The Problem: We See Time Backward by John Brodix Merryman

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.

Peter,

Thank you for the reply. I would first have to agree we are on opposite sides of a significant fence and I can understand why you might see my side as lacking necessary detail to be informative. My position is that while your side of the fence might be finely structured, it is still emergent from the underlaying dynamic. Which is to say I don't see the need for a platonic realm of fundamental laws governing nature. I see laws as patterns which emerge with the actions and relationships they define. Bottom up and top down are complementary functions that emerge as one. Yes, nature is exponentially complex, but the principles describing it are interactive and complementary. Knowledge and information must be static in order to maintain the very details of which they consist, but that doesn't mean reality is so fundamentally frozen. If reality were frozen, it would be a complete lack of thermodynamic activity and nothing would happen, or exist. A non-fluctuating vacuum. No factors, or functions.

So for me, it's a matter of how to get from nothing to something. I would start with space as the aphysical infinite equilibrium. In this void, there is a cycle of expanding energy and contracting structure. Now if were to relate that dichotomy to sentience and knowledge, the energy is the element of awareness and knowledge is the structure it conceives. Much as in my essay I point out that while our awareness is constantly moving onto new thoughts, these thoughts coalesce out of received information and then are replaced. So as awareness goes from past to future thoughts, the thoughts go from future to past. Just as energy is constantly inhabiting structure, then breaking it down and moving onto other forms.

Now consider in your essay, the conceptual process which is going on. Much like a puzzle, modern physics consists of many static components that seem like they should fit together, but however it is done, there seem to be gaps and the solutions often create new problems, as they solve current ones. They are all obviously parts of some larger whole, but not a singular whole. So you find a connection that is "worthwhile," but not "ultimately correct." Possibly it is because there is no "ultimately correct model?" As I point out in the last line of my essay, "Neither academic or religious authority can turn an ideal into an absolute." There is no more a universal model than there is a universal god. Both models and perspective are inherently subjective. Oneness and one/unity and unit are not the same thing.

I know this sounds philosophical, but if your ivory tower is built on sand, would you want to know, or would you prefer not to know?

John

I did read it again as promised, and agree it's as sensible a view on time as I've read anywhere, though ants counting their footsteps is just as shocking! I can't recall if you looked at my recycling model, which suggests 'time' is just a word some creatures living with the ants made up, and they and the ants have equal clue what it means. It goes on forever so perhaps is meaningless.

Except of course to understanding curved space-time, which the ants may have a better handle on that us! I don't know if you did re-read my essay, and got your head round it, but it's all about how things can move while things happen to them, which affects the results.

This goes for your beer on the bar. Light goes through it at c/n- say 140,000miles/sec whatever its state of motion wrt ANYTHING else. So watch a photon pass through the beer, then slide the beer past you down the bar, and the photon appears to go faster (or slower). That's what the laws of optics say. Right? Intuitive yes? A physicist using old assumptions will however have blown a fuse already!

Now consider TWO photons, one after the other. The distance between them changes on entry as they slow down, BUT! Because the beer is MOVING between arrival times, the distance between them (or wavelength) will have changed by a SECOND factor related to glass velocity v. Simple? yes, Intuitive? Yes, to you, I, your horse and the ants; yes.

Not to physicists apparently. They assume that what you are seeing in the glass is the photon moving, so disallow c"v.!! But of course they are only seeing a sequence of scattered lights from each beer particle doing c, that LOOKS like something doing c"v. But NOTHING IS!

Now just consider that all lenses are equivalent to glasses of beer, and the penny should drop why we always find local CSL inside all our lenses. Yes?

Now please tell me you understand that, because the fact that it keeps slipping from peoples grasp is driving me nuts (if I'm not already). Anyway, a good score for you because you explain time as well as anyone, and I hope you can find an excuse to give me one too (you can drink the beer now).

Best wishes

Peter

Peter,

I have read your essay, though admit I haven't commented. I must say I haven't engaged many of the regulars. Part of it is a time issue and part of it is similar to your situation, in that I'm focused on my particular observation and everyone who has been around here for any length of time has probably heard me make the point.

First off I have to admit I'm not an expert in optics, so while your point seems quite reasonable, I'm really not qualified to engage it, because I find I look stupid when I venture into arguments I don't have a firm enough grasp of. I think there are enough entries here poking logical holes in relativity that possibly some larger movement can grow out of it. I obviously am clueless as to how to promote it though, given my distance from any form of academia or media. I'm certainly giving you and the various others trying to unravel the Gordian knot of relativity high scores and hope similar acts point toward some change.

There is another reason I may not be fully engaged with your observation, that I sort of go into in the above conversation with Peter Morgan. My focus doesn't seem to be with sorting out and organizing complexity, but with understanding the relationship of being and nothing. Not what is between 1 and infinity, but what is between 1 and zero. Admittedly real complexity quickly leaves me confused. In many ways I am a very simple person.

