Rethinking a Key Assumption About the Nature of Time by J. C. N. Smith

J. C. N. Smith,

You are going to repudiate the block universe and "the notion that the distinctions between past, present, and future are illusory" but not "any of the many useful theories such as Einstein's theories of relativity". How about time dilation and the relativity of simultaneity, these breathtaking consequences of Einstein's 1905 light postulate? Is it true that the travelling twin will come back younger than his sedentary brother? In my view, problems involving time dilation and relativity of simultaneity have all to do with the block universe and "the notion that the distinctions between past, present, and future are illusory". If you are consistent, you will have to repudiate the miraculous consequences (time dilation, relativity of simultaneity) and in the end Einstein's 1905 light postulate as well. I think Lee Smolin is moving in that direction:

http://www.fqxi.org/community/articles/display/148

"Many physicists argue that time is an illusion. Lee Smolin begs to differ. (...) Smolin wishes to hold on to the reality of time. But to do so, he must overcome a major hurdle: General and special relativity seem to imply the opposite. In the classical Newtonian view, physics operated according to the ticking of an invisible universal clock. But Einstein threw out that master clock when, in his theory of special relativity, he argued that no two events are truly simultaneous unless they are causally related. If simultaneity - the notion of "now" - is relative, the universal clock must be a fiction, and time itself a proxy for the movement and change of objects in the universe. Time is literally written out of the equation. Although he has spent much of his career exploring the facets of a "timeless" universe, Smolin has become convinced that this is "deeply wrong," he says."

Pentcho Valev pvalev@yahoo.com

Hi J. C. N. Smith,

If absolute simultaneity is correct and the relativity of simultaneity wrong, as Lee Smolin, Julian Barbour, Craig Callender and perhaps all clever Einsteinians now know, then Einstein's 1905 light postulate is false and any "confirmation" of Einstein's relativity will turn out to be either refutation or hoax on close inspection. Take the GPS "confirmation" for instance:

http://www.ipgp.fr/~tarantola/Files/Professional/GPS/Neil_Ashby_Relativity_GPS.pdf

It relies on the interpretation of the frequency shift in terms of time dilation, but if the light postulate is false, the frequency shift will have to be interpreted in terms of shift in the speed of light - no place for time dilation in this interpretation.

Pentcho Valev pvalev@yahoo.com

JCN: I have read with great interest your essay. The what you are calling "objective reality" isn't it in fact your Consciousness ? If you accept the idea of the "Block Universe" you can more easily understand simultaneity that is not dependant on objective experiences. For more see pls my earlier essay " Realities out of Total Simultaneity".

Good luck with the contest.

Wilhelmus

After reading your absorbing essay, I still think that the contemplation of time is a religion that will only ever require some sort of human conditioned belief in its utility. Reality has no shape. The fact that the earth appears to be round when seen from a distance might be because we can only see it by looking at it through round eyeballs. We know from actually living on earth that the part of it we are standing on is indubitably flat, as are the oceans which comprise three fifths of the earth surface. Whereas time abstractions contain proliferations of identical states such as seconds, minutes, hours and light years, reality contains no such identical collections as every study of snowflake composition has revealed. Each star is comprised of a differing always changing size and structure and each star is set at an always differing intervening distance from every other star in the Universe. Each star is unique. It is all very well to think that time must have started when the Universe commenced providing the Universe actually began whether it was by the comprehensive detonation of nothing or by Godly request for illumination, it is quite another matter to think that one can measure a unique state by comparing it to a fixed common repeatable standard of measurement such as time. Every unique state has to have a unique duration. The only condition that could be truly unique is eternity. To assert as the scientists do that this galaxy is older than some other galaxy is simply incorrect. The actual Universe is eternal. Just as the Universe stays in one place because all of its integral parts are perpetually in motion, so too does the Universe maintain its eternal structure by allowing all of its integral parts to have apparently differing durations.

JCN Smith,

You are too cautious in dealing with the problem of simultaneity:

https://sites.google.com/site/smithjcnparadigm/

"It will not have escaped the attention of readers closely familiar with this topic that the word "simultaneity" has not appeared in the current essay until this sentence. Simultaneity clearly is a topic which has loomed large in writings on the philosophy and science of time. I believe that the concept of time proposed in this essay has strong implications for the notion of simultaneity, but I beg forgiveness for choosing not to address that topic in this essay, which already has grown far too long and unwieldy."

Julian Barbour is less cautious:

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/ias/earlycareer/events/time/programme/julian_barbour.pdf

Aspects of Time, Julian Barbour, Warwick, August 24th 2011: "Was Spacetime Glorious Historical Accident? (...) ABSOLUTE SIMULTANEITY RESTORED!"

