I'm carrying this debate with T.H. Ray over from Julian Barbour's blog entry:
"John, I regret that you cannot see your contradiction. To say that "Prior and subsequent configurations do not physically exist, but the present one is constantly changing" is equivalent to saying that time does not exist. Which is what in fact Julian claims (i.e., time exists only as an abstraction). But then you claim that "... it is not that the present moves from prior to subsequent configurations, but that the configurations come into being ..." which requires time to have a physical effect independent of its abstract meaning. I know you will probably come back with another self contradictory statement to explain your position, but I am out of ways to make it obvious."
Tom, There is a fundamental difference between an abstraction and an effect. A dimensionless point is an abstraction. Time and temperature are effects.
T H Ray replied on Aug. 15, 2012 @ 12:04 GMT
Since degrees of time and temperature are described by dimensionless points on a line of length 1, I can't make a distinction between your statement and just plain hot sir.
Tom, That is necessarily due to the extreme conceptual limits which you operate within. Time and temperature are not just their measurement. If I put my hand on a hot stove, I don't need a laboratory grade thermometer to tell me I burned myself. In fact the very notion of temperature as being described as a dimensionless point is nonsense, since temperature is an average level of activity.
As for time, if it were only a regular measure of duration, there would be no entropic arrow, it would be just a constant repetition, measuring nothing other than its own process.
As I've pointed out many times, a dimensionless point is a mathematical contradiction, since anything multiplied by zero is zero. A truly dimensionless point would be as real as a dimensionless apple. It is just a convenient abstraction from reality, because giving it volume would cause more confusion than treating it as dimensionless.
Time and temperature are effects, not just the abstract measure of these effects. "
John,
"If I put my hand on a hot stove, I don't need a laboratory grade thermometer to tell me I burned myself."
You do, however, need the information that your nerve cells relay to your brain cells to inform you of that fact. And you need to know that the degree of burning is dependent on a measure that counts dimensionless points on a 1 dimension line from the nerve endings in your hand to the sensors in your brain.
"In fact the very notion of temperature as being described as a dimensionless point is nonsense, since temperature is an average level of activity."
This fixation that you has you believing that temperature is some independent "thing" is rationally incomprehensible. Temperature is a *measurement.* A ruler is a physical thing, but "one inch" isn't a physical thing. The measurement is not independent of the instrument. Water boils at 212 degrees on one scale and at 100 degrees on another. We made this things up -- they weren't forced on us by a lightning bolt from the brow of Zeus.
Yes, temperature describes the average motion of particles, the energy content of the system. It's the energy content that's a physical thing. If that's what you really mean to say -- then please just say it.
Tom, When I say action, I'm referring to the energy. By using time and temperature, I'm referring to different effects/perspectives of this action. Obviously I don't see temperature as independent, or I wouldn't keep referring to it as an effect. My point is that time is a similar effect/measure of the effect of action, the change of configuration it creates. It is only when the focus is on the measure from one configuration to another and not the process of creation and change, that it gets confused with notions of linearity and space."
John, in what specific way does a measure of change from one configuration to another (which is what Julian's abstract time means) differ from the measure of a degree of creation and change?
" ... that it gets confused with notions of linearity and space."
How does your claim that 'tomorrow becomes yesterday because the Earth rotates,' obviate linearity and space?
Tom, I know you like to be skeptical about everything I say and I have no problem with that, but do you in fact ever even listen to what I say?
When we measure change from one configuration to the next, we are moving from one event to the next, ie. assuming the traditional past to future vector, but when we view it as a process of change, it isn't that what is physically extant, ie. what is present, moves anywhere. It is the configurations forming and dissolving, ie. the future becoming the past. So rather than there being this fourth dimension, along which either the present moves, or the present is an illusion and it's just a function of which configuration you perceive, it is that the passage of time is the future becoming the past, because of the action of what is present.
Not the earth traveling the fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, but tomorrow becoming yesterday because the earth rotates.
Now you are going to push the reset button and claim it doesn't make sense, but even if you don't agree, you can at least make some effort to just try to follow the logic.
John, I think the fact that I take the trouble to point out the contradictions in your purported logic is sufficient evidence that I do follow it. Get rid of the contradictions if you want it to make sense.
Tom, Would you kindly repeat where you found a contradiction?
14 August, 2205. Two days ago.
15 August, 1204. One day ago.
16 August, 1036. Six hours ago.
Tom, I'm going to post this and see if it comes out clearly, then try to formulate a response, which might be late tomorrow.
