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I was unable to find a single valid argument in this article. No conclusion follows from the premises. Either I am getting stupid or physics has reached the final stage of putrefaction.

Pentcho Valev

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    " Either I am getting stupid or physics has reached the final stage of putrefaction."

    Before I choose, Pentcho, I want to ask you what you think the premises of the article are.

    Tom

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      Tom,

      "Time is fundamental to our interpretation of the world yet we very rarely question our choice of timekeeper."

      Hint: The article is a big head scratch over why a presumed fundamental, the vector of time, is so uncooperatively ambiguous.

      Why do you think that is so?

      Could it be that time is not so fundamental, or is it another multiworlds situation, where every clock forms its own reality?

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      The main conclusion seems to be this:

      "If you choose to measure time using one type of clock in the early universe, the history of the cosmos would pan out very differently, than if you chose another."

      This is nonsense per se. The history of the cosmos cannot depend on anyone's choice of clocks.

      The premises that entail this conclusion are to be looked for in the preceding text but I found no statements there logically related to the conclusion.

      Pentcho Valev

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      John, it's relativity -- which is a classical theory -- not the multiworlds intepretation of quantum mechanics, in which "every clock forms its own reality."

      Tom

      Tom,

      Wasn't your difficulty from assuming it as an 'either/or' question? Mutual exclusivity is essential for logical 'frames' but I suggest it's not 'absolute'.

      John.

      I agree, time is not 'fundamental' at all, more a confusing red herring. Just a word we've invented. Perhaps we should all speak Chinese (it may yet come!) and get a fresh view of it. We invent a machine that emits something at regular intervals, then worship it like some mysterious god! Is that not wholly pagan?

      Peter

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      Tom,

      No, every clock measures its own time. They all exist in the same reality. GPS satellite clocks are not in another reality from those on the ground.

      "In the absence of an external clock, Albrecht decided to use the "internal time" concept of general relativity and define time relative to his quantum components. The simplicity of his computer model meant the clock was nothing more than a list of numbers indicating the progress of time. The physics and evolution of the quantum system were driven entirely by how those states of the clock were correlated with the other evolving parts."

      "If you choose to measure time using one type of clock in the early universe, the history of the cosmos would pan out very differently, than if you chose another. In other words, when considered at the quantum level, different clocks led to arbitrarily different physical laws."

      The evident problem for QM is that it does presume a universal clock, rather than each to its own. What if we simply treat time as frequency and have it emerge from action? Then we can have a universal present, but different clock rates.

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      Every timing mechanism is a rate of change. The reference for timing is a conceptual constant rate of change. That is, within the realms of practicality, every timing mechanism is synchronised. Otherwise the whole system of timing, ie time as 'told' by any given timing mechanism, is useless. Time is concerned with the frequency at which any given physically existent state alters to the next in the sequence, ie it is a difference between physical realities, and not a feature of any given physical reality.

      Einstein's concept of relativity is nonsense. Section 1 part 1 1905, demonstrates this, he neither understood how timing worked, nor that there was a differentiation between physical existence and the photon based representation of it which we receive. So the timing difference which actually occurs between time of physical existence and time of receipt of photon based representation thereof, which is fundamentally driven by spatial relationship, was incorretly asserted by him as being a feature of physical existence.

      Paul

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      Paul,

      "Otherwise the whole system of timing, ie time as 'told' by any given timing mechanism, is useless. Time is concerned with the frequency at which any given physically existent state alters to the next in the sequence,"

      The measure of time is regular sequence, but the arrow of time is due to the irregular environment, otherwise time would be nothing more than a metronome.

      "What if we simply treat time as frequency and have it emerge from action? Then we can have a universal present, but different clock rates."

      No, John, we couldn't. You assume that there is a universally valid time in which all observers agree. Your present, e.g., differs from the present of a hypothetical observer in the Zeta Reticuli region. The frequencies at which events pass here and there can be locally measured at the same clock rate, while distantly, the rates have to differ.

      Your view is Newtonian, in which "time flows equably" over the universe. It was replaced by relativity in which "all physics is local." Albrecht's discovery (with which I agree) is that the cosmological condition (i.e., the past condition assumed to determine the present) is sensitively dependent on one's local choice of the Hamiltonian (the system's energy content). The idea of random Hamiltonians corresponds perfectly to Everett's branching worlds, and it agrees with what we know about both relativity and quantum mechanics, so long as we allow a noncollapsing wave function.

