ps: sorry for all the "actually"s
mm
Q&A with Paul Davies: What is Time?
Mathew,
Maybe, I didn't understand what "very significant error" you are referring to. I maintain that SR denies an ubiquitous objective now.
Einstein wrote on p. 894 [We] "have evidently obtained a definition of "simultaneous," or "synchronous," and of "time".
On p. 897 he concluded:
"that two events which, viewed from a system of co-ordinates, are simultaneous, can no longer be looked upon as simultaneous events when envisaged from a system which is in motion relatively to that system."
In German he twice wrote "betrachtet":
"dass zwei Ereignisse, welche von einem Koordinatensystem aus betrachtet, gleichzeitig sind, von einem relativ zu diesem System bewegten System aus betrachtet, nicht mehr als gleichzeitige Ereignisse aufzufassen sind."
The interpreter translated "betrachtet" in the first case with viewed and in the second case with envisaged. "Look upon" is also not quite the same as auffassen.
Actually, simultaneity cannot at all be directly observed. Einstein claimed: "we cannot attach any absolute signification to the concept of simultaneity, and this is due to his Poincaré synchronization. In other words, this very basis of SR is not justified at all.
Eckard
Just some comments on the actual lead article to this forum.
Professor Davies says,
"time of course exists. We measure it with clocks. Clocks don't measure the flow of time, they measure intervals of time. Of course there are intervals of time between different events, that's what clocks measure".
But this seems to be jumping to conclusions, if we consider "time of course exists. We measure it with clocks.", then that's great because we can have a close look at a "clock" and really work out what it "measures".
As far as I can tell, any "clock" is typically a "motor", driven by a store of energy in a clear and specific place ( e.g. a spring or electrical cell). And, with the power supply in place the hands on the motor will rotate, depleting the energy source as they do so.
Without the power source the motor consistently wont be running.. so the machine clearly measures something to do with the spring, or cell etc
So a "clock" is a motor that "measures", and releases energy through its mechanism in a clear 3d path. Such a motor also displays examples of smooth regular motion as its hands rotate.
Taking "dimension" to be a "A measurable extent of a particular kind", we can see the measurable, or comparable motion of the tip of a rotating hand, and usefully compare that motion to some other motion (e.g. the motion of a runner on a track).
But while a close examination of a "clock" seems to show, the existence and flow of the measurable and store-able energy in it's spring or battery etc, such a motor does not seem to also show, at all, is the existence of a "temporal record of all events existing in some way in a 'past' ".
Likewise such a motor does not seem to show the existence of a "future", and does not seem to show that extra to the flow of energy through its mechanism, in clearly defined physical paths, there is also a thing called "time" that exists and is "passing". Also such a motor does not seem to actually show "intervals" of "time", or to measure them
As far as I can tell, all a clock seems to actually show is that a set of hands can be made to rotate on a numbered dial without significant acceleration.
Thus, given this is a scientific forum, we have to consider it may be very widespread "confirmation bias" that leads us to assume that the dimension ( measurable fact or quantity) of a rotating hand (i.e nothing more than motion) in some way also measures "intervals" of an unseen "thing" passing in its own invisible dimension.
( i.e. whether time exists or not, observing the simple motion of a rotating hand , and just "calling" that example of motion "time" is not a scientific proof, just as it is illogical for some one to observe a dog, "call" it a dragon, and start thinking they have proof "dragons" exist, and wondering whether dragons are real or emergent) .
Where the professor says "Of course there are intervals of time between different events, that's what clocks measure."
This may be worth looking at closer. "Of course there are intervals of time between different events" implies it is in some way obvious, or a priori, that there are "intervals" between "events"... and thus time exists... and may be dilated.. and a 4th dimension... and part of space time... etc ( so a lot is at stake on this small point).
But consider the apparent "interval of time" between receiving a very hot coffee, and it being cool enough to drink safely. You may get the coffee, and notice a clocks big hand pointing straight up. The coffee cools, and the clock hands rotate. As the "big" hand rotates, you find that as it is 30 degrees from the top, the coffee is cool enough to drink.
But, here consider very, very carefully what is actually observed, and what is not observed. It is observed that coffee in a coffee pot can be being heated and getting hotter. And that cups of coffees can be very hot. And that cups of coffee in a cooler room can be cooling down loosing their heat to their surroundings.
It is also observed that motors can be running if they have a power source, and that motorised hands can rotate on numbered dials... and that people can be observing and comparing both things (coffee cooling, hands rotating) , or not.
