The Nature of Time

Re Lee Smolin's public lecture webcast "Einstein's Unfinished Revolution", 17 April 2019 [1]:

Theoretical physicist Lee Smolin seems to link people who don't believe in rationality and evidence (is he perhaps referring to climate-change deniers, or Donald Trump?) with physicists he calls "anti-realists":

The theory [Quantum Mechanics] these anti-realists [Bohr and Heisenberg] made was not consistent with realism... Now, does this matter?...among the things that we are concerned about...there seem to be a lot of people out there in the world who are gaining or interested in gaining power who don't believe in rationality, in evidence and so forth... "A simple criterion for science to qualify as postmodern is that it be free from any dependence on the concept of objective truth". Let that sink in (Smolin and audience members laugh)... "By this criterion...the...interpretation of quantum physics due to Niels Bohr and the Copenhagen school is seen as postmodernist."

(continued from above)

Lee Smolin represents a very large group of "realist" physicists and philosophers. They have no physics that can account for a situation in which we (and other living things) can intervene and change the world. So their views logically imply that, because we have never, and can never, intervene and change the world, it is the pure and unaided unfolding of laws of nature that caused plastics to litter the planet, damaging wildlife and ecosystems.

Lee Smolin, and all of us, have acquired "higher-level" [2] knowledge of the world, and yet there is no physics that can account for higher-level knowledge; and there is no physics that can link this acquired higher-level knowledge to outcomes in the world - according to physics the only possible outcomes are those determined by laws of nature. So, according to Smolin's view of the world, we can't intervene and make genuine changes to reality (e.g. to avert climate change, and clean up plastic pollution), we just have to hope that the laws of nature, which are based on "lower-level" information, and have no connection to higher-level knowledge of the situation, will somehow fix the problem.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zri9gS1w5ok , quote starting at approximately 19 minutes in.

2. https://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/3255#post_150459

P.S.

Re Time:

I'm contending (https://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/3255#post_150460) that Time IS a type of higher-level knowledge.

Re Lee Smolin's public lecture webcast "Einstein's Unfinished Revolution", 17 April 2019 [1]:

Theoretical physicist Lee Smolin says that a theory (e.g. quantum mechanics) that is complete shouldn't depend on our intervention. But he is assuming that he already knows what the world should be like: he is assuming that the world is such that elements (e.g. living things) can't and don't "intervene" and change the world. I.e. he wrongly assumes that the world is such that, when looked at closely, it is nothing but the unfolding of laws of nature that caused plastics to litter the planet.

Smolin also implies that quantum mechanics must be wrong because the people who formulated the theory had "anti-realist" beliefs. But who would think, for example, that a universe with laws of nature and massy-mass that you could kick would appear out nothing and nowhere? Whatever way you look at it, the foundational aspects of the universe are necessarily "anti-realist".

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zri9gS1w5ok

I'm arguing that information doesn't float in some hypothetical ether. I'm arguing that it is things like particles, atoms and living things that carry/ experience information, including Time information. So, this is the information that particles carry:

1) Categories of information, in the form of law of nature information relationships, which we represent with equations.

2) Quantity/ intensity information, which we represent with numbers that apply to the categories.

3) "Quantum mechanical" information. I'm contending that this comprises higher-level information coupled with outcomes, which can be represented as an algorithmic statement:

3.1) Higher-level true/false conditions and number-change (Time) information

is coupled with

3.2) Higher-level number-change outcomes involving "quantum jumps" of number.

The above post was from me.

Time is like a measure of number jumps. Time is a category devoted to number-jump change in the numbers that apply to other categories of information. While other numbers may go "forward" or "backward", Time merely records that change has occurred, so it always goes "forward".

The time category, like the mass and position categories, is an information relationship which we can represent mathematically (or algorithmically in the case of time); and relative masses, positions and times, can be represented by specific numbers. The imaginary set of all possible position numbers is known as "space", and the imaginary set of all possible time numbers is known as "time".

So, you have time as an information category (i.e. a relationship), time as a specific number, and time as an imaginary set of possible numbers.

The question is: does a law of nature relationship (like the mass, position and time categories) exist "in" the time that is the imaginary set of possible numbers? Clearly, it doesn't: the time category is not a number, so it doesn't exist in the set of possible numbers representing time. But specific time numbers, applying to specific things like particles or people, can be imagined as existing in an imaginary set of possible time numbers.

