What is time?

[freeztar]

the observer is important to make sense of time. both in relativity and QM.

 

Inertial frames are required.

 

the world imagined to be a purely objective one are both trashed by einstein and the founders of QM.

Huh?

do you have a full understanding of all forms of consciousness to conclude that time is totally independent of consciousness ?

 

No, do you? ;)

[Michael Mooney]

I agree with all of the above, Michael, with one big caveat.

 

If humans did not exist, or any form of consciousness for that matter, time would still "pass". From an objective standpoint, the subjectivity of the observer is non-important.

 

Relativity is important though. It has been tried and found true. The Theory of Special Relativity shows us that velocity affects time and the Theory of General Relativity shows us that gravity affects time. Einstein et al. gave us the best tools ever created for understanding time. He was able to synthesize notions put forward by great minds like Schrodinger, Lorentz, and Planck. I don't think we're nearly done with our exploration of this question, but we at least know a little bit about how the beast behaves. ;)

 

Seems your post is a good example of the differences of focus between CraigD's new thread (with an emphasis on relativity) and his original thread, which is essentially inquiry into the ontological existence of "time."

 

I totally agree with your first paragraph above, with a footnote to the common phrase "time would still pass"...:

* In other words, "everything is always in motion."

Do you see any difference between the two statements? I do. The former *assumes* "time" as some "thing" that "passes" before its ontology as a self existent "thing" is ontologically established. The latter is simply a statement of fact explaining the same "thing.'

 

Your second paragraph continues with this assumption about the *existence of time as some thing*, saying, as all relativity theorists do...

"The Theory of Special Relativity shows us that velocity affects time..."

...Assuming the existence of time before it is even established ontologically as anything beyond what I have always presented in this forum.

 

We all know that "time" is a factor in velocity... as in miles (distance) per hour (time... specifically in this case, 1/24th of an Earth rev.) Velocity does not effect time. That "hour" is simply the period, in the mph case above, of a fraction of our planet's rotation that elapses during our travel of so many units of distance, also simply a conventional designation.

Michael-

 

Same with:

"...the Theory of General Relativity shows us that gravity affects time. "

"Time" is already a given as an entity in your mind, precluding the ontological inquiry into what it actually is in the real world... everything in motion...

regardless of clocks, as you do agree.

Michael

I really want to know if you see what I am getting at here.

Ps: See edit afte ryour reply below.

Michael

[freeztar]

You are correct. My words carry hidden (or not so hidden) assumptions about the ontological reality of time.

 

Asking me to not see time as a "thing", requires a bit of poking and prodding. How else can we explain events "in motion"? Is it ok to evoke time as long as we are conscientious of its innuendos?

[Michael Mooney]

Is it ok to evoke time as long as we are conscientious of its innuendos?

Naturally, as long as we agree that it is a convention applied to event duration... like an hour or a year or a nanosecond.

We can all agree that everything that happens "takes time" in the sense that the universe is not "frozen in time."

 

But now relativity insists that "time itself dilates." This is where the ontological argument begins.

Michael

[watcher]

Inertial frames are required.

 

and for inertial frame to be meaningful, observer is required.

 

Huh?

 

you think that the world exists as they were without consciousness? is it not? this is naive realism, it means that things, time, space are independent entities, all objective. but they are not, they are things, time and space because of how we see it.

 

No, do you? :phones:

 

i am not the one making claims that time in independent of consciousness.

[watcher]

Naturally, as long as we agree that it is a convention applied to event duration... like an hour or a year or a nanosecond.

 

we appeared to be in agreement with this.

 

We can all agree that everything that happens "takes time" in the sense that the universe is not "frozen in time."

 

okay but do you have any understanding of motion other than the classical motion of a bullet or an arrow cruising in space?

[freeztar]

and for inertial frame to be meaningful, observer is required.

Well, it only requires a wave/particle that can be used as an "observer".

 

you think that the world exists as they were without consciousness? is it not? this is naive realism, it means that things, time, space are independent entities, all objective. but they are not, they are things, time and space because of how we see it.