      Tom

      You've got got it wrong, Pentcho. One does not find it possible to choose a clock "in the early universe." One chooses a clock in the present universe, and finds that this free choice affects what the cosmological condition (the early universe) would have been. As Swarup sums up elegantly:

      "The implications are groundbreaking: Our universe did not arise with one single set of fundamental laws prewritten, which governed the evolution of particles, planets, galaxies and people, or even the dimensionality of space. Instead, the basis of our universe would be an underlying random structure through which the observed laws of nature emerge as probabilities."

      Because the probability of our universe existing is 1.0, the particular Hamiltonian that characterizes our domain should be self limiting by a constant value that restricts its time evolution. That would be the constant speed of light, something else that you've gotten wrong.

      Tom

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      Tom,

      Let's do a little mind game. Call it trying to understand what the other person is saying. As I keep describing it, time is an effect. Obviously it is complete nonsense to say it flows equitably all over the universe, because situations vary. Just like temperature. If one candle gets more oxygen than another, then not only does it burn hotter, but it burns faster, ie. its clock is faster. Just like the twin that stays home.

      Now it takes action and thus time to cross space and so information from various regions takes different speeds and thus time to arrive at any point. This doesn't negate the fact that what is present is the extant energy. Time is simply an effect of this energy changing shape/traveling around, whatever. The present is what exists, whatever its form. Presumably other parts of the universe co-exist with our part of the universe, even if the current information from them obviously hasn't reached us, because we are still receiving prior information, as the light which left there is now arriving here.

      Now if you wish to stick with multiworlds, because the math says so, that is certainly your right, but you haven't convinced me that time is actually a physical vector of points on a timeline, as opposed to a dynamic process of change.

      "As I keep describing it, time is an effect."

      An effect of what? John, if you want to play a game called "let's try to understand what the other is saying," we have to speak the same language.

      Try to understand the contradiction between what you believe and what we objectively know, that even in your words: " ... it takes action and thus time to cross space and so information from various regions takes different speeds and thus time to arrive at any point ..." means that space and time are not independently real.

      You are assuming that space is a static background over which time flows at varying rates. That is exactly how Newton framed it, even inventing the calculus to show the precise rates at which the flow varies according to the varying energy field, just as you say.

      Einstein showed us that there is no privileged background; i.e., spacetime and energy are interactive.

      Tom

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      Tom,

      An effect of activity, very much like temperature, as I keep repeating!!!! Of course it's related to space, just like temperature. Try describing temperature independently of volume.

      "Flow" is a spatial concept, try thinking of it as process. Given the energy is conserved, the initial event no longer physically exists by the concluding event, because the process means the energy has transformed from one to the other. Unlike two places in space that can physically co-exist.

      Energy and space co-exist, while time and temperature are effects, like color. Can you imagine color independent of energy and space? Does that make it fundamental?

      As I keep pointing out, by treating it as a measure, physics only re-enforces the narrative timeline. The reality is the energy, while the events are ephemeral, so it is the events coming and going, not a point on the timeline moving along it. The time as vector is nothing more than a formalized narrative., no matter how accurately events are measured.

      • [deleted]

      Tom,

      By the current model, every event, every relationship, every process, plus all the infinite number of quantum probabilities are physically mapped out in that four dimensional spacetime, because too many smart and educated people think it so to be wrong.

      Consider the response of those believe in quantum entanglement, to Joy's argument that it is a mathematical sleight of hand. Given the practical matters weighing against this blocktime multiworlds model, how can you be utterly convinced there are no overlooked elements? I can understand the power of belief, but I fail to see the proof.

      • [deleted]

      The "different rate" clocks manifest themslves as different cosmological non-constants. It's the same reality that all clocks live in and abide by. They do not live in their own distinct universe, no more than Bob Marley does.

      Time clocks are % "c" dependent, and by the equivalency elevator experiment principle, likewise, gravity also suggest its equvalent couterpart. The field densities vary by distance from the mass center. Likewise, when stellar photon entities attempt to escape, they turn into Dark Matter, and full escape "c" turns into Dark Energy. Each field is different, Each clock is different in each field (because a faster clock on earth sees a more dense hand ticking, alternately, in spacial orbit, the hands are spread out into the field they are within, and hence tick slower) (you can trick these clocks into ticking faster by pressuring them into a like earth gravity vessel while still orbiting). But, the clocks are in the same Universal Reality. There is no need for multiplt clock realities, simply diffrent fields in the same reality. Time dilation presents itself as Space creatiion. This new Space comes in the form of many different densities(temperatures) ( here the horizon problem is explained - see CIG)

      Peter should understand what I am saying. he may not agree, but should understand.