But whether motorised hands are rotating or not, and if coffee is heating, or cooling or not, what does not actually seem to be observed is that there is also a thing called "time" passing between a "future" and a "past", or that an "interval" of this time thing passes as coffee is cooling... or as anything is happening.
What I think is observed (in this experiment and everywhere else), is that everywhere, everything is "constantly" doing something... be it gaining or loosing heat from its surroundings, having energy flow through its mechanism, integrating, disintegrating or being stationary, or moving etc, etc, etc. But in all cases, everywhere , it seems matter is existing, and energy is flowing through it, and there is no indication that extra to quantities of energy things also take "intervals" of a thing called "time".
(an important point here, what I am saying is falsifiable, so if anyone reading can scientifically prove to a reasonable degree,(as opposed to just "claim", or duplicate famous quotes), that there is a past, or a future, or that extra to energy a thing called "time" must be present for things to be moving and changing... or if anyone can prove matter/energy does not just exist and move in all directions,as constantly observed, then my suggestion is moot).
So, with respect, I think it may be extremely important for anyone wanting to scientifically understand this aspect of the universe, to first consider that despite common assumptions...
, we do not seem to actually directly or indirectly observe " intervals of a thing called time passing from an invisible future to an invisible past in a 4th dimension" ( or how ever each person tries to describe this concept)
But we do seem to observe
1- Matter existing, and
2- Matter moving changing and interacting in all directions.
(this leaves the mathematics of Special Relativity valid and intact... but more about the fact that moving oscillators run slow, than being a proof that there is a thing called "time", merged with space, that can be traveled through or dilated etc).
And to consider that while all that is said about a thing called "time" may seem to be true, none of it seems verifiable, or falsifiable... i.e. "time" seems to be something that looks valid if we make the evidence fit the idea... and yet we seem to have no scientific experiments, as per the scientific method, to prove the existence of time, or the past or the future. This is why I think the theory of time may be "the elephant in the room, wearing the emperor's new robe".
Please note, I respect Professor Davies, I'm only posting this here because he expresses some common assumptions re "time existing" (that I think can be seriously questioned), and because I entered a video in the FQXI competition, expanding on the above, and which happens to reanalyse an article by the professor on "the wormhole billiard ball paradox".
Just my thoughts
Matthew Marsden
(auth "A Brief History of Timelessness")
"Time travel, Worm hole, billiard ball' paradox, Timelessly. (re Paul Davies- New scientist article) "
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2244
Let me defend Paul Davies. I guess your will not get much support. If I recall correctly some years ago I also used the expression "zeitlose Physik" but in a rather mocking attitude, in a critical meaning. In English I preferred "tense-less".
Kant, Poincaré, and Minkowski, the fathers of spacetime adopted the very old abstract concept of time scale along which the now is moving allegedly without any relevance for physics. They considered time as an a priori pre-existing dimension like space. Please find my explanation of the confusion in Fig. 1 of my 2012 essay "Questioning Pre-Mathematical Intuitions".
Did you enjoy seeing a movie running backward? This may illustrate how physics differs from reality. Physics always just provides models of reality.
Eckard Blumschein
Eckard, Matt,
I think there is a lot of the dynamics of psychology involved. As I've been arguing, structure is necessarily static, while energy is inherently dynamic and since physics prides itself in being intellectually structured, it has a built in preference for very ordered forms and structured arguments. The result being a form of academic obsession with increasingly arcane points, such as teasing out how the math could prove non-locality and whether it means it is physically real, when physical intuition is obviously opposed, yet leave increasing numbers of conceptual issues, especially surrounding the issue of time, which was the topic of the very first contest, unanswered, because this static conclusion has been reached and presumably settled, to the members in standing of the community.
Regards,
John M
John M,
"Obsession with increasingly arcane points" surrounding the issue of time? Yes, when I checked the winning essays of the first contest, I was disappointed. Most of them dealt with efforts to reconcile time with what I indeed consider rather arcane: quantum gravity. Carlo Rovelli even dealt with Loop Quantum Gravity. Considering spacetime a gospel is common to the whole establishment. George Ellis tried what I consider impossible: unification of what is obvious with theory. While at least Sean Carroll preferred a "Heraclitean Universe", Klaus Kiefer spoke of "fundamental timelessness, and Julian Barbour meant that "duration and the behavior of clocks emerge from a timeless law that governs change".
