TIME EXPLAINED (v2.1)

[hardkraft]

The photon does not experience anything because it's not a scentient being. I know it's just a thought experiment but it's better to have experiments that are closer to reality. Let's imagine a rocket traveling at relativistic speeds. Let's say it travels for billions of years. Although the time doesn't completely stop for it, it slows down significantly enough that the image of the universe inside the rocket differs significantly from the outside world. What happens when it smacks into a planet that had time to evolve in the meantime? Does all the reality catch up in an instant or fast forward to the present? I can see that it's a version of the twin paradox. Popular, what does your theory say about it?

[InfiniteNow]

The photon does not experience anything because it's not a scentient being. I know it's just a thought experiment but it's better to have experiments that are closer to reality.

The question is really more philosophical in nature, however, Infy did preface by saying "let's just say it's so for purposes of this thought experiment." Since you have now countered by stating, as fact, that photons do not experience anything, with no such qualifier, I'd ask you to support your claim. I took Infy's proposal not as a representation of true reality, but a way to simplify the experiment in hopes of achieving understanding elsewhere.

 

One cannot ride a photon either, but that never stopped Einstein from using it as a tool for visualization. ;)

 

...from the view point of a photon created at the Big Bang itself, no time has passed what-so-ever. Incredible as that may sound, if you could have hitched a ride on one of those first photons created at the Big Bang, you would have experienced no passage of time since you first left...One could surmise that, at least from the perspective of this photon, no time would have passed between it's creation and the end of the universe. ...This raises an unusual question. From the view point of this photon, is the past, the present, and the future are all rolled into one?

I struggle accepting the deterministic implications, as well as the math used to describe it, but Infinite Now may apply to more than just photons.

 

 

We are stardust. :eek:

[Farsight]

I don't feel edgy at all hardkraft, I'm just struggling to keep up! Anyhow, you just can't show me those slices, and you can't show me any travelling through them. If I struggle to refute them, well, I struggle to refute magic too. Re formulae, I haven't mentioned any, but if you're talking concepts, IMHO taking the time out of spacetime makes it much easier to understand mass and gravity. As regards the photon, time doesn't pass for the photon, but events still happen to it. The photon is emitted, it wibbles its way across space, it gets bent going past a sun, then it gets reflected, then it gets absorbed, all in no time flat as far as the photon is concerned. Things change, things move, but you don't need time for things to change and move. They just do, then people invent "time is a length" out of that.

[InfiniteNow]

As regards the photon, time doesn't pass for the photon, but events still happen to it. The photon is emitted, it wibbles its way across space, it gets bent going past a sun, then it gets reflected, then it gets absorbed, all in no time flat as far as the photon is concerned. Things change, things move, but you don't need time for things to change and move. They just do, then people invent "time is a length" out of that.

See, this is the primary contention you've made that I fail to agree with. No time, no motion. Simple really.

 

Things change. Across what? The medium of that change is time. No time, no motion.

 

Things move. Across what? The medium of that movement is space. No space, no motion.

 

Space and time are one in the same, in fact, an single something called spacetime.

 

 

Calling a coffee a steak doesn't mean you're drinking a cow.

[hardkraft]

The question is really more philosophical in nature, however, Infy did preface by saying "let's just say it's so for purposes of this thought experiment."

I said that I understand that it is only a thought experiment but when thought experiments are too simple and idealized they might distort the true picture. My example with the rocket is almost the same but is more "real" enabling us to be more realistic with asking questions. For example when a rocket crashes into a planet it slows down even if it's a fraction of a second. The same does not happen to a photon.

 

Popular, I understand that things are happening all around but what happens from the point of view of the traveller? Let's take my rocket experiment which I feel more comfortable with. Relativity tells us that a moving frame has a different sense of reality from the outside world. But those realites sometimes meet and need to be reconciled. How does it happen from the rocket's point of view? What happens when the rubber hits the road?

[InfiniteNow]

So, I will take that to mean you cannot support your claim that photons do not experience anything. Now, back on topic...

[hardkraft]

So, I will take that to mean you cannot support your claim that photons do not experience anything. Now, back on topic...

I assume so and I trust most will agree that my assumption is not unreasonable. We can take a poll "Do you believe photons have feelings or have experiences?" :shrug:

[InfiniteNow]

I assume so and I trust most will agree that my assumption is not unreasonable. We can take a poll "Do you believe photons have feelings or have experiences?" :)

 

Still, neither belief nor popularity make truth. :) We would first need an adequate definition of experience, an adequate definition of existence.

 

 

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” --Friedrich Nietzsche

[infamous]

I assume so and I trust most will agree that my assumption is not unreasonable. We can take a poll "Do you believe photons have feelings or have experiences?" :)

I think you're reading too much into the definition of experience hardkraft. All particles interact with their surroundings and therefore, in very simple terms, they experience an existence relative to enviornmental stimuli. In no way am I suggesting that the photon possesses a rudimentary conscouisness of any sort. Hopefully this will clear up any confusion you've had about the direction I was taking this thought experiment. Likewise, I would appreciate it if you would not suggest otherwise...........................................Infy

[arkain101]

So, I will take that to mean you cannot support your claim that photons do not experience anything. Now, back on topic...

 

Let me give this a try.

 

In recent contemplation I have found some interesting reasonings.

 

Whether or not the scientific communitty decides to continue using an object as a fundamental element to the universe, the questions of where it came from and what that object is made of will never go away.

