What is "spacetime" really?

[Michael Mooney]

Freezetar:

Nonetheless, I also understand the arguments of those in favor of spacetime ontology. As Erasmus stated, it is odd that we could draw perfectly straight lines in the universe and the angles would not equal 180 degrees. Your objection, which made me chuckle, was that "anyone who says a triangle has more (or less) than 180 degrees is not talking about a triangle" (or something similar). I found it both amusing and at the same time disheartening that the correspondence between Erasmus and yourself regarding this did not end in mutual understanding. As an outside observer, I think that the confusion was generated by different conceptual maps for the word "triangle". I'm curious if Erasmus had used "hyperbolic triangle" in place of "triangle", would it have saved several posts.

 

If you study the article:

The Ontology and Cosmology of Non-Euclidean Geometry

You will find the answer to the misunderstanding above in the ontological inquiry into "intrinsic" vs "extrinsic" curvature, as contrasting Euclidean vs the claims and assumptions of non-Euclidean geometry.

I did my best in debate with Erasmus, but it was an impasse. It is apparent to me that he, and all non-Euclidean theorists, do not understand the ontology of the conceptual leap... with no referents in the "real cosmos," to this assumed "curvature of space" upon which "triangles with over 180 degrees" (as a metric) is based. Focus on the difference in the above article between intrinsic and extrinsic curvature in the transition from Euclidean to non-Euclidean.

 

Anyhow, as I asked before, "what next?". You responded that textbooks need to be rewritten and thinking needs to be re-oriented. But, I'm not completely satisfied with that.

How do we reconcile a "spacetime-liberated ontology" with our measurements and perceptions? Is it even possible?

 

Desired outcome of this thread:

Science actually answers the ontological question: "What is 'it' ("spacetime") to which we attribute these "properties?"

If "it" has no independent existence as an entity and would disappear if moving objects and light disappeared, then what was it supposed to be "all by itself?"

 

Since this "desire" is hopelessly beyond the possibility of fulfillment, given that "Everything Is Relative," as per Relativity Theory, is now elevated to the status of Absolute Truth, and "time dilates and space curves, expands has shape," etc., has become axiomatic (or science dogma), I hereby give up my campaign toward that desired outcome.

 

The honest answer to the above question would change all references (all textbooks and web refs to "spacetime") from the "entity" or medium it has erroneously become, with all its properties of malleability, into the coordinate system, the metric, the conceptual context for application of relativity math which it is.

....Like recognizing the difference between an equation.... say E=MC squared... and the actual mass that is converted to actual energy.... quantified by the constant speed of actual light (squared) as a multiplier.

Michael

Final note: See my edit, in bold, of post 642 above.

[maddog]

Yer welcome. Seems a damn shame tho that after over three months and 65 pages, no one here even has a clue what an ontological inquiry into "spacetime" ("what is it , really?" even means.

It is your use of the word "really" or "real" that I show caution with using. I prefer thinking

in terms of "physical" to get at the same thing.

 

Same kind of "huh?" or 'so what?' avoidance of the link (and my commentaries) you originally introduced on the subject in conjunction with the transition form Euclidean to non-Euclidean models/cosmologies.

The Ontology and Cosmology of Non-Euclidean Geometry

I don't see it as avoidance so much as disagreement with your approach. It has been for

those last 65 pages you mentioned.

So, what use is such an examination? It actually attempts to discover what, if anything, it is in the real world that we are talking about when we say "space", "time" and "spacetime."

Is this inquiry actually irrelevant to everyone in this forum? So it seems. Some of you actually believe that there is no "real world/cosmos", that it is all in our minds! (But what supports our minds if there are no real bodies with real brains? Absurd.)

I think you misunderstood what I was saying in response to your use of the word "real" as in "Real World ...". It is not "all in your or my mind". We use our minds to "perceive"

that physical world (when it is observed, it becomes factual). Until then there are only

thought processes about "it". I would consider the "thought" "less than" "real". You

can not put a thought under scrutiny of measurement like you can with physical objects

in a physical world.

 

As for "spacetime", I said it is a reference system, similar to say, Spherical Coordinates.

