Is Time Real?

[ronjanec]

https://www.quora.com/Does-time-really- ... relativity Leibniz was right about time? Leibniz had views on time that were similar to mine, and to what I have been trying to explain to everyone here.

"Who has ever seen time?" Sounds a lot like my personal challenge to everyone: Or again, point out something that is actually time existing somewhere anywhere.

"that there is no independent ever flowing time" Or again, "time" does not actually exist independent of the timekeeping system in my version(no objective existence)

[rajnz00]

Plants know when to shed their leaves, germinate and flower, animals when to sleep, hibernate. migrate, breed, without the help of our clocks.
"Also I can't edit posts after 10 minutes has elapsed." That's funny, when time doesnt exist.
“Who was it who said a broken clock shows the correct time twice a day?”
??? How does that happen? A broken clock doesn’t move. Only something that moves can catch up to something that doesn’t move. If it’s twice a day, the thing that moves must be cyclic.

Dave, what are the most universal principles that govern or describe the most fundamental qualities of nature/ the universe?
In my opinion, some of them –
Newton’s third law of motion – every action has an equal and opposite reaction, this was rephrased by Smolin as the Principle of No Unreciprocated Actions. Newton violated his own law, in his theory of gravity. Space told matter how to move, but matter had no reciprocal reaction on space. Hence Einstein with his General Relativity – Matter tells space how to curve and space tells matter how to move.

Darwin’s Evolution – or "Descent with Modification". Descent involves time/ succession and Modification change.

Darwin’s Natural Selection - "Principle by Which Each Slight Variation, If Useful, is Preserved." It applies to life but is probably much deeper and applies to the laws of nature itself.

Lee Smolin's Principle of Explanatory Closure. No chains of explanation can point outside the universe. Both GR and Quantum theory point to nothing existing outside the Universe. So, any theory that violates the Principle of Explanatory Closure, commit the Cosmological fallacy. And funnily enough, they both do.

Nothing Exists of or by Itself. There are no absolutes. No absolute, space or absolute time. Everything is relational. Space is generated by objects and time by the movement of those objects.

[ronjanec]

Raj,

It sounds like you and Dave have this all figured out, so I guess there is really no point in me continuing to make any additional comments here. I still might check back from time to time to see if I can hopefully add to my personal knowledge in regards to time, from a couple of real experts on time like yourself and Dave.

[Dave_Oblad]

Hi Raj,

I don't disagree with anything in your last post except the last part.. like "Space is generated by Objects".

We all should agree that if the Universe maintains its current entropy, that a few trillion years from now, there will still be plenty of Space but no Objects left. Every Particle will have decayed. Every Wave Length will have been stretched to the Planck Threshold of Indivisibility. But the Universe will still keep Expanding and Real Time will still Exist.

The Quantum will be very rich and will still Exist.. for it is the True Universe.. while we are just immaterial passing possibilities. We are fluctuations in the informational content of the Universe, doomed to dissipation someday.

To understand Time, one must search for the Underlying Mechanics and not accept simple observations nor the Forced Math used to describe such. We all know that there was a time when the Earth Centrist view was held in high esteem because Math could be used to predict the positions of the observable Bodies of our solar system into the future.. and Math is never wrong. For the same reason.. just because Relativity is highly predictive doesn't mean it's an accurate Model of Reality. Clocks are very useful.. but Dilated Clocks have thrown Science on a wild goose chase that it still hasn't recovered from.. IMHO.

Ron: Feel free to drop by anytime, but I think this thread is about exhausted. Any further contributions would most likely be repetitions of what's already been said (but I could be wrong.. lol).

Best wishes,
Dave :^)

[ronjanec]

Hi Raj,

I don't disagree with anything in your last post except the last part.. like "Space is generated by Objects".

We all should agree that if the Universe maintains its current entropy, that a few trillion years from now, there will still be plenty of Space but no Objects left. Every Particle will have decayed. Every Wave Length will have been stretched to the Planck Threshold of Indivisibility. But the Universe will still keep Expanding and Real Time will still Exist.

The Quantum will be very rich and will still Exist.. for it is the True Universe.. while we are just immaterial passing possibilities. We are fluctuations in the informational content of the Universe, doomed to dissipation someday.

To understand Time, one must search for the Underlying Mechanics and not accept simple observations nor the Forced Math used to describe such. We all know that there was a time when the Earth Centrist view was held in high esteem because Math could be used to predict the positions of the observable Bodies of our solar system into the future.. and Math is never wrong. For the same reason.. just because Relativity is highly predictive doesn't mean it's an accurate Model of Reality. Clocks are very useful.. but Dilated Clocks have thrown Science on a wild goose chase that it still hasn't recovered from.. IMHO.

