John,

I totally agree about the sometimes sloppy logic and unfounded assumptions used by physicists. I think the same is true of mathematicians and academic philosophers. To add to your examples, my favorite example of what seems to me to be bad logic deals with infinite sets. If you start off with a single infinite set of the positive integers and want to know how many positive integers there are in the set relative to the total number of integers, the method is to remove the positive integers from the initial single set, and then pair them off with all the integers to get a one-to-one correspondence and the same size for the subset and the original set. This seems similar to removing a nucleus from a cell and studying its properties and assuming they're the same as in the intact cell. This is often not the case and the wrong results are called artifacts in biochemistry. I think mathematicians' thought experiments are still experiments and so you can't just assume that removing a subset from its natural milieu of a single set of the positive integers will give the same results as those obtained in the single set system. But, this is what mathematicians and physicists do. To me, it's sloppy logic and sloppy experimental technique.

Yours in crankiness,

Roger

  • [deleted]

quanta move only in space (not in time) time is a mathematical parameter of quanta motion

http://link.springer.com/search?query=sorli+amrit+

    Roger,

    Very true. Though it is easy to step on toes when dealing in these subjects. One of the points I keep raising, as I just did with John Cox over on the contest thread, is the idea that dimensions are anything more than a mapping device. Three dimensions really are a coordinate system and have to be treated as such. They are no more the foundation of space, than longitude, latitude and altitude are foundational to the surface of this planet. Time as dimension really is based on the narrative, as Tegmark's analogies make quite clear.

    As conceptual reductionism, math describes, it doesn't explain. It gives you a skeleton of the reality, not the seed from which it sprang.

    One of the ironies of this situation, is that if you go back to the ancients and consider that astronomy and astrology started from the same dichotomy. Astronomy described cosmic order, while astrology sought to explain it and then they went of in very different directions, with astronomy part of the foundation of geometry and thus math, while astrology and the mythologies formulated around it, as part of the basis of religion.

    We are surrounded by order, but explaining it can be quite tricky.

    Regards,

    John M

    Amrit,

    Hi. This is very similar to what John and I were talking about in the above posts and what I've got at my website. Needless to say, I agree! Good luck.

    Roger

    https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/filecabinet/time1

    John M., Georgina, et al...

    Nice to see some growth in thinking, I've gained significantly in my level of understanding from this forum as well.

    I won't reiterate my conjecture of an imperfect universe here, which I concisely presented on the contest thread in my first post to Jonathan that John M. referred to [thanks], though it does fit well to the topic of this thread. Where I see QM lacking is in the analytical Cartesian background of a presumed static absolute space and time, which if one looks beyond the artifice clearly implies that if matter is present, the background permeates the particle without either effecting the mass-equivalence or its motion, nor being effected by that material entity. This is really not too different from the thinking that 3D is nothing more or less than an analytic methodology.

    Where I part company with that, is that no mathematician worth their salt is going to assume a Cartesian reference to be anything other than analytical. But that does not preclude a real physicality that follows an inherent geometric, universally. One can rotate a 3D orthogonal infinitely, the point being that it requires three coexistent axes to analytically confirm that either a sphere or a cube changes size uniformly. Arguably, in a cubic relationship the time parameter would be no different from a spatial parameter; space would be flat and time would be static... a cube topologically extrapolated to infinity is the most efficient 'filler' of space. In a spherical relationship which is the most efficient 'encapsulation' of space, a single axis can analytically define the volumetric change to infinity; but... pi is an irrational number, there is no end to the difference between the length of radii and the length of circumference, and so time is dynamic not static.

    If universally the reality is that all of creation seeks to be both flat, smooth and static; and at the same instant (for want of a better word) curved, variegated and dynamic... then it is probabilistic as to where or when an encapsulation of space through time might occur. If the universe were only flat space and static time, there would be no creation of energy. So the question is properly; why is there the same pi relationship in any event if there is not an inherent physicality of existence that we come to recognize and formulate as geometric mathematics?

