TIME EXPLAINED (v2.1)

[hardkraft]

Arkain, I agree with pretty everything you said. However it's not enough to perceive change to experience time for example. One needs memory to compare it agains previous changes. A simple memory is not sufficient either. It needs to be an ordered memory. One needs to know which changes came first and which later.

In similar manner, light can give some information but to be more useful it needs to be fashioned into areas and colors. That information to be practical needs to be generalized into ovals, triangles, lines and so on. It's even more useful if one can count those shapes and compare their sizes.

I also came to understand that the direction of events is not arbitrary. Life and therefore reason could not have existed if time went the other direction.

It's importan to realize that all those "detection" and "computation" mechanisms were invented by nature to enable organisms cope with reality and material world that really does exist. However those inventions were fine tuned to cope with very limited scope of middle-scale, middle-speed reality. The question is though, is it the only possible way to describe it? Can we improve on those inventions or is it better to dispose with numbers, shapes, colors and scents and invent a system from scratch that would better match everything from micro to macro, slow to fast?

[arkain101]

I can't reply too detailed as of now, but;

 

However it's not enough to perceive change to experience time for example.

 

Well, I suppose I may have meant more than to experience time, but to measure it, you need light to come at you.

 

I feel like there is a bit to sift through here before getting back into it.

[CraigD]

I’m poorly read in the writing of Julian Barbour – this 8/16/1999 Edge interview that InfinteNow linked from post #71 is the first I can recall reading of his views. From that, and subsequent post in this tread, I believe many may misunderstand Barbour’s position: he suggests not just “there is no time”, but, more radically, “there is no time nor space.” In short, he suggests that, ultimately, objective physical reality may be defined only in terms of the relationships (or “transactions”) between fundamental physical entities (I hesitate to use the term particles, because its connotations to existing, space-time using theories risks confusion under Barbour’s formalism).

 

I find Barbour’s ideas strongly similar to the ”only connected” ideas I encountered in 2005 in Greg Egan’s (very hard) science fiction novel “Schild’s Ladder”, which describes a fictional theory called “Quantum Graph Theory”. Though Egan’s speculation is fictional (in the book QGT achieves a widely accepted form in 2035-2038), he is, in the opinion of me and his many of his many fans, a good interpreter of science (despite having only roughly my own scientific credentials – a BS in math and professional computer programming experience), so I consider his speculations worthy of attention.

 

These ideas have been influential in my own intellectual life – although I lack the formal skills to make much practical use of them, they’re very philosophically satisfying, speaking to many deep, nagging questions about the fundamental nature of reality, and reminding me of my own work in computer simulations in which I have attempted to model everyday reality without the use of arithmetic of any kind. Alas, my own work has not been nearly as successful or readable as Barbors or Egans :Guns: but learning through the published work of such famous folk that I’m not alone in my stranger deep private thought is very heartening :D

[infamous]

I’m poorly read in the writing of Julian Barbour – this 8/16/1999 Edge interview that InfinteNow linked from post #71 is the first I can recall reading of his views. From that, and subsequent post in this tread, I believe many may misunderstand Barbour’s position: he suggests not just “there is no time”, but, more radically, “there is no time nor space.” />

 

I just finished reading this interview and was struck by what I interpret as a similiar rationale akin to Einstein's World Lines. This interpretation of reality suggests that each moment of the NOW, is a separate and stratified existence. In plain terms, like the individual pictures on a roll of motion picture film. It is also easy to see how quantum interpretation could fit into this picture of reality.

 

So often when I read about new ideas being presented by capable scientists, such as Julian Barbour, I find myself being enriched with new ideas of my own. In reading about his thought experiment where the universe was comprised of only three individual particles, it stimulated another thought within my mind.

 

In a former post, I made a comment about the life of a photon, starting with it's birth at the Big Bang and ending with the heat death of the universe. Because the photon experiences no passage of time, according to Barbour, it would experience only two nows, one at it's birth, and the other at it's death. On the other hand, the physical universe which we humans experience would pass through an almost infinite number of nows. Very strange this universe we live in.......................................Infy

[Farsight]

I believe they were Minkowski's world lines, and Einstein wasn't too happy about it.

 

PS: Sorry I've not been around much. It was the wife's birthday yesterday, or should I say this weekend just gone, I had an awayday meeting today, and I'm on a course for the next three days.

[infamous]

I believe they were Minkowski's world lines, and Einstein wasn't too happy about it.

 

I remember reading somewhere that they were referred to as Einstein World Lines. Just where I read this, I can't remember. Nevertheless,

 

Wikipedia says:

 

"The idea of world lines orginates in phusics and was pioneered by Einstein."

 

If I were wrong in my memory about this, then Wikipedia is also incorrect. If that be the case, I frankly am not surprised about my own mistake, but find it a bit unusual for Wikipedia to be making it also...................Infy

[arkain101]

He sounds like a great guy to sit down and have a talk with.

 

"In a profile in The Sunday Times (October, 1998), Steve Farrar wrote: "Barbour argues that we live in a universe which has neither past nor future. A strange new world in which we are alive and dead in the same instant. In this eternal present, our sense of the passage of time is nothing more than a giant cosmic illusion."