While I don't see any reason to doubt that there are timeless laws, they all missed a perhaps decisive point: reality is different from even the most sophisticated models in that according to Popper, the border between past and future is open to a limitless multitude of memories from past processes.
That's why I don't expect any relevance of the winning essays in science and technology. They missed the chance to reveal possibly decisive basic mistakes.
Incidentally, did you meanwhile check the video "Is the Big Bang a Hoax"? Even if the presentation may be a bit simplifying, I regard it worth looking at, not just for kids. Can you recommend other videos, too? To me it looks as if a discussion is not welcome.
Eckard
Eckard,
I will get to it, though it might be a little bit. I think I'm going to get myself a new computer for xmas. Right now various programs are out of date and some of the recent videos won't download and tell me to download the latest version, but that never seems to fully work on my satellite connection. It is one of my ways not to get too drawn into the online world.
Most of my finds, raising issues with current cosmology, I've posted here in various discussions. I suppose you saw where Zeeya put up a blog post, where I subsequently gathered them and added ones since.
For now I think it still has a few years before either the cosmological community comes to accept there is a real issue, or, more likely, has it thrust on them by overwhelming evidence, or a larger movement in the broader physics community, so I find myself more drawn to current events and how these various disparate historical narratives and their resulting political frames are bumping into one another and raising the social temperatures around the world, in a form of political global warming. The credit bubble sustaining the economic status quo looks far more unstable than the cosmological speculative bubble.
Regards and Best Wishes,
John M
John M,
Best wishes for improving your computer abilities! According to Magicpedia, Alvin Duane Schneider was born in 1943 and has a BS in physics. This seems to confirm that Al Schneider offered in his BB video his own reasoning rather than already scrutinized careful work. However, I am not aware of better presented alternatives to the BB. Perhaps, you can point us to such heresy.
Pondering about your distinction between static and dynamic, I see the latter corresponding to the Heraclitean view in contrast to Einstein's Parmenidean view. An a priori given timescale is static; this structure was imagined to extend eternally from minus infinity to plus infinity until the hypothesis of a BB reintroduced the belief in genesis. According to Augustinus, God's BB created the time. Seeing the future, Bee Hossenfelder's video mystifies the logical way out: The universe must be deprived of its original all-inclusive meaning and vaguely envisioned as onion-like embedded into something infinite. For my taste, such hopes for ultimate unitarity provide a questionable basis for physics.
Instead, I maintain my suggestion to conceptually distinguish between what can be measured and what was abstracted from this measure and then extrapolated.
You are calling the only measurable, reality-bound actually elapsed time dynamic but Einstein's abstract and therefore arbitrarily modifiable event-related ordinary time static. Don't you?
Common to both scales is the notion of a positive temporal distance alias delay. Just the chosen points of reference and the directions of increase are different. Natural reference is zero elapsed time. Ordinary time needs an arbitrarily chosen point zero. So called flow if time refers to the latter.
Regards,
Eckard
Eckard,
I have to say I'm following the dynamics of the status quo, as much as those offering alternate viewpoints, because so much of it is group psychology and how they deal with these increasingly fantastical solutions to the many problems, since questioning the foundations isn't tolerated. It is somewhat similar to the current political and economic dynamic, where they have themselves so buried in the consequences of short term thinking and patching over past mistakes that the detachment from reality is becoming obvious to all, but it cannot be admitted.
I posted a short version of what I see as most obviously wrong with cosmology on the Why Quantum thread, Sep. 13, 2014 @ 02:32, on a subthread that starts Sep. 12, 2014 @ 09:01, but you have probably heard it before.
I think the whole issue of measurement does have to be put in context of what is being measured, or it takes over the whole debate and the underlaying reality is lost. It becomes all map and the territory becomes incidental. For one thing, time is dynamic, so any point zero has to be conditional.
As I keep saying, there really are two, opposing directions. Energy goes from prior forms to succeeding ones, past to future, while these forms go from potential, to actual, to residual, thus future to past. So would you consider the zero point in terms of the energy, which is physically present, but doesn't have a point of reference that is not in some way transitional form, or is the zero point a particular configuration which will rapidly fade into the past?
Measurement creates its own limitations.
Regards,
John M
Ps,
Of course there have to be measurements, maps, models, etc, but they are descriptive, not some platonic basis for what is being described. It is human ego to assume these mental constructs are more real than what is being perceived.
Hi Eckard,
in reply to
Maybe, I didn't understand what "very significant error" you are referring to. I maintain that SR denies an ubiquitous objective now.