    Break time, Happy New Year All. jrc

    John C,

    "If universally the reality is that all of creation seeks to be both flat, smooth and static; and at the same instant (for want of a better word) curved, variegated and dynamic..."(network)

    The point I keep making about time, that our linear perception of a sequence of events, with the "point of the present" moving from past to future, is an effect of activity changing the configuration of what is, creates this effect, by the "future becoming past." Potential, to actual, to residual.

    So then what we are measuring is frequency. Such that as an effect of action, it is similar to temperature, which is amplitude en masse. Now we think of time as fundamental, because this sequential effect is foundational to our rational perception, the linear function of the left brain which is the basis of narrative and thus history, as well as cause and effect logic.

    Meanwhile we think of temperature as emergent, the effect of all those energetic forces bouncing around and exchanging energy, yet they are seeking a state of equilibrium, while as a linear effect, frequency en masse is static/noise. What would be called "chop" by a sailor. That is why we have to isolate out a particular frequency and define it as the measure of time, yet it has to be extracted from that larger reality, just as temperature is an expression of the larger reality. So we see temperature top down and time bottom up.

    Newton said that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. What he didn't say is that the reaction is naturally non-linear. Basically a dispersal of the energy and this creates feedback loops throughout the entire system, which serve to balance that particular action and so those particular, linear actions and the sequence we experience, are part of the larger whole of thermodynamic activity. It should be noted that the non-linear, emotional and intuitive right side of the brain amounts to a scalar function, like a thermostat, or pressure gauge and that is why emotions are often referred to in terms of heat, or pressure, while intuition emerges as a cumulative effect of one's knowledge base.

    So now if we take away time and treat it as an property of activity, this leaves space. Yes, the three dimensions are a coordinate system and no more foundational to space than longitude, latitude and altitude are foundational to the surface of the planet. They are mapping devices and as such are descriptive, not prescriptive. Like frequency and amplitude as descriptive of waves, not their cause.

    So if we remove all physical properties from space, this leaves the non-physical qualities of neutrality and infinity. Since neither are physical, they don't require physical explanations.

    While infinity might seem obvious, the interesting aspect is neutrality, ie. equilibrium. General Relativity implicitly assumes this by using the speed of light as its constant. Basically we could conduct an experiment, based on GR, by placing clocks around in space, until we find the one which runs the fastest and that would be closest to the state of equilibrium of space. Literally the foundation of reality inherent to all space. So then we go back to temperature and how it is energy seeking that state of equilibrium. Since space is infinite, energy disperses infinitely, but because space is infinite, energy lost from one area is replaced by energy radiating from adjoining areas.

    Still trying to model it beyond this, but since no one seems willing to even consider this, I don't get any feedback.

    Regards,

    John M

    Hi John R.,

    you wrote "Where I see QM lacking is in the analytical Cartesian background of a presumed static absolute space and time......" Which, as I see it, is as it should be.It doesn't fit easily and it doesn't belong there. Transmission of light from object to observer has nothing to do with the Object reality of unobserved quantum particles.

    It isn't necessary to encapsulate space with time. If the passage of time is recycling and continuation of what is into the new what is, the former arrangemenet being replaced :then there is just an imaginary sequence along an imaginary time line, and what is. Prior to observation all possible orientations of referenvce frame are possible and so the object is in a superposition of states being all that it might possibly be obsered to be. Observation imposes the reference frame and due to the non-instantaneous transmission of light, wherby the environment is detected, an emergent temporal dimension to the output Image reality is introduced.

    You wrote " If the universe were only flat space and static time, there would be no creation of energy. " Energy is the change or potential for change. Everything is in motion even if it appears static in a particular reference frame.I have been fascinated by the demonstration of this using Foucault's pendulum. It just obeys Newton's Law of a body in motion remaining in the same motion, while the Earth rotates below it. Its beautiful. If passage of time is equated with universal change then it does not need to be added to the mix as an aditional parameter. One might, I'll argue, just as legitimately chop the imaginary sequence into equal slices and label them A,B,C,D,E,F,G rather than asign times to them, ie correlating each iteration to a position of a 'clock's hands'.