As for C, I see it as the rate at which all structure turns to velocity, so nothing can go faster. So I don't have any problem with two passing light beams seeming to pass each other at 2C, but the perception, if light could perceive, would be affected by transmission of information. Arguing against simultaneity because different observers could perceive events in a different order is like saying Lincoln died earlier to the people of St. Louis, than he did to the people in San Francisco. As for the argument that time stops for someone falling into a black hole, or someone traveling at the speed of light, would be like saying time stopped for that log I threw in the fire, since it turned to light, but I only see it as burning.

I think though that it does argue for space as being an underlaying inertial frame. Consider that centrifugal force is due to spin relative to inertia, not some outside reference. So I do see alot of muddled thinking in the various explanations, as Chris Kennedy develops.

As for Black holes, I see them as mathematical representations of infalling mass/structure, which overlooks the balancing effect of radiating energy. I think once all the loose ends are tied up, this relationship will be viewed as the two sides of the same cycle. I think gravity is simply a vacuum effect of energy turning into mass and becoming ever more dense. Much as releasing energy from mass creates pressure.

As for the ants, it was an experiment they did with these giant desert ants. After they had located a food source, the scientists would nip the legs of some a little shorter and some they would glue on tiny extensions. The ones with shorter legs would stop before reaching the food source and the ones with extensions would go past it. Wish I'd saved a link to it, but I only started thinking about its importance to my idea awhile after I read it. Basically it just says ants have two hemispheres of their brains as well. The serial processor(counter/clock) and the parallel processor(a thermostat, as E.O. Wilson described the insect brain.)

Dear John,

I am writing in response to the comment you made to Lawrence Crowell on my thread. I also wrote a response there, but I thought you might see it more readily if I also posted on your thread.

I will have to read your essay to better understand what you are proposing. You seem to reject the existence of an independent time dimension, which is also one of the assumptions I reject in my essay. In particular, you seem to reject the idea of block time. Jonathan Kerr has written an interesting essay on this that you may enjoy reading.

The general idea of time being a way of describing actual change sounds like Mach's view; I don't know if you encountered this idea by reading about Mach, or if you thought of it independently. I would like to think of time as a way of talking about cause and effect, which is similar but not identical. In any case, I will hopefully have more to say after I have read your essay. Take care,

Ben

John

Well I think you've cracked gravity, but pulling legs off ants! Astonishing what things we research when a bit of applied brainpower could save us billions!

Did you ever see my scientific 'proof' of re-incarnation? It emerges straight from the unification of SR and QM in my essay. We're broken down in accretion to an AGN (SMBH) re-ionized and blasted back out to mix with new stuff. So the oscillations our brain cells just keep on going, reincarnated forever. of course we may be 1,00 billion suns and rocks before we come back as another sentient being, but eternity is quite a long time! All good fun, but dead serious physics and cosmolgy. The paper's here; http://vixra.org/abs/1102.0016

Best wishes.

Peter

Peter,

I have to say I get similar inclinations as to re-incarnation, or rather how consciousness takes different forms as though they were separate thoughts of the same mind. Essentially we are all brain cells in a hive mind anyway and the fact we have distinct points of view and narrative histories is more an issue of the filters, not what shines through them. The problem with monotheism is that absolute is basis, not apex, so a spiritual absolute would be the essence from which we rise, not an ideal form from which we fell. I find with the horses and people I work with, it's often like different fingers on the same hand. I just wish the reset button didn't get pushed so often.

Dear John,

I just finished reading your essay, and I think we agree on some important conceptual issues, although perhaps we have different views on what conclusions should be drawn as a consequence. Let me venture a few questions and remarks.

1. In one of your comments on my thread, you say, "The difference between cause and effect and time is that sequence isn't cause and effect, but energy transfer is." Now, I agree that sequence alone isn't cause and effect (sequence by itself is a purely mathematical concept), and I also agree that what we call "energy transfer" is an example of cause and effect. However, in saying that this is "the difference between cause and effect and time," you seem to be identifying "time" with "sequence," which is not what I think you actually intend. For example, in the previous sentence, you say, "I found, when considering it at length, that it gives a very different, inherently dynamic, view of reality, than the block time, static modeling that arose from assuming time is sequence and treating it as a measure of interval." So I am still a little unclear on exactly how you relate time, sequence, and cause and effect.

2. On the basis of your whole essay, it seems that you think time is "a way of talking about what actually happens," which I agree with.

3. I would argue that even though sequence is a purely mathematical concept, while cause and effect is a physical concept, it is still useful to associate a sequence (i.e. direction) to cause and effect. At an everyday level, we always observe that "cause precedes effect;" i.e., we imagine something called "time" with respect to which cause and effect are always ordered in the same way. Now I believe, and I think you agree, that this idea of a separate time dimension in which causes and effects arrange themselves is imaginary. I think that time is really a way of talking about cause and effect. The arrow of time, then, is drawn from cause to effect.

4. Your analogy between time and temperature is interesting. We know that time is intimately related to temperature through the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Of course, time has a direction and temperature does not, but it produces directions in a number of ways: thermal energy flows from hot to cold bodies, and temperature is related to entropy, which is related to time by the second law.