Now if I create a spherical coordinate system in my head, I then write it down in a

representation on a piece of paper, including a drawing of the system. Did I make it or

"bring it in to existance". Well, I brought about or created a representation of that system.

The Ontological / Metaphysical entity of "Spherical Coordinates" is still in my head.

 

So I started thinking, what is out in the physical world that has the properties which we

ascribe to "spacetime" ? This to me is like in computer science where you have the "data"

and then you have the "pointer to the data". They are Not the same. For compilers the

syntax is clear. For human beings this not as clear.

 

Others say there is a real cosmos but it is unknow-able cuz of the limits of human perception. There was no reply to the challenge of gnosis or even acknowledgement of the "a-priori" branch of epistemology. (Just subjective imagination to all died-in-the-wool hard core empirical materialists!)

Who are those?

You are willing to say that "for a photon there is zero elapsed time as it travels between its source and a target object." In the next breath we all acknowledge the constant speed of light and calculate the time it takes for light to travel from "there to here."

(Say... If a photon had eyes in the back and front of its head.... what would it see in both directions? Now... there is a thought experiment!... I know... it's been done. Shucks!)

Yeah, I am.

Likewise "empty space." If we don't like how much light bends going past massive objects, according to our assumptions about photons and mass (and momentum acting like mass), then we take the liberty of saying space is actually "something that bends"... even tho if the mass were not present, the "something that bends" would also disappear....

And look how well the equations of relativity work to predict these phenomena! No doubt!

But what if we distinguished the "spacetime metric" from the claim that it is an actual medium with the various properties of curving, expanding, contracting, dilating, having shape, etc? Ontology examines such differences as abstract concepts and coordinate metrics vs "real malleable stuff" in the real cosmos.

Momentum != Mass. I never said they did (nor did I say they were "like" each other).

I am having difficulty how to see or ponder the Ontology of a concept.

Ontology examines the absurdities of the above assumptions. Whereas mathematicians are content to say that if the math works better using the spactime metric, then to hell with the question, "does spacetime actually exist!"

Using the pointer concept above: "Does that which spacetime represent actually exist ?"

This is a good question. One worthy of discussion. NOT where you started... :shrug:

 

I've made the latter point many times, and it still falls on deaf ears.

Big sigh!.... Oh well. My happiness does not depend on this forum getting the above point.

But I would go away with a much better impression of this as a "philosophy of science" forum, if at least one person understood what I just said.

I wish to understand what you are saying as well.

Time is not "real stuff." Space is not "real stuff." It is the emptiness between real things and stuff... no matter how "fuzzy" the boundaries which *define* these things and stuff!

Time is a concept with meaning ascribed by people, Space is a concept with meaning ascribed by people. On this we agree (so far).

Together, time and space are still not "real stuff"... ontologically speaking.

This is the conclusion of an ontologist who has studied "spacetime" for hmmm... over 45 years (with an IQ of 178... "poor form" as it is to brag, yet again.... but I'm radically honest and no one here can talk me out of it.:eek:. It is true that this score occurs only once in every ten million plus people, so....

This pomposity gets you no points... ;)

So "spacetime" is not "real" then what.

One possibility is that no one here is smart enough to understand what I have been saying.

Insulting our intelligence, yet whine when the reverse happens ? How childish.

I introduced myself to the "forum community" with the disclaimer that I am not a mathematician. I am a philosopher and psychologist. Mathematics is not a requirement for making the cogent ontological argument against the ubiquitious reification of spacetime embedded and indoctrinated into the scientific community ever since Minkowski/Einstein invented it.

So far in this thread, the Only one Reifying Anything has been you, which is why I challenge you

to explain where (which books), by whom, and why such textbooks need to be "rewritten" ?

I say all of the above knowing full well that it will probably piss off most if not all of you. I'm OK with that.

Michael

I have never been really "pissed of", maybe annoyed at some of your implications.

Personally, I think like a lot of others here that this bickering has gone on (way too long)

about a disconnect on fundamental concepts. This is why I gave another attempt to bridge this gap.

 

Maybe I reached you, maybe not.

 

I see a major difference between what is the physical world as Heidigger says "being in the world" and the "concepts" we have in our heads about the same. Big difference.

