Time doesn't exist...?

[Rade]

Rade the last two steps in the argument mock presentism, which is the view that only the present exists. How can the boundary between two things exist, if neither of them exists?

I do not claim that "only" the present exists. I claim that existence exists. Once a present existent moves into the past, while true it no longer exists in the present, it has not ceased to be itself. If so, none of this text would be visible for anyone to read, for it was all created by me within your future and is presently within my past while you read this.

 

You make a claim that it is not possible for "moments" to exist in any way, shape, or form, thus it is not possible for time to be bounded by moments ("nows"). I do not agree. It comes down to how we each define "exists". Here is my view:

 

Moments are within time, the same way the set of all odd and even numbers are within the number line. In this way we can say moments "exist", same way numbers 2 and 5 "exist". Thus, moments are not "things", no more than the # 7 is a thing. We can say there are 7 cows and 7 dogs as things. The "things" are the cows and dogs not the number "7". The key is to realize that each "moment" within time is like each odd or even number within the number line. TIME IS NOTHING MORE OR LESS THAN A NUMBER THAT IS COUNTED, IT IS THE NUMBER OF MOTION OF THINGS THAT IS COUNTED BETWEEN MOMENTS (THE BEFORE AND THE AFTER). Recall from my previous post that I see "time" and motion of "things" to be interchanged--time makes no sense to me without a concept of motion of things.

 

Consider the situation where some "thing" with potential for motion has transformed its quantum state from state A ---> state B in a "moment". Let us call this the "present moment" (M).

 

Next suppose there was a prior transformation of state A from state B at some moment (M').

 

That which is intermediate between moments (M) ----->(M') we call "time". Time exists in relation to how these two moments "exists" as state transformations, and the two moments exist in relation to how the states of the things A and B transform.

 

Suppose next that there is another moment (M") where state A transforms back into state B. Thus, we find different types of time possible, that which is intermediate between (M' ----> M"); also between (M ----> M"). We use the labels "present", "past", "future" to help explain these different situations.

 

I hope this makes sense.

[Vox]

Vox,

 

I'm at a loss to understand what point you are making. It seems an awfully complicated way of saying that there is a delay between what the eye sees and what the brain comprehends. What is the big deal? We know that the CMBR that reaches us today, was emitted 13.7 billion years ago, but light from the Sun takes around eight minutes to reach us. So are we 13.7 billion years "out of sync with reality" or eight minutes? The question is nonsensical.

 

The whole idea of being in or out of sync with reality supposes that reality is, in this respect, "in sync" with itself. It isn't. These time delays between events happening and their effects on other objects are universal. But it, and we, ARE in sync in the sense that the whole process takes place in the present, including the delay in our perception.

 

You seem to be confusing the time elapsed between cause (Big Bang) and effect (CMBR) with a difference in when "now" is. They are just different "now"s.

 

What I am after is the concept that our consciousness in creating this Universe and its concepts in our mind, mind creates time so that events can be "understood" movement can be created by conjunctions of different states of Now´s. Distance so that we can navigate in the "space" and so on.. so mind takes "information" from our senses and memorize it to create these concepts..it creates the space which it can move, understand, creates symbols for thinking..? if we think the "reality" as purest it is energy states of now?..even descibing as energy vibration needs diffrent reality moments to be combined, who is in Cosmos doing this combining..electrons do not know where they were in earlier now? (if they do the have some kind of consciousness of they own and then also the whole Cosmos have it) so how electron could know that it is spinning?..so our mind is creating this..only universe we can exist /create is the one we can "understand" in our minds.. the Cosmos what we think is "out there" is creation of our mind inside in our mind? .. or this combined action ..subject is creating object and object the subject. Cosmos created human to create Cosmos in the mind?

 

I am now moving away from time topic but I view currently that this time challenge is only one concept of similar challengies..

[Rade]

Thinking visually.. if we remove the linear approach and apply the view where the colored frames still indicates the "Now" but it would be flow of colors totally replacing each other .. like piling up but there would not be pile existing (time) due state of now have changed/flowed completely within the now to another now within..so different now would not "arrive outside of current now, New now would manifest within current now . So there would not be ""residue" left or intermediate states"..if we assume that now do not contain time itself ..so "no time=now" changed/flowed to another "no time=now" within. Although, This might be just playing with the words..your comments appreciated.