 

Even if the universe was made of strings, these strings are not connected to eachother. There isnt baby strings that permiate outwards like photons to show other strings baby strings to show where those strings are. The strings are lone universes. Try to measure a universe where there is nothing but your ability to reason in that enviroment. The string has no reference points to generate measurement.

 

Assume for a moment that a photon really is a particle. In what way does it have to communicate to others to generate a sense of meaning and measureable behavior? If it is a lone particle connected to nothing then it is its own meaningless un-measureable universe of infinite possibility.

 

How can you measure it when you need one to measure it to observe what it looks like, and each photon is an invisible thing? You can not attribute anything to its shape, or give it meaning. No model will suffice that has material expectation.

 

The photon is suggested to reside in an infinite universe. Infinite is that of no value, invisible, zero, uncertain...

 

If and when photons hit eachother, relative to themselves (a nothing universe) they pass through another nothingness. Two blanks passing through eachother. There is only one thing you can assign to each supposed photon universe, and that is a value or number.

 

"The fine-structure constant or Sommerfeld fine-structure constant, usually denoted , is the fundamental physical constant characterizing the strength of the electromagnetic interaction. It is a dimensionless quantity, and thus its numerical value is independent of the system of units used."

 

 

 

There by, any interactions requires at least parity of photons, and the compound formations of measurments created by their behavior that an asigned value gives to them.

 

Everything observable is a quantized event. A type of reasoning formed by interactions of at least a minimum of two so called fundamental things.

 

As described something fundamental like a photon does not experience anything because it is not a thing, it only generates behaviors when passing through itself that can be observed by becoming an able observer of those quantum events.

[hardkraft]

That's why I say in thought experiments stick to what you know and can make reasonable assumtions as much as possible. Since I don't know photon psychology or physiology I can't tell whether they have any experiences. If I used them in a thought experiment I would use their ability to travel realy fast or have different wavelengths but stay away from their ability of having feelings and experiences which I have no way knowing anything about (phew, a long one) If however it was a human being traveling at the speed of light I could say pretty confidently that he would not have any experiences not even of himself. For any experience/thought to occur an electric impulse needs to travel a distance which takes time which is lacking. And that's something others can talk about since we all share human physiology but have no clue about photonian.

[arkain101]

Precisely.

 

What is the universe made of? It is impossible to tell, you can't observe it.

 

It has no things, it just has reasoning and measurements, of specific value whether designed or not.

 

Reasoning explains a photons behavior, because it is a singular frame of reference of its own universe.

 

The universe is made of thought and it is the origin of the universe, you can't see what thought is made of but it forms you a reality.

 

Some people argue, close your eyes and set out infront of a bus, then try to tell me its an illusion.

 

Closing your eyes does not stop thought. reasoning, or meaning. It just dims one of your senses. Of course the bus will hit me and possibly kill me.

 

If I stop my reasoning, I take a anistetic that renders me unconscious, go ahead and put me infront of a bus, I can't reason it happened, and relative to me it never did.

 

There is nothing but relative to a mind.

 

Where does reasoning go (the univese) if you have remove the mind concept from the universe?

Does the universe take on micro, minicmicro, macro, supermacro...

The scale of photons, scale of atoms or scale of macroscopic...

Its uncertain, and unreasonable. So you may aswell consider it a photon, or a fundamental object that observes its own unvierse of nothing.

So you remove the mind from the universe and the universe truly ceases to exist, It changes at infinite rate, untill something becomes aware again of change.

 

By how we experience time, we say we observe change.

 

By how we observe change we observe light that comes at us. (information)

 

By when we observe light come at us we see things change and it feels as if its forward.

 

As we experince the present, it is the past of a previous position.

 

Then we emmit our past which becomes another positions future.

 

The change we observe is the direction of past and future anialating themselves into an infinite now.

 

Change we observe, is not of direction, its frozen changes or infinite change your choice.

 

this is all of course relative to this concept of thinking. Not neccesaraly fact, but I persue alternative concepts this way to discover them fully.

[hardkraft]

I think you're reading too much into the definition of experience hardkraft. All particles interact with their surroundings and therefore, in very simple terms, they experience an existence relative to enviornmental stimuli.

Then "interact with" would be a better choice of words I suppose. Normally I would understand experience in that sense but in a later post it was said that "photons experience themselves" which looks like it's leaning towards an existential meaning. Now, if we were using "interact with" from the start then I doubt that "photons interact with themselves" would come up. In this case the choice of words steared the discussion in a different direction.

 

EDIT: However if you put a human inside a photon speed vehicle the question suddenly becomes very interesting and beggs more questions and word "experience" is no longer confusing nor controversial because we all know what experiencing human means.

[InfiniteNow]

It's important to be weary of making absolute claims when speaking of photons... Think of particles and anti-particles, coming into existence and annhilating. How can any of us say with certainty that this has nothing to do with photonic autointeraction?

[arkain101]

How can any of us say with certainty that this has nothing to do with photonic autointeraction?

 

What do you mean sir?

[InfiniteNow]

None of us can speak with absolutely certainty, so doing so should be avoided.

[infamous]

None of us can speak with absolutely certainty, so doing so should be avoided.

 

So very true Infynow,.......If there were no uncertainty, we would have no need of science would we? I get very nervous when people begin acting like the final answers stop with them, none of us have all the answers...................................Infy