      Equating energy to mass to space

      0.02762u = 25.7MeV = 14,952,942.08 pico meters cubed of space*

      (Mass) (Energy) (Space)

      What kind of Space? The kind you get when mass travels at the % "c" density at which the reaction took place.

      I am not sure of this number, but if "c", then Dark Energy. I think it must be close to "c", and that's how we all blow up when the bombs go off, which they won't. They can't, they shant.

      The above is CIG.

      www.CIGTheory.com

      THX

      doug.... on topic

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        Tom/John

        What underpins the concept of time has nothing to do with observers, or the devices deployed to measure it. Physical reality is altering, and one aspect of change is the speed at which this occurs. The other aspects being a) what is the change, b) what is the sequence order. Timing is a measuring system to calibrate speed of change.

        By definition, there is no change in any given physical reality, otherwise it cannot be physically existent. Any given physical entity cannot be in a physically existent state, and altering at the same time. Put another way, what is altering to what? There must be something which then occurs as something different.

        By definition, at any given time, what exists does so. Observers and timing devices cannot affect that. The issue is that, assuming sight as the sense used for detection, then the photon based representation of that physical existence takes time to travel, and that will be different for recipient observers at different distances.

        Paul

        "Try describing temperature independently of volume."

        John, I find it remarkable you don't understand that *because* temperature is directly proportional to volume, your argument is invalidated.

        That the potential average rate of speed of gas molecules increases and decreases in proportion to volume, results from pre-relativity classical laws of motion. Those laws allow a background frame of arbitrary boundary conditions in space. The reason that general relativity fails to be a complete theory is that the boundary conditions collapse to a singularity at the cosmological initial condition, which contradicts the classical laws.

        Now according to your belief, there is no cosmological initial condition -- "Energy and space co-exist, while time and temperature are effects, like color. Can you imagine color independent of energy and space?" No, but neither can I imagine, as your logic implies, that an ideal gas compressed to a point has boundary conditions; i.e., that the point exists in a background space. If relativity is true, your belief cannot be. I vote for relativity.

        Tom

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        Tom,

        As I recall, when Einstein was developing the theory of relativity, he was more concerned with final conditions, that gravity would cause space to collapse to a point, thus necessitating the cosmological constant to remedy it.

        Now there very much does appear to be that mathematical singularity, ie. the black hole at the center of galaxies. Yet it has since been discovered that streaming out of these gravitational vortices are enormous jets and billowing bubbles of electrons and cosmic rays. Are black holes really portals into other dimensions/gravitational singularities, or are they cosmic cyclones, hurling back out into space whatever they sucked in? Wouldn't that be a function of those ideal gas laws? As the material is gravitationally compressed, it certainly does heat up.

        As for that initial condition, what does it rest on, other than the assumption that light must travel as a point particle and can only be redshifted by recession of the source? Doesn't the double slit experiment show that when light is actually traveling, ie. going through the slits, it is a wave? If we treat traveling light as a wave and thus expanding from the source, wouldn't redshift be an entirely logical effect? Then we don't need all those fantastical patches, from inflation to dark energy, to make it work.

        Along with the many other problems raised by others, no one has explained one of the points I keep raising; If space is actually expanding, how is it that we have a stable speed of light against which to judge it?

        Not to mention that on large scales, space appears flat, ie. the contraction of gravity is matched by the intergalactic expansion. Galaxies are not simply inert point particles in space/raisins in the rising bread. They are gravity wells!!! Whatever it is expanding between galaxies, is quite evidently falling into them at an equal rate, so how can it be argued the entire universe is expanding, when the actual observed details show otherwise? Isn't that a case of the power of belief over evidence. I admit blocktime/multiworlds/inflation/dark energy/etc. is much more exciting than some boring old cosmic convection cycle of expanding energy and contracting mass, but I just don't buy into this lastest version of epicycles. Sorry.

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        " ... no one has explained one of the points I keep raising; If space is actually expanding, how is it that we have a stable speed of light against which to judge it?"

        If no one has explained it, John, perhaps they thought it absurd to have to point out that the universe is expanding at less than the speed of light.

        " ... I admit blocktime/multiworlds/inflation/dark energy/etc. is much more exciting than some boring old cosmic convection cycle of expanding energy and contracting mass ..."

        And once again, I am compelled to tell you that this belief contradicts relativity, where energy and mass are equivalent and spacetime is continuous.

        Tom