Nows do not change within each other to another now within (your comment in red). Each now is a termination of a past time with a future time. Thus, a new now does not manifest itself within a current now. However, each now does have something in common, and that would be "time", for each now is a termination of some time duration.

 

Also wondering from where the Yesterday could be found within reality if we can exist only in reality..how we could observe outside where we exist? Yesterday can not exist in the reality due now have been transformed to another reality within, without "residue left aside" which could be called yesterday?

The word "Yesterday" is within my present reality exactly where you placed the word when you typed it. What has changed is the color of the reality of Yesterday, it was black in your present moment, I have changed it to blue in my present moment. What has been "transformed" in your example is the "moment" within time and not the reality of the "thing" (the word Yesterday). Your Yesterday exists within the reality of your memory, that is, your consciousness. Your consciousness has an identity, it exists outside your body as a whole, same as your lungs have an identity that differs from your body as a whole.

[Vox]

Nows do not change within each other to another now within (your comment in red). Each now is a termination of a past time with a future time. Thus, a new now does not manifest itself within a current now. However, each now does have something in common, and that would be "time", for each now is a termination of some time duration.

 

What is your interpretation concerning this ?

 

The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Albert Einstein

 

How long would be the duration of now?..If now would have time scale within, in theory we should be able to "travel in time" within now before it changes?

[Vox]

if we think the "reality" as purest it is energy states of now?..even descibing as energy vibration needs diffrent reality moments to be combined, who is in Cosmos doing this combining..electrons do not know where they were in earlier now?

 

Albert Einstein and the Fabric of Time

 

Extract from the page:

 

"What is still not quite resolved in modern physics is how to properly combine Quantum theory with Einstein's Relativity Theory. It appears evident that time is purely a direction in space but how then do we explain the uncertainty of quantum mechanics? Why does it appear that God plays dice with the world. The two theories, each having been proven by their usefulness, do of course tell the same story about this one universe, but we just haven't learned yet to hear the story right. The best modern theory going is probably the No Boundary Proposal, put fourth by Stephen Hawking and Jim Hartle. This theory introduces a second reference of time which has been inappropriately named Imaginary time. Hawking, writes of the no boundary proposal, "The universe would be completely self contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE."

 

In my book Everything Forever, and here at my website, I explain how fourth dimensional spatial directions travel through a series of independent three dimensional block-like spaces, which in science we call states, but they can also be thought of simply as patterns. Hawking has already proposed that imaginary time can be found at right angles to ordinary time. I further explain that it is possible in an objective way to understand the universe to be like a book or a movie film. Each moment is a separate universe just like each frame of a movie or page of a book is separate. Yet those separate states simultaneously form the larger whole of the movie or the book. Seeing each moment as a continually existing place sheds light on why particles would then travel as a quantum wave, rather than linearly from point a to point b. This is explained better elsewhere, but if each moment of ordinary time is a solid, static, "block of now", or field of space, then time each new moment is a distinctly different universe. What we call time is a spatial direction that travels through many static three dimensional universes. "

[jedaisoul]

Rade

 

For what it is worth, I agree with most of what you have said in #120, with the exception of:

 

Once a present existent moves into the past, while true it no longer exists in the present, it has not ceased to be itself. If so, none of this text would be visible for anyone to read, for it was all created by me within your future and is presently within my past while you read this.

I would suggest that once an event, such as my writing this text, moves into the past, the event itself ceases to exist. But this does not mean that it never existed, nor that the effects of my writing this cease to exist. When you read this, the event of my writing it is no more, but you can read it, because the effects of my writing it, computer bytes stored in memory or on a hard disk, remain in the present. You, and others can read it in a future present (with respect to my present now) only whilst those effects continue in the present. If those effects are consigned to the past, by this message being wiped from memory/disk, then you can no longer read it, unless you, or someone, has stored a copy that remains in the present.

 

That makes more sense to me than saying that the present existent, in which you created your text continues to "be itself" (whatever that means) and that without it "none of this text would be visible for anyone to read". If that were true, your message would remain readable after the message was wiped, because wiping the message at a later moment does not change the earlier moment when the message was created.

 

Perhaps I need to understand what you meant by your text continues to "be itself"? It certainly seems to me to be a strange statement.