Ron: Feel free to drop by anytime, but I think this thread is about exhausted. Any further contributions would most likely be repetitions of what's already been said (but I could be wrong.. lol).

Best wishes,
Dave :^)

I was thinking the exact same thing Dave, and that was one of the reasons that I have decided to head for the exits.

[rajnz00]

Dave_Oblad wrote: on January 13th, 2017, 1:16 pm We all should agree that if the Universe maintains its current entropy, that a few trillion years from now, there will still be plenty of Space but no Objects left. Every Particle will have decayed. Every Wave Length will have been stretched to the Planck Threshold of Indivisibility. But the Universe will still keep Expanding and Real Time will still Exist.

The Quantum will be very rich and will still Exist.. for it is the True Universe.. while we are just immaterial passing possibilities. We are fluctuations in the informational content of the Universe, doomed to dissipation someday.

That is the story of General Relativity, and our best physics of today. The story of a deterministic world, devoid of novelty and surprise. But, just like the story of the 2nd law of thermodynamics causing the arrow of time, it is devoid of evidence. It is a story that demands impossible initial conditions and universal constants, which have to be just right in unison.

The story also tells us that we do not know the initial cause, and cannot know. We might as well say “God” created it and we do not know the cause of God. That explanation is far more satisfying than the theory of an infinite number of universes, which we cannot know, and have no evidence of, as it satisfies Occam’s razor infinitely better.

The actual evidential story of our world, and that of our universe, is quite different from that. It is one of evolution from simplicity to complexity. Complex things emerging from combinations of simple things. Stars and galaxies evolving from hydrogen atoms and primordial dust. Complex elements evolving from simple elements. Complex molecules evolving from simple molecules and complex life evolving from simple life.

Boltzmann, who explained the 2nd law of thermodynamics, didn’t know about the big bang, and thought the universe was eternal, puzzled why we had not already reached the dismal future you have painted, with matter, finely, and equally distributed in space, as we had an infinite amount of time to do so. He proposed that our solar system and surrounding region had recently been formed by a very large fluctuation. We know now that we are not just a low entropy fluctuation surrounded by matter dispersed into quarks.

His reasoning gave rise to the “Boltzmann brain paradox”. Small fluctuations, like a quark appearing and disappearing quickly, is far more likely than a large fluctuation like a hydrogen atom appearing and persisting. Fluctuations do not persist. Again, given an infinite amount of time, it is far more likely that a conscious brain such as ours, could arise as a random fluctuation for a short duration of time, rather than as a result of slow evolution over billions of years. Less likely again billions of such brains, the world, the solar system, our galaxy and the Universe. They are prohibited as virtually impossible, by the very laws he proved.

According to Smolin, the merger of space and time, leading to the block universe, is a gigantic mistake, which is resolved by putting time in its rightful place in reality, as a real entity. That, and the evolution of physical laws, will enable us to answer questions like, Why is the universe governed by a particular set of laws? Why does the universe start off with a particular set of initial conditions? What mechanism selected them out of the infinite set of possibilities?

[rajnz00]

There isn’t anything outside of Totality (or it wouldn’t be Totality), such as clocks, rulers, gods, or directions; thus, Totality is wholly relative and relational to its internals. that is, all its properties are described in terms of relationships between its events, such as causality, in the main, as the most important. An ‘event’ is defined as the smallest possible change, as a part of a process.

I agree. Completely missed this long post of yours. Contains heaps of gems. Too many to discuss in one go.
So here's your first sentence.

Both time and space are of discrete bits, ridding us of Zeno's Paradox.

I thought Zeno's Paradox was resolved by Newton with a finite solution to an infinite convergent series. But his paradox is deeper than that, involving the flow of moments/ "Nows".
But how do space and time being discrete resolve Zeno's paradox?

[DragonFly]

But how do space and time being discrete resolve Zeno's paradox?

Since they have a shortest interval there can be no infinite divisibility such as ever halving the distance to let the turtle catch the hare, or whichever way the winner in the paradox was.

[rajnz00]

But how do space and time being discrete resolve Zeno's paradox?

Since they have a shortest interval there can be no infinite divisibility ..

True. But one of the derivatives of Zeno's paradox is that motion is an illusion. Does this dispell that notion? And, as Time is tied to motion, does it also dispell the notion that the flow of time is an illusion?

[mitchellmckain]

Is Time Real?

By that I mean, is there a flow of Time from the present into the past, as it seems from our common experience? Or is it an illusion?

The word "illusion" is deceptive. It suggest that something is not real, but all the illusions we know of actually point to something real. Thus the most we can say is that these are things people might interpret incorrectly. Certainly the same is true of time. For example interpreting time as a flow like film in a film projector, a video in a data stream or even the turning of the pages of a book, may be entirely wrong -- in fact, I think it is. This comparison means we are imagining something in which the future is already composed and we don't really have any reason to believe such is the case.

