Time is the denominator of existence, and bits come to be in it by Daryl Janzen

Dear Eckard,

Thank you for the gentle nudge. I apologise. I did see your post there only late last night when I had to go to bed, and I woke up with this post from Israel that bothered me for a couple of reasons, so that I wanted to respond right away. Unfortunately, I am leaving shortly to go camping for my daughter's 8th birthday this weekend, so I fear I won't get to it before then. I hope it's not too much to ask if I can respond then? I see now that Paul has posted another reply there, too, and I'd like to keep up the discussion.

Peter, If you manage to see this, I did notice your last post above and haven't had a chance to read through and give it the consideration it deserves. As I said, I'll be gone for a couple of days but will respond when I get back.

My apologies to both of you, and best regards,

Daryl

(CONTINUED ON FROM PREVIOUS POST)

First of all, from your statement,

"So, if you use this... to demonstrate that SR is plagued with paradoxes, our colleagues will reply with the same argument, i.e., that Henry changed from an inertial frame to a non-inertial frame and therefore there is no paradox. This is what I meant when I said: "I just wonder if you are aware of this." But from your comments I have the impression that you were not."

I feel both misrepresented and slightly insulted. Regarding the misrepresentation, in describing a well-known "paradox" my intention was not to argue that SR, or certain of its assumptions, should be rejected because it "is plagued with paradoxes". In my opinion, that in itself is a pretty weak form of argument. What I did was move on from a derivation of the paradoxical result, to provide an intuitive and realistic resolution to it, that's in objective agreement with the empirical data (see my previous post), as opposed to simply going with Einstein's suggestion that we should just accept that "that's how it's got to be". And regarding the insult, you weren't being very clear about what you meant, which is I think why you felt the need to explain your meaning more clearly. It seems you perhaps meant to test my knowledge, so see if I'd infer your meaning from what you had written, and found that because I didn't respond as you'd expect someone with your knowledge to respond, you thought I must be unaware of something. Please: if you've not been overtly clear about your meaning, don't presume that I don't know my subject because I haven't answered unasked questions.

There are a couple of reasons why I couldn't possibly have inferred your meaning. First of all, the "clock paradox" that you refer to is not IDENTICAL to the "twins paradox", as you've suggested. The "clock paradox" is an important result from SR that's used in *constructing* the "twins paradox", which runs specifically as follows. Consider two twins, standing together: at some point in time, they separate via Lorentz boost and remain in constant relative motion awhile; then at some point in time another Lorentz boost causes them to approach each other with (for simplicity) the same relative velocity; when they come together at the same place, a final Lorentz boost keeps them together. According to the symmetry of relative time-dilation (meaning both, that clocks tick relatively slowly by the exact same amount whether they're approaching or receding with constant relative velocity AND from any perspective, a clock in uniform translatory motion will tick slowly--which you've called the "clock paradox") either twin should therefore expect the other to be younger when they meet again, according to a pure relativist perspective, for the following reason: since, according to pure relativists, there's no such thing as actual motion, as it's all just relative, throughout the entire scenario EITHER TWIN can claim to be "perfectly at rest" while his brother "went off on a journey"; therefore, BOTH of them should expect their brother to be younger when they return, but the two points mentioned in brackets above.

The "paradox" is already ill posed, because there is such a thing as REAL motion, as I've already discussed. Therefore, only one of the brothers can claim to have remained motionless the entire time; i.e., at some point, one of the two brothers HAS to have ACTUALLY hopped from one frame of reference to the other. They can both determine this by looking at the world around them. The solution then runs as in Schutz's Introduction to Relativity textbook, which you might be interested to look at because it has all the right details in it.

The resolution has nothing whatsoever to do with acceleration. It's a mathematically ill-posed problem in SR, which is derived without reference to acceleration, and it's by correctly posing it IN SR that it needs to be properly resolved.

And this is the other reason why I didn't pick up on what you were driving at before: I do know that there has been a common misconception that the twins paradox can be resolved by saying someone has to accelerate, but I'd like it if everyone would move beyond that, so I don't tend to think of it too much. It's wrong, and that's all there is to it.