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/ias/final_version_of_bulletin_autumn_2011.pdf

"Julian reasoned that TIME SHOULD NOT BE FUSED WITH SPACE: it emerges from the timeless shape dynamics of space. Ratio is everything that is meaningful in physics, and the size of universe is far less fundamental than its shape. An instant of time is one configuration of the entire universe at one instant, he claimed, and ABSOLUTE SIMULTANEITY SHOULD BE RESTORED."

The danger comes from the fact that the relativity of simultaneity is a direct consequence of Einstein's 1905 light postulate. Restoring absolute simultaneity is tantamount to declaring that the light postulate is false.

Pentcho Valev pvalev@yahoo.com

JCN

We have had this exchange previously.

There is only one form of simultaneity, which is in timing, and it is 'at any given point in time'. As at that point, which is a present in the proper sense of the word, though it has occrred, there is a definitive reality (ie physically existent states). Subsequent to that there is alteration. So there are different existent states, at another subsequent point in time. These alterations vary in the rate at which they occur. Comparison of these rates is timing. Time does not exist, as usually conceived. The rate at which any given change occurs, does.

Paul

Sorry JCNS but the notion of simultaneity CANNOT be secondary. If the consequent is false, that is, if simultaneity is absolute and not relative, as leading theoreticians seem to believe, then we have to conclude that the antecedent, Einstein's 1905 light postulate, is false as well. But the falsehood of the light postulate implies an unprecedented catastrophe in science:

Albert Einstein (in a letter to Freundlich): "If the speed of light is the least bit affected by the speed of the light source, then my whole theory of relativity and theory of gravity is false."

http://www.ekkehard-friebe.de/FP_C4_PP.HTM

Bryan Wallace: "Einstein's special relativity theory with his second postulate that the speed of light in space is constant is the linchpin that holds the whole range of modern physics theories together. Shatter this postulate, and modern physics becomes an elaborate farce."

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0305/0305457v3.pdf

Joao Magueijo: "In sharp contrast, the constancy of the speed of light has remain sacred, and the term "heresy" is occasionally used in relation to "varying speed of light theories". The reason is clear: the constancy of c, unlike the constancy of G or e, is the pillar of special relativity and thus of modern physics. Varying c theories are expected to cause much more structural damage to physics formalism than other varying constant theories."

Pentcho Valev pvalev@yahoo.com

JCN: I feel honored that you took the time to read my essay and really analyse it. I think that the subjective reality is created by our consciousness. Our consciousness (in my view) has contact with TS (like an antenna) and so with its entangled counterpart (probability) in this "dimension". In TS there is no causality, no cause and event, each probability in TS is "reality" but not as amaterial entity but as ,I do not know to call it other as "probability", it is just the way of being a causal human mind cannot understand. However the fact that the entanglement of the consciousness and its counterpart does exist we have a "feeling" that there is something else, this feeling is in ancient times (and still now) expressed as "religion", the Faith in God(s). Imagine the counterpart of your consciousness in TS as a point on a infinite line (both ways), then always the point where your counterpart is has the same distance to both sides of infinity, so it IS everywhere in this non causal infinity. It is eternal because there is no longer a cause that is vanishing. In our causal universe however our consciousness is a limited entity, it has a beginning and an end. (birth and death). In TS the eternal point that formed a unit with the consciousness here is eternal. So your life there is eternal, but not in the causal way. This is my explanation of religions and mythes, that mankind always has cherished, just because of the fact that we have a "feeling" (the entanglement with TS) about something eternal.

Wilhelmus

Dear J.C.,

I have to ruefully admit to my having a shape and it is not an impressive one by any means. Reality cannot and does not have a shape. What would the acceptable scientific ascertainment of reality shape be? How could shape be scientifically distinguished from shapeless? How could reality contain shape and shapeless constituencies? While it is true that seemingly separate realistic objects can temporarily be considered to have a definable shape, the totality of reality does not. I do not think that the Universe is understandable. I believe that opposite states attract, similar states abide, and states on the brink of becoming identical -after first exchanging propensities- then merge into a new state. The real Universe can attract abstract ideas about its inception and continuance because of the opposite containment of reality to abstraction. The reality of the Universe has to persist because all of its seeming substantive parts are really similar. Abstract ideas about the Universe have fluctuated over the years from Ptolemy to Newton to Einstein and many others. Essentially, I think all abstraction is unwholesome.

JCN

Specifically:

"A "rate" is merely a way to compare changes. Whether a rate "exists" or not depends on what you mean by "exists," I suppose".

It is not that a rate is a way to compare changes. The point is that it is a rate at which something is physically occurring that is being compared, ie a rate is being compared with another rate. And it is the rate at which alteration occurs (or more precisely, the speed at which one existent state supersedes another). Now, we can compare them directly, without any reference to timing, as such. Hence: X occurred whilst Y occurred. Or, we can introduce a common denominator (a defined rate of change-like crystal oscillation) and compare other rates of change against that. Alteration occurs. We are comparing the rate at which one alteration occurs against another.