The post attached below, that I made on the "what is space-time" video, may explain what i mean.
(I realllly cant type it all out again in a different format :)
Essentially I am suggesting there may be some serious, false assumptions right at the start of SR, which change it's entire meaning.
critically, if the paper does not in fact prove the existence of "time", but just calls motion time, and moves on, then all talk of (ubiquitous) simultaneity , or non- simultaneity is moot.
we can line up the rotating pointers on numbered dials, as much as we want and move them around as much as we want, and observe that some may move slower than others in transit ( dilate) - but...
in my opinion...unless you, or others can point to an actual proof that there is a thing called "time" that is indicated by a rotating hand, then Relativities assumptions about such machines called "clocks",(or more sophisticated version of them) , do not imo, show
-that there are "different nows", or
-"anything but now", or
-"that a thing called time exists and can be dilated"...
m,marsden
auth "A Brief History of Timelessness" > http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I09XHMQ
-----------the "what is space time?" post ----
Dear Mr Durand,
Thank you very much for your very well presented video "what is space-time?"
I wish you luck in the contest, but rather excitingly, our entries are in direct conflict, (which at least makes for interesting science).
Concerning this, I would like to take this opportunity to ask you a question, which I believe, if you can't resolve, may show that your presentation may not be about a genuine phenomena at all. i.e. with respect how it may be wrong.
Specifically, re your video "What is Space-Time?" you say at the start...
"One of the fundamental discoveries of Relativity is that contrary to what our senses tell us we do not live in a 3 dimensional space but a space-time that has four dimensions".
The validity or not, of the concept of space-time has massive consequences, and many, many scientists accept it, so I'm sure as a physicist it's important to you to be certain via your own analysis, that its foundations are actually solid.
So, to check our most basic assumptions as to what "Special Relativity" reasonably proves (and does not prove), concerning "Time", we check Einstein's seminal paper on Special Relativity, "Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper".
In English. "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" (http://goo.gl/FzwvmB),where,
section 1 "The Definition of Simultaneity" clearly says...
If we wish to describe the motion of a material point, we give the values of its co-ordinates as functions of the time... [so we must be]... quite clear as to what we understand by "time."
...If, for instance, I say, "That train arrives here at 7 o'clock," I mean something like this: "The pointing of the small hand of my watch to 7 and the arrival of the train are simultaneous events."
And here, either I have missed something, or there is a potentially massive, unverified, yet critical assumption at the heart of SR, which (imo) changes the essential meaning of the paper very significantly.
Specifically, the paper says... "if we wish to describe the motion of a material point, we give the values of its co-ordinates as functions of the time"
... but the paper in fact, clearly only describes comparing the values of the [spatial] coordinates of one material object ( a train), to the values of the spatial coordinates of another material object - i.e. "the tip of a motorised hand rotating on a dial"
- so, in fact, effectively electrodynamics, just refers to one example of motion, "motion", and another example of motion "time".
-------------------------- Questionable assumptions
In other words, at this precise point, in an extremely important paper, leading to the conclusion of "space-time", that your own, and countless other talks, refer to at the start:
- "The existence of a thing called Time, is in no way explained, but just, and only assumed".
As far as I can tell, all that could be said to actually be observed in the "train" scenario is that...
-One material object/point e.g. "a train", exists, and can be moving or stationary...
-Another material object/point, "the rotating hand", exists, and can be moving or stationary.
-And, the location and/or velocity of two objects can be being compared, if one so chooses.
What does not seem to be observed, but seems only to be (unscientifically) just assumed is...
-It is assumed, but not shown that as an object exists and/or moves, a thing called "time" exists and passes.
-it is assumed but not shown, that a rotating hand on a numbered dial, marks the existence and "passing" of this time thing.
-It is assumed The concept of "time", and, apparently "different times" (i.e. non- synchronous events) is legitimate.
Critically, concerning the motorised hand, the paper calls it a "watch hand", and if we take "dimension" to be "A measurable extent of a particular kind" (OED), then (imo) Relativity seems to just take the "dimension" of pure and simple motion in a physical direction... and just consistently refer to is as a "dimension called time"
- i.e. correct me if I'm wrong but the paper seems to just "call" motion, time.
For well understood reasons Special Relativity shows us that the components of any moving oscillator will have further to travel, and thus interact in a dilated fashion ( e.g. photons between opposing mirrors).
But (imo) it is not shown in the paper how the proof that moving things, are changing more slowly, confirms the (blind) assumption, that "a rotating hand" marks the passage of an invisible intangible thing called "time", through an invisible, intangible 4th "temporal/spatial" "dimension".
