Phantom Instants, Two-Faced Time, the Empty Bag of Space, and the Illusionistic Nature of Perception by Joel Levinson

TWO-FACED TIME

See my essay about two faced time

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1413

Joel,

"Cosmologists seem to regard space as an empty paper bag that they can fill with all sorts of contradictory attributes drawing out what is necessary to suit their theory of the moment. They have alternately characterized space as curved, flat, expanding, oscillating, empty, filled, without an edge, boundless, finite, three-dimensional, and more recently, even composed of multiverses. Another profound attribute that was added, of course, is that space is part of a four-dimensional space-time continuum. Curiously, according to my readings, cosmologists and physicists have never really said definitively what space itself is, but perhaps they leave that question to philosophers. To add even more confusion, space has been regarded alternately as an entity, a relationship between entities, or part of a conceptual framework. So I ask: how is it possible, how is it tolerable, that scientists can refer to one or another of these qualities to support their particular cosmological theory without, in the first place, tying down the very nature of space itself. A speculative claim is one thing; a proof is another. To my mind conceptual uncertainty creates a level of theoretical license that invites fool-hearty speculation. For instance, although there seems to be overwhelming evidence that space is expanding, there is no sure proof that it ever did expand, or even could expand."

Paper bag indeed! I have to say that I agree wholeheartedly with this paragraph. Excellent writing.

Regards,

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for your vote of confidence and for your compliment about my writing. Can you tell me a little about yourself? Did you enter the contest?

Joel

Thanks for writing, Yuri. I had som difficulty understanding your message. Joel

Joel,

My essay is here, although I recently added a simple sketch to help explain it graphically. Basically I am asking a simple question concerning the Einstein field equation and if it can be interpreted another way, how would we tell the difference. Seems to be a simpler explanation of dark energy. Comments welcome.

Thanks

Jeff

Joel,

Reading your essay again a second time, and I am jealous of your ability to elucidate your thoughts. I certainly agree on the "illusionistic nature of perception" as well as "Consequently, the passage of time must be regarded as absolute and distinctly different from the measurement of time, which involves the unfolding of baryonic (atomic) processes that vary with velocity and proximity to gravitational forces. But the two phenomena are inextricably two faces of the same clock."

The best descriptive essay I can remember running across anywhere, let alone in this contest. I certainly hope you do well.

I am a PhD student, recently introduced to tensors during study of power electronics, that became interested in the history of field theory. I never had a problem with mainstream explanations prior to this, simply because I assumed that the unfamiliar logic was well founded. Now that I look at the development of the stress energy tensor, this just does not seem to be the case at all. One large glaring omission forced me to rethink my views, which now are aligned with yours.

Regards,

Jeff

See my essay 2 approaches to time

Parmenides vs Heraclites.

Dear Joel Levinson,

Your essay was a terrific read. Apparently, you actually read the rules of this essay contest and meticulously followed them by writing with such clarity every bit of your essay was ridiculously easy to understand even though the material dealt with the most complex subjects known to man.

As the author of the essay Sequence Consequence, I partially agree with your assumption of phantom sightings. Part of the problem might be that we can only distinguish sameness. We have no neural mechanism for defining that which is unique. This is tough because everything we deal with has to always be unique.

One real Universe can only be perpetually appearing in one real here for one real now performing in one real dimension once. All real stuff has to stay in one real Universe once. There will always be only one real 1 of anything once. There will only ever be one real 1 of everything once.

Mathematicians never seemed to have followed the logic of mathematics to its inevitable conclusion. If the true value of 1 only has the ability to remain accurate once, only the first 1 ever represented could have possibly had that true value of 1. Because of this, any subsequent 1 corrupts the pure value of the first 1. Sadly for Bertrand Russell, whereas 1+1 does indubitably = 2, there is no way possible for once + twice to equal 2.

I do sincerely hope that your splendid essay qualifies for one of the prizes.

Joel,

You present a clear and logical argument. The question is why has physics become so convoluted? I think you just miss it. It isn't that time is two faced, though there is are subjective and presumably objective aspects, but that there are two directions. The present goes from past events to future ones, while these events go from being in the future, to being in the past. So which is foundational and which is effect? Does the earth travel a narrative fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, or does tomorrow become yesterday because the earth rotates?

If the latter seems more likely, than time is not foundational to action, but an effect of it, similar to temperature. Time is rate of change, while temperature is level of activity. Gravity and velocity affect the levels of atomic activity, which affects the rate of change. That's why clock rates vary. The faster clock isn't going into the future faster, but as it ages more quickly, into the past faster.

The cat is not both dead and alive, because it is the collapse of probability which yields actuality. The actual occurrence of events determines the fate of the cat. It is only in retrospect that we perceive time as a sequence of events, but then we still see the sun moving across the sky, while it is expansion of knowledge that tells us it is the earth rotating .

Cause and effect is not sequence, but energy exchange. Yesterday doesn't cause today, any more than one rung on a ladder causes the next. It is the radiant energy of the sun, shining on the inertial energy of a rotating planet which causes the sequence of events called "days." Now me tapping these keys is cause of letters appearing in the screen, because there is a transfer of energy.

Physics frequently does recognize time is a function of action, yet their professional instinct is to reduce it to a form of measure from one event to another and that only re-enforces the idea of time as a series of events.

Duration doesn't exist externally to the present, but is the state of the present between the occurrence of the observed events. It is the events which are phantom, not the present.