The laws of Physics give no indication of the Arrow of time. The mathematical equations of Classical Mechanics and SR and GR work equally well in the forward and backward direction, leading Einstein to famously say “…People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

Correction, MUCH of the laws of physics do not distinguish a present moment as special and you can dial the equations forward and backward in time just like any recording of a finished work in music, literature or film. But this is not true for ALL of physics. Not only does thermodynamics give us an arrow of time in the quantity called entropy, but quantum physics gives us an even more fundamental arrow which also distinguishes the present moment as the decoherence of superpositions, where the real possibilities of the future become the actualities and recorded measurements of the past.

1. Whatever is real in our universe is real in a moment of time, which is one of a succession of moments.

2. The past was real but is no longer real. We interpret and analyse the past, from evidence in the present.

3. The future does not yet exist

If there is one thing we consistently learn in modern physics, it is that we can look at things in different ways. Thus I do not believe forbidding the extended time way of looking at the universe is a proper solution. Instead I would say that we can either look at the universe as only a present moment where time is a measure we have devised to see the changes more clearly OR we can look at the universe extended in time but where the future is a superposition of possibilities.

3. The future does not yet exist and is open. We can infer some predictions, but we cannot predict the future completely and the future can produce phenomena that are novel, no knowledge of the past could have anticipated them.

I certainly believe the future is open, but this doesn't require forbidding the extended time way of looking at the universe.

4. Nothing transcends time, not even the laws of nature. Laws are not timeless. Like everything else, they are features of the present, and they can evolve over time.

This is simply not supportable in modern science which points to time being highly relative and a contingent feature of physical structure of the universe. It cannot even be uniquely defined. Say rather that some things which exist have a temporal ordering (of some kind -- ours being locally Minkowsky) and we have no reason to suppose that the temporal ordering we experience in the universe is the only temporal ordering in existence.

[Dave_Oblad]

Hi Raj,

I was really hoping not to have to come back here and clean up the following drivel:

That is the story of General Relativity, and our best physics of today. The story of a deterministic world, devoid of novelty and surprise.

Surprise.. I'm back.

But, just like the story of the 2nd law of thermodynamics causing the arrow of time, it is devoid of evidence.

Sorry, these Laws wouldn't be Laws unless they matched the evidence. But I will agree that while there is direct correlation between the Arrow of Time and Thermodynamics, I put Time as being the cause of thermodynamics and not the reverse.

It is a story that demands impossible initial conditions and universal constants, which have to be just right in unison.

But later you write:

The actual evidential story of our world, and that of our universe, is quite different from that. It is one of evolution from simplicity to complexity. Complex things emerging from combinations of simple things. Stars and galaxies evolving from hydrogen atoms and primordial dust. Complex elements evolving from simple elements. Complex molecules evolving from simple molecules and complex life evolving from simple life.

Ok, so there is some evidence.. which conflicts with your previous stance.

You take the current state of affairs and conclude it can't be that way due to high complexity then contradict yourself and explain that things evolved to get to the current state of affairs.

Did you hope we wouldn't notice your tendency to take a stand on Subject-X then take the opposite stand on Subject-X a paragraph later? Such self confliction is not the signature of rational thinking.

The story also tells us that we do not know the initial cause, and cannot know. We might as well say “God” created it and we do not know the cause of God. That explanation is far more satisfying than the theory of an infinite number of universes, which we cannot know, and have no evidence of, as it satisfies Occam’s razor infinitely better.

Firstly, throwing a God into the mix doesn't make the "Story" more simple, it makes it more complex and thus can't be justified by Occam's Razor. And secondly, the above quote presumes you have been exposed to all explanations for Creation and have successfully refuted all of them. Well, I haven't presented my ideas regarding Creation here, and I won't, as that would be off Topic.

Boltzmann, who explained the 2nd law of thermodynamics, didn’t know about the big bang, and thought the universe was eternal, puzzled why we had not already reached the dismal future you have painted, with matter, finely, and equally distributed in space, as we had an infinite amount of time to do so.

Now you have made the fallacy of attributing words/concepts to another person. If Boltzmann had believed the Universe was Eternal, he wouldn't expect a dismal end. Also, are you now taking a stand that we don't have Infinite Time to reach equilibrium? If so, who shut off Time?

He proposed that our solar system and surrounding region had recently been formed by a very large fluctuation. We know now that we are not just a low entropy fluctuation surrounded by matter dispersed into quarks. His reasoning gave rise to the “Boltzmann brain paradox”. Small fluctuations, like a quark appearing and disappearing quickly, is far more likely than a large fluctuation like a hydrogen atom appearing and persisting. Fluctuations do not persist.

