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

Paul,

you may well be right, but my understanding of relativity is just enough to cling to a few notions. I need to study the matter more deeply and mathematically before I can respond to your statements. My problem is lacking the stamina for and interest in the sort of extended discussion of historical positions that you have! Perhaps we are saying the same thing in different ways, who knows? No hard feelings I hope.

Cheers

Vladimir

(Paul, please see my reply above to explain why I respectfully do not want to go into this tack further).

JCN,

I touched on Einstein's notion of flexible space and time in Q3 of my essay: it is one of his three assumptions that I do not agree with. The others being the point photon and that gravity warps spacetime. In the accompanying figure I drew a box labelled One Absolute Universal Frame so I pretty much agree with your position. In my other comments and writings I theorize that the Universe is absolute and that it is possible to assign a Universal Time to local events as they evolve. It will take too long to explain this further and clearly, even if I could.

I skimmed through your Towards a Helpful Paradigm but of course it deserves closer reading...when I have more...TIME :)

Cheers

Vladimir

JCN,

I've been thinking about why I haven't commented on your clear and entirely correct essay. Basically it is because you don't go into the point I seem to obsess over, that our perception of time as the present moving from past to future is only a reflection of the changing configuration of what is, that turns future into past. Not wanting to appear churlish, egotistical or petulant, but not being able to avoid the observation, I refrained from commenting. From my perspective, trying to understand the issue of time as effect of motion, not eternal flow, or geometric foundation, without referring to this, is like trying to refute epicycles and a geocentric cosmology without mentioning the earth is spinning west to east, rather than the heavens moving east to west. Yet it seems no one else finds this important, even those whom I otherwise agree with. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why.

JCN,

I know we are in agreement, that's why I'm running this situation by you, to see what you think. For me, it is a point that stands out like a sore thumb, but it just seems inconsequential to others and I'm trying to figure out if I'm making more of it than necessary, or if I am just far enough ahead of the curve that it's over the conceptual horizon to others.

Physics, with its focus on measurement, only re-enforces the sequential vector. One only has to listen to Julian Barbour and his version of block time to see just how far down the rabbit hole this assumption is carried. Yet viewing it from the perspective of future becoming past, it is just dynamic physical reality and so many of the pieces fall into place; why clock rates are variable, multi-worlds not being destiny, but probability, etc. It's not like there is much debate over the nature of temperature, yet both are effects of action and both underlay our conscious understanding of reality. The only difference with time is our confusion over which is the scale and which is the needle. By treating the physical present as the needle, we lose sight of the fact it encompasses all of reality, not just a dimensionless point on some larger scale.

Just picking your brains in what I see as a cooperative effort.

John,

that alternative viewpoint of passage of time has been very helpful to me. I thanked you, I think particularly for our discussions on time, in my previous essay.

Georgina,

I thank you for the appreciation and recognition and mostly that you do see sense in my ramblings. I know you understand the logic of this point and I suspect part of the reason you don't give it more attention is because you don't want to poach anyone else's ideas anymore than can seamlessly fit in your own framework. Consider though, that all those professional physicists out there are not idiots. In fact a significant reason why this idea is so foreign to such disciplined minds is because the sequential order of time is not simply a foundational component of human knowledge, but the foundational component. It is the basis of history and cause and effect logic. It is the navigational and narrative linearity on which our minds and very sense of self rests. Our emotions and circulatory systems might be more networked and thermal based, but our minds function by choosing one path over the others. To distinguish and decide.

So this is not just physics that would be impacted if this idea were to be given serious consideration, but would reverberate throughout many of our religious, social and political assumptions. I know some of the participants on these boards reject the idea on principle that something so basic couldn't be a real factor, but I find in more philosophic setting, some people don't like it for far deeper reasons. It really does force you to look off the edge of the abyss and outside the box of what is supposed to be "real." Reality is no longer ones own narrative, or the narrative of one's preferred group, but more a sea and tapestry where connections and walls rearrange themselves. One's demons and angels have to be re-ordered. Basically the sub-conscious is no longer quite so isolated. It forces you to live much more in the present. So while I may have turned you off the idea even more, I want to set the gears in your much more organized mind than I and see if there are connections you may want to further consider.

JCN,

I avoided that conversation since it seemed Barbour was looking for more of a rapt audience than he was getting and I tend to disagree with his theories. Sometimes in long form, they are more nuanced, but when he goes to those short form interviews, it seems like blatant block time.

Here are my critiques of his winning essay in the nature of time contest:

John Merryman wrote on Mar. 9, 2009 @ 18:07 GMT

Can I please be a little nitpicky here?

In Julian's paper he does a very nice job of establishing there is no fixed unit of duration, then at the end, turns around and tries to provide one with the principle of least action. I agree time is a consequence of motion and not the basis for it, so that yes, units of time are no more precise than the methods used to define and measure them and Dr. Barbour clearly understands this, but it just seems that at the last moment, he has a failure of nerve and seeks to grasp something solid. If he has truly established that the principle of least action provides an irreducible unit of time between two configuration points of the universe, doesn't this prove time is a fundamental dimension between any two configurations of the universe, as opposed to saying two configurations of the universe cannot co-exist, therefore the difference is a process where one is becoming, as the other is departing, not an established unit between two specific configurations, because if time is simply a consequence of motion, how can there be dimensionless points of configuration from which to measure, without stopping the very motion that created time in the first place?

