The Problem: We See Time Backward by John Brodix Merryman

John,

Great work! I didn't read the above thread so if someone else said this already sorry but could this be summed up by saying that: we can be viewed as moving forward through time so it would be equally valid to isolate time as moving backward past us? If so - even our view of time could be "relative" to the frame it is viewed from! It makes sense that you reference quantum physics. Anyone interested in the many universes theory would probably appreciate this work.

Your camera analogy is right on. Kind of reminds me of some of Julian Barbour's work even though you two have differences to your theories too.

In short - I feel sorry for any participant that doesn't take the time to read your work. They are truly missing something.

Chris,

As it first occurred to me, I did see it as two directions, ie. the present moving past to future, as the events move future to past.

The reason I modified the original impression is that upon examination it is that the changing configuration of what physically exists, is foundational cause to the effect of the series.

I clarified this further in my own mind recently, in one of my periodic debates with Tom Ray, that cause and effect is not sequence, but energy exchange. Consider that one day doesn't cause the next, any more than one rung on a ladder causes the next. Yet my tapping on these keys causes letters to appear on the screen. That's because there is an energy transfer. Just as it is the sun shining(radiant energy) on a rotating planet(inertial energy), which causes these sequences of events called days. I think this is part of why physics occasionally argues that reality is acausal, as Phil Gibbs does in his entry.

Remember that we still very much see the sun as moving across the sky, since from our position, that is exactly what is happening, since we are the center of our own perspective. Epicycles is a very good mathematical modeling of this, but it was the physical mechanics of it that had people stumped. Just as the mechanics of how we move from past to future has people stumped. We are moving. We go from past to future. Time is an effect of motion. What are we missing?

Israel,

I'll have a look over there. I haven't read his entry, so it might be a little while.

As I see, it, in simple terms, is that change is an effect of action. Much as hot and cold are relative effects/degrees of thermal action. Now if we keep peeling away the layers and start asking what is/what is the cause of action, then it might start getting murky.

As I see it though, time is no more or less comprehensible than temperature. It's just that rationality is a serial function, ie. arising from perceptions of change, cause and effect, as well as narrative, so separating it from our perception of it is tricky. What we don't quite appreciate is that emotion and intuition arise from thermodynamic activity, in the interaction of environment and hormones.

John

You: Now if we keep peeling away the layers and start asking what is/what is the cause of action, then it might start getting murky.

I reached the murky point and I did not find anything useful hahaha!! So, I left it aside.

I also read your entry about the aether and the centrifugal force. But I do not understand why you say the aether does not explain centrifugal force. I told you that vacuum, ZPF and aether are synonyms for me. So if it works in vacuum why not in aether (perhaps you may have another notion of the aether). Indeed we can say that the aether has a minute effect on the matter that it cannot be detected. In the Newtoninan case in which space is totally empty, the inertia of the object spinning will keep it rotating forever and if a particle flies out from this object it will keep in motion in a straight line indefinitely. But if we assume a non-empty space (no matter how fine and subtle this vacuum is) in a finite amount of time the object will have to stop spinning (as you say) and the particle flying out will stop moving. It seems to me that this is quite natural due to frictional forces between the vacuum and the object.

It has been shown that the vacuum causes an increase of temperature to accelerated objects, so, it is clear that physical objects interacts with the vacuum. See the Casimir effect and the Unruh effect.

Israel

Israel,

I don't doubt that space is full of energy, from quantum fluctuations on up. What I have a problem with is when space is demoted to nothing more than the relationships and measures of its contents. While it may simply be just inertial and infinite, those are the conceptual parameters of zero to infinity. When we distill away that foundation, then all sorts of questionable characters start slipping through the door, from inflation to multiworlds and now onto multiverses.

