Ground-breaking work in understanding of time

Eurekalert ^ | July 31, 2003 | Brooke Jones

[Nebullis]

This is their revenge.

ROFL!

[Nebullis]

Why do I have the feeling he's still in philosophy 101?

Just wait, he's promising an article in a philosophy journal next.

[Quix]

AGREE.

Their assumptions re cosmology are not overwhelmingly brilliant either.

[cornelis]

Can we help him?

[longshadow]

and instead say something like: "During this phase of the flow ..."

"interval of time" is probably the terminology that fits best.

[betty boop]

If the segmenting or measurement of time is an externally imposed artifice, if that is what you are suggesting, does that suggest that the instantaneous "quantum leaping" of electrons from energy level to energy level, though obviously not static, has no meaning? Or is that not what you are suggesting?

Phaedrus, I'm still working through these issues, so can't speak definitively of the problem you raise here, right this "instant." But the problem has my full attention. For openers, however, I think it's safe to say that the universe has a time process, which may or not closely correspond with the way the human mind considers/chooses/selects the frames in which time is "naturally" relevant for it.

But here's a "thought experiment," for what it's worth, that might shed some light on the relevant issues.

Here I am, betty boop, sitting in a chair, totally stationary. I'm here, not going anywhere for a while. I suppose it would be easy enough to locate my longitudinal/latitudinal space-time coordinates on, say, a map of Massachusetts. But would this exercise designate my "absolute" position in the universe? Let alone the question of relative position; for the latter begs the question: relative to what?

This was the point I was driving at, in reply #109. I'm beginning to think that the "relative to what?" is precisely the question that needs to be asked. So let's take stock of the possibilities.

First I would recognize that "relativity" has significance in two major modes: what is "beyond" myself, and what is "in" myself. That might sound totally mysterious; but it really is quite simple. To explain, I would like to apply the term "macrocosmic" as the "extra-me" component of the problem; and "microcosmic" for the "intra-me" aspect. (I seem to be the "conscious, that is self-aware mediator" that ties the two realms together, meaningfully.) Consider:

Exactly what coordinates could be established for my "absolute location" in present time, no matter how we might slice it, if -- as stationary as I presently am within my own limited sphere of reference -- I also happen to be the denizen of a planet that is rotating along its axis, and simultaneously orbiting in its course around the the Sun, our Star? Meanwhile, the Sun -- a star in a galaxy -- is travelling along its course, set by the primaeval explosion that propels stars and galaxies and nebulae into the further reaches of universal space-time? Every bit of this is "moving" in its own right; and I am borne along in this complex movement.

At the same time that we are considering the "position problem" that would seem to result from the above macrocosmic considerations, there are also problems of the microcosm: I am "moving" in every way at this level, too -- at the organic, cellular, molecular, atomic, subatomic, and quantum levels.

It might look like I'm a "couch potato," rooted to my chair, not going anywhere; but on closer inspection, it would seem I am teeming with movement, activity, in all directions and time scales....

So, if a careful observer wanted to locate my absolute position on a map in "real time" (three quite "naturally deduced," and yet still quite "relativistically artificial" human constructs right there), then by what relevant criteria amenable to human "measurement" would he be able to do this? How could I even be located, relativistically -- in the sense that the seemingly important relative items run outside of the categories of finite human time conceptions in themselves -- at both the macrocosmic and microcosmic levels?

This is what I mean about nature being "always moving," along multiple dimensions. And so we think we can simply designate an artificial time construct -- such as a second, or a minute, or a "now" -- and hope to capture a miracle, as if in a butterfly net?

Must stop for now. Probably more to follow, as these "lessons" sink in further....

Thank you so much for writing, Phaedrus.

[jennyp]

In a few days, they'll hold a news conference and announce that physics' air of superiority over the humanities is entirely unjustified, and that physicists can't recognize BS disguised as physics. Or that payback's a bitch.

LOL, we must bookmark this post for later reference!

[jennyp]

The only time you or I, or anyone else, has available to us is now...oops, I mean now...no, now... Oh, the heck with it.

You're older than you've ever been
And now you're even older
And now you're even older
And now you're even older
You're older than you've ever been
And now you're even older
And now you're older still

Time is marching on
And time is still marching on

This day will soon be at an end
And now it's even sooner
And now it's even sooner
And now it's even sooner
This day will soon be at an end
And now it's even sooner
And now it's sooner still

You're older than you've ever been
And now you're even older
And now you're even older
And now you're even older
You're older than you've ever been
And now you're even older
And now you're older still

- They Might Be Giants

[Doctor Stochastic]

You can't step into the same river once.

[Alamo-Girl]

Great catch, betty boop! I had not considered indeterminacy as the common link between micro/macro worlds. Strangely, he also speaks of additional time dimensions as an alternative explanation for a static block 4 dimension space/time but dismisses it out-of-hand declaring there is no external time dimension.

