatial-continuing-existence are cases of noncoexistent-sequential-difference in which the difference that occurs does so in the form of change.
_____________________________________________________
____________
When observing the broom handle—the full length of it, all the coexistent parts simultaneously—there is no ontological difference occurring, no existential changes occurring. All the parts are sequentially there together, and they remain there together.
When observing rotation, flow, and the continuing-existence of space—the noncoexistent sequence of the parts—ontological difference occurs, existential change occurs. The parts occur noncoexistently, and are not there together.
When the current part is there, the previous part no longer exists and the following part has not yet come into existence.
The part of the rotation, the flow, or the continuing-existence of space that is occurring currently is noncoexistently distinct from the part that occurred just previous.
The current part of their noncoexistent-sequential-difference did not yet exist when the previous part was occurring.
Now, as the current part exists, it is newly existent.
As the rotation continues, as the flow continues, as space continues to exist, there is continuously new part of those cases of ongoing continuance—new part of ongoing noncoexistent-sequential-difference—new part of the ongoing rotation, new part of the ongoing flow, new part of the continuing-existence of space.
Change is the occurrence of something which is existentially new—the coming into existence of something that is existentially new.
________________________________________________________
_________
The occurrence of new part of noncoexistent-sequential-difference is the occurrence of change.
With the cases of rotation and flow it is new part of ongoing motion of matter—rotating matter of the earth and flowing water along the river channel.
Space, however, is immaterial. As a foundational component of the universe, space exists as the infinite three-dimensional extension of immaterial place.
(The attribution of a material basis for space is anthropomorphism—humans have a material basis. The attribution of any quality or property of substantiality or matter to space is also anthropomorphic. Anthropomorphism is disallowed in science and the philosophy of reality, the philosophy of that which exists.)
Neither matter nor motion play any roles in the existence or qualities of space or in the continuing-existence of space.
The basis of the noncoexistent-sequential-difference of spatial-continuing-existence is different from the basis of the noncoexistent-sequential-difference of flow and rotation.
___________________________________________________
______________
In conclusion:
Both flow and spatial-continuing-existence are cases of continuous ongoing change.
Both are cases of noncoexistent-sequential-difference.
Both have the occurrence of new part of the continuous ongoing change, new part of their noncoexistent-sequential-difference.
They are different in what it is that constitutes the continuous ongoing change.
With flow it is ongoing motion, which involves a role for matter—it is matter that moves.
With spatial-continuing-existence it is continuing-existence, which involves a role for space—space exists and continues to exist.
Flow and spatial-continuing-existence are different in what constitutes new part.
With flow it is new part of ongoing motion.
With spatial-continuing-existence it new part of that ongoing existence.
__________________________________________________
_______________
Existing as the infinite three-dimensional extension of immaterial place, space provides an existential-context, a place-to-be, a place in which to exist, for all else that exists.
The three-dimensional extension of immaterial spatial-place provides an existential-context for the three-dimensional extension of matter.
Spatial-continuing-existence provides an existential-context, a place-to-occur, for all other forms of change.
Spatial-continuing-existence provides an existential-context for the continuing-existence of matter—the continuing-existence of an object occurs concurrently, simultaneously, with the continuing-existence of the spatial-place the matter occupies.
The continuous ongoing change of spatial-continuing-existence provides an existential-context for the continuous ongoing change that occurs with flow.
By providing an existential-context for all forms of change, spatial-continuing-existence plays throughout the universe all the roles of time.
The relation between time and flow is that time provides the existential-context in which flow occurs.
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Jim George Snowdon replied on Oct. 19, 2016 @ 20:19 GMT
Hi Vincent,
I would refer you to my postings, that begin on February 25th, 2,014, in the column above.
I did write a one page essay in the first essay contest, but my postings above will give you the drift of my perspective.
I think you might find my perspective interesting.
report post as inappropriate
Pavel Poluyan wrote on May. 8, 2020 @ 07:09 GMT
The block universe does not eliminate time at all; it simply sets the imaginary axis with measures in spatial units. This axis iCt of the four-dimensional space-time pseudo-Euclidean continuum is measured in spatial measures, and the speed of light serves as a coefficient for converting time measures into space measures. On this axis, the clock is marked, in accordance with the onset of future moments. Even if we consider future time to be already given in the structure of Minkowski space-time, we will not see there the future universe as such. Real events occur, happen, occur, are generated - and take their place on the axis of moments. On the infinite axis that goes into the future of the block universe, it’s empty, but the universe in its genesis gradually fills the empty iCt axis with upcoming events moment by moment.
Best Regards,
Pavel Poluyan,
Polyan2002@mail.ru
report post as inappropriate
Steve Dufourny wrote on May. 8, 2020 @ 14:51 GMT
Mr Poluyan,
Do you Think that there is an ontological distinction between the past and the present. and what about the consciousness correlated with this past because it seems it is inactive in this past...
report post as inappropriate
Login or
create account to post reply or comment.