John,

I think your 2008 essay referred to time as a consequence of motion - which you now have replaced with "energy." In Nov 2007 I wrote a very long article (that didn't post until March 2008) referring to the underlying mechanism of time as possibly nothing more than fundamental behaviors in the universe. With fundamental behaviors being energy driven - it looks like we are on the same page. In fact, note my analogy to temperature and energy of boiling water. Great minds think alike. Anyway, here is a segment from that article:

--- A particle behavior already known to many relativity enthusiasts is the decay of the muon, which is a member of the lepton family. A typical muon will exist for about two microseconds until it decays into an electron and two other particles called neutrinos. This is actually accomplished via the weak force, in which a particle known as a W particle is generated to facilitate the decay. Now, if we were able to examine those precious two microseconds closely, what would we find? Is there a fundamental behavior, taking place once or repeating itself many times over during the two microseconds that causes the actual decay? And how does this fundamental behavior in the muon speed up or slow down if the muon experiences a velocity change and/or position change in a gravitational field?

Could a moun, moving at extremely high velocity, take longer to produce a W particle, or have a longer-lived W particle, or some other behavior, simply because it has a higher velocity relative to some background field or is placing a strain on a field of its own that is being dragged along?

We should view the muon's two-microsecond life as we would view a pot of water's five minutes on the burner before it begins to boil away. Something is happening during those five minutes. A gradual change is taking place that brings the liquid water to an eventual state of gaseous, non-liquid existence. Similarly, something is happening during the muon's two microseconds. Is it something gradual, due to an energy change, as we see with the boiling water? Or is it one, single, very quick rate-determining event that just has a high probability of occurring at around two microseconds? In either case,

something is definitely happening during high velocity and/or exposure to gravity that is prolonging this event. During high velocity, a disturbance could be created between the muon and one of its own fields, or a field it is moving through. Gravity could be creating the same net effect by having an influence on a background field, or one of the muon's own fields, as the muon remains stationary. In either event, this disturbance could be the equivalent of moving the pot of water off of the burner by a centimeter, which

would prolong the boiling time. --------------------

The interesting thing is that if the: energy/motion/behavior theory of time is correct - then relativity can't possibly be correct. Anyway - I think this is the sort of thing that needs to be discussed more!

Chris,

The relationship of motion and time goes back to the ancient Greeks. Galileo observed we are only comparing one regular action to another. Relativity is a mathematically accurate patchjob that proposes some rather bizarre physical assumptions, from the blocktime of spacetime, to the expanding universe and all the other speculative results arising from it. The question is why it became necessary.

Edward Anderson's entry gives a very good example of the point I make about how treating it primarily as a measure of change, physics ignores the dynamic of change. Edward even got a grant from FQXi to consider the issue. Yet no matter how closely they examine the issue, it is still framed in terms of progression from past to future. Consider Julian Barbour's winning essay in the nature of time contest, denies the very existence of time, then turns around and proposes "a measure worthy of the name," arising from the principle of least action between configuration states of the universe. Obviously from prior to succeeding ones. All these proposals only double down, with ever more precision, on the sequence effect.

The point I keep making turns that whole assumption around. I just don't have much luck getting other people to see the importance of this one factor. Galileo, by proposing a heliocentric universe, wasn't proposing anything more complex than the cosmology of the day, but something more simple. In fact, he basically made the motion of the earth as one more epicycle in the larger system and all the parts fit together much more effectively.

I think part of the problem, aside that it can be difficult to wrap one's mind around the idea without first switching a few foundational conceptual switches, is that those whom I suggest it to, don't think I am someone who can make a legitimate observation, or that it must be my idea and they don't want to take someone else's idea. If it's a valid observation though, it is far bigger than I, or anyone else. I'm not copyrighting it. I'm smart enough and old enough to understand that if it were ever to go viral, the public blowback would be far larger than I care to deal with. In a day and age where so many people and organizations can find every detail about your life, who, with any sense, wants to be famous? I've spent my life developing an understanding of many aspects of life and trying to put them in a larger picture. Here is an essay I wrote last winter and entered in this contest. While it seems to be largely about framing economic evolution, there are a number of radical concepts buried in there, from physics to theology, along with examining the nature of money, which would irritate many people, if they spread. So I put these ideas out there and if other people like them and pass them on, it's ok, but if they don't, that's ok too. As I see it, life is a game where the goal is to figure out the rules. Like all games, it starts out quite simple and easy, but the better you get at it, the more difficult it becomes. As the old saying goes, the more you know, the more you know you don't know.