 

maddog

[maddog]

I would have welcomed disagreement with my ontology of spacetime if anyone here understood what the phrase means. The" disagreements" all began with spacetime as an established entity with all its given properties and then proceded to document (sometimes with posts mostly full of complex math) how well the concept works as a coordinate metric for the math of relativity to play out with nicely refined predictions of how bodies (and light) move through "curved space" and "dilated time."

I question that you would welcomed. Though if there was lack of or misunderstanding

on our part some assistance in the definition of terms would have been helpful and as

Pyrotex has aluded still can be. Your call.

Part of my ontology rests on what I have "seen", lets just say "in my minds eye" of the cosmos "as it is"... with real objects and actual distances between them and some mysterious absence* of "things" (a tough concept in this forum) between them.

There goes that gap between the world and the concept.

I sit still an hour a day... 40 yrs now and let it come to me without 'screening" it all through my preconceptions and analytical/belief system framework. This is the direct experience of "a-priori" knowing... a branch of epistemology including "gnosis" which empirical scientists (everyone here) deny, calling it simply subjective imagination.... since they have no direct experience in that realm. (Therefore.... not so logically... it can not be knowledge.) Just another example of the prevailing stupidity here... or at least narrow minded bias against how I "see."

I commend you for your commitment. I rarely can meditate for more that 20 minutes

and have not been so consistent as to do it every day for 30 years or so (how long I have been meditating).

Well, my above "route" not only bothers folks here. They flatly deny its validity and imply my stupidity (or state it outright.... as all "space between my ears" as the rabid dog put it.)

You like calling me rabid. :shrug: Do I sound rabid ? Oh well, I agree I can get mad... :eek:

My destination is for everyone to realize that "spacetime" is a convenient fabrication which works well as a framework (metric... whatever) for relativity and its excellence as an analytical and predictive tool... without the (excuse the repetition) reification.

I think progress is being made here, I have no wish for the "reification" of "spacetime".

When I call that "*mysterious absence" "empty space" here, all hell breaks loose, and I'm told emphatically that "it's all stuff", including "spacetime." No empty space between things/stuff.

I don't think I have said that, I would say your "empty space" is a concept also. So it

bears no more physicality than "spacetime". They are both concepts. Now how does

these concepts match up with the know evidence. This is where the rubber meets the

road. Though I agree this may get a bit afar of the Ontological nature of the concept

itself (or what it represents). To me, a physicist, what interests is more the phenomenology than Ontology. It is natural for me to be this way.

Yes. Your sincerity and humility (I have none) is refreshing after this long debate with cock-sure scientist who are absolutely sure that "All is relative"... 'and the math proves it... and we don't care if 'spacetime" is quote, "real," end quote, or not!'

("Who gives a damn about ""ontology"" anyway? The epistemology of empirical science is the only way to know anything, and all other claims about quote, "reality," end quote, is subjective imagination.... metaphysics!! and that sort of drivel.")

:mobile_ph LOL :friday:

I will grant you the method devised by Sir Francis Bacon has got a Lot farther than the

methods devised by Aristotle... ;)

 

maddog

[lemit]

I'm sorry, Michael. I'd forgotten that you had cited your IQ. What was it?

 

My comments were inappropriately meant for somebody more like the rest of us. Since you're obviously much smarter than me, I'm sure my silly ramblings were just amusing to you.

 

Sorry to bother you.

 

--lemit

[Doctordick]

What everyone seems to miss in this thread is the fact that no one is making any effort to think things out at all. I have discovered that such is the characteristic of most all threads which continue for so long without resolving anything. This thread seems to consist of closed minds arguing with closed minds and it follows that resolution of the issues will never occur. Only Anssi seems to have a handle on this situation and his comments seem to be falling on deaf ears.

 

Michael may have scored quite high on so called “IQ” tests but he clearly lacks the intellect to comprehend the problems with his perspective. It seems to me that Anssi has made the problem with Michaels presentation quite clear.

The point to focus onto then is, what are the logical consequences of your chosen ontology.

An issue seemingly beyond Michael's comprehension.

