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

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

Hi Joel, will your novel be available for E readers ?

I wish you good luck with the novel.

Wilhelmus

Hi Wilhelmus,

Yes, the novel will be available as an eBook. I'm working on that presently. Promoting the book is harder than writing it. Not true. I worked on the novel for 16 years. Thanks for the good wishes.

Joel

Hi Wilhelmus,

First, to answer your question, my novel is now available as an eBook.

Second, I went back and tried to read and understand your paper. Either my brain is fried tonight or what you've written is over my head. I may go back and try it again when I'm fresher.

Joel

Dear Joel,

Consciousness is not the easiest subject, I realise that.

My perception is an opening to a I think new science of inter connectivity of everything in our universe.

I am awaiting your comment(s) and rating.

best regards

Wilhelmus

Dear Joel I really enjoyed reading your lucid essay. Unlike some others, the ideas are presented in an orderly convincing fashion.

I completely agree with you about the 'reality' of perception - but then so do most psychologists of vision. Color is just something we perceive in the mind due to the process you described. So is sound, tone, perception of shape etc. If we had no lens in the eye, or the lens was degraded (as my eyes did before my cataract operations) things 'out there' would look strange, blurry and unlike anything I now thankfully see in sharp focus with local color and in 3D space.

It is great that you mention Al-Haytham's pioneering work in correctly describing the act of vision. His role as the father of modern optics and indeed the scientific method itself is rarely given its due. I attach a poster I designed (featuring my Arabic font) in homage to this great scientist.

I am a bit less sanguine about your next two points. Having just read (A Universe from Nothing by Lawrence M. Krauss) with its fine explanation of how cosmologists used astronomical observations to deduce that the Big Bang is in fact a correct description of how the Universe started, I will defer to the experts until I find it somehow contradicts other notions I understand better. Yes it is hard to understand: they say the Universe is several score billion light-years across in size, although it is only 13 billion light-years old!

Where I do agree with you completely is two-faced (or Janus) time. I would go further and say there is no time dimension at all, just a universal NOW state of the Universe. It is only when time is measured from one inertial frame to another that the second aspect of time is perceived. You can add the illusion of time to that of color and sound!

It is wonderful that you have so enthusiastically engaged your community of thoughtful people to discuss issues in physics and related topics. I am curious as to which long held view Geoff Grayer altered after discussing it with you- That a Nobel-winning physicists has such an open mind is an example to put before all of us with hard won but set ideas. Not to mention your courage to keep questioning the experts until you are satisfied with the explanation. Bravo!

With best wishes,

VladimirAttachment #1: Ibn_alhaytham.png

If you do not understand why your rating dropped down. As I found ratings in the contest are calculated in the next way. Suppose your rating is [math]R_1 [/math] and [math]N_1 [/math] was the quantity of people which gave you ratings. Then you have [math]S_1=R_1 N_1 [/math] of points. After it anyone give you [math]dS [/math] of points so you have [math]S_2=S_1+ dS [/math] of points and [math]N_2=N_1+1 [/math] is the common quantity of the people which gave you ratings. At the same time you will have [math]S_2=R_2 N_2 [/math] of points. From here, if you want to be R2 > R1 there must be: [math]S_2/ N_2>S_1/ N_1 [/math] or [math] (S_1+ dS) / (N_1+1) >S_1/ N_1 [/math] or [math] dS >S_1/ N_1 =R_1[/math] In other words if you want to increase rating of anyone you must give him more points [math]dS [/math] then the participant`s rating [math]R_1 [/math] was at the moment you rated him. From here it is seen that in the contest are special rules for ratings. And from here there are misunderstanding of some participants what is happened with their ratings. Moreover since community ratings are hided some participants do not sure how increase ratings of others and gives them maximum 10 points. But in the case the scale from 1 to 10 of points do not work, and some essays are overestimated and some essays are drop down. In my opinion it is a bad problem with this Contest rating process.

Sergey Fedosin

Dear Joel Levinson,

As time emerges within each eigen-rotational quantum in Coherently-cyclic cluster-matter paradigm of universe, the hidden variables of these quanta are the functions of the holon they belong in the holarchy. Thus in a top-to-bottom approach expressional in this paradigm describes a cyclic-time, that expresses the nature of time both as relative and as absolute.

With best wishes

Jayakar

Dear Joel,

I enjoyed you essay. Since you do not rely on the reader mathematical

Ability to carry your points, but his/her common sense, your argumentation is clear.

I have done on Ph.D. on image analysis and visual perception and I read and reflect a lot on this question. I will limit my comments to your first section "THE ILLUSIONISTIC NATURE OF PERCEPTION" which is a description of your "notion of the illusionistic nature of perception".

P1: "we don't actually see what's out there on the world-side of our eyeballs."

P2 "What we think we see out there is really what the complicated process of cognition constructs in here (tap your skull, please)."

P3: "There is something out there but it's different from what we perceive".

P4: "Voila! You 'see' the mountain for a short time with exactly the same detail as before the curtain had descended and yet the view of the mountain is totally blocked by the opaque curtain of lead. Such is the illusionistic nature of perception."

P5:" We inhabit a world of experiences that have some connection with

what's out there, but caution is in order when one says, seeing is believing."

P1 is false if we use the common sense meaning of the expression "actually see". What you seem to actually mean by P1 is P3. P4 is used as an example of a case proving P3. I do not agree. Even though the photon stream is blocked, we effectively see the mountain for a little while and this is not an illusion. What is an illusion is the expectation that the stream will not stop but this has noting to do with viewing the mountain now. Suppose that alpha century is now exploding as a supernova. Astromers knows that their current observations are about 4.3 year old. For a child looking in the telescope and interpreting this image as now happening, it is illusionary in its interpretation but not in the sense of what is really experience right now on earth about alpha century. Small light delay here on earth have no practical consequencex and in a pragmatic sense it is not an illusion to neglect these delay effects. P2 and P5 are uncontroversial true.

Maybe the purpose of this section is to refresh our memory about this but overall I do not see anything in this section that says something new that is true.

- Louis

Dear Joel ,

Lois Brassard's comments led me to your essay. I am glad I have read it.

I can see you taking the same journey of exploration through various ideas that I have also taken and spoken about on FQXi blogs over a number of years. I even remember using a loaf of bread analogy on another site long ago, I think it was Advanced Physics Forums. The participant I was speaking to used a tapestry for analogy instead. I understand that as an analogy for all of the photon particles whizzing about externally like the back of the tapestry and the observer seeing the nice neat design on the 'front'.Which I think is very nice.

I have also thought about colour and sound being the outputs of data processing and not independently existing external qualities. I sometimes contemplate that light is not actually light but we perceive it as such because it allows us to visualise the external environment and navigate within it. Perhaps to a bat its sound echoes are 'the light' that allows it to see in the darkness.

Your essay is very clearly written and the arguments well presented.I feel like shouting "Hey over here, come this way!" but you are doing a very fine job making your own way and describing your personal journey eloquently. So I'll leave it at that. Kind regards Georgina : )