After our conversation earlier, and some pondering since, I'm not so sure we can dismiss the possibility of extra time dimensions (with or without extra spatial dimensions.)

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for the heads up to your post to logos! Great analysis!

Another way to put this might be to say that isolating time into a "static" unit will not be sufficient for the purpose of complete accuracy WRT examining something that is not itself static, and never can be static in principle. We and all of nature are all moving, all the time.

The alternative is the one which you, betty boop, raised earlier today - that of extra time dimensions.

[Alamo-Girl]

On the multiple time dimension scenario, thought you'd like to know...

I’ve discovered that it is evidently the implications of an extra time dimension that causes the notion to be shunned by physicists.

With a single time dimension we have a timeline where order exists, i.e. before this, after that. Add another time dimension, and that timeline becomes a plane – and there is no past or future hence cause and effect get muddled (physics must have causation) … objects travel faster than light, etc.

Nevertheless, a few brave scientists have ventured into the possibilities and the results are quite interesting.

Constraints on Extra Time Dimensions (discussing the possibility that gravity can propagate through extra time dimensions)

f-Theory

The possibilities open a can of worms but at the same time may (in my view only) offer a key to quantum gravity, dark energy and a few other mysteries. Naturally, all of this resistance only makes the subject all the more curious to me!

[Phaedrus]

And so we think we can simply designate an artificial time construct -- such as a second, or a minute, or a "now" -- and hope to capture a miracle, as if in a butterfly net?

I'm going to indulge in a little philosophical speculation here, which I am loathe to do in my debates with the Materialists and, in particular, the Evolutionists. The heavy irony of this is that Materialism itself is a philosophy that infuses the believers' thinking with that bias. The beauty, if you will, of Lynds' paper is that it gives us a new but not shallow view of some very old "problems". My take would be that only our understanding of reality involves seeming paradox. Reality itself is seamless and "paradox" is a tipoff that we don't understand something.

With this in mind, I believe that one of the best philosophical questions is "Why is there something and not nothing?". Its scientific counterpart might be "Why is there motion and not stillness?". Physicality is real enough. But without motion at all levels, would it "disappear"? I believe that it would. From whence comes the energy that powers the motion of the electron, alway perfectly regulated? The Materialists would say "It just is". Is that an answer?

I think we're missing something that is very, very fundamental.

[Phaedrus]

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

Leonard Cohen, Anthem

[js1138]

LOL. There's mountains of stuff devoted to vivid dreams and people's attempts to manage what they dream about and what happens in their dreams.

There's even a movie. "Waking Life" devoted to this. Available on DVD.

[Right Wing Professor]

I read the posted article, and as I suspected, this is a content-free theory. An instant in time exists in the limit of zero interval; you can take measurements over ever decreasing intervals, and extrapolate to zero interval. In effect, that's what most physical measurements do, implicitly or explicitly. One could similarly argue that a single point location does not exist, since all real objects have finite length.

Oddly enough, he dosn't seem to have a problem with saying a precisely defined point exists on a spatial coordinate.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for your excellent post!

Reality itself is seamless and "paradox" is a tipoff that we don't understand something.

Absolutely! Great point.

With this in mind, I believe that one of the best philosophical questions is "Why is there something and not nothing?". Its scientific counterpart might be "Why is there motion and not stillness?". Physicality is real enough. But without motion at all levels, would it "disappear"? I believe that it would. From whence comes the energy that powers the motion of the electron, alway perfectly regulated? The Materialists would say "It just is". Is that an answer?

In the mindset of Aristotle, Hawking et al, that is the answer, 'nuff said etc.

But to those of us of the Plato mindset, Penrose et al, it is not finished until it also makes sense.

So to those of us in the second group, "Why is there something and not nothing?" is a most significant question. Penrose indicates that most mathematicians are at least weak Platonists, so let us keep asking that question and perhaps target it to the math centered disciplines.

[js1138]

Oddly enough, he dosn't seem to have a problem with saying a precisely defined point exists on a spatial coordinate.

But can theree be such a thing in reality, as oppoosed to a thought experiment? Can any real thing have an absolute position?

[Right Wing Professor]

Well, I'm sure you're aware invoking 'absolute position' and 'absolute velocity' put you at variance with the theory of relativity. But I think, from different directions, we've come to exactly the same objection to the Lynd paper; that there is no need to privilege a time coordinate; one can apply the same argument to say there is no such thing as a single point location, or a single fixed velocity (since everything is accelerating), or a single fixed electrical potential, or...In fact, the argument is equally specious along any coordinate!

In fact, if you believe Newton's first law, that in the absence of external forces, objects with a fixed velocity continue to move at that velocity, and thus r = v t, then anything you say about t is automatically true of any of the three components of r.

[Right Wing Professor]

There is no absolute coordinate system. The center of mass, say, of a real object can have a position, defined to some arbitrary degree of precision, in some frame of reference.