(The above post is a clarification of the posts "Lorraine Ford wrote on Apr. 14, 2019 @ 00:14 GMT" and "Lorraine Ford replied on Apr. 14, 2019 @ 00:15 GMT".)

See post "Lorraine Ford wrote on Apr. 25, 2019 @ 01:16 GMT", which is a clarification of the above 2 posts.

We would be inclined to assume that time did not exist, as some kind of force or thing, if the Earth did not have it`s rotational motion.

Jim, I agree with a lot you have written here but have two disagreements. I think it is helpful to separate what is happening -Now and what is experienced as the present. Also, even if the Earth did not rotate there would still be other changes happening. Timing does not have to be with a 12 or 24 hr clock. It can be done with a sand or water clock. All that matters is that the change used is regular, not varying in rate. I.e. the duration of the intervals of the chosen timing method are the same as each other.

Here is a new theory of time. It answers a lot of questions.

https://philpapers.org/rec/MERANT-2

Georgina Woodward thanks for your help on a very very early version of the paper, I will put you in the acknowledgements in a future version.

Georgina,

At a fundamental level, time does not exist. The equations of physics, which represent laws of nature, show that at a fundamental level, time does not exist.

The equations of physics show mathematical relationships between categories of information, where mass and position are examples of categories of information. But the equations of physics show that time cannot be represented in a mathematical relationship between fundamental categories of information.

Instead, time is a category that represents change of number for other categories of information: change of number can only be represented by an algorithm; time is information about information, i.e. time is a higher-level category of information.

Hi Lorraine, you wrote "Instead, time is a category that represents change of number for other categories of information:" I don't think that is spot on. Clock time, t, as used in equations, I.e. shown by numbers is a beable change being used for comparison with other variables that can also be shown by numbers. Clock time,t, is just one type of time.

Georgina,

Mass, position and time are natural categories of contextual information, which have existed since the early universe, and still exist now, underlying everything. Seemingly this information does not float in some abstract ether: the information is carried by things like particles and atoms, which existed well before clocks came on the scene.

However time is different to other categories: other categories are relationships between other similar types of categories; but time is a different type of category which records change of number.

A piece pf matter has a particular mass (unmeasured) because of the arrangement of it's constituent particles. Without imposition of an artificial coordinate frame, position is location within and relative to other particles or masses. I see from your reply you are not talking about clock time. (Foundational) Time is the entire arrangement of existing things. Each different entire pattern a different time. Passage of time encompasses all change. Numbers depict measured or calculated outcomes. The measurement and processing of inputs, or calculation process are an in-between requirement.'Information', what is conveyed by a particular sequence or arrangement implies receipt and processing into knowledge (or other product). Time numbers, mass numbers and position numbers are on the knowledge side of the sensory interface with external nature.

This is a paragraph from my one page essay in the first FQXi essay contest, "The Nature of Time." The essay is titled, "Things Happen". It`s the last entered essay in that contest, entry dated December 4th, 2,008.

"The basis of our shared illusion, is our rotating planet. Our natural state in reality, is to be travelling at a surface speed of 1,600 kilometers per hour. Our time systems are based on this motion. At the root of our deception, we take this motion as our time. As the world turns, we see the real and constant effects of that motion in seamless concert with our clocks. This constant evidence of change validates our clocks, and our clocks mark the passage of time. We live on our clock, it`s motion is our time. The marriage of the physical rotational motion, with our systems of time keeping, sets the stage for the illusion to occur. The ingredient that creates the illusion of time, and binds us to it, is our consciousness."

Hi Georgina,

Perhaps my post above, of today`s date, will answer one of your disagreements?

As to the difference between experiencing "Now", and experiencing the "present", I see no difference.

Hi Jim, re. your "We would be inclined to assume that time did not exist, as some kind of force or thing, if the Earth did not have it`s rotational motion". There are other cycles such as life cycles and natural processes like erosion and sedimentation that take time (if you will allow the moon to orbit, tides too). We would think about time differently with no day night cycle-and if you are including orbit around the sun, no seasons.

It is helpful to have a means of differentiating the material happening of an event and the experience of the event via receipt and processing of sensory information. Transmission of the signals that form the sensory input has a duration. The longer the distance between source and recipient the bigger the transmission delay between happening and experience of it.