Persisting fluctuations depend on the Geometry of the Fluctuation and the Energy applied.

Again, given an infinite amount of time, it is far more likely that a conscious brain such as ours, could arise as a random fluctuation for a short duration of time, rather than as a result of slow evolution over billions of years. Less likely again billions of such brains, the world, the solar system, our galaxy and the Universe. They are prohibited as virtually impossible, by the very laws he proved.

And yet, here we are!

The fallacy here is failure to recognize that systems do degrade.. unless one applies a continuous source of energy to such a system. Such application of energy does allow some systems to exhibit an increase in complexity. Or in other words, to evolve from simple to complex. The Sun is our source of Energy. Too much energy and complexity becomes chaos.. no life. To little energy and again.. no life. But that defines a region called the Goldilocks Zone, where conditions are favorable to the Evolution of Life, as we know it.

According to Smolin, the merger of space and time, leading to the block universe, is a gigantic mistake, which is resolved by putting time in its rightful place in reality, as a real entity.

Anyone who says the "Block Model" has no "Time" is a complete fool.. it is quite literally a "Map of Time". Would I dare argue that a Map showing the path from the West Coast to the East Coast can't be a Real Map, simply because I don't see myself moving on that Map? Get Real...

That, and the evolution of physical laws, will enable us to answer questions like, Why is the universe governed by a particular set of laws?

So is that a stand that Physical Laws can't evolve or be emergent over Time? Or is it saying that Physical Laws do Evolve and do explain how we got to our current state of affairs?

Why does the universe start off with a particular set of initial conditions? What mechanism selected them out of the infinite set of possibilities?

Sorry, I've given credit to the above quotes to both Raj and Smolin, because I can't tell which statements belong to Raj, which belong to Smolin and which parts are Raj's taking Smolin out of context or offering his own interpretation of Smolin's works.

But I'll answer the above anyway. Given an infinite set of available Laws then for any subset of said Laws, a Universe might be defined. Most such Universes will be pure trash with no internal witnesses. Some sets of Laws will produce a working Universe which may have internal witnesses, like the one we live in.

This thread got moved from Physics to Metaphysics to give participants greater Freedom of Expression. I applaud that move. But such Freedom doesn't include so many irrational and self conflicting statements as I've seen so far. It also doesn't give license to quote or misquote other people out of context.

Such techniques are the product of an individual who has a weak position to begin with and hopes that the use of such obfuscations can cloak said weaknesses. This has been tried many times on this site and believe me.. it doesn't fly for very long.

Metaphysics is not a license to be irrational. So much incoherence hurts my little brain. Stop it please!

Hi mitchellmckain, happy to see you contribute. We cross posted but I see no conflicts between our posts.

Best wishes,
Dave :^)

[rajnz00]

Dave - complexity reduces entropy, not increases it. You seem to be confused.

[rajnz00]

"Now you have made the fallacy of attributing words/concepts to another person. If Boltzmann had believed the Universe was Eternal, he wouldn't expect a dismal end."
Of course a dismal end. Everything would be distributed evenly - maximum entropy. You need to have a sleep and refresh your brain. Another one of your time = distance moments.

[hyksos]

There are several directions the thread could go

• The Leibnizian argument about time is not a physics argument. It is epistemology. So rajnz00 cannot address the issue by means of pointing at various objects in the world, such as the the earth going around the sun, the earth revolving on its axis defining a "day", nor of references to 10 minute timers on this forum. Leibnizian time cannot be flippantly dismissed by casually referring to things in our local universe. Worse, because it is epistemology, it cannot be overturned by pointing at evidence to begin with. Thus the Leibnizian argument remains un-assailed.
• Those issues about discretized space and discretized time and Zeno paradox must be addressed. Discretization of space is something Lee Smolin himself holds in high regard.
• Discretization began in the history of physics with Max Planck. Planck found out quickly that if EM waves are truly continuous (in the calculus sense) then this would allow an infinite amount of energy in a finite region of space. That makes not an iota of sense. Planck then was, against his own initial intuition, kind of forced into concluding that light energy must , one way or another, come in discrete "corpuscles". (We call them photons today)
• Penrose agrees that the "obvious" pathway to quantum gravity is to discretize spacetime. He in fact, says that the gravitational field must be "quantized". Quantization of the Einstein Field Equations is the very first stage in the history of all Quantum Gravity theories.
• Echoing DragonFly : if a cellular automata undergirds physical reality, then motion really is not real. In the end, there is nothing but the state changes of the cells. Sure, sweaty human mammals whose bodies are 10¹⁹ times bigger than fundamental particles would see something that looks effectively like motion at their macroscopic scales. If this is true of our universe, we can toss out Zeno paradoxes. We can toss out quandaries about infinitessimals in mathematics. Those would not apply to our universe even in their initial premises.