[Rade]

What is your interpretation concerning this ? The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.Albert Einstein

I believe Einstein here refers to past time, present time, future time. Together these concepts are an illusion because there is no time within the present--the present is a "now", a moment, and it is outside of the space-time of Einstein. This would be incorrect if Einstein refers here to past, present, future moments, in that case I have no idea what he would mean by the statement.

How long would be the duration of now?..If now would have time scale within, in theory we should be able to "travel in time" within now before it changes?

The duration of "now", imo, is what we call Planck Time. Very important, this is my opinion only, it is my worldview. Thus, it is impossible for humans to access this Planck Time for time travel within the now. All travel in time is between moments and follows Einstein equations.

 

If we try to "catch" the "now" duration via consciousness it is an impossible task, the reason is that the duration of the now is much, much quicker than ability of consciousness to process information.

 

Also, because I define the duration of the "now" as Planck Time within the moment and relate this to a measurement, and unitary evolution of relativity time as being intermediate between moments ("nows"), there is no conflict between the two (quantum theory and relativity theory), they both refer to the same existent with potential for motion, but using different concepts of "time".

[Vox]

I believe Einstein here refers to past time, present time, future time. Together these concepts are an illusion because there is no time within the present--the present is a "now", a moment, and it is outside of the space-time of Einstein. This would be incorrect if Einstein refers here to past, present, future moments, in that case I have no idea what he would mean by the statement.

The duration of "now", imo, is what we call Planck Time. Very important, this is my opinion only, it is my worldview. Thus, it is impossible for humans to access this Planck Time for time travel within the now. All travel in time is between moments and follows Einstein equations.

 

If we try to "catch" the "now" duration via consciousness it is an impossible task, the reason is that the duration of the now is much, much quicker than ability of consciousness to process information.

 

Also, because I define the duration of the "now" as Planck Time within the moment and relate this to a measurement, and unitary evolution of relativity time as being intermediate between moments ("nows"), there is no conflict between the two (quantum theory and relativity theory), they both refer to the same existent with potential for motion, but using different concepts of "time".

 

Thanks for this.

Could you check the link I posted 124#..If this would be true (referring to the Hawkings theory in the link) that each moment of now is itsef a separate static state universe in 3 dimensional universe ..and 4th dimension would be going through these static universes to create "flow of time" and change from now to another now..but inherent quality of the each universe would just be as is without change within now....then if you would add Planck Time which would be the "thickness" of each now..then real movement from now to another now would be separated or let´s say "stepped" by this Planck Time..But we as humans would not be able to observe with our senses anything but smoot transition from current now to next now....just playing with idea by combining these different ideas..

[Rade]

RadeFor what it is worth, I agree with most of what you have said in #120, with the exception of (see your post)....I would suggest that once an event, such as my writing this text, moves into the past, the event itself ceases to exist. But this does not mean that it never existed, nor that the effects of my writing this cease to exist.

Yes, I see your point, it relates to the question of Vox in another thread--what is the difference between a "thing" (an existent) and an "event" ?

 

For me, it gets to the question, what has ontological priority--a thing or a event ? What comes first, the event of my now typing the letter thing A or the think itself, the letter A tab on my keyboard ? For me, existence always takes priority over consciousness, thus I put ontological priority on the "thing" (the keyboard tab) not the "event" (typing the letter). Once typed (once the event is over) the ontological keyboard tab thing A is transformed into the text thing A, as you say via bit code (0,1) within the computer. I have no idea what the computer bit code is for the letter A, but whatever it is, it does not have ontological priority over the keyboard tab A, but, nevertheless, it is an existent, a thing that exists as a map of something prior. This is what I was trying to say with the phrase "the text continues to be itself". It is like saying that a map continues to be a map even if the territory upon which the map was created changes. Existence exists but this does not imply that what exists does not change in relation to a before and after. I would think that existence without potential for motion (thus change) is impossible.

 

I had a problem understanding this statement

 

.....If those effects are consigned to the past, by this message being wiped from memory/disk, then you can no longer read it....

Consigning effects to the past does not require that the text be wiped from memory--correct ? It also is true that text can remain yet be consigned to the past.

[HydrogenBond]

Time is a concept that expresses movement and/or changes of state and is usually defined as a reference variable. This version of time is the current tradition. I like the idea of a new tradition, which defines time as a potential.