    Dartmouth professor on Foucault's pendulum

    Georgina and John Merryman,

    Agree to disagree as we mutually do, so far Time Hypotheses have proven testable only within their own construct. Some folk, such as Steve Agnew, treat space as emergent.

    While I would agree that any future event is only a potential, physically it would not exist. As a crude illustration, I had been encouraged as a child to be an artist because doodling in mimicry of my Grandpa's cartoons kept me out of Mom's hair, I came to learn to know I'd never make a living at it. On a few memorable occasions however, I have had the experience of having studied a subject thoroughly enough that in the act of drawing, the perception of the emergent form as the line scribed on the paper was almost like being poised on the future. It is exhilarating, but rare. Not all that is possible is probable.

    The view of Descartes that there is only particulate matter bumping in the void, and extentions of that which require an accompanying field, have been largely disproven experimentally. The Wave Structure of Matter, being an energy field which is somehow self-gravitationally bound, is the most testable hypothesis to date. Superposition and time symmetry have strong evidence in experiment Quantum Mechanically, but I'd have to hunt around for citations on that.

    The point should frequently be stated, that it was the culmination of experiment and analysis in Classical Mechanics that established that light velocity was constant, finite and absolute. Einstein did not simply make an ad hoc assumption, SR was developed to explain how measurement could possibly be made, given absolute light velocity. Chaotic Speed of Light theories ignore, that as Maxwell showed, electrodynamic interactions such as chemical reactions would not be possible without electromagnetic radiation always being the same translational velocity. Yet the oft stated epiphany of Einstein that time stops at light speed, is I think a misperception. Light velocity is perhaps absolute because that is the limit to which time in realtion to space can extend. And I seriously think that can be mathematically defined as the dynamic.

    So my personal prejudice is that spacetime is physically real and energy is the profoundly transient consequence of tension between dynamically extending dimensions of differing operational scales of each. Like a common spiral bi-metal spring rolled out flat on the wotkbench, different intial scale junctions make different size springs. Why would not such a dynamic be a continual creation of existence in an extention of real spacetime evolving particulate matter as a conservation of space?

    'Unitemporal' time is what the end term of SR is about. The only thing relative in relativity is simultaneity. Mathematically it can be said that the observable universe can be measured down to a common moment, given enough super-computer runs. Explaining the true physical nature of the Fitzgerald Lorentz Contraption that makes that common simultaneity measurably possible should be a Holy Grail of physics, though most insist that it has long been fully understood [to which I would say, 'only operationally'].

    je suis Charlie, jrc

    John C,

    Keep in mind that when you measure time, you are measuring an aspect of action. Whether it is rotations of the planet, cycles of a cesium atom, swings of a pendulum, or beats of a heart, it is still a frequency of some particular process.

    While when you measure space, whether it is one dimension of distance, two of area, or three of volume, they are all aspects of space being measured. Meanwhile the argument that lines or area, etc, consist of infinite numbers of dimensionless points, isn't mathematically valid, since even infinity multiplied by zero is still zero. You need space to have space.

    Now the reason Einstein says time stops at the speed of light is because no activity in a frame moving at the speed of light can occur, because the combination would exceed the speed of light. So in order to have action within the frame, be it rotations, cycles, swings, etc, the frame has to be going slower than C and the slower it goes, the faster that internal activity can go. Which leads to my point; If we locate the position of a frame where its internal action can fluctuate the fastest, that would be closest to the equilibrium of space. Now there is an infinite regression, where we might be able to stabilize it even further and so it could run faster, which only goes to show that like a temperature of absolute zero, we can only get very close, not necessarily there.

    It seems ironic they cornered the assassins in a print shop.

    The point I keep making about monotheism is that the absolute is basis, the equilibrium, not an ideal, so a spiritual absolute would necessarily be the essence of being from which we rise, not an ideal of knowledge and judgement from which we fell. Those who assume their cultural ideals are absolute, are merely extremists. We all inhabit particular frames, backed by narrative storylines, within the larger space.