"Ontologically real" is not meant to refer to things that can be validly defined. If it did, the whole concept would become meaningless. (And btw would mean that spacetime is "ontologically real" as it too can be validly defined and cast onto the unknown reality)

And I quite agree with Anssi's final post:

If after this post you still won't understand why and in what sense it is exactly your opinion, there's no need to reply to this post anymore, I won't continue contributing to this thread.

As Anssi has commented elsewhere, the central issue is the common presumption that anyone's personal syntax is a valid representation of reality, and the fact that such a statement is clearly beyond the ability of Michael to comprehend is Michael's problem; however, Michael is not the only closed mind present on this thread.

 

Erasmus, Modest and others (supporters of the conventional scientific picture) may very well understand the logic built from the common (as Anssi would call it) “syntax”, they nonetheless miss a very significant issue embedded in the idea of non-Euclidean geometry. A common problem to most every scientist convinced of the absolute validity of Einstein's perspective. That issue has to do with the independence of coordinates.

 

All non-Euclidean geometries make some specific statement about relationships between the coordinates used to display information in chosen coordinate system. Those relationships are embedded in the coordinate system itself. It is this very fact which makes the use of non-Euclidean geometry a “closed minded” representation and until those using the geometry recognize the fact that certain very important assumptions are being made, no one with an open mind can subscribe to the absolute validity of the constraint implied by using such a coordinate system.

 

Euclidean geometry has one very specific and outstanding quality not available in any “non-Euclidean” geometry. That is the quality that “parallel lines do not intersect”. If one allows parallel lines to intersect, one is allowing two coordinates to be interdependent: i.e., the measure in one coordinate depends upon the value of the other coordinate. The very definition of “intersection” says that there exists a position in the geometry where the orthogonal distance between two points with different “independent coordinates” can be zero. It should be clear to any logical person that, if this is the case, those coordinates are “not” independent. Such a circumstance is itself is a physical statement about the variables being represented: i.e., there clearly exist possibilities not representable by such a given specific geometry.

 

Against this, Euclidean geometry (which has that additional postulate, “parallel lines cannot intersect”) does have the simple characteristic that any and all collections of data are representable if one's dimensionality is sufficiently high: i.e., any internal correlation of variables can be represented.

 

It follows that Euclidean geometry says nothing about the relationships between orthogonal measures whereas non-Euclidean geometries are always making some statement about interrelationships between measures. In order to make this clear to the reader, I will give a very simple example: consider, for the sake of argument, a certain collection of measurements which can persuade a scientist that his measures are bound to a spherical surface. You should be able to comprehend that, unless he is able to make those measures at every coordinate position in his “hypothetical” space, he cannot prove his measures are bound to a spherical surface (that conclusion is always an assumption).

 

Anytime a rational scientist wants to know the relationships between his measures (and there may very well be relationships there) he needs to plot them in a Euclidean coordinate system. He will then discover whether or not those measures are independent. If they are independent, he will find no relationship; if they are dependent then he can plot them in a higher dimensional Euclidean space where that dependence can be explicitly shown. To say that the surface described by that plot is the only possibility for the given data is an assertion about the character of the data (an assumption which could be false).

 

If what Anssi and I have tried to express is beyond the comprehension of those posting on this thread, I apologize for confusing matters for you but I personally don't think it is really possible to add to the confusion actually expressed in this thread. Why don't you all try thinking about what is being said instead of just trying to bully your position as the only possibility.

 

Have fun -- Dick

[maddog]

I elect not to repost your whole comment as I am mostly in agreement with what Anssi

had said earlier and what you are addressing now. I include only those parts of your

comment, I would like either clarification or question what is being said.

A common problem to most every scientist convinced of the absolute validity of Einstein's perspective. That issue has to do with the independence of coordinates.

All non-Euclidean geometries make some specific statement about relationships between the coordinates used to display information in chosen coordinate system. Those relationships are embedded in the coordinate system itself. It is this very fact which makes the use of non-Euclidean geometry a “closed minded” representation and until those using the geometry recognize the fact that certain very important assumptions are being made, no one with an open mind can subscribe to the absolute validity of the constraint implied by using such a coordinate system.

Global, yes. From what I have seen used when considering coordinate system representation is on a local scale and not global. In fact when considering the radius

of curvature is dependent if at all on anything it would be "hidden variable" or parameter.