This can be proven as follows (e.g., see Tim Maudlin's new space and time book; I think Fig 11? Although he's got the paradox itself wrong, this bit is great!): consider the scenario as described in the frame of the twin who remains at rest; his twin heads off into space and at some point turns around and heads back with the same constant velocity. We know it's the twin who actually went on the journey who aged less, and the reason can be stated geometrically: less proper time passes along the "longer" worldline, as drawn in Euclidean space. Now consider giving the twin who stays at home some short Lorentz boosts so that he moves for a short time, in the middle of his brother's absence, at the same "outward" velocity as his brother (no relative motion), then turns around at the same time (considered still in the same frame; so there's still no relative motion), and then comes back to rest and sits there waiting for his brother. He's been "accelerated" just as much, but still his worldline is shorter, and he will still have aged more than his brother. You can actually give him multiple of these boosts, so he's actually "accelerated" MORE, and he'll still be the older one when he and his twin come back together.

That's all I wanted to say in response to your detailed post. I hope I haven't said anything offensive, and I'm sorry that I took a bit of offense to your remark. I really appreciate your interest, and feel you've hit on some very good points here, and therefore also appreciate being given the opportunity to respond as I have. Please do post a reply if you see any further interesting points of discussion, and I'll gladly take them up with you.

Sincerely yours,

Daryl

Hi John,

Thanks for commenting. It's never a bother to hear your opinion. I'm sorry if I've ever given you the impression that it has been. If I haven't been able to properly respond to your comments in the past, it was simply because the Earth spins around every twenty-four hours, rather than thirty-six or fifty or whatever it would actually take for me to get to everything I'd like to get to in a day.

I don't know that I've ever said anything directly about your view of time, so I thought I'd try to give you a bit of a response to some of the points you bring up. First of all, saying that tomorrow becomes yesterday because the Earth rotates seems to me like a Wheelerian participatory way of thinking. I personally think the passage of time is more fundamental, and has nothing to do with our Solar System, although that's a good reference point; i.e., I don't agree with your apparent view that the Earth's rotation *causes* time to pass, but think the two coincide.

Now, regarding either the idea that the future becomes the past as time passes, or the idea that the past becomes the future: this is a common view that's taken up by "blockers" who use it in order to find inadequacy in a presentist position on temporal passage. But at it's heart, this is a five-dimensional way of thinking of becoming, which seems flawed from the get-go *because* it already views all of eternity in a sense as *existing*, and then restricts that view to a supposed present that moves through it.

As I've tried to bring out in my essay (it may help as well if you read through to the end of my first response to Israel on July 5, above), existence of anything adds a temporal dimension above and beyond the dimensions of the thing. The conception of all eternity existing adds a fifth dimension to the four dimensions of space-time, and it's this sense of existence that allows us to think of change within space-time, such as future becoming past, etc. And beginning from this view, a lot of philosophers go on to show that a description of temporal passage like the one you've given just imposes a lot of superfluous structure, so as opposed to "resolv[ing] the issues with time", I think it really does just muddle the concept up enough, leading to enough of a false conception of existence, to enable people to construct a reasonable argument *against* temporal passage.

When you say, "there is no universal flow of time" I have to take you to mean, from the surrounding text, that there is no universal perception of the flow of time. Because actually, "there is no universal flow of time" is inconsistent with "there is a universal present because there is only what exists..." By "what exists", I have to assume you mean a three-dimensional Universe that exists. If that's the right clarification of what you've written, then I agree with you.

Except I don't think that is quite your meaning, because you *are* talking about a probabilistic future existentially, as something that becomes the (existential) determined past.

Anyway, when you speak of "no need for blocktime", I'm not sure that you understand that the view has been taken as logically necessitated by other views that I'm not certain you disagree with. And just to be sure: I'm arguing for a very similar viewpoint as you, I think, but I'm doing so through analysis which takes into account various relevant aspects of the problem, rather than simply stating an opinion. I could tell you my opinions as well, and tell you that they make perfect sense because they do to me, but without offering any sort of analytical argument that considers the relevant aspects of the problem and either fits them into that view or argues why they're wrong, that isn't anything more than the trivial statement of opinions. I think that's probably where you're running into problems with others, as you've indicated that people have considered your opinion unproven or trivial. Because until you provide reason to support your claim that the Earth's rotation causes tomorrow to become yesterday, it'll remain just an opinion.

I hope this helps. You seem frustrated about not being taken seriously. I assure you that I'm just as frustrated. It's hard to get anyone to take one's ideas seriously. I don't think you've ever taken my ideas seriously.

If you do want to discuss any of this further, please feel free and I'll do my best to respond.