Consider the idea that two fundamental objects in our universe could come "infinitely" close to each other, in the calculus sense. That's a problem. At first, this problem sounds sophomoric, and it feels at first like only a high school kid would ask it, and that a clever teacher could 'shut him down' with a couple of wise sentences.

It turns out this is not even mildly true!! Ed Witten is String Theorist at IAS at Princeton. Ed Witten's own website contains links to his articles. There is an article on there where Witten writes about the "1/(r^2) problem" That is the entire topic of the article, and he talks about it for roughly 7 pages on end. He plainly says that classical General Relativity cannot be correct, because if two fundamental strings came close enough their gravitational attraction would spiral off into infinity. (This is reminiscent of the kind of issue Max Planck found.)

Also suspiciously similar: why do electrons, being negatively charged, do not simply spiral unimpeded into the positively-charged nucleus?

[rajnz00]

"Dave: Now you have made the fallacy of attributing words/concepts to another person."
"A Boltzmann brain is a hypothesized self-aware entity that arises due to random fluctuations out of a state of chaos. The idea is named for the physicist Ludwig Boltzmann (1844–1906), who advanced an idea that the Universe is observed to be in a highly improbable non-equilibrium state because only when such states randomly occur can brains exist to be aware of the Universe. The term for this idea was then coined in 2004 by Andreas Albrecht and Lorenzo Sorbo.
"Boltzmann proposed that we and our observed low-entropy world are a random fluctuation in a higher-entropy universe."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain
"If Boltzmann had believed the Universe was Eternal, he wouldn't expect a dismal end." ??

[mitchellmckain]

The story also tells us that we do not know the initial cause, and cannot know. We might as well say “God” created it and we do not know the cause of God. That explanation is far more satisfying than the theory of an infinite number of universes, which we cannot know, and have no evidence of, as it satisfies Occam’s razor infinitely better.

Firstly, throwing a God into the mix doesn't make the "Story" more simple, it makes it more complex and thus can't be justified by Occam's Razor. And secondly, the above quote presumes you have been exposed to all explanations for Creation and have successfully refuted all of them. Well, I haven't presented my ideas regarding Creation here, and I won't, as that would be off Topic.

Well..... it is really not a matter of simple or complex. I think that is a red herring. It is really a matter of what you are looking for. In some ways "Goddidit" is a one size fits all answer for everything and in that way nothing is simpler. On the other hand, this is utterly useless for science -- a non-explanation according to what we need scientific explanations to accomplish.

I personally think the whole Occam's Razor argument is bogus. Science really doesn't care if something is simple anywhere near as much as whether it accurately agrees with all the evidence. (That "all things being equal" clause is deceptive because very few things are actually equal in every way except complexity) If you think General Relativity and Quantum Field Theory can be called simple then you haven't studied them. The real world is a complicated mess and simple explanations just don't work. The argument is largely derived from a misunderstanding of the difference between the Copernican view of the universe and the Ptolemaic view, because the latter must be corrected with endless epi-cycles. The truth is that both views are 100% correct. The Ptolemaic view is what we actually see sitting on the surface of the earth in our non-inertial frame of reference and if you want to actually know where something is in the sky then the Ptolemaic view points right to it. But the Copernican view is more useful because it lets things be calculated and requires less frequent corrections, you just need to convert back and forth from our non-inertial frame of reference.

[rajnz00]

mitchellmckain » January 15th, 2017, 5:35 am wrote:The truth is that both views [Ptolemaic and Copernicam] are 100% correct.

Not an astronomer but neither are 100% correct. I believe both models show views from the Earth and even the Copernican system had epicycles. Maybe some astronomer could correct me.
Occam's razor is not an "argument" so much as a guidance. For example, if two theories could completely explain a phenomenon, then the simpler of the two is to be preferred. And if one theory could explain a multiple of phenomena, then that would be preferred over a multiple of explanations for the phenomena.

[Dave_Oblad]

Hi Raj,

I wasn't quoting Boltzmann, I was quoting you:

Boltzmann, who explained the 2nd law of thermodynamics, didn’t know about the big bang, and thought the universe was eternal, puzzled why we had not already reached the dismal future you have painted, with matter, finely, and equally distributed in space, as we had an infinite amount of time to do so.

Obviously, anyone that thinks the Universe has been in its present state for an Eternity already, won't be expecting a dismal end. That's simple logic. So why should I believe he was puzzled as you suggested?

Your words quoted.. not mine..