One then uses a parametric representation (say that parameter is the local mass at that

coordinate point) to define the curvature. Of course Cosmology does try to apply this

on a global scale (with possible pitfalls).

If what Anssi and I have tried to express is beyond the comprehension of those posting on this thread, I apologize for confusing matters for you but I personally don't think it is really possible to add to the confusion actually expressed in this thread. Why don't you all try thinking about what is being said instead of just trying to bully your position as the only possibility.

I don't see what I am doing is "bullying". I can not speak for others. After 750+ some

posts to this thread, I have become to think of this more about the discussion between

the "representation" of the "thing" vs the "thing" and how that can confuse people.

Pointers definitely confuse any newbie programmer first attempt at using them.

 

maddog

[maddog]

In my search on papers on Twistor theory, I came across an interesting book which a collection

of papers on a subject.

 

This book is The Ontology of Spacetime, by Dennis Dieks (Editor) I found it available on

Google books or can be purchased at any of the others. In particular is the second paper

"Disappearance of Space and Time" by Carlo Rovelli. I quote only a short passage that

I thought pertinent.

 

Abstract

I argue that lesson of general relavtivity is that our present state of knowledge the best

way for making sense of world is to discard the notions of space and time. Newtonian

space and time can be reinterpreted as aspects of the gravitational field, which is only

one among the various dynamical physical fields making up our world. Physical space is

to some exent a return to the Aristotelian-Cartesian relational tradition; while the resulting

interpretation of temporality, appears to have strong elements of novelty. I consider the

viability of a foundation of our understanding of the world in which space and time play

no role.

 

1. The ontology of spacetime after relavtivity

Our understanding of the natural world evolves. We have developed a conceptual

structure that allows us to apprehend and frame the world that we perceive and think;

but the conceptual structure evolves, driven by experience and rational investigation.

Science is a continuous exploration of novel and more effective ways for thinking the

world. We cannot exit our own way of thinking; but we can modify if from within,

exploring the modifications of our basic assumptions, and testing them for consistence

and against experience. This process of exploration of the space of the ideas is at the

core of theoretical physics.

This may not address the Ontological nature as well as Anssi, yet it does give a similar

viewpoint.

 

maddog

[maddog]

Last point I wish to make is a quote from Roger Penrose in his book The Roads to Reality.

On page 1028,

 

...

Indeed we may well ask: what is physical reality ? This is a question that has been posed for

thousands of years, and philosophers throughout the ages have attempted various kinds

of answer. Today we look back, from our vantage point of modern science, and claim to

take a more sober position. Rather than attempting to answer the 'what' question, most

modern scientists would try to evade it. They would try [to] argue the question has been

wrongly posed: we should not try to ask what reality is; merely how does it behave.

'How?' is, indeed a fundamental question that we may consider to have been one of the

main concerns of this book: how do we describe the laws that govern our universe and

its contents?

Yet, many readers will no doubt feel that is a somewhat disappointing answer -- a

'cop-out', no less. To know how the contents of the universe behave does not seem to

tell us much about what it is that is doing the behaving. This 'what?' question is intimately

connected with another deep and ancient question 'why?'. Why do things in our universe

behave in the particular ways that they do? But without knowing what these things are,

it is hard to see why they should do one thing rather than another.

...

As for myself, I am guilty as charged. I admit, that I look at the world more in a

phenominalogical way, at the behavior rather than the "what". I highly recommend

this book, it has taught me a lot about what I thought I knew about physics and a lot

more what I found out I wanted to know and didn't...

 

maddog

[Boof-head]

My view is, we have to think about how we "think about" what time is. We need an abstraction which is as recursive, or fractal-looking as, well, everything else in the universe.

 

In any mathematical sense of physical time, there's always a generator for one of this parameter, in a general or background sense.

 

And, any device or computer we might design or build, has to 'calculate' in realtime. But there is a time-independent "computation" which is always a path through some abstract space, or a graph-traversal. The path exists algorithmically, before and after the path is taken, so that "machine-time" is independent of the algorithmic sense of stepping through something.

 

And here we are watching a 'flow' in the same innate (algorithmic) sense as an abstract machine does when it 'runs a program'...