 

Let me show you the practical difference with an example. If we look at object moving with velocity V, the velocity is expressed as d/t. The current tradition defines time as a reference variable, without substance or potential. The question becomes, how can distance divided by an imaginary thing without substance transform into tangible motion? It is like we mix seeds with pixies dust and get oranges. This is why we get so bogged down in philosophy; time defies tangible reality while being use to define reality.

 

If we define time as a potential, when this potential acts through distance we get motion. This means a potential is behind the velocity. There is no imaginary mental concept creating this real thing. The object is not just moving in my mind, but is also moving in the real world because we have a potential.

 

The practical problem for changing tradition in mid stream is there is too much math already using imaginary time to express reality. It is pixie dust city. For example, we have relativity contracting space-time. In the current tradition, this only occurs in the mind, since time is without substance or potential; more like the spirit world. But as a potential, relativity occur out in the universe, without having to pretend anything. Time dilation would simply alter the time potential density in the fabric of space-time. Times appears to slow since more time potential buys us more time. It makes relativity much easier to grasp since there is something tangible out there that is changing potential because of gravity. We can then tap into that time potential to do other things.

 

The old tradition takes too much mental energy just to materialize the mental concepts into tangible things. Maybe the old tradition is modeled on god and creation, where god thinks and reality materializes out of his thoughts. God thinks about adding some time and poof we have matter. Playing god may be why the tradition of, real out the imaginary, seems to linger.

[jedaisoul]

This is what I was trying to say with the phrase "the text continues to be itself". It is like saying that a map continues to be a map even if the territory upon which the map was created changes.

Thankyou. I think we are in agreement.

 

Consigning effects to the past does not require that the text be wiped from memory--correct ? It also is true that text can remain yet be consigned to the past.

Wiping the text from memory and/or hard disk makes it cease to be part of the present. Text does not remain once consigned to the past.

 

Think of the dinosaurs. We only know of them from their imprints in the rocks. Those imprints are not the dinosaurs themselves, they are long gone. So the primary record is erased. We will never know what color the dinosaurs were. That information is lost. But a secondary record, where their bones lay after death, is available, in the cases where a record was laid down in the rock. So we can know the shape and size of their bones, and, in extremely rare cases, soft tissue. Where a record of them remains and exists today.

 

We do not now of the dinosaurs from what they were, or what they did. We know of them from records in the rocks that exist today.

[Qfwfq]

Existence exists, just like resistance resists, defiance defies and persistence persists. Perhaps even ignorance ignores and triumph triumphs.

 

Goodnes how many semantic issues we find in here. Let's look at just one of them:

If we define time as a potential, when this potential acts through distance we get motion.

I don't know how you define this potential and I don't know which meaning the word when has, in terms of your definition of time and neither do I know what it means to say that it "acts through distance".

 

Let's try considering this: an event occurs here on this planet, another event occurs "simultaneously" somewhere in the NGC 224 galaxy. People in a spaceship that is whizzing through the stars hear our broadcast saying this and say "Heck, no! The thing in Andromeda happened years before the other!" and they have every right to their point of view. So, how exactly do we define the meaning of present?

[cocoa]

All I can say is "time is gold"

[Qfwfq]

That's one thing there's no doubt about!!!!!!

[Rade]

Let's try considering this: an event occurs here on this planet, another event occurs "simultaneously" somewhere in the NGC 224 galaxy. People in a spaceship that is whizzing through the stars hear our broadcast saying this and say "Heck, no! The thing in Andromeda happened years before the other!" and they have every right to their point of view. So, how exactly do we define the meaning of present?

Use my definition of time, it is observer independent

[Qfwfq]

Gee I don't know how that works.

[Rade]

Thanks for this. Could you check the link I posted 124#..

Just for discussion, here are some statements that I think Einstein would agree with--well--that is what I would like to discuss. This is a modification of previous attempts motivated in part by Vox discussion of things vs events. I attempt to distill time and space as concepts to remove all observer baggage. Observer does not have to be a human mind. For definition, moments are the "nows", they are outside of time (by definition). Events imply potential for motion by things that exist (existents).

 

TIME = that which is intermediate between moments

SPACE = that which is intermediate between events of existents

 

therefore,

 

SPACE-TIME = that which is intermediate between moments of existent events

 

Please let me know exactly what Einstein would and would not agree with, and why.