I came to the conclusion Space and Time had to be discrete using my own logic long ago:

Ie: If Space wasn't discrete then any Distance, no matter how small, could be an Infinity. If Time wasn't discrete then any Time interval, no matter how short, could be an Eternity. Thus: Everything needs a minimum Scale or nothing can work properly. Distance and Time become meaningless without Scale and Scale becomes meaningless without being Discrete.

Once you accept Discrete Space and Time then one must define the minimum to represent the present Now. If only one minimum is allowed, then no motion can exist. If we allow two, then there can only be two speeds.. Stopped or Full. So how many layers are required to see the degrees of freedom we experience in Direction and Velocity? Answer: Many.

So pick a reasonable value for a minimum thickness of "Now". Perhaps a Millisecond? Fine.. now explain what mechanism erased everything past that moment from the present "Now". When you realize no such mechanism is likely to Exist, then History is never erased. It has simply become inaccessible with our present technology. So now choose which explanation for the Speed of Entanglement Collapse works best for you.. Retro-Causality or FTL?

Anyway..

I saw a video lecture of some Famous Physicist (perhaps Smolin?) that got to a point in his lecture regarding the Block Model where he waved his arms and claimed this observable motion proves the Block Model to be incorrect because the Block Model is a Static Model. What an idiot. He lost all credibility with me after that ignorant display of his inability to grasp something so simple.

Regards,
Dave :^)

[TheVat]

There are better arguments against analog spacetime than Zeno's paradox. I agree Planck scaling is logically sound, Dave, as you need some kind of discrete unit inherent in the "fabric" of the universe or else distance, energy density, curvature....pretty much everything, lose their foundation and have no objective meaning. The only path to an analog universe is to regress back to classic Newtonian space and time. But none of that rules out, IMO, the possibility that past events are overwritten and therefore erased, in a digital universe. I understand your theory, Dave, but I look at it from an information theoretic perspective. I admit it's possible that event histories are somehow buried beneath present events like a palimpsest. But we can only infer such layers by crude causal projection back down the stream of events. I don't see overwhelming evidence that we live in a block universe, versus a dynamic slice universe with each moment carrying informational "ghosts" of the past.
I don't get into the physics here, this being a more philosophical chat.

[ronjanec]

What is time? A far more important question in regards to science is where is time? Someone asking the question what is God of course pales in comparison to the question where is God, and does he really exist anywhere in the first place?

I just got back from church this morning, where the pastor talked a lot about what God is like, and I'm pretty sure that most everyone who was there this morning believes in the existence of the same God: But on the other hand, I am also pretty sure that most would agree with me here that none of this means that God is real. "Where is this God you believe in the existence of Mr. Janec, and have you ever actually seen him anywhere? I am also pretty sure that everyone knows the answer to that question unfortunately.

I keep trying to explain to everyone here that the same type of logic must first be used in regards to "time", and to correctly answer the very important OP question is time real? Where is this "time" that many of you are talking about here? Or have any of you actually seen "time", like Mr. Leibniz challenged anyone to answer during his time here on the earth.

Granted, many of you really know your physics well, but if you cannot provide scientific evidence that "time" is real in the first place, you may be just wasting your time here, in the same way that I may have just wasted my time going to church this morning.

In regards to God, I am yes just a believer: In regards to "time", again really or actually existing as a distinct naturally occurring thing or object existing anywhere in the universe I am an athiest, or a "time" athiest, because I again see no scientific evidence existing anywhere to prove that this is true.

[rajnz00]

ronjanec said: you may be just wasting your time here

What are you wasting? :)

Dave: I give up. I leave it to someone else to explain simple English to you. If they have the time :)

[ronjanec]

Raj,

What are you wasting? Again, time Raj. :)

Please remember that I am not trying to say that time does not exist in any form. Again, time exists as a word man uses to call and identify the many different results of his timekeeping system;

1:08 pm/time existing: But again, "time" is not the distinct thing or object actually physically existing here("time" is just a word again existing for this) It's the numbers on the clock face actually existing here, or something else again(like I keep rambling on about here to no apparent avail) :)

[rajnz00]

Dave Said: I came to the conclusion Space and Time had to be discrete using my own logic long ago

You sound like Aristotle. By the power of sheer reasoning he arrived at the motion of falling bodies and the shape of the universe, as you seem to have. (Though your reasoning is as unfathomable as the nature of time itself.)

Pity Max Planck beat you to it. Though he used physics, you seem to have arrived at the same conclusion independently, without the benefit of a century of scientific knowledge.

[Dave_Oblad]

Hi Everyone,

When someone of low ethical values is cornered, they usually employ a cheap dodge:

Dave: I give up. I leave it to someone else to explain simple English to you.

The fun fact is that readers have the opportunity to read back a few posts and see the truth for themselves. You can't hide from that. Your statements don't dissipate.. they become a matter of record. An ethical person would admit to making an error, perhaps correct that error, and ask that such be ignored. I've already done that once with my abysmal algebra previously written on this thread. I admit when I'm wrong and never try to employ a cheap dodge.