 

...which means, when a transfer function or Hamiltonian confers a time-dependence on a system; A hilbert space + algebra like this always evolves - where evolution is time-dependent/independent at the quantum level because it's "always" unitary. In classical systems it's the background, measured in arbitrary distances (but these correspond to a countable number of transitions over a Hamiltonian - the measurement operator in some other system to which we assign "stability over time").

[watcher]

My view is, we have to think about how we "think about" what time is. We need an abstraction which is as recursive, or fractal-looking as, well, everything else in the universe.

 

In any mathematical sense of physical time, there's always a generator for one of this parameter, in a general or background sense.

 

And, any device or computer we might design or build, has to 'calculate' in realtime. But there is a time-independent "computation" which is always a path through some abstract space, or a graph-traversal. The path exists algorithmically, before and after the path is taken, so that "machine-time" is independent of the algorithmic sense of stepping through something.

 

And here we are watching a 'flow' in the same innate (algorithmic) sense as an abstract machine does when it 'runs a program'...

 

...which means, when a transfer function or Hamiltonian confers a time-dependence on a system; A hilbert space + algebra like this always evolves - where evolution is time-dependent/independent at the quantum level because it's "always" unitary. In classical systems it's the background, measured in arbitrary distances (but these correspond to a countable number of transitions over a Hamiltonian - the measurement operator in some other system to which we assign "stability over time").

 

yes that's how to do it. we asked questions. it is the question that drives us.

 

i agree with your definition with time. it measures the flow of things.

for example, one revolution of the hour hand of a wall clock represent the spin of earth in its axis, our calendar represents the revolution of earth around the sun.

 

what we call time is therefore motion. and onwards to ontology is to ask again, what is motion or its nature. if we can figure out the the cause, then we ask again the nature of its cause until it brings us to the limit of what can be known. the true purpose of logic is to eliminate the misperception we have about things.

 

to some ontological discussion is a waste of time because it cannot be known, it may be true but please let us realize it ourselves. as they say the truth must be true to me.:) so let's avoid bamboozling in all its forms.

[lemit]

Like I admitted earlier, I've just sampled this thread. I'm thrilled to see people on this page saying the things I would if I could.

 

One of the reasons people are driven to pseudoscience is that our intellectual nature abhors a vacuum. If we find something we can't explain, that doesn't keep us from explaining it anyway.

 

It would seem from the length of this thread, there is too much space to fill and people maybe have too much time on their hands. I'm retired and guilty of the second.

 

If you set out to understand the mechanism of the universe using philosophy, which is the only tool I have, you fall short. Religion will be happy to help you. (I'm a non-practicing Methodist, for what it's worth. I think that church would suggest people should render unto science that which is scientific.)

 

Apparently science has some trouble too. What should set science apart from philosophy and pseudoscience is that it should welcome that vacuum and the exploration of it. It should say (if appropriate) that there are theories but possibly not enough information to be certain which of the theories is right.

 

I happen to love the vacuum in my understanding of theoretical physics and quantum mechanics. I'm here to get that vacuum filled a little bit. But the scientists among you have to understand that it's difficult to transport anything through a vacuum and therefore it's going to be difficult to explain things to me.

 

In the same vein, those of you who, like me, seek to apply philosophy to that vacuum need to understand that we're using the wrong tool and probably will ultimately fail. I know I have.

 

--lemit

[Boof-head]

Some of the things that have made me think recently about the time angle, of the supposed 4-dimensional spacetime we inhabit, and the way relativistic time is asymmetrical, Lorentzian observers in different frames see times and distances as interchangeable, or as 'the same thing', or the same event at different times, time is 'elastic' in GR, etc, but not in QM, time is discrete and evolves 'random' events.

 

The parametrization is different, there are fundamentally different kinds of surfaces - the geometries are Riemannian for spacetime, and closed, unitary but infinite-dimensional for 'quantum space and time'.

 

Seth Lloyd gives a clue with the stochasticity in quantum circuit models; reversibility is important in different ways in QIS to how classical reversibility is a time-symmetry, part of CPT-invariance in particle physics (relativistic time).

In qbit bipartite states, the input, as such, in a classical sense is the work done preparing the quantum circuit - building it, that is - then the 'unitary' result is read out, the quantum input transforms, as a direct product, into an output via a measurement projection; we project time into the quantum process, via measurement.