    Regards,

    John M

    John M.

    Where you see the measurement of time to be commensurate with action is generally the standard operational paradigm; a nanosecond is about the length of your forearm. But it being operational, introduces the uncertainty principle with its conjunctive pairs. And that's mathematic. To mathematically reduce to a first principle sans uncertainty, Time might be equitable with energy density.

    I don't want to get into the math, free exchange of ideas is a good and wonderful thing, but math is real product and I'd have to live in Amsterdam or Boulder to get so stupid I'd give back stuff I never stole.

    Charlie lives! jrc

    Thanks so much for the references. The paper Time from quantum entanglement... was very interesting, also quite technical, but I liked that inclusion of clocks. Any discussion of time that does not include clocks is not really a discussion about time.

    The paper involves two time dimensions as rest and moving frame clocks and the corresponding Hamiltonians use optical rotation as a nice little clock. Since time is all about the two dimensions that clocks measure, it is ironic that the conclusion is that there is no time dimension for reality, only spatial dimensions.

    I completely agree that it is the four-space of GR that keeps gravity and charge forces from unification, and it is very likely that spatial clocks can keep time without the extra dimension of time...but it is also true that clocks do not need space to tell time.

    Clocks only need matter and action and so time can be two of the dimensions from which space emerges. Clocks necessarily have two dimensions; a period or tick rate and a decay of the period over time. The polarization clock ticks with the period of the light frequency, but that is somewhat lost in this paper. Moreover, the decay of the clock is set by the stability of the period over time, also a point that the paper does not cover, the Anderson deviation.

    The paper does do a nice job with entanglement and the rest and moving clocks can therefore interfere with each other, but the key to unification is with the two dimensions of time and not with space at all. Note that you talk about time travel because you think of time like space. Since time is simply a way to know objects are separate from each other, time travel has no meaning without an a priori and implicit assumption of space.

    A space that emerges from the action of objects in time means that there is no sense to the notion of a journey back in time and the decay of each clock's period points the direction of time. Time is primal, not space...

    John C,

    But I have to live in a world where I can't time travel through wormholes along the fourth dimension.

    Math is a tool to describe this reality, not an escape to another.

    Regards,

    John M

    Merryman,

    Both math and reality seem to escape you, judging from the photograph made by Wolfgang Pauli and Richard Feynman. JR

    John C,

    Presumably it is not of multiverses.

    Regards,

    John M

    10 days later
    • [deleted]

    Quote from article:"If you have a million dollars, you are a million times more likely to get an extra dollar than someone who only has one dollar, according to this model." That is because when you have a network in which one node has many connections, if another node enters the network, it is highly likely that this new node will also connect to a highly connected node.

    My response: Yes, that is correct.

    • [deleted]

    Another quote from the article: However, microscopic processes are time symmetric--collisions between atoms or chemical reactions--can occur backwards or forwards.

    My response: Reality is time symmetric.

    • [deleted]

    Is anybody else having trouble scrolling after expanding thread to view all comments? email won't link either.

    • [deleted]

    A misinformed sciforums.com member said:

    The grandfather paradox is nonsense because time is a measure of local motion. It isn't something we move or travel through.

    My response: Of course it is. How else can we get from one place to another? Time travel is demonstrated mathematically by the existence of closed time-like curves

    • [deleted]

    Reality is reversed in time symmetry.

    • [deleted]

    A sciforums member wrote:

    when systems join to cross into/over. there's a " drift " of energy moving with the entity from one system to another, for a brief moment. the signature.

    as you know[hopefully], temp is nothing but an energy level. for a moment as crossing into another system, there's an energy buildup [disturbance that creates the moment of equilibrium][like a chemical reaction,stress on the system moves the energy to a less stressful moment,equilibrium.].. the signature.

    that's all this time symmetry is, nothing more.

    as for replacing the former, i have no clue what you mean.

    I responded with:

    Reality is an energy system transferring from one moment to another? Also, are you saying time is not real?