Why Time Might Not Be an Illusion

I think the right answer has to be some kind of mixture of the A theory of time (time flowing) and B theory (Einstein). I think the real challenge with A theory is consciousness, as we perceive flow and cannot choose to go back in time. We can choose to go between B theory times. I also think the hard problem of consciousness (how mental states appear from physical states) is intimately tied into time. I think the hard problem is actually caused by what time really is (e.g. consciousness exists through time, but we just cant see it with our evolutionary construction, and if we could we could instantly solve / see the hard problem). Given this evolutionary bias, equiv to not seeing a colour, we need physics to give us something really weird that we can then go 'hey wait a second..this actually is how time works because it's the very solution to how consciousness can possibly be'. In otherwords when we have a breakthrough in time or consciousness I think it will have direct ramifications for other. Hopefully Short can uncover some remarkably odd physics from which a translation can occur.

Jack

Website: Philosopher.io

" A theory of time (time flowing) and B theory (Einstein)"

I think time as an axis of space-time is one thing, and 'experiential' time is something else: an attribute of consciousness. They align in various ways.

Ref: Natural reality.

Dear Dr. Short.

The first sentence in the Technical Abstract of your WHY TIME MIGHT NOT BE AN ILLUSION project funded by FQXi.org reads: "Special relativity lies at the heart of modern physics, and has inspired a fundamental shift in our picture of reality, from a spatial state evolving in time to a static block universe."

The earth had a real visible surface for millions of years before any physicists ever appeared on that real visible surface, arrogantly offering their preposterous complex finite guesswork about invisible influences.

The real Universe consists only of one real single unified VISIBLE infinite surface eternally occurring in one single infinite dimension that am always mostly illuminated by finite non-surface light.

Joe Fisher, ORCID ID 0000-0003-3988-8687. Unaffiliated

Jim h

What is fundamental to science is the observer and his need to know. Physics studies our experience of the universe. But the universe is not a show made of "experiences". It is made of "stuff". To think that the universe awaits our gaze in order to happen is once more sitting ourselves at the center of the universe...

Unlike our experience of the universe, the "stuff" of the universe requires a beginning and a causally driven state of existence and evolution. When we remove the observer (appearance/experience), all that is left is existence. The universe exists and happens. Understanding the universe consists in finding the logical boundaries that allow its existence and evolution.

In my essay, I suggest that while we can't pop "being" from "nothing" (rule of non-contradiction), we may find "happening" (dynamics) somewhere between nothing and being. The built-in "causality" in this "monistic" dynamic system is a higher probability of existence toward a more logical state of affair. And this (ontological) higher probability of existence of a particle in a place is matching or correlates with our probability of finding it there.

So, "being" in our universe is impossible. Instead we got "happening", and the rules are about "where" it happens.

Marcel,

Time is easy once you see it. The mechanism and pressure that regulate the pace of "time" is the same throughout the universe. A water clock on the Nile and and one on the Mississippi drip along only slightly untrue due to elevation and temperature. A quartz watch. An atomic standard clock. They all, at the bottom level, rely on the structure and pressure of the Universe. Every atom, every photon. Everywhere in the Universe all is uniformly paced by a common structure under uniform pressure; only slightly disturbed here and there by concentrations of mass and energy.

Marcel,

Your first 2 paragraphs are a good summary of the materialist position with which I disagree.

To me the heart of the matter is that you can assign no attributes whatsoever to the "stuff" of which the universe is "made" - it's not even a concept, just a word. Similarly, the word "exist" has no articulable meaning other than "is experienced".

More to the point of the original article: if I say the block universe "has to leap into being at some point" I've already assumed a meta-time outside of spacetime, and I'm talking about the need for time to have a beginning at a point within that meta-time. But let experiential time be an attribute of consciousness, and the perceived need goes away.

Jim,

"Similarly, the word "exist" has no articulable meaning other than "is experienced"."

Semantic, vocabulary?

What do you call the "state" the universe was in during the past 13.8 billion years before we showed up to "experience" it?

I call it "existence". What do you call it?

Thanks,

Marcel,

Tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth turns. Any "flow," in this existential present, is future to past. Probable to actual to residual. Every action is its own clock, its own frequency. All in the same state of presence.

Including each and every mind. Flashes of consciousness.

Marcel,

What "state" is a photo in before it's detected? QM says it has no definite state - no specific position or velocity. So did it 'exist'? We feel like something was there - a wave function, a matrix of possibilities. But I don't think we're justified in saying the photon "existed" before it was observed.

I like the quote from Renato Renner in this article: "You have to give up something you took for granted, something that's almost hard-coded in

our brains." And I think what we have to give up is physicalism. And not because it's "wrong" but because it's ultimately meaningless.

I think this is an informative post and it is very useful and knowledgeable. I really enjoyed reading this post. big fan, thank you!

- roll the ball

Jim,

"QM says it has no definite state..."

The meaning of "state" in QM is different, and refers both to the state of our knowledge as well as to the quantum state due to our interaction required to acquire this knowledge. A measurement applies a constraint on the wave functions that forces its temporary quantization. (A constraint introduces a boundary on the normal distribution of the parameter being measured, clipping the infinity tails on each sides, creating a box within which the wave function appears with specific modes i.e. quantized)

But here, we have atoms, stars and galaxies...