All the best,

Daryl

Dear John,

Thanks for clarifying. I have a much better idea of your position on time now, and I do mostly agree with it. Since you've indicated that you have trouble getting people to discuss the matter with you, I have some suggestions that you're free to take or leave. First of all, if you don't think the Earth's rotation causes time to pass, then you shouldn't use the word "because". You could use "as", or, since that is sometimes used in place of "because", "while" might really be the best.

But in the end, what you're doing is working out a well-oiled statement of your view, and I think simply stating that view might be the wrong way to get people to start discussing it with you. Your statement comes across as a simple doctrinaire assertion, and I know you have reasons for thinking these things, so I'd recommend starting a discussion by stating those reasons in context, rather than just your conclusions/overall opinion on the matter of time, which really doesn't provide an opening for discussion. When you state an opinion without apparent cause, and without any reasoning, whether anyone agrees with it or not, it's difficult to know how to respond, and I suspect most just won't (and you've indicated that they don't).

And finally, most importantly, while a number of people *will* agree with this position to some extent or other (as I said, I mostly do), you do need to recognise, and you need to learn to appreciate, the reasons why many people think that this basic idea of the functioning of time simply can't be correct. The most significant obstacle in the matter is surely relativity, but there are obstacles related to quantum theory, for example, *even though quantum mechanics has been historically based on a classical conception of time*. For an example of how someone might respond from that perspective, you could look at Ken Wharton's responses to me over on his essay page.

The bottom line in all of this is *reason*. If you want to convince someone that the way you view time is correct, you need to provide reason why conclusions they've drawn from physical theory could be in error, or could be interpreted another way and remain consistent with empirical evidence. For example, prior to the discovery of relativity, the ticking of clocks in all inertial frames was thought to be absolute; but Einstein showed with simple thought experiments (e.g., the one that I've used in my essay) that if the speed of light is to be constant in all inertial frames (as empirical evidence suggested) this simply can't be the case. The irrefutable reason is that the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is longer than its legs. If you're arguing in favour of presentism, amongst other things you do need to explain the flaw in Einstein's reasoning. There is no other way to convince people who've reasoned that, according to relativity, presentism is wrong.

I hope this helps. Maybe I should add that when I say I mostly agree with your position, the reason I don't completely agree with it is that I think temporal passage is a more fundamental aspect of reality that doesn't result from continuous change, or the motion of things that exist. I think change *can* occur because time passes, and that the order of that passage has to do with a very basic metrical structure--namely, the fundamental symmetry of nature. So about the order, or consistent measure of temporal passage, I don't personally think that it can be *caused by* relative change, although it's certainly evident *through* relative change. For an insightful discussion, I'd recommend reading the part of St Augustine's Confessions that deals with time. I think it's book 11. I think his discussion of the duration of syllables really illustrates this.

Best wishes,

Daryl

Dear John,

Believe me that I do understand what you are saying. In fact, this is why I'd urge you to giving up thinking of events as things that "become" or "dissolve" or anything at all like that. Instead, I think the distinction needs to be made between what it means for something to "exist" and what it means for something to "happen". I've tried to state my position as being that the Universe---everything; which is only three-dimensional---exists. And I emphasize the word "exists", because that's where the fourth dimension enters into the description. I think that existence is a well ordered, measured duration that gives rise to the well-defined metrical structure of space-time. And what is space-time in this view? It is the set of "events", "happenings", "occurrences", that "take place" in the Universe as it exists. When we begin to think of events as "existing", we start sneaking a fifth dimension into our conception of reality, because indeed, the idea of the events of space-time as "existing" is a five-dimensional concept, just as the idea of the three-dimensional bodies in the Universe all existing is a four-dimensional concept. That's why I think your idea of events dissolving isn't the right way of looking at it. Something has to exist to dissolve. I think it's best to think of the whole three-dimensional world as existing---i.e., enduring with objectively well-defined order---and then think of events as the things that happen in it as it exists.

I hope that helps you to understand my views better.

Best regards,

Daryl

Thanks for the question, John!

Recall from Tom's essay last year:

"Only with the development of analytical geometry were we able to identify relations between numerically distant points and a local coordinate system." Similarly, only through the development of relativity theory have we been able to accurately identify the relationship between different events and a local space-time metric. Space-time specifically has four-dimensional Lorentzian metrical structure. As I said, I don't think time is just an effect of things happening in space, because space-time does appear to have this objective metrical structure, through which events are just as well ordered in time as they are in space. While I naively define my notion of "existence" as another dimension in my concept of an n-dimensional thing that exists (i.e., I think that's an (n+1)-dimensional concept), I think this is a more formal definition.