Likewise it is not shown in Relativity how a rotating hand, or the (agreed) fact moving objects are changing more slowly, proves that there is "time", and that the concept of "different times" is valid.
------------------------- Critical conclusions
As you yourself note at the start of our video, 'our senses tell us we live in 3 dimensional space', to which I would add, "in which matter/energy seems to exist, move and interact in any physical direction".
So, given what our senses tell us, and your belief that the concept of "an extra dimension of time" is valid, and the fact Einstein's "Electrodynamics" paper itself only "assumes", but does not "confirm" the existence of a thing called "time", my question to you is...
Q- Professor Durand, with respect, can you in fact justify your statement that,
"One of the fundamental discoveries of Relativity is that ... space-time that has four dimensions".
do you have a specific reasonable proof, as per the scientific method, that, extra to just matter, space, and motion, an extra "thing", or "dimension", called "time" also exists?...
Or,
Is your reason for assuming this "extra dimension" exists, based on the assumption that, by referring to motion as "time", and, by showing how moving things are changing more slowly than expected, - Relativity itself proves there is a "temporal past", and/or "future", and thus time, and four dimensional "space-time"?
(in other words, can you yourself cite a reasonable proof (e.g. actual experiment), that matter is not "just" existing and interacting, as actually, and only observed, but, that Relativity is right to just assume the existence of a thing called "time"? And thus, that matter is in fact, not just existing, moving and changing, but "evolving through a [4d] space time"? )
And as I say, with respect, I think if you don't actually show workings to address the critical issues these questions (imo) expose, it may appear that the conclusions, your video indicates you accept, may not actually be in accordance with the scientific method.
(And (imo) with a claim that an extra "dimension" called "Time" genuinely exists, showing actual logical reasoning, as opposed to just accepting foundations that others seemed to have "just assumed", and accepting conclusions based on those assumptions, is, in meaningful science, critically important).
Yours very sincerely,
Matthew Marsden.
Auth: A Brief History of Timelessness
(My entries to the competition)
Time Travel,Timeless Answers to Prof Brian Cox's Science of Dr WHO
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2243
Answers to Prof Brian Cox's Science of Dr WHO
Does Time exist? How 'Time travel Paradoxes' can't happen without "the past".
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2245
'Time travel Paradoxes' can't happen without "the past".
Time travel, Worm hole, billiard ball' paradox, Timelessly. (re Paul Davies- New scientist article)
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2244
billiard ball' paradox, Timelessly
"A Brief History of Timelessness" > http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I09XHMQ
M.Marsden. www.timelessness.co.uk
Temporal distance differs from spatial distance mainly in that it is forward directed while space has no naturally preferred direction. Both distances are independent of chosen objects and always positive measures in contrast to measures like e.g. velocity of motion that refer to a particular chosen object.
I see the very significant error in the application of the biased because observer-related and therefore paradoxically asymmetric so called Poincaré synchronization on two objects that are moving relatively to each other. Compare Fig. 2 with Fig. 1 in my last essay. This so called conventional synchronization corresponds to length contraction which was hypothesized by Lorentz in order to explain Michelson's Potsdam/Cleveland 1881/87 null result.
Therefore I don't see SR a discovery.
Eckard
John M,
If we say reality is always right, we are referring to a dispute of physics or other models with reality.
I prefer the metaphor of family trees as to illustrate different properties of past and future. While everybody has exactly one mother and one father, predictions are always more or less uncertain. You mentioned the future that becomes past. I would like to object: Is there really just one future as there is only exactly one past?
I maintain, causality means: Only existing effects (traces of previous processes) may influence new effects. Even an existing expectation does already belong to reality, i.e. to the past. The physically relevant time is the actually elapsed one, not the anticipated one, cf. Fig. 1 in this essay.
Regards,
Eckard
Eckard,
The future as not determined also goes to space being foundational, in that all these currently existing effects are scattered about space and since they can only communicate at the speed they can travel, the speed of light limits communication of input into any event. So we can perceive potential input that travels much less than the speed of light by light transmitted from it, but there can be no knowledge of input traveling at the speed of light.
We could only postulate the existence of some all-knowing frame that can communicate instantly between all points in space to truly know the future.
Now obviously much physical input has great material inertia, whether it is mass, or a pre-existing source of light and the laws governing the outcomes are, by definition, laws, so there is much that is predictable.