Spacetime? Yes?

i am not the one making claims that time in independent of consciousness.

 

Ok. :phones:

[Little Bang]

The definition of the word ontology, ( The study of existence. ). What the frap does that have to do with ( What is time? )? The definition of time, system of distinguishing events: a dimension that enables two identical events occurring at the same point in space to be distinguished, measured by the interval between the events. Example: the distance between two crests of a wave as in wavelength as measured using time.

[watcher]

Well, it only requires a wave/particle that can be used as an "observer".

 

yeah? who sets up or choose the frame of reference ?

who measures the particle ? who trigger the particle detector switch to stop the wave evolution and collapse the wave function and get a particle measurement result?

[Farsight]

I'm afraid I'd rather forgotten about this forum, apologies.

 

What is time? It's an emergent property of motion. Clocks clock up motion, not time. When you stop the clock or freeze the frame you stop motion, not time. Time is cofounded with motion through space, not with space. Things like stars and planets, and people and hands and cogs and sprockets and photons and protons move through space, not through time - and not through spacetime. Nothing moves through spacetime, that's the abstract mathematical space where we do our calculations and plot worldlines. The big bang occurred 13.7 billion years ago, but a year was measured using the motion of the earth, and is now measured using the motion of light. So the beginning occurred 13.7 light years ago. It was the beginning of motion, not the beginning of time.

 

Things like time dilation and the constancy of c are trivial once you understand time. And other things too. Ontology is important, because you have to learn to see what's there, and when you open a clock and gaze at those cogs and gears, you don't see time running like a river, and you don't see spacetime. You see space, and things in motion through it.

[watcher]

What is time? It's an emergent property of motion

can you define motion and what is its ontology?

[Michael Mooney]

Me:

If there were no clocks, what would "time" be?

 

Still no answer!

Watcher:

if there were no measuring rulers/rods, what would space be?

inches, meters are measures of space and in turn time expressed in seconds, minutes are the measure of motion.

 

If we didn't "make some *thing* of "it" in our minds and believe that measuring " it" establishes "its" existence, it would remain the empty volume in which all "things" exist and move.

 

if we can get past this simple definition of time, then we can move on to the onltology question... " what moves then?"

 

Everything moves.(**) How "long" any movement "takes" (the time factor) requires parameters overlayed by "the observer" doing the measuring, "stopwatch" in hand and with a specific focus on what "event" in particular he is "timing."

Earth spins on its own whether we measure its periods or not. We say one rev is a "day." Fine. Did we create something called "time" or just assign duration to the observed event? (A rhetorical question.)

**(This is also the short answer to your question in post 603):

okay but do you have any understanding of motion other than the classical motion of a bullet or an arrow cruising in space?

Me:

What entity/medium/aether/whatever would "dilate" if there were no clocks "keeping time" differently?

You:

quantum waves perhaps.

 

Please explain.

Michael

[Michael Mooney]

The definition of the word ontology, ( The study of existence. ). What the frap does that have to do with ( What is time? )? The definition of time, system of distinguishing events: a dimension that enables two identical events occurring at the same point in space to be distinguished, measured by the interval between the events. Example: the distance between two crests of a wave as in wavelength as measured using time.

 

Wiki on ontology:

Ontology ... is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.

 

So, " What the frap" ontology has to do with time is that it examines what it is...

Does it have "existence or reality" as an entity?...

before we start tossing the word around as if its existence is a given, already established. So when "science" uses the phrase "time dilation" it behooves us to understand what it is exactly that is said to be dilating!

 

Edit: This brings us back to my basic question above, still not answered,

If there were no clocks, what would "time" be?

Anyone?