You asked "Is there another way to do this?" and I think the Machian spirit of relativity needs to be completely abandoned and replaced by a Newtonian one. I think all that needs to be done is to adopt an objective cosmic rest-frame, as per the evidence, and interpret relativistic solutions geometrically, keeping consistent track of that, rather than in the usual abstract topological way, which considers that the coordinates have no immediate metrical significance.

I know we disagree on this one point, but I can see that our views are otherwise in agreement, as we both think all that's real is three-dimensional space that exists. Perhaps I, more than you, consider space-time as an accurate description of the events that occur in space, though. With this in mind, my question to you is: are you able to appreciate anything about the arguments in my essays that are meant to support this view over the interpretation that relativity most objectively implies a block universe view of reality?

By the way, thanks for the discussion! I've been enjoying it.

Daryl

Dear John,

Sorry for the delay. Of course I agree with your second and third sentences, and I'm glad that we're clear on the first.

It's actually that first point that convinces me that absolute duration has to be a fundamental property of the Universe, just as Newton defined it. Without that basic bit of structure, I don't think it would be possible to describe the speed of light as being the same value in all inertial frames of reference, etc. I think the background structure is necessary to recover the consistent ordered measure that we perceive in reality.

I really do recommend reading the time part in St Augustine's Confessions, because I think he really hit the nail on the head on this point in particular. His discussion of whether a day would seem as long if the Sun were to complete its orbit in half the time, and his discussion of the different lengths of syllables, I think really drive this point home.

Best regards,

Daryl

Dear John,

It seems to me what you're really proposing is that 3D space, or the Universe--which we both agree constitutes all of reality--has absolute properties relating to motion, etc., of the things in it, and that time passes when those things move.

Aside from your thinking that this motion, etc., could actually be the cause of time's passage, I agree with this, inasmuch as I think of 3D space as being real and having certain such properties relating to its existence. In fact, I'd almost be willing to say that as long as we can agree that these properties conspire to produce space-time, as the well-ordered metical description of events that occur in the Universe as it exists, then I'm less concerned about whether the measured passage of time should be chalked up to motion and all that, or absolute passage. That's not to say that I'm not interested in what the actual cause is, but that simply for practical purposes I'm glad that you seem to agree with me that the Universe must have some fundamental property that leads to consistent temporal passage, so that it's not all just willy-nilly.

But with that said, I'm only *almost* willing to agree that the motion of things through the Universe would cause time to pass in this very consistent, uniform manner, because I just can't get past feeling that nothing could ever move about and conspire to be the cause of anything if it didn't *exist* in the first place. And that sense of existence--of things in space simply enduring, regardless of whether they *remain* (in time) in one place--is what I see as a fundamental aspect of change, rest, the passage of time, and the occurrence of all events.

I'm not thinking of this as some vector projected into some aethereal dimension, but simply as an absolute passage of time that's taking place everywhere throughout space consistently, and in such a manner that the local passage of time that occurs when things move about through space in time, is less than the absolute passage, in a geometrically well-defined way.

If you think of the barograph example in my last essay, there really isn't any vector of flow through anything, but just an ordered duration of space and everything in it. And the way space-time fits into that picture, as it's being physically traced out onto a sheet of paper that scrolls along beneath the barograph pens, is very much like your idea of an uncertain future becoming a certain past. If we strip away all the unreal paper, etc., in that second dimension, leaving only the things that exist in space, there's no vector; there's just space, existing, with time passing in an ordered way.

But anyway, I think you do agree with most of this. The only difference that I'm seeing is that I think things first of all have to exist if they could ever move, etc., whereas you're wanting the motion of things to be the fundamental cause of their existence. It seems like a real chicken-and-egg problem to me.

Cheers,

Daryl

"... Like the paper, the past is physically unreal, but it is conceptually emergent."

John, I'm really glad you've understood my example so well! I think that fits in with your view so well, as that last paragraph illustrates.

I'm just not there with you on the chicken and the egg thing, but I do think it's a worthwhile problem to think about, and I think you're asking interesting questions (e.g., I do think time would pass if everything were perfectly still, but it would be impossible for everything to be perfectly still, so there's no way of verifying that. On the other hand, there's always *something* in motion, so why not suggest as you do...).

In the meantime, however, I think it's good to be mindful of the more immediate problem, that most people think there can't be an objective Now, and that reality consists of the past, present, and future, without objective distinction. I think we have to get through on that point first, and start making headway from there, before it will be possible to answer these more fundamental problems.