Biv: My actual stance embraces the Expanding Block Model. That's because it hard to escape the logic that you can't get to the end without passing through all the intermediate steps.

And we ARE intermediate steps.

Since I can't support an Eraser and it's provable that "Time" must have thickness then I am left with three options:

1. History is still Dynamic. (Lost in the Wash hypothesis) Slowly becoming popular as Quantum Revisionism.

2. History is static and can't be changed. Why? Because any point in history is the causal result or what precedes it and thus History is Auto self healing.

3. History is both of above (my stance). This embraces the choice of some types of information still having a dynamic aspect through the Fabric of "Time" but changes are self healing and thus Persistent. Thus "Physical Time Travel" would be impossible, because your arrival in the past would get "Healed" out of Existence instantly.

You sound like Aristotle. By the power of sheer reasoning he arrived at the motion of falling bodies and the shape of the universe, as you seem to have. (Though your reasoning is as unfathomable as the nature of time itself.) Pity Max Planck beat you to it. Though he used physics, you seem to have arrived at the same conclusion independently, without the benefit of a century of scientific knowledge.

Thanks Raj, that was almost a compliment.

Actually, I've come to many such conclusions independently and came to this site to try them out on an audience. In most cases I've learned I wasn't the first to conceive such concepts, but still find gratification in knowing others share the same consensus. I spend most of my free time on the fringe of Science, as that's largely unexplored territory and affords the best chance of discovering something new and unique.

I once had a deep thought train that led to a conclusion that "Time" can't exist. Leaving me in a dilemma of knowing one thing and reconciling that with observable "Time". The solution is that "Time", as we experience such, is an illusion.. it is a manifestation of Real Distance. But that doesn't reconcile the "Arrow of Time" observation. That was reconciled by accepting that the Universe is 4D and "Time" is added on the surface of such a construct as a Real Distance or Layer or increased Thickness. It has to be 4D so that the surface has the freedoms of 3D.

It's really quite simple.. and now all I have to do is wait for Science to catch up.. which is one of the reasons I post such here. Planting public seeds (new ideas) and waiting for such to grow by process of dissemination. If my ideas hold truth, then they have a form of persistence and can be heard above the cacophony of weaker ideas.

Best wishes,
Dave :^)

[hyksos]

The truth is that both views are 100% correct.

Both views are empirically correct.

[hyksos]

ronjanec :

I keep trying to explain to everyone here that the same type of logic must first be used in regards to "time", and to correctly answer the very important OP question is time real? Where is this "time" that many of you are talking about here? Or have any of you actually seen "time", like Mr. Leibniz challenged anyone to answer during his time here on the earth.

Granted, many of you really know your physics well, but if you cannot provide scientific evidence that "time" is real in the first place, you may be just wasting your time here,

Special Relativity is still strongly grounded in the Leibnizian view. Einstein repeated such several times in his 1950 article.

If by the word "time" we meant to refer to "That cosmic universal clock which ticks everywhere". I think that version of time became unreal (not in GR).. but as early as 1905. What happened after that was some perpetual arguments about the existence of a local clock, or a "local time" (if you want).

Do we have any real strong arguments in this thread? Well what do we really see in this thread?

(1.)
We have one person telling us that he has some personal feeling that the moment physicists starting referring to dilated clocks that physics "went off the rails" and "never came back". Is that a strong argument? We are to accept that physics "goes off the rails" and then just willy-nilly stick a universal clock back into the universe??

Undergraduate physics textbooks, which are actually used in real classrooms. The oft refer to the fact that you cannot reliably use GPS on trans-continental passenger airplane flights, unless and until you correct for Special Relativity. And yes -- until you correct for dilated clocks. This not something I read on a theoretical physics blog. It is in textbooks.

(2.)
rajnz00 , who simply point his finger at everyday phenomenon in the room he is sitting, and then flippantly (half sarcastically) dismisses every point you make. I might also mention that he is committing something called the Fallacy of Division. (more on this later) rajnz00 may also be authority-hijacking. Making his words close enough to Smolin's to pretend to quote him as authoritative. Even though the reborn Time that Smolin is referring to is likely some new kind of time that applies to changes over a dozen billion years as universes form and un-form. Smolin himself would be mortified at the idea that someone would take his local conditions on earth and extrapolate it to the entire universe as a whole. That mortification is repeated continually throughout his book. Also, Smolin throws doubts on fundamental symmetries of physics, using similar arguments.

If I'm being too wordy: Let me break it down. How likely do you think it is that Lee Smolin is suggesting we just go ahead and re-insert classical Newtonian Universal Clock back into physics? (when I ask the question that way, the answer becomes suddenly clear.)