What do you call the "state" the universe was in during the past 13.8 billion years before we showed up to "experience" it?

Thanks,

Marcel,

Jim,

One way to think of physicalism is a dichotomy of energy and information. Energy manifests information, or it would collapse into a black hole, while information defines energy. How would a wave, for instance, be understood, other than as frequency and amplitude? So particles/quanta are energy with various parameters of information.

Consider that as biological organisms, we evolved the central nervous system to process information and the digestive, respiratory and circulation systems to process energy, to propel that information gathering.

Then consider that as energy is "conserved," it is always and only present. So the natural change of this energy means the information is constantly changing. This creates time. As energy goes from one configuration to the next, it goes past to future, while these forms, the information, goes future to past.

Consider, as an example, that conscious goes past to future, as particular thoughts go future to past.

When asked what was around before the Big Bang, Stephen Hawking confidently replied that nothing preceded the Big Bang.

The earth had a real visible surface for millions of years before any physicists ever appeared on that real visible surface, arrogantly offering their preposterous complex finite guesswork about invisible influences.

The real Universe consists only of one real single unified VISIBLE infinite surface eternally occurring in one single infinite dimension that am always mostly illuminated by finite non-surface light.

Joe Fisher, ORCID ID 0000-0003-3988-8687. Unaffiliated

Marcel, John, continuing this exchange would lead to the familiar debate of idealism vs realism (or physicalism) and while I enjoy that debate, I'm just an amateur - many people, from Berkeley through Wheeler, have made that case better than I ever could. My take is that relativity and QM weighed in heavily on the side of idealism, removing - respectively - the obvective 'now' and the flow of time, and 'solid matter', from whatever reality exists apart from our experiences.

So rather than continue to hijack this thread, I refer you to those people - John Wheeler, especially.

As an non professional, that is, an amateur, you have some advantage when it comes to seeing and speaking the truth. Nine out of ten physics pros can not voice serious question about sacred dogma. But you can. They, those 9 in 10, are not stupid they are human and want to belong, to get paid, to fit in and not be the butt of jokes. You, however, can question the nature of time in a serious manner. You could even dispute the Big Bang where a pro would need to parse his or her words with care to prepare for a possible revolution at some future date while protecting their present position.

Your thoughts on time are closer to reality than most of the pros. Time is not fundamental in a primary sense but it is a direct result of what is fundamental.

Sherman

Sherman,

Thanks for the encouragement! I noticed some others mentioned similar ideas about time. Hopefully, some academic physicists actually read some of the comments and essays by amateurs like us, but I'm guessing they don't. As you said, they belong to a community and don't want to sound like crackpots, and they're also busy, but it does get frustrating sometimes Sometimes, I cynically think that they set up fora like this just to give the amateurs an outlet so that we then don't bother them! :-) But, the only thing we can do is keep on thinking and maybe try to get some evidence someday for our ideas. Good luck to us all on that!

Roger

Dear Jim Hughes,

Reality am not debatable.

When asked what was around before the Big Bang, Stephen Hawking confidently replied that nothing preceded the Big Bang.

The earth had a real visible surface for millions of years before any physicists ever appeared on that real visible surface, arrogantly offering their preposterous complex finite guesswork about invisible influences.

The real Universe consists only of one real single unified VISIBLE infinite surface eternally occurring in one single infinite dimension that am always mostly illuminated by finite non-surface light.

Joe Fisher, ORCID ID 0000-0003-3988-8687. Unaffiliated

There are also comparatively recent, apparently overlooked maths for investigating time.

"Non-well founded sets" give us a way to introduce "streams" into a discussion if time:

properTime = (moment, properTime)

Substituting on the RHS of the equation:

properTime = (moment, (moment, (moment..., properTime)...)

And properTime becomes a "stream" of moments, solving the problem of time's arrow.

Including "nonstandard analysis" yields a "nonstandard past" and a "nonstandard future," each infinitely close to the "standard present."

moment = (nonstandardPast, standardPresent, nonstandardFuture)

Then using the math of "situation theory," the nonstandardFuture "models" where possibilities exist and the nonstandardPast "models" where information (in the form of "infons") exists.

That enables looking at the Born rule as an "infomorphism," as in the math of Barwise's "channel theory".

Which is an example of "the inverse relationship principle"-- that when possibilities decrease, information decreases abd vice versa-- as in Barwise's math of "Informationalism."

All of these are maths which are currently overlooked.

(More elsewhere on the site.)

Dear Lee Bloomquist,

Concrete evidence exists that proves conclusively that the earth had a real visible surface for millions of years before any mathematician ever appeared on that surface.

It logically follows that Nature must have devised the only real physical structure obtainable and mathematicians had nothing to do with it.

The real Universe consists only of one real single unified VISIBLE infinite surface eternally occurring in one single infinite dimension that am always mostly illuminated by finite non-surface light.

Joe Fisher, ORCID ID 0000-0003-3988-8687. Unaffiliated