Rather than go into my entire entry, I'll leave it at that, but just wanted to give a thumbnail sketch, since the entries are many and these ideas tie in with yours.

From my perspective, this quote from your essay is problematic: "The present goes from past events to future ones, while these events go from being in the future, to being in the past."

Dear Joel.

Your kindness is only exceeded by your extraordinary lucid writing ability. I regret I cannot join your group right now. I know I can refute Einstein. I am going to try to write a scientific paper expressing my proof. I have found a translation of Einstein's short book that he wrote concerning General and Special Relativity. You know what I find amazing? Bertrand Russell, Richard P. Feynman and Albert Einstein were really great writers except when they wrote (completely unintelligible to me,) mathematical stuff. I found Stephen Hawking's writing lacking any sense and quite poor in expression.

Thanks again.

Joel,

Hmm. Tomorrow is the 7th of September. With the passage of 48 units of time, called hours, the 7th of September will be referred to as yesterday. This passage of time will occur within a state of dynamic presence.

That, in a nutshell, would be my observation. Could you specify how you perceive it to be problematic?

Hi John,

Thanks for writing. Forgive me for my having been abrupt in my earlier email (pre-occupied planning the promotion of my first novel) and also for being rather picky about language, but I am trying in my own writing to be as precise as possible. I on't see a problem with your post directly above but the possible problems I have with your first post is this.

1. I don't see the present going anywhere but into the future. The present, to my way of wanting to phrase things, does not go from past events to future ones. I would choose to say that the present goes to subsequent presents. I think it is risky to say that events go from the future to the past. It seems to suggest that the future and the past are 'real' places (I know you don't mean that) but maybe from a condition in the future through the past into a condition in the past. I'm more for speaking primarily about the present and probing its significance. Admittedly, it is not an easy subject to discuss. Joel

Sorry. One word was mis-typed, which is now in bold below.

I think it is risky to say that events go from the future to the past. It seems to suggest that the future and the past are 'real' places (I know you don't mean that) but maybe from a condition in the future through the PRESENT into a condition in the past.

Joel,

I think we are on the same page, but I'm addressing more of the conventional wisdom, on which the physics focus on treating time as a measure from one event to another is based.

Being in a rush myself, i'd look up some links but Julian Barbour's winning essay in the nature of time contest is a good example, where he dismissed time entirely, then concedes the only "measure worthy of the name" is least action between configuration states of the universe. Edward Anderson's entry in this contest is another, as he first explain time is only an effect of motion, then proceeds to obsess over measuring it. All from prior events, to succeeding ones, not on the dynamic itself.

Joel,

"I would choose to say that the present goes to subsequent presents."

The problem with this statement is that it conflates the present with the event. Einstein said time is what you measure with a clock and a clock consists of two components, the hands, representing the present and the face, representing the events. Blocktime, as a declarative explanation of spacetime, argues only the face is real and all those events simply exist as their own present. It says time is like a book or dvd, where all the scenes already exist and it's simply a matter of where you are in that four dimensional geometry.

The point I'm making is that only what exists is real and it's constantly changing. Thus it's not the face, the events, which are real and the present is an illusion, but the present, that which exists, that is real and the events which are transitory. So it's not the hands moving around the face, but the events coming into being and being replaced. Thus not the present moving from past to future, but the future becoming past. An example I go into is Schrodinger's cat; Quantum theory uses an external timeline, ie, going from past to future. But that pushes a determined past onto a probabilistic future. If we eliminate that external timeline and just let time emerge from the process, then it is the actual occurrence of the events which determines the fate of the cat. To use a less loaded example, prior to a race, there are as many potential winners as runners, but after the race has occurred and the events reduced the possible outcomes to one, there is only one result.

The present isn't some dimensionless point on a timeline, but a dynamic reality, much of which is traveling at the speed of light and much of which is seemingly stable for periods far longer than our lives. Out of this flood of input, our minds select very limited bits of information to coalesce into each thought, thus the sense of the present as a frozen moment.

Joel

Nice thinking. Your architects training must have helped the logical analysis and clear style.

My long post to you yesterday is somewhere in cyberspace as it seems it didn't 'stick', but main points here;

I agree dual time, with a close analogue derived with an actual quantum mechanism showing there is both real and apparent ('illusionistic') speed/time even BEFORE final analysis by the brain itself. This is also equivalent to what Minkowski called 'imaginary'. My own essay goes further in examining and analysing the 'implications'; the model agreeing with and evidencing your redshift and big bang logic.

A central agreement then is that the two forms of time, Absolute and Relative, are not mutually exclusive but in fact legitimately coexist and functionally coexist. We just approached it from slightly different angles. See also the Matt Jackson & Charly Cotgrove essay about non 'ready made' images. I agree no image of the moon can exist if its light hits no lens. This makes sense of the Copenhagen interpretation of QM, and with dynamics consistent with SR!

Your is worth a good score in my view. I hope you think the same of mine, but do be warned it will test your powers of logical analysis even further so needs to be read and digested slowly! Do please comment or ask questions if not clear.

Thanks, and Best of luck

Peter

Dear Joel : Time is an illusion of our memory, Space is a dream. The big bang is a result of mutually shared cutting circles of our sSubjective Simultaneity Spheres... I would be honoured if you could read comment and rate "THE CONSCIOUSNESS CONNECTION"

Wilhelmus