Which is to say, that if you want to take this point about time and examine it, or run with it, that's alright by me. Personally I think it amounts to a conceptual atomic bomb and I want to be off in the distance when it explodes.

John

Well, you are touching a very important point. One matter is reality and the other is how you mathematically model reality. In physics we are aware for instance, minkowski space is just the abstraction of an empty space in which physical objects contract and clock dilates. The problem is that sometimes physicists believe that for a given mathematical structure there corresponds a real one. So they believe that if the mathematical space warps the real space has to reproduce this effect. You have to understand that physics is a quantitative science and to quantify it helps itself with mathematics. Then theoreticians solves the problems mathematically and then once they solve the problem mathematically they try to find a physical interpretation to their findings by fitting with the observations. Modeling reality is not an easy task, but sometimes this mathematical modeling led them to believe fantastical things such as multiverses, etc. From my part, I try to work the opposite way. First I try to find a coherent conceptual and philosophical framework and then adapt the mathematics to such framework.

Cheers

Israel

Israel,

Sometimes it's the math describing reality and sometimes it's reality informing the math. There has to be some acknowledgement of basic sense as to whether an idea passes the smell test, otherwise it should be considered speculative. While this is true of all sciences, physics gets more of an allowance that is being taken advantage of. I think alot of what is being proposed amounts to foam at the top of a cresting wave. The real direction has started to turn, but not all parts recognize this. Math is a tool and like many tools, it can be very instructive. Where would we be without tools, from language to computers? The problems come from the mathematicians who think it is the voice of God and anything it speaks must be true. Even the voice of God needs careful interpretation. Especially the voice of God. Throughout history, lots of people thought God was speaking to them. God has a wife. She is called Mother Nature and even God has to pay attention to her. The people who think they are in touch with God, don't understand nature. Those feedback loops will get you every time. "In the long run, everyone's odds go to zero."

John Merryman

You can read about "time backward" idea in my discussion with Reeve Armstrong

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1395

Hello John,

On a quick read through, I find your essay was very enjoyable, both clear and detailed - except it ended too soon. I very much like the notion that action turns possible future events into a present moment, and that this creates the flow of time. It makes more sense than a notion of time totally disconnected from process, as time is process-like by nature. I'll have to read it again for details, but I wanted you to know I enjoyed your essay.

I played around with some of the same ideas you explore in a paper on brain hemispheres "Does Lateral Specialization in the Brain Arise from the Directionality of Processes and Time?" where I assert that the two halves function identically, except that they are backwards in time respectively. That is; while the left brain sees time in the way it is conventionally understood, the right brain sees it as you suggest we should, as an accumulative process.

As a consequence; its perception is more holistic than fragmented, and fixates on the energetic or wave-like aspect of things. I've lots more to say on this, but I'll have to come back to say it. You may enjoy my essay Cherished Assumptions and the Progress of Physics.

Regards,

Jonathan

No sense of past, or future,

This is Parmenides approach.Some time it have sense.

See my essay http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1413

I wanted to mention, John,

You may find Jill Bolte Taylor's book "My Stroke of Insight" interesting and relevant, in regards to the perception of time question, and issues of dominance by the left brain awareness. Dr. Taylor is a brain expert who suffered a stroke, and completely lost left brain functionality for a time. She characterizes the right brain awareness as perceiving the world being fluid and connected, rather than being centered on objects and distinctions.

It would seem a lot of aspects of our perception are caught up in our awareness of the flow of time, and its directionality. More later.