 

 

He explains similar to the universe as the video tape of time having been already recorded, and our perception somehow acts as the lense which functions through that tape. I respect that, but I question what upholds moments to become? Are they made of something, and what of?

 

The way in which I consider this, and is the second option to this option is;

 

There is only one fundamental in the universe [1], and as such it must be incapable to be empirically measured, and therefore escapes science and the scientific method; that all evidence must be empirical, or empirically based, that is, dependent on evidence or consequences that are observable by the senses. That is, empirical data is data that is produced by experiment or observation.

 

This fundamental is the source of which the scientifc method can 'become'. To measure it becomes akin as to attempt to weigh water while performing that experiment under the source of water.

 

1This fundamental is the reference frame known as -for lack of a better explaination- awareness, language.

 

Awareness is created by reasoning developed by language. "I am here, so I experience"

 

For example; a child is born and is incapable to define to itself that it is aware. It does memorize and act on reflex, but there is no self awareness or reality untill it concieves the meaning of itself generated by word, such as "I am". No person experienced birth because they were incapable to define it and that it was "I" who was born.

Example; Remove your ability to concieve with words to validate your experience and you then cease to exist.

 

As such, contrary to the universe being fundamental in material and experience the illusion (as Julian Barbour seems to suggest). The concept I have shared is that the material universe is the illusion, and memory powered reasoning is the fundamental.

 

Why? As we tear away the veils of reality we find the strangeness of quantum reality a material expression of potential possibilities. The 'source' of these possibilities is elusive uncertain. In the same way awareness (generated by reasoning & thought) is the elusive fundamental potential of creating possibility.

 

The earth was flat in minds because when you walk on it it is flat.

Now its round in our minds because we saw (and see it) it from the outside perspective.

Now we try and can reason from another perspective its not round its multiple dimensions and strings, or space-time curves, or atomic fluctuations, that send out an overal macroscopic signal of it being round.

 

Without the reference frame of reasoning&awareness the universe is like the video tape, except without the video tape (you get me?)

 

 

I just finished reading this interview and was struck by what I interpret as a similiar rationale akin to Einstein's World Lines. This interpretation of reality suggests that each moment of the NOW, is a separate and stratified existence. In plain terms, like the individual pictures on a roll of motion picture film. It is also easy to see how quantum interpretation could fit into this picture of reality.

 

So often when I read about new ideas being presented by capable scientists, such as Julian Barbour, I find myself being enriched with new ideas of my own. In reading about his thought experiment where the universe was comprised of only three individual particles, it stimulated another thought within my mind.

 

In a former post, I made a comment about the life of a photon, starting with it's birth at the Big Bang and ending with the heat death of the universe. Because the photon experiences no passage of time, according to Barbour, it would experience only two nows, one at it's birth, and the other at it's death. On the other hand, the physical universe which we humans experience would pass through an almost infinite number of nows. Very strange this universe we live in.......................................Infy

[Farsight]

Infamous: you'd be surprised at just how much things get twisted. People get all hot under the collar and jump on something they perceive to be an attack on relativity, not knowing it's some view that Einstein himself held. For example he never thought of gravity as spacetime curvature. Anyhow, wikipedia isn't always reliable, so have a ferret around on Google:

 

Minkowski biography

 

"A key point of the paper is the difference in approach to physical problems taken by mathematical physicists as opposed to theoretical physicists. In a paper published in 1908 Minkowski reformulated Einstein's 1905 paper by introducing the four-dimensional (space-time) non-Euclidean geometry, a step which Einstein did not think much of at the time..."

[arkain101]

Speaking of geometry, there is alot of interesting concepts out there to express the universe. Some linear in fashion, and mush easier to calculate with, but arrive at the same results.

 

It seems to me that minkowski geometry is like this;

 

We experience measure and record data in the universe geometry we can experience first hand. Then we plot it into a geometry we can not experience firsthand (minkowski) then we use that complicated geometry to then re-convert it back to a geometry we can comprehend. Why do we take this re-route? Because of how we plot time.

 

Geometry is expression, and can express reality differently than we 'experience' to explain the results that we measure.

 

Some geometries can do this without creating curvature as long as you allow space and time to be a little manipulated.

 

Example;

 

 

This is Dr. Dicks expression of 3 spacial experience plotted into 4 spacial geometry. Nothing changes, just the geometry to conceive.

 

There are others of course. It would be interesting to discuss these.

[Farsight]

That imperceptible dimension is imperceptible because it just isn't there, arkain. Things just don't have an actual velocity of c.

[InfiniteNow]

Things just don't have an actual velocity of c.

Hi Popular,

 

Can you elaborate on your point? One would think that light itself has an actual velociy of c, however, I want to ensure I understand the point you are making before proceeding.

 

 

Thanks. :cup:

[arkain101]

I do tend to agree with you, I mean it doesnt make much sense, kind of like relativity, but oddly enough, it does seem to work just as well.