Think about this in physical terms. If you freeze framed quantum activity, would it just be a still life of reality as we see it, or would the picture simply vanish like a non-fluctuating vacuum?

Hopefully someone is willing to set me straight in terms I can understand.

John Merryman wrote on Mar. 10, 2009 @ 21:11 GMT

Elliot, Georgina,

There is an interesting object lesson here.

Consider that any potential judges, be they fqxi members or not, are professionally invested in either a version of block time, or a method for doing away with time as fundamental. Yes, I'm sure they are very busy people, but it is safe to say that judging an issue that is fundamental to their profession and that has been discussed for longer than any of them have been alive, is probably not at the top of anyone's to do list.

Why does this make Julian the best pick? Not only is he the leading public name in time theory and his essay was exactly what was called for, a clear concise, beautifully written piece, with just a touch of mathematics, that would make the perfect SciAm article, but it smoothly and effortlessly came down on both sides of the issue. It starts out as a clear presentation for why time is based entirely on motion, then describes how these non-existent units are irreducibly determined.

So Julian understood what the situation of the contest and the judging was and, whether consciously or subconsciously, responded with what was required to win.

The life lesson here is that if you are going by the written rules, you are not a real player, but just one of the pieces on the board, because the real game is being the first to figure out what the rules really are. This is what emergence is. The world is entering a period of real chaos and complaining that no one is playing by the old rules anymore will do you no good.

John Merryman wrote on Mar. 15, 2009 @ 16:12 GMT

Lawrence,

The question I raised earlier was that he presented a very cogent argument for why time is based on motion and not the other way around, then he goes on to describe how the coordinates for time are irreducibly fixed by the principle of least action. My point was that while it seems reasonable to assume there are fixed coordinates for time, if you believe time is the basis of motion, but if you believe it is a consequence of motion, than fixed coordinates are only as meaningful as the method of measurement.

To quote Barbour, "You choose in U two points - two configurations of the universe. These are to remain fixed."

If time is a consequence of motion, than fixed points in time are nonsense.

To quote my posting further up the thread, "Think about this in physical terms. If you freeze framed quantum activity, would it just be a still life of reality as we see it, or would the picture simply vanish like a non-fluctuating vacuum?"

To quote Barbour again, "The key thing is that no time is assumed in advance. A time worthy of the name does not exist on any of the non-extremal curves. Time emerges only on the extremal curves."

The flaw here is that as a consequence of motion, time would be equally relevant to the non-extremal curves, as it is to the extremal curves. It would simply be relative to the system being described.

The point of Barbour's essay is self contradictory. It starts as a denunciation of absolute time, then sets about determining it through the principle of least action.

"Regarding picking my brains, I trust you've heard the phrase "mighty slim pickin's"?"

Don't worry. My brains are invariably scattered all over the place. Between the motorcycle and the horses, one day they might be for real, but then my bubble would be popped and the inside and outside would be the same, as I'm smeared across the universe for real.

Dear J C N Smith

I like this essay and in essence agree with it. A lot of the problems with time come from not realising that in relativity theory, time is defined along worldlines rather than by surfaces.

George Ellis

George,

If I may just add a thought to that, what if we were to go the full three dimensions and consider time as volume? Would it be a form of temperature, ie, the higher the levels of activity, the faster the rate of change and vice versa? Would that explain variable clock rates, that at the speed of light, there is no internal atomic activity, thus no change and no time?

Isn't C2 essentially an expression of volume, that when we release the energy in mass, we get that exponential increase in volume, ie, an explosion? If so, than wouldn't gravity be the opposite; M=e/c2, a contraction of volume as energy condenses into mass? Possibly such that the missing mass on the perimeter of galaxies is actually due to the excess of cosmic rays actually discovered there and how they might be coalescing into interstellar gases?

The arrows of time then pointing both inward to ever denser mass and ordered structure, but also outward, as energy is released, expanding out to take up other forms and structures, thus a cycle of generation and regeneration, as the energy of the present moves onto other forms and events, while the resulting structures of these forms and events recedes into the past....

Sorry to interrupt.

Joy is from the perimeter also,they become crazy with my theory. ahahah JCN they are just copycats with a strategy. They need funds probably.ahahah parallelizations and an ocean of superimposed spheres, and what after ?

I suggest that the perimeter institute and FQXi sort several members, because they are simply not real searchers. After that I will respect these systems, and you shall respect me. Sort these pseudo scientists and we shall revolutionate this planet withs ciences and conscience. Sort dear universal responsibles !!! all will be easier without these persons without faithj and law.Sort these stealers, these frustrated ! I am integre me !!! I cannot work with persons who are not in the universal integrity. I forgive always ...

Regards

Hi JCNS,

I really enjoyed your post. It is one of the most lucid treatment of the problem of defining time that I have read. The exposition was clear and the reasoning easy to follow.