Regards,

Jonathan

Jonathan,

Thank you for the considerate reflections. Your description of the right brain is probably more accurate, given it is a dynamic process and thermodynamic responses might be considered more reactive and emotionally static. The primary reason I started thinking in terms of the thermostat was due to E.O. Wilson's description of the insect brain as a thermostat, alongside those experiments on ants that showed they count as a navigation tool. So while your view might be more perceptual, I'm probably looking at it as a more inclusive, ie. generalized description. Having spent my life working with horses, as well as other animals, I have a very basic foundation in cognitive functions, but that might give me some degree of clarity not always apparent to a more classic education. What other life forms lack in intellectual complexity, they often make up for in situational awareness, while people tend to be distracted. Thus we view emotion and intuition as mysterious, but they are those cumulative responses which appear non-linear.

One additional thought that has become more clear, due to one of my usual debates with Tom Ray, since writing that paper, is that cause and effect is not a function of sequence, but energy exchange. Yesterday doesn't cause today, any more than one rung on a ladder causes the next. It is the sun radiating on a rotating planet, which causes the sequence of events called 'days.' On the other hand, my typing these keys does cause letters to appear on the screen, because there is a causal chain of energy transfer.

So while we tend to think in retrospect that time is linear, from one event to the next, emotion and intuition tend to be more focused on the energy dynamic, which is cumulative and dissipative. This goes to my original dichotomy of energy, vs. information.

While I haven't read Jill Bolte Talyer's book, I did see her TED talk video. Unfortunately, my spare time is limited and since getting on the internet, some 15 years ago, my book reading time has been reduced to zip. I go for the condensed version of everything these days.

I did read your essay, but will have to review it, given the number of entries I've tried to cover. As for your bringing up this point about the directions of time, present to the future, vs. events to the past, I wish it would get more attention, because it becomes ever more apparent, reading these essays and thinking through other information, the truth of my first comment, that physics primarily treats time as a measure from one event to the next and this only re-enforces the sequence effect. Julian Barbour would be the prime example. Edward Anderson would be another. It will obviously take someone with more clout and clarity than I, to make this point effectively.

Indeed,

Viewed from outside time and space, the path a sentient being takes through spacetime is decidedly tree-like. And pathways open to us at one point are later subject to the 'road not taken' effect, as it's hard for humans to jump from branch to branch. But time in the aggregate is more like temperature, as you suggested, and I think Alain Connes explored this angle in detail.

In any case, I see it as more fruitful to view time as a representation of dynamic process evolution, rather than a static curve or fixed line to which we must adhere. On the other hand; moving along with a large body like the Earth, its motion through space is a relative constant - that defines a timeframe of reference within the local space.

So perhaps both views are essential, if we really want to understand time. In some measure; the right brain is fixated on the eternal where the left brain is focused on the ephemeral. And if you believe the adage from Plato via Diogenes "Time is the image of eternity" - then the eternal is what gives meaning or substance to duration, which is an essential attribute for objects to exist in spacetime at all.

all the best,

Jonathan

Jonathan,

One of the consequences is a different view of determinism, vs. free will. If the present is just a point on a timeline from past to future, then the past cannot be changed, or the future affected, but if time emerges from action, our input is part of that action and we affect our situation, as much as our situation affects us. Even a puppet pulls on its own strings, giving focus to the puppeteer.

We still view and biologically respond to the sun moving across the sky, just as mobile organisms, we will always be moving toward goals and view our future as being something we reach for. It doesn't invalidate the previous perspective, just puts it in a larger context, for those who wish to consider the more objective perspective. I've been pointing out that Galileo didn't really invalidate the math, or logic of epicycles, but by making the motion of the earth one more cycle, he changed the entire interpretation. It's not that the math of spacetime is wrong, but by treating time as a measure and interchangeable with measures of distance, rather than an effect of action, it creates some pretty far fetched interpretations. Such as giving up on simultaneity because the speed of light/information is finite, would be like saying that since news of Lincoln's death reached Kansas City before it reached San Francisco, he much have died earlier to the residents of KC. All observations are in the future of any event.