Re the second part of the sentence: change does not exist, as such. Existent states exist. There are differences between them. This has two aspects: 1) substance, ie what is different, 2) the rate at which the differences occur when comparing one with another (which may be disparate in substance ie movement and colour, or of the same attribute).

Generally:

While I sympathise with what you are saying, I am not sure that the "operational definition of time" (which is actually timing) is regarded as the "final word". So your argument may be addressing a problem which does not exist. Though there certainly is a problem. A concept, referred to as time, has been reified into reality, ie it is seen as an attribute of any given reality. It is known to revolve around change. Then, additionally, events are timed. This supposed variable (time) within any given reality allegedly accounts for other variances. There is a degree of confusion as to whether these variances (or at least some of them) occur in reality, or the sensing (usually only seeing is referred to) ie quantification thereof.

Now, the point is that 'time' (misconceived or otherwise) does not occur in any given reality. Because it actually corresponds with the rate at which change occurs. That is, it is an attribute of the difference between physically existent states, not of them. Timing involves the comparison, and hence quantification, of these. For example, a quartz watch is comparing crystal oscillations (which is change) with a defined sequence of change (say movement). So, the whole concept of time is incorrect. There is no change occurring within any given physically existent reality, because if that was so, that would comprise more that one existent reality. And there can only be one existent state at a time. The present, incidentally, constitutes that which was existent as at any given point in time.

So it is not really a question of "adopting a broader, more comprehensive, view" and thereby establishing a definition which "complements"... Alteration occurs, that happens at a rate. Quantification of this rate is timing.

[Just to note: SR involves no form of these variables. There is only motion which is effectively 'stillness' (ie uniform rectilinear and non-rotary), and objects are fixed in shape].

Paul

Hi JCNS,

Concerning the importance of the notion of simultaneity:

http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/lectures/Tsinghua/Tsinghua.html

John Norton: "The second step is Einstein's discovery of the relativity of simultaneity. This is the breakthrough that showed Einstein how to reconcile his principle of relativity with the constancy of the speed of light."

Clearly by replacing the relativity of simultaneity with absolute simultaneity, a direction in which most of today's theoreticians secretly or openly move, one makes the principle of relativity and the constancy of the speed of light irreconciliable again. Curiously, the principle of relativity then becomes reconciliable with the variation of the speed of light predicted by Newton's emission theory of light (c'=c+v). I am sure some of the rebel theoreticians know that.

Pentcho Valev pvalev@yahoo.com

JCN

"It's still not clear to me, however, whether our failure...."

No, it is unclear to me as well, but sod the Mulberry Bush and its supporters, you do, as I do, keep trying to reach a point of understood agreement about whether we disagree or not.

Now, in the second sentence second para, why say "defines" a particular time? It is the physically existent state which exists, time is a measurement system. And the definition of what did so can only be established as at any given point in time (a "particular time"). So, yes, we have particular time, particular existent state (incidentally, this is in respect of anything, could be the universe, or a ball, or you). The expression is sort of correct, but the 'wrong' way round. A point in time (ie a unit, as in timing) is, by definition, definable by the quickest at which any given alteration occurs. But, as it is a measuring system, any reference will suffice, just the more frequent and constant the change, the better.

I then worry about the phrase before that: "A particular configuration...of the physically existent reality". There is no 'of something', there is only a physically existent state as at any given point in time. Nothing else. The previous state has been superseded. And if there is any form of change, then it must be a different physically existent state (that is what different is). There can only be one at a time, ie there is no change/alteration within any given reality (which is a shorter word for physically existent state). Our problem is that we are conceptualising reality from a higher level (never quite sure whether less detailed equals higher), so we latch on to certain superficial physical characteristics, and unless they alter, deem it as being the same thing, an 'it', albeit perhaps altering in some respects. This is incorrect. There is, in reality, a sequence of different 'its', they just have similar characteristics at a very superficial level. There is no 'leaf', as such. There is a particular physically existent state, then another, and another, and so on. A property of the 'stuff' (technical word!) which comprises any given state causes alteration. Now, during that sequence of change, 'it', after being a 'bud' resembles what is known as 'leaf'. Eventually, as change continues to occur, having altered in colour, texture, shape, etc, it disconnects from the tree (or Mulberry Bush, even), but we still refer to the subsequent existent states as 'leaf'. Finally it is no longer constituted in a way which gives it the characteristics of 'leaf'. But in physical terms, there never was an 'it' ('leaf'), there was just a sequence of different physically existent states.

Paul