The only shortcoming that I can see is that, though you explain that time corresponds to the sequential rearrangement of the components of reality, in essence, that the accepted notion of time is an illusion, you insist that we can still retain the operational notion of time and theories such as special relativity.

Special relativity needs time to be a physical aspect of reality. If it is not, then time cannot be unified with space. And space-time, doesn't not exist. You can't unify a concept, which corresponds to no physical aspect of reality with space, which is an aspect of physical reality. Special relativity can't exist without time being physical. Physical time is required for the effect of time dilatation to exist. Without time dilatation, there is no special relativity. Without time, there is no time dilatation.

I think the essay contrives its conclusion into agreeing with accepted theories. But you can't have it both ways. If time is not physical, then you must reevaluate, even reject many of the dominant theories.

That said I agree with you as far as how time is defined in terms of rearrangements or, in my terms, according to the principle of strict causality.

In regards to time, you might find my answer to the FQXi article titled "Killing Time"

"note: This is from a article I posted on my blog in 2010, which, coincidentally, is also titled "Killing Time."

The greatest problem with current physics theories is that they consider time as if it were a property of physical reality.

Time is a relational concept which is made to allow us to compare events with periodic and cyclic systems; in other words, clocks. But time has no more effect on reality than the clocks that are used to measure it? The fact, when you think of it, clocks don't really measure time.

Take an event consisting of the fall of an object from a point to "a" to a point "b". When we say we measured the time it took for that event to happen, what we actually did is count the number of cycles (seconds, or fraction of seconds for instance) from when the object was dropped from "a" and stopped the count when it reaches point "b". So we don't actually measure time. What we do is simply count the number of cycles the clock's mechanisms go through over the course of the event.

There is no reason why time should be anything more than a relational concept, a useful relational concept I admit, but only a concept. Yet time, physicists will argue, is necessary to the study of nature.

Every process, every event, transformation or phenomenon appears to happen in time. Without time, it is believed, the Universe would be static. Worse, there would be no Universe at all. What we fail to understand is that affirming the necessity of time is like saying that the atoms in the Universe could not exists without the number systems we use to count them. The argument is akin to the solipsistic argument that reality cannot exist without an observer (which is something many quantum-physicists actually try convince us of).

So let's make things clear for a start. Planet Earth, the solar system, our galaxy, our Universe existed before there were people to observe them and before the concept of time, which is a construct of the observers, was invented.

So what does it mean that time is really a relational concept? What it essentially means is that there are no physical interaction between a phenomenon and the number of cycles of the periodic system we may compare it to.

You'll notice that I didn't say there is no interaction between the phenomenon and the periodic mechanism. What I said is that there is no interaction between the phenomenon and the abstraction that is a number. That said, there is a very simple test to determine if a notion is a property of physical reality or if it's merely a concept. The test is one of necessity.

For the sake of argumentation, let's assume that time is a fundamental property of physical reality. If time is a fundamental physical property of reality, then the existence of time must be an axiom essential to any theory of physical reality. What this implies is that it should be impossible to describe any physical phenomenon without the use of time. Impossible! Are you sure?

A principle of strict causality which describes physical phenomena as sequences of events related through causality doesn't require the concept of time. Even concepts such as motion and speed can be described without ever using concept of time.

In fact, the only indication that time may be physical is the effect of time dilation. Time dilation is the inevitable consequence of two axioms: the constancy of the speed of light and the continuity of space. But it can be shown that if space is discrete,then there is no need to resort to the concept of time dilation to explain the constancy of the speed of light.

Then, if time is not an essential axiom, it follows that time is not a fundamental property of physical reality. As a consequence, time is nothing more than a relational concept.

In my opinion, we need to make a distinction between reality and representations of reality by models or concepts. I think we're confusing the two when it comes to time."

On that, congratulations on what, in my opinion, is a well written and lucid exposition of the problems relevant to the definition of time.

Concerning relativity and GPS, it is a myth that the latter wouldn't be possible without the former. See here.

Similar myths link quantum-mechanics and solid state electrics. Both GPS and electronics are feats of engineering and classical physics.

That a theory works is a good thing, but refusal to question a theory that works prevents from considering that it may also be only an approximation of reality.

It is possible to do physics without what you define as the operational definition of time. See my essay or book.

JCN,

No problem. We are all playing the long game here. I try to keep that in mind, but occasionally pop some fuses.

When a deductive theory is considered, "seeking the truth" can only mean "questioning the truthfulness of the postulates or the validity of the arguments". If you believe the postulates are true and the arguments valid, "seeking the truth" is pointless - you should simply accept that all the conclusions of the theory are true and leave it at that.

Nowadays the implications of special relativity are criticised by many smart people but a strict taboo is imposed on questioning the two postulates. George Orwell calls this "crimestop":

http://www.liferesearchuniversal.com/1984-17

George Orwell: "Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity."

Pentcho Valev pvalev@yahoo.com

Pentcho,

It's like that everywhere.

The only time it changes is after the system crashes and for a few brief moments we look around for new directions. Eventually though the new ways stabilize, then they start to stagnate and even the voices of caution argue as to what should be done, while the system promotes its devotees and demotes its skeptics.