I would probably say the right brain makes the connections, while the left brain sees the distinctions. An example I interjected in a reductionism, vs. wholism discussion Julian and Ian Durham were having on Julians thread, is that as a logical shorthand, math assumes an important point, which is overlooked. When we add, say 1+1=2, we are actually adding the sets and getting a larger set, not the contents of the sets. So the parts always add up to a larger whole. It's just that in our left brain, we see the distinctions, rather than the connections.

This goes to the logic behind monotheism. One is a set. Oneness is a connected state. When we envision the universe as a whole, it is as a connected state, but than when we try to start defining that state, it morphs into a singular set. The presence of any set implies the possibility of other sets. So not only does monotheism break into multiple sects, but we now have a theory of the universe as a singular entity, which is spawning multiple copies. What is logically lost, is that the absolute, the universal state, is neutral, ie. zero. Not one. Once we have something, it naturally contains dichotomies, inside/outside, expansion/contraction, good/bad, positive/negative, up/down, conservative/liberal, etc. The branching is fundamental, but being singular entities, we can only see one side at a time, yet find ourselves bound to and defined by the opposite.

As for others seeing the relationship between time and temperature, I run into it alot. Carlo Rovelli did his entry in the nature of time contest on it. It's just trying to get people to see the dichotomous relationship that seems to be the problem. We are westerners. We like monism. Dualism is for those foreigners.

Regards,

John

Thanks for those insights!

I appreciate your perspective John. It adds a lot to have someone on board who sees the other side of things. A very interesting and eclectic group this time. I already read through and commented on Ian's excellent essay, but though I cited Julian Barbour's work, I have not read his entry yet.

I suppose I'll have to amble on over, read through his essay, and see what you wrote there.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Jonathan,

You're welcome. Life is a multitude of perspectives. It's nice to converse with people who are not focused entirely on horses.

John, kind of you to leave a note on my essay. Although I can be tempted by potentiality in what someone else writes, mostly I'm not clear-sighted enough to see beyond what I might do with something more immediately. Sometimes there's too much detail for me to see what to do with an idea, sometimes too much detail even to see what the idea is, sometimes there's too little detail. My own essay is surely too detailed, as I see now, but, from my perspective on Physics, I can't see a way forward for me in yours.

FWIW, I see represented in the mathematics of quantum theory more a description of correlations and other statistics than of the undirected or wrongly directed causality that I take you to question. Or perhaps it would be better for me to misrepresent you as questioning temporality, whatever that might be. A common though not universal assumption underlying QT is that we work within a 3+1-dimensional model of our experience. It's just a model, but it's what we work with. We might say that Time is a coordinate in a mathematical model, then how would you say that or a related assumption should be modified? The literature is quite full of ideas for how to change the basic mathematical structure, in more ways than anyone could keep up with, which are then developed at varying degrees of sophistication for decades. Amongst FQXi essayists, Tim Boyer has been developing the consequences and variations of an initial idea (that I think has nothing to say about time, however) in exhaustive detail since the 60s, for example, and Julian Barbour has spent close to as long.

I do find it curious/interesting that the detail of our experience of time is often not represented in Physical models as they currently exist, but I don't see how to do something else, in detail (thermodynamics does at least have a direction, but attempts at reconciliation of that with unitary evolution, say, is very long-standing, and thermodynamics is far from a panacea). I sometimes am tempted to ask why I should think that existence of the past and the future are not as equally real as my experience of the present, but I stopped using the word "real" in my serious thinking perhaps as much as 10 years ago. Models, like maps, even 3+1-dimensional models, are to me only place-holders.

I apologize that this is more a response to your paper, which perhaps you will not find very helpful, than an engagement with it. Best wishes nonetheless, Peter.