It is only our consciousness that is most in the present, while our perception and intellect has to function from the input into these senses and we function best with those most trained, so these trained in the physical senses can better operate very close to the present, while those trained to mental abilities, "think too much" and so exist much more in a determined reality.
Regards,
John M
Then keep in mind while those events in the past do not change in theory, they do provide that information while makes continuing events predictable and so are constantly being recycled.
Part of this is even the act of memory, which is itself an event and so becomes a lens through which the particulars become further infused with additional connections and input.
Even on their occurrence, events are a consequence of being perceived from a particular perspective and so further reflection amounts to a change of perspective.
So while we tend to think of the past as a linear accretion, the reality is far more dynamic and fluid.
John M,
Does the future really go to space? My dictionary tells me that the future is understood as "the period of time that comes after" the current moment. In other words, the position of the current moment on the abstract time scale divides this line into a growing backward arrow of past and a shrinking arrow of future.
Therefore the notions past are never independent from that moment. The future can only become the past if we change its meaning by attributing it to an event.
According to pre-Einsteinian understanding, there is only one common current moment for all locations in the universe and no paradox-free alternative to this reasonably postulated and confirmed in all experience so far ubiquitous synchrony.
You imagine time as something like a signal that propagates. Don't you take a subjectively biased position as did Einstein's use of Poincaré synchronization?
Eckard
"Therefore the notions past are" should read "Therefore the notions past and future are"
Hi Eckard,
e.g. Re your use of the term "Temporal distance".
you seem to be missing my point. For any scientific discussion about some "thing", or "phenomena", to be valid, ( e.g. a thing called "time"), one needs to establish that the phenomena can reasonable be said to exist.
I like posting on FQXI, because it calls itself the Foundational Questions Institute, ( the X symbol stands in for "Physics and Cosmology," our focus).
So this is a valid place to ask foundational questions, i.e. questions about the very roots of our assumptions and theories, and not a place where it ok to just avoid foundational questions, and act as if their answers just exist elsewhere.
( anyone avoiding questions about the foundations of theories etc, here is missing the entire "foundational" point of the institute).
Re this, you start your post above with the word "Temporal",
As in "Temporal distance".
I think it is extremely risky in science if we just casually use terms , e.g. "temporal", as if they certainly relate to existing phenomena, while in fact we are unable to provide proof that the term is valid if asked.
The word "Temporal" implies that you think the concept of "time" is in some way not just a useful idea, but in some way a genuine phenomena.
Therefore, would you please explain...
Q- precisely what your foundational reason is to believe that there is an invisible intangible thing called time, that exists, or "spans" or "passes" etc, such that your use of the term, and thoughts about ,"Temporal distance" is justified.
Many thanks
m.marsden
FQXI video contest entry(s)
Time Travel,Timeless Answers to Prof Brian Cox's Science of Dr WHO
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2243
Answers to Prof Brian Cox's Science of Dr WHO
Does Time exist? How 'Time travel Paradoxes' can't happen without "the past".
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2245
'Time travel Paradoxes' can't happen without "the past".
Time travel, Worm hole, billiard ball' paradox, Timelessly. (re Paul Davies- New scientist article)
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2244
billiard ball' paradox, Timelessly
(auth "A Brief History of Timelessness" > http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00I09XHMQ )
I agree on that FQXi invited and hopefully will go on inviting new questions that may shutter tacit basic assumptions of science. Questioning the existence of time is certainly not new. Most winners of the first contest demonstrated their academic proficiency by efforts to defend space-time and denying some time notions of common sense.
If you ask whether or not something exists you mean is it something real, something actual. Mathematics shows that this is often a tricky and rather futile question. Does the square root of a negative number exist? Obviously not, unless one allows for imaginary numbers.
I feel ignored because I consider the usual, so called scientific notion of event-related time insufficient as soon as one considers how something exists in reality. Common sense has it: There is a complemenrary notion: elapsed time.
Einstein is often quoted having said: "Time is what the clock reads". Nobody can read future time. Any clock shows always only past time.
Eckard
John M,
You often argued that the future becomes past because the earth rotates. Let me object to a second flaw in this utterance. How fast the earth rotates does measurably depend on influences, if for instance the shape of earth changes because the ice at its poles is melting. The measure time is independent from what gave rise to introduce the notion time. Please don't take my corrections amiss.
If clocks are running equally fast then this is not based on any permanent exchange of information between them but we have little reason to doubt that this quality is inherent to the universe.
Eckard