In regards to the validity inferring the existence of time from physical phenomena (from being empirical) two important weapons for your toolbox.

"Water is wet. Therefore water molecules are wet."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_division

"I see cycles of time in these atoms on the desk here in my lab. Therefore, the universe has cycles of time."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition

[rajnz00]

hyksos » January 15th, 2017, 6:26 pm said: If I'm being too wordy: Let me break it down. How likely do you think it is that Lee Smolin is suggesting we just go ahead and re-insert classical Newtonian Universal Clock back into physics?

A strawman attack is when you attribute words that are patently wrong, to someone, who never said them, and proceed to pound that wrong statement, never spoken by that person, to pieces. In other words attack a strawman, instead of the guy standing in front of you and claim a victory.

Where have I ever said that Newtonian classical time should be reinstated? I talked about what Smolin called "A Preferred Global Time". I did say "remember Newton", but the only similarity is that the Time is "global". It does not march on "of and in itself". This was Smolin's hypothesis, which he says is a necessary consequence of "Hidden variables theories". I gave my own understanding of what I thought he meant by that.

If you care to look at my first post, on January 3rd, 2017, 7:20 am, I have clearly stated what Smolin meant when he said- "Time was real". You have the book, look it up. If you think that's wrong. Let me know.

[hyksos]

I did not attribute those words to rajnz00. That was a question pointedly asked of ronjanec. For all I know, ronjanec could have answered in the affirmative.

We will soon see if he answers that question in a reply.

[hyksos]

Anecdotes to consider.

If you do not account for General Relativity, then satellites in orbit will give errors in GPS. The error is so large, that the satellite's onboard clock drifts by 0.000045 second per 24 hours. If you need accuracy down below 10 meters on the ground, that error will matter. No that is not a typo. General relativity - not special. Geostationary satellites are farther away from the earth's center of gravity, and so their onboard clocks run faster.

As far as special relativity, an observer on the ground does see the GPS satellite moving very quickly from his reference frame. SR tells us the clock onboard the satellite will appear slower to the terrestrial observer. The difference is known: it is -7.0 x 10^-6 seconds per 24 hours.

http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html

[Dave_Oblad]

Hi all,

I believe that clocks measure the Evolution of Matter/Energy unique to Location (Gravity) and Velocity. We have precise Math to predict such Dilation of said clock forms. The fallacy is accepting such clocks as representing Real Time. The idea of a Universal Real Time comes from Quantum Mechanics in the form of Instantaneous Wave Collapse of Entanglement.

A thought experiment would have me creating a bunch of Quantum Responders and placing them in many different locations (Deep Voids or Near Black Holes) moving at various speeds. Once all of them are in place.. which has taken some time to setup.. I look at my local Master and its group of uniquely Entangled array of Receivers.. none of which have been triggered yet. I set off the Master and watch my array of Receivers. I have to use some kind of Particle that doesn't dilate.. perhaps a trapped Photon?

The Master triggers all remote transponders to echo back the Ping my Master sends out. Now one of two results should happen:
1. The entire array of receivers simultaneously register each one's unique Ping response from their remotely Entangled Twins.
2. I get a scattering of response Pings which is dependent on the special Temporal conditions of said conjoined Twins.

Quantum Mechanics says I would get the (1) response.. indicating Universal Simultaneity Exists. Thus allowing me to draw the conclusion that Clocks don't measure Real Time. Clocks measure the Evolution of Matter (Dilation).

Real Time exists because I didn't get any responses until I triggered the Master as a causal agent to the network of remote Entangled Twins.

Thus the term Space-Time is a misnomer. The Time part of it comes from the delay aspect connected to the Speed of Light limitation in the propagation of information. We shouldn't call this delay aspect "Time".

If we were not sensitive to Light but only to Sound.. then early Physics would have us believe that Time is connected to the propagation Speed of Sound, thus Relativity would predict those closest to the Tower Bell would hear it first.. etc.. thus giving us a very convoluted picture of Time when we mix in velocities and atmosphere densities. The Math would be perfect.. but is it an honest representation of Real Time?

In such a scenario.. when Science had advanced enough for us to have discovered this Invisible thing called "Light" then Science would have to rewrite all its textbooks regarding its theory of Time as being limited by the Speed of Sound.

Will Entanglement upset our Apple Cart in how we view Time? (better believe it..lol)

If I'm correct that the Planck Length is a variable distance, then perhaps somewhere the Planck Length and Planck Interval will have the same discrete Length value.. perhaps in the deepest Voids. Thus Space-Time could be more accurately depicted as Space(3)-Space(1) or just Space(4).. or just Space.

Just a bit of food for thought as always.

Regards,
Dave :^)