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.