 

If you treat time itself as a manifold, or a density (of states), it works too.

[Pyrotex]

I think you guys are having a breakthrough. Thanks Doctor Dick! :)

Another viewpoint on Time:

GR tells us that time "runs slower" in a gravitational field. Yet (as we know from other threads) we do not have a good understanding of just what the gravitational "force" is.

If we look at two points in a gravitational field, at different gradients, then one point, A, has time running slower than the other. Therefore that point has or represents or manifests [verb fail] a lower energy state than the other point, B. An object at the other point, B, would experience a "force" to the first point, A, because it would experience a lower energy state at point A as a direct result of A having time running slower (a smaller Time Gradient).

So, gravitational force derives from the Time Gradient. (?)

But this all depends on what I mean by "energy state".

 

At the quantum level, might not the Time Gradient from point to point be effectively random?

And what do I "mean" by that? :thumbs_up

[Michael Mooney]

Maddog:

This book is The Ontology of Spacetime, by Dennis Dieks (Editor)

 

Good find!:thumbs_up

See Post# 637, p.64:

On the Ontology of Spacetime:

Quote:

Dennis Dieks, Professor, Ph.D., M.Sc., Institute for History and Foundations of Science, Buys Ballot Laboratory, Utrecht, The Netherlands

 

Description

The sixteen papers collected in this volume are expanded and revised versions of talks delivered at the Second International Conference on the Ontology of Spacetime, organized by the International Society for the Advanced Study of Spacetime (John Earman, President) at Concordia University (Montreal) from 9 to 11 June 2006. Most chapters are devoted to subjects directly relating to the ontology of spacetime. The book starts with four papers that discuss the ontological status of spacetime and the processes occurring in it from a point of view that is first of all conceptual and philosophical. The focus then slightly shifts in the five papers that follow, to considerations more directly involving technical considerations from relativity theory. After this, Time, Becoming and Change take centre stage in the next five papers. The book ends with two excursions into relatively uncharted territory: a consideration of the status of Kaluza-Klein theory, and an investigation of possible relations between the nature of spacetime and condensed matter physics, respectively.

 

See also other refs in that post on same subject and on Ontology in general.

(Seems I've been "talking in a vacuum"... and invisible too!)

Michael

BTW, Doctordick's perspectives were covered very well and in much more depth in Modest's much earlier link, which I've bumped several times in this thread:

The Ontology and Cosmology of Non-Euclidean Geometry

 

The ontology link I shared in post 637 could deepen his understanding of what ontology is. Also, my reply to AnssiH** contrasting rhetoric with ontology was obviously ignored by everyone.

No, its not all about definitions and syntax. It's not like anything anyone can imagine has an equal "reality quotient," the latter being one way to state in two words the subject of ontology.

** Post 580, p. 58:

http://hypography.com/forums/philosophy-of-science/17037-what-is-spacetime-really-58.html

Excerpts:

M: "So you are making a rhetorical case that one can "define" reality in such a way as to deny all "empty space."

 

A:

""What I am trying to place your focus on is not "which one is true". I'm focusing on the fact that we can ALWAYS see the same thing in many different ways..."

 

M:... "And create a universe with no empty space, like (closest reality) an all/everywhere neutron star or black hole (compressed matter) kind of universe.

You can create whatever you like in your mind, but it is absurd to call such a universe "real."

 

But if you believe that, for instance an 11 to 26 dimensional cosmology (like string/M-theory) is ontologically real (Ed: not that you do... just if you did), it (would behoove) you to show/ explain what each "dimension" is in "the real world" (their actual referents.) Otherwise there is no difference between imaginary sci-fi and serious science.

 

Michael

[Michael Mooney]

Pyrotex:

Another viewpoint on Time:

GR tells us that time "runs slower" in a gravitational field. Yet (as we know from other threads) we do not have a good understanding of just what the gravitational "force" is.

....

So, gravitational force derives from the Time Gradient. (?)

But this all depends on what I mean by "energy state".

 

Prior to the latter is the ontological question, "what do we mean by 'time'?"

 

I agree with watcher (for a change!) that time is about movement... its "clocked duration" to be specific.

