Posted on 04/25/2022 7:54:20 AM PDT by Red Badger
Does time exist? The answer to this question may seem obvious: Of course it does! Just look at a calendar or a clock.
But developments in physics suggest the non-existence of time is an open possibility, and one that we should take seriously.
How can that be, and what would it mean? It'll take a little while to explain, but don't worry: Even if time doesn't exist, our lives will go on as usual.
A crisis in physics Physics is in crisis. For the past century or so, we have explained the Universe with two wildly successful physical theories: general relativity and quantum mechanics.
Quantum mechanics describes how things work in the incredibly tiny world of particles and particle interactions. General relativity describes the big picture of gravity and how objects move.
Both theories work extremely well in their own right, but the two are thought to conflict with one another. Though the exact nature of the conflict is controversial, scientists generally agree both theories need to be replaced with a new, more general theory.
Physicists want to produce a theory of "quantum gravity" that replaces general relativity and quantum mechanics, while capturing the extraordinary success of both. Such a theory would explain how gravity's big picture works at the miniature scale of particles.
Time in quantum gravity It turns out that producing a theory of quantum gravity is extraordinarily difficult.
One attempt to overcome the conflict between the two theories is string theory. String theory replaces particles with strings vibrating in as many as 11 dimensions.
However, string theory faces a further difficulty. String theories provide a range of models that describe a Universe broadly like our own, and they don't really make any clear predictions that can be tested by experiments to figure out which model is the right one.
In the 1980s and 1990s, many physicists became dissatisfied with string theory and came up with a range of new mathematical approaches to quantum gravity.
One of the most prominent of these is loop quantum gravity, which proposes that the fabric of space and time is made of a network of extremely small discrete chunks, or "loops".
One of the remarkable aspects of loop quantum gravity is that it appears to eliminate time entirely.
Loop quantum gravity is not alone in abolishing time: A number of other approaches also seem to remove time as a fundamental aspect of reality.
Emergent time So we know we need a new physical theory to explain the Universe, and that this theory might not feature time.
Suppose such a theory turns out to be correct. Would it follow that time does not exist?
It's complicated, and it depends what we mean by exist.
Theories of physics don't include any tables, chairs, or people, and yet we still accept that tables, chairs, and people exist.
Why? Because we assume that such things exist at a higher level than the level described by physics.
We say that tables, for example, "emerge" from an underlying physics of particles whizzing around the Universe.
But while we have a pretty good sense of how a table might be made out of fundamental particles, we have no idea how time might be "made out of" something more fundamental.
So unless we can come up with a good account of how time emerges, it is not clear we can simply assume time exists.
Time might not exist at any level.
Time and agency Saying that time does not exist at any level is like saying that there are no tables at all.
Trying to get by in a world without tables might be tough, but managing in a world without time seems positively disastrous.
Our entire lives are built around time. We plan for the future, in light of what we know about the past. We hold people morally accountable for their past actions, with an eye to reprimanding them later on.
We believe ourselves to be agents (entities that can do things) in part because we can plan to act in a way that will bring about changes in the future.
But what's the point of acting to bring about a change in the future when, in a very real sense, there is no future to act for?
What's the point of punishing someone for a past action, when there is no past and so, apparently, no such action?
The discovery that time does not exist would seem to bring the entire world to a grinding halt. We would have no reason to get out of bed.
Business as usual There is a way out of the mess.
While physics might eliminate time, it seems to leave causation intact: the sense in which one thing can bring about another.
Perhaps what physics is telling us, then, is that causation and not time is the basic feature of our Universe.
If that's right, then agency can still survive. For it is possible to reconstruct a sense of agency entirely in causal terms.
At least, that's what Kristie Miller, Jonathan Tallant, and I argue in our new book.
We suggest the discovery that time does not exist may have no direct impact on our lives, even while it propels physics into a new era. Sam Baron, Associate professor, Australian Catholic University.
I’m okay with synchronizing our watches on an agreed “time”.
Seems there is no longer ‘free time’ as it
has now been captured and enclosed in a
bottle.
Jim Croce - Time in a bottle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO1rMeYnOmM
I read somewhere that Einstein was explaining one of the more far out points of his theory of relativity to another scientist. Who was shocked at what he was hearing and asked something like “if that’s true how would we know anything is real?”. Einstein replied you’d know what’s real if I got up and hit you in the face. I always loved that and compared it to the great Mike Tyson quote “ Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”. So it’s nice to know that Einstein and Mike Tyson think alike.
I buy this idea. That's why I stopped exercising. I figure that minimizing my movement will result in eternal life. Let the experiment be made!
By the way, we need to do more to get women interested in STEM. My wife was never into science so she doesn't understand what I'm trying to accomplish with this plan. Doesn't understand it at all.
time is a concept and has been ever thus...
All we are is dust in the winds of time..................
Physics Porn................
Cats seem to know this instinctively.
Morons.
Time EXISTS as a measurement of delta from instance A to instance B.
It’s akin to saying “scientists think inches may not exist because of the metric system!”
Now it’s possible that things may throw themselves backwards or forwards in “time” ignoring the usual measurements we make - but that doesn’t mean “time” doesn’t exist!
Two words: Bovine manure.
When everything stops, so does time...................
When we understand consciousness better, we may find that time is simply an artifact, the existence of which, as Hawking said, is there to make sure everything doesn’t happen at once.
Time may not exist but Newton’s Second Law of Thermodynamics certainly does
If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I’d like to do
Is to save every day till eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you
If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I’d save every day like a treasure and then
Again, I would spend them with you
But there never seems to be enough time
As long as it doesn’t define time, the article is useless.
One of my favs.........................
That's always how I looked at it. Time is just a measure of the Big Bang expansion. When the universe stops expanding and hits absolute zero, time stops along with everything else.
Time is a human contrivance. The origins of time are the earliest historical documentation. The Bible is the chronicler of time. Did time begin 6000 years ago? Absolutely. Prior to that no concept of time existed.
How can you define that which does not exist?....................
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