Michael

[Little Bang]

Suppose I have a wooden rod laying on a table saw. The rod is one meter long. I can choose to cut the rod into any length I want from infinitely small all the way up to one meter. If I suddenly disappear from the Universe that rod will still exist with the potential to be cut into smaller and smaller pieces even if there are no conscious beings in the Universe. It is conceivable that an electromagnetic wave could have an energy billions of times greater than that contained in the entire Universe. That means the distance between crests of the wave is extremely small. That distance, as we all know, can vary from infinitely long to infinitely short and that distance is our measure of time. I am not saying that time is an entity of itself only that time is a variable commodity and that variability is what makes time real. As to what is dilating, the wave.

[watcher]

Wiki on ontology:

 

 

So, " What the frap" ontology has to do with time is that it examines what it is...

Does it have "existence or reality" as an entity?...

before we start tossing the word around as if its existence is a given, already established. So when "science" uses the phrase "time dilation" it behooves us to understand what it is exactly that is said to be dilating!

 

Edit: This brings us back to my basic question above, still not answered,

If there were no clocks, what would "time" be?

Anyone?

Michael

 

let's try again.

time is the measure of change.

change is basically motion.

motion is the movement from one position to another.

the simplest event is a particle that move from one position to the next one.

 

if t here were no clocks, there is still motion. there will still be a particle that moves from one position to the other.

 

so michael, if you want to know what dilates, you need to understand how on earth a particle move from one position in space to the next position. do you still think that a particle moves like a billiard ball in an apparent continuous motion ?

 

the quantum waves provides a complete description of how the particle behaves since a particle arises from its wave structure (particle/wave duality) as determined by its wave equation.

[Michael Mooney]

Watcher,

Your post didn't come close to addressing my "bold" question... nor "What dilates?"

What is itthat "runs faster or slower" besides clocks?

 

Do you actually believe that there is a local 'time environment' for each locus or a different 'time line' for each traveling particle or wave... and that clocks simply monitor this very changeable medium, aether, or whatever entity, "time?"

I think you still don't get the ontological question no matter how I ask it.

 

Whatever particle or wave can travel at whatever speed and we can speak meaningfully about the velocity in either case. But this is stated in units of distance per units of time. The velocity of things can obviously change, and the comparison of velocities between things (or waves) can still be stated in distance units per units of time without the absurdity of claiming that either distances lengthen or shorten because of different velocities or that "time itself" slows down or speed up with these changes in velocity.

 

Are you following me?

Michael

[HydrogenBond]

One observation about time, that has always intrigued me is connected to photography. When we take a photo of some motion in time, we essentially stop time in the photo. The photo give us a snap shot of a point in time.

 

If the shutter speed is slower than the time (functionality) of the action, we will get motion blur. Time is still stopped in the photo, at a point of time (if we had a clock in the photo we can prove this) but what we get is an indeterminacy of position, which the brain will interpret as motion. It is apparent motion without the requirement of movement through time. Who can tell the photo below is motion even with time stopped?

 

 

Space-time is a reference system, based on the interdependence of space and time. In the case of motion blur, because the shutter speed is off, and the photo has stopped time, the excess time that camera misses (within the time dependency of the action) is expressed via space/distance variability.

 

In the above photo, the background has motion blur. This would be easier to express with a wave function. The foreground cycler, where there is no variability in distance, due to no excess time is easier to express with a particle. The entire scene, as a unit shows particle-wave duality, based on the distribution of time, when t=0, with time being expressed as various degrees of position uncertainty. What is interesting, if we superimposed a double slit, onto the photo, some of the background can overlap both slits.

 

To know position implies there is no motion blur. But that stops the action so can't see momentum, such as in the biker. We can see momentum in the background, but we don't know position. The entire photo is a particle-wave.

 

What would happen if we had a motion camera. We will adjust the shutter speed, so there is some motion blur in each frame. Being a movie, there is another movement in time dependent on the frame rate. The higher the frame frequency the better the movie.

 

In the movie, we lose time (action) in the gaps between the frames. But with the shutter speed in each frame creating an uncertainty in distance, this fills in the gaps for apparent smooth motion in distance and time.

 

If we get rid of the motion blur, but maintained the frame frequency, it would look like quantum jumps, with subtle changes in position occurring in zero time. With simple time considerations one can simulate many of the effects observed in physics.