(See my post at the end of the "What is Time" thread and somewhere in this one too.)

 

It is a leap without a logical imperative to go from the fact that clocks slow down under different conditions relative to each other to "therefore time slows down"... etc.

You, and relativity theorists in general assume the latter without establishing the former imperative or demonstrated link.

 

Michael

[Essay]

"...its "clocked duration" to be specific." -M.Mooney

 

The point is not that "clocks" slow down, but reality slows down. Relative to an observer in a spaceship, the clock doesn't slow down. The observer's metabolism and brain processes match the clock and so no "slowing" is observed; but after the spacetrip is over, the observer's clock, metabolism and thoughts all can be observed to have happened over a shorter duration than things that didn't take the same trip.

...or maybe it's just that the rest of reality speeded up during the observer's spacetrip; but whichever....

 

It is all of reality that endures differently in different gravitational gradients.

It is all of reality that endurates differently in different gravitational gradients.

It is all of reality that endures (has duration) differently in different gravitational gradients.

...one of these three sentences should convey the idea I'm trying to say.

 

And whether it is the destination (gravi-gradient) or the path taken....

===

 

Hey[random thought] ! Slowly going to a place with a different gravigradient and staying there for a while and then returning will have the same effect as rapidly travelling to that place and not stopping for the same "while."

 

Well, depending on if the gravigradient is higher or lower than the origin.

...a higher gravigradient would make that sentence true, but a lower one would....

 

Okay, now that lower gravigradient would allow for faster ageing, and if you stayed there long enough, it could compensate for the fast trip to that low gravigradient place.

 

BUT! That place is itelf moving--orbiting some other gravity source....

 

The speed of the orbits causes some slowing, but the position in the gradient stays the same.

The lower the gradient, the faster the time.

 

[...just thinking about] Travelling along vs. across the gravigradient--of earth, the sun, the galactic plane, the galactic center, the Great Attractor, the Center? around which the GA orbits, and possibly more "centers."

 

The lower the gradient, the faster the time.

So out in deep space (with lower gradients), like between the galaxies, wouldn't time run faster.

Wouldn't space "expand" faster?

Or, wouldn't space farther away from an atom expand faster than space near an atom?

 

[Realizing that at any instant, a given atom's electron might be all the way across the universe--albiet the very low probability]

===

 

uhhhh.... What did I start talking about...?

 

Thanks Michael, I'll be back later (I've gotta see a man about a dog--or "dogs" in general)...

...if I can find my way back from this little stream-of-consciousness trip.

[Boof-head]

The ontological/epistemological conundrum seen in how relativistic-domain time is a matter of connections (in an 'imaginary' past and future) changing places - time and space commute in Lorentz transforms - and the 'speed' or motion in our low-energy time domains, compared with when the connections at the end where the absence of temperature, and mass - already absent in optical frequency/time exchanges (if not from the 'outer' environment that these quantum 'spacetime cavities' or condensates, vortical states like the plateau effect in Hall liquids, etc) - where matter looks most like an ordered lattice of some kind, say, time or position, and space or momentum don't commute.

 

The diffusion gradient is not 'smooth' for Minkowski's lightspace here, the Lorentz connection doesn't find a tangent on any of the inner curves in these lattices.

 

Let's see if I can rephrase that: in a sense, the tangent space of GR doesn't commute with the tangent space of QM; the geometry of say, a Lorentz frame-shift, will meet an algebra, framed in terms of Boolean operators (on momentum, and orbital modes inside a potential well); we have to construct a parallelized version of a Maxwellian manifold (we align particle spins, or nuclear spin-precession rates), strong magnetic fields are the 'background effect' in spin-polarization circuits.

 

The largest machine we have ever constructed (in scale, energy-wise, design-wise, most-scientists and PhDs-wise, etc) is designed to 'find' a result, based on the use of a lot of polarization - of charge, to accelerate charged particles, and spin to 'focus' a group of such particles into a beam; the 'real' process occurs at an energy, and at a distance so vanishingly small that spacetime will be almost meaningless - the Planck scale will be approached, we have to use large-scale 'collectors' at much greater distances, to capture the cross-section of the small-scale interactions.