 

Lets take a crack at space-time geo

 

 

 

 

 

:naughty:

wiki quote:"This suggests what is in fact a profound theoretical insight as it shows that special relativity is simply a rotational symmetry of our space-time, very similar to rotational symmetry of Euclidean space. Just as Euclidean space uses a Euclidean metric, so space-time uses a Minkowski metric. According to Misner (1971 §2.3), ultimately the deeper understanding of both special and general relativity will come from the study of the Minkowski metric (described below) rather than a "disguised" Euclidean metric using ict as the time coordinate."

 

If we reduce the spatial dimensions to 2, so that we can represent the physics in a 3-D space

 

 

We see that the null geodesics lie along a dual-cone:

defined by the equation:

 

Which is the equation of a circle with r=c×dt. If we extend this to three spatial dimensions, the null geodesics are the 4-dimensional cone:

 

 

This null dual-cone represents the "line of sight" of a point in space. That is, when we look at the stars and say "The light from that star which I am receiving is X years old", we are looking down this line of sight: a null geodesic.

 

We can refer to that as a dimension, but we can also refer to it as motion of photons that defines time (visible change) that forms the idea of it being a dimension. However just as rightly we can exclude its dimension and refer to it as the flux (what I am getting at is the amount of flow per unit of time, and flow is the moments of information).

 

We obviously realise that, that which has not reached you that you can not see is what you shall call your future. And that which you can not see that does flow away from you shall be that which you can not change, and it your past.

 

Then we simply draw time as the product of flux and determined by that rate.

 

at my best attempt to show this, ack mate I know it be wrong.

 

[math] ds^2 = dx^2+dy^2+dz^2 + (c \frac {dD^2}{t^2})[/math]

 

or maybe?

 

[math] ds^2 = dx^2+dy^2+dz^2 + (c^2 \frac {dD^2}{t^2})[/math]

 

Which is to describe that obviously D (distance) can be + and - in change that is, velocity can be away and towards to affect the system and the time.

 

 

Dr dicks metric is apparently this:

 

[Farsight]

Infinitenow: if you look at the picture below the "actual velocity" of the women just isn't there. They aren't moving at c in some imperceptible dimension. Instead their component atoms and electrons are interacting at c via the three familiar spatial dimensions.

 

 

arkain: yep, the maths works, but we know it's just maths. Somewhere along the line the word dimension changed its meaning from "measure" to "Spatial Dimension". It just isn't how the world is because you just can't move through this dimension. So it's a measure not a "dimension" in the real world. It's only a dimension in "mathematical space", as real as the direction along the set of integers. And oh boy, do I cringe when I see deeper understanding of both special and general relativity will come from the study of the Minkowski metric.

[arkain101]

Thanks for the response popular,

 

just out of curiosity, have you read the paper?

 

as amateur as I am, it appears logical to me to suggest a 4th spacial dimension in replace of a 4th dimension of time, as it does to add the 4th dimension of time in the 3 dimensional space we observe. Why?

 

I believe one can show that the time dimension in minkowski metric is also 'not there'. Instead, what is there is changes in the element that creates the measure of time. And by working with this one can show the application for the positive and negetive results that the lorentz transformation was generated to describe, and the split products the lorentz creates.

 

That is, the two products in any one lorentz, would be used to describe the possibilities of the two directions in which velocity can occur (or distance can change), which is towards and away from the observer.

 

The direction of course alters the version of the predicted effects (ie time dilation and the like).

 

With this consideration, time is not a dimension, the same as you state the 4th spacial is not.

 

Instead there would be 3 spacial dimensions, or 'axis' with + or - relativistic change in any particular venue of the 3 spacial dimensions.

 

It probably sounds like rift raft, but i'll get back to this to hope I can show how it is viable to explain experimental data.

 

What prevents us from removing time as a dimension and calling it the flow of the rate of information?

Because redshift can occur, information can change velocity slower or faster than the speed of light, relative to the velocity of the information moving between frames at rest, can it not?

 

ie: If I desire to send you a message far away to another planet and the message will be a 30second transmission, but you need to receive that full length of information as soon as possible. If I increase the velocity of the messeging source towards you, as I send it. Say some nano device that sends messages from particles that are streaming some .5c (as a blind idea concept). Now the message can be applied in fastforward, or, let us say more compact, and you will recieve the 30seconds of data in say 10seconds.

[Farsight]

What paper?

 

I guess that's a "no" then!

[arkain101]

This would be the paper here. It interesting to consider, just as the writer says the paper is for.

 

Relativity/Quantum Mechanics

[Farsight]

Thanks arkain. Yep, interesting. I thought it was good up to here:

 

Several surprising things have occurred; two of which are apparently quite unreasonable6. One of the most astounding things about that metric is that it is exactly the form we would expect for a Euclidean metric. Who, in their right mind would have expected the Lorentz consistent transformations required by Maxwell's equations to have lead us to a Euclidean space? The second rather different aspect of this picture is that "t" has returned once more as a parameter of the motion, not a coordinate.

 

..but then I think he took a wrong turn when he started saying things like momentum in the tau direction must be mass. There is no extra coordinate. No extra direction. The t is just a parameter of the motion.