5. I have a bit of trouble with defining things in terms of "energy." The reason why is because energy itself is a rather indirect concept: the way we know a system has energy is because it "does work" on other systems. I would argue that "energy" is just another way of talking about what actually happens, and I would rather use physical concepts with clearer and more direct definitions or descriptions as basic building blocks. Cause and effect is the best such building block I can think of.

6. Regarding the origin of the universe from a singularity, I personally would not take this concept too seriously. It is a result of carrying existing theories to extremes where their validity is very doubtful. Similar statements apply to the internal physics of black holes.

7. You make a good point that our perception of time may have more to do with how our brains work than how the universe works.

I enjoyed your essay! Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Take care,

Ben

Dear John,

This is group message to you and the writers of some 80 contest essays that I have already read, rated and probably commented on.

This year I feel proud that the following old and new online friends have accepted my suggestion that they submit their ideas to this contest. Please feel free to read, comment on and rate these essays (including mine) if you have not already done so, thanks:

Why We Still Don't Have Quantum Nucleodynamics by Norman D. Cook a summary of his Springer book on the subject.

A Challenge to Quantized Absorption by Experiment and Theory by Eric Stanley Reiter Very important experiments based on Planck's loading theory, proving that Einstein's idea that the photon is a particle is wrong.

An Artist's Modest Proposal by Kenneth Snelson The world-famous inventor of Tensegrity applies his ideas of structure to de Broglie's atom.

Notes on Relativity by Edward Hoerdt Questioning how the Michelson-Morely experiment is analyzed in the context of Special Relativity

Vladimir Tamari's essay Fix Physics! Is Physics like a badly-designed building? A humorous illustrate take. Plus: Seven foundational questions suggest a new beginning.

Thank you and good luck.

Vladimir

Ben,

I wouldn't describe time and sequence as purely mathematical, but as features of action. If I may use an analogy, it would be that time is frequency and temperature is amplitude. While one wave/cycle/step doesn't cause the next in the series, it does lead to it from the perspective of the dynamic manifesting the series. Cause is wholistic and the sum total cause of any event cannot be known prior to the event, because the lightcone(to use a spacetime concept) of input isn't complete until the event occurs. A bolt of lightening or bus might hit you before you make that next step and the energy manifesting you would be disrupted from its progression. It is just that we exist as a particular point of reference/one molecule of water in that tea kettle and so encounter a series of events within the larger dynamic.

As for entropy, it seems everyone always ignores that it only applies to a closed system. In an open or infinite system, energy lost by one system is gained by others. We are absorbing light that was radiated by other galaxies billions of lightyears away. It is only because the universe is presumed to be finite that it gains such prominence. Yet even in that model, this energy is simply being dispersed over an expanding area, not eliminated. I think the larger reality is a form of universal convection cycle of expanding energy and contracting mass. These galaxies drawing in mass and radiating energy, until that energy condenses back into mass and falls back into the closest galaxy.

You are quite right that "energy" defies clear definition, but think about that; Definition is structure and order and energy is constantly manifesting and dissolving structure and order. It's hard to put something in a box, when even the box is an aspect of what you want to put in it. Think of energy as what is physically real, whether radiant, potential, spin, attraction, repulsion, inertial. Even the absence of energy is a form of energy, in the vacuum. Energy manifests, information defines. Information arises from the interaction of different forms and degrees of energy. Such as that mass is a balance of positive and negative energies. We try to measure reality by banging energies into each other. Whether it is light from distant stars onto our telescopes, or ions in a particle collider. Or even cavemen banging one rock into another to see how it breaks/flakes.

Vladimir,

Thank you for the recommendations, some of which I've read, especially the entry by Eric Reiter. I have read your entry, but haven't commented, mostly for time reasons. It is very well written and informative, but being rather broad, I didn't find a particular point to focus on. Whatever time I have to read is often when I'm also tired, so there is not a lot of broad attention in my engagement with this contest.

John,

Thanks for the followup! I agree that "time" isn't purely mathematical; as for "sequence," mathematicians are used to thinking of it in this way, but the most important thing is probably just to be clear about one's definition and stick with it.

There is always a lot of confusion about entropy. Besides the "closed system" aspect you point out, there are many different definitions in thermodynamics, information theory, and quantum information theory. It's so confused that some people define entropy as "disorder" and others as "order." Probably it's again a situation in which the most important thing is to say exactly what one means by entropy to avoid purely semantic disputes.

Regarding energy, I suppose something at the bottom of the logical system has to be undefined, and if so, it should be an entity of universal importance, which energy certainly is. Take care,

Ben

Ben,

That distilling out a particular definition and sticking to it is where one steps over the line from reason to dogma, no matter how effective the description. I like to think I would alter my view of time, if someone were to show its fallacies, but once they see it is not easy to dismiss, the discussion is dropped. It's been observed that rationality, as a survival mechanism, evolved to win arguments, not discover truths.

As for entropy being order or disorder, depending on the model, goes to the heart of the subjectivity of knowledge.

Energy and space are both down at the bottom of that stack of turtles.

Good luck in the contest. Looks like you will make the cut.