The Nature of Time

Georgina,

This is exactly my point. A whole material object cannot exist at one time. Otherwise you would admit instantaneity within that object!

And, as the final ultimate judge, the universe says it is not the case.

This is the difference between a contemplatvie view (picture of whole object) and the operational view,where it takes time for the universe to conduct any kind of communication or physical operation between any two parts of this "object".

The concept of object is our own making. Everything is just stuff accross time, something hard to wrap our mind around.

Marcel,

What the universe does or doesn't allow depends on what universe you are talking about. I contend that all that exists exists at the same and only time. Not temporally extended. But existence itself is not visible. I agree it takes time for a disturbance to travel the length of a measuring rod. It does mean the 'communication' had a temporal component. However the measuring rod stays only at one time. Aging all together. So when the impulse reaches the far end, the material origin is as old

Georgina,

1) Take avery long rod vertical in our gravitational field. The end closer to the ground will age more slowly than the other. So, both ends are not at the same moment and age differently.

2) The universe started from a small point, is now huge and even accelerating. The vacuum is a spontaneous process generating more vacuum. Spontaneous generating = explosive. The vacuum is an explosive process, The big Bang is still happening. It was not not an event but the beginning of a process because of a break beween logic and "geometry". This illogical situation is not consumed or resolved and is the source of spontaneity. This spontaneously exploding vacuum is what we call Time.

So, nothing "exists" per se, everything "happens", vacuum and condensed matter. A dynamic process is the only thing that can logically come out of nothingness (QM helping).

Marcel,

Marcei,

I am in general agreement in your brief post. I think it also relevant to the behavior of a material particle in motion without referring to an external field effect. Simplifying... the leading edge of a particle volume dense enough to be inelastic, would not be in/at the same moment in its own volumetric bounds as that of the trailing edge. Any motion could be considered absolute in this respect of self referral because physically the motion would cause the energy at material density to 'smudge, altering its density as a result. Theoretically (as distinct from observationally) we might be able to ascertain a real, absolute value for a particle in motion by predicting a density difference and a real physical contraction both fore and aft along the axis of motion as a coefficient of light velocity; flattening a spherical rest volume to a shape of e prolate spheroid with an attendant expansion laterally perpendicular to the axis of motion.

SR2.0 so to speak. We would still have Lorentz Invariant measurement in any observation, but the causal effect of the reduced density of the particle in motion would be what is observed. Perhaps this could help explain the wave characteristics of EMR which would interact en passant of an external field, while the ballistic characteristic observed in the photo-electric effect would be a capture or collision event which would actually stop the motion of the particulate mass and restore its rest density in the energy exchange. best jrc

correction: to above jrc post - should read ...'shape of an oblate spheroid'...

Marcel. I don't agree. There is an underlying assumption to what you say, that existence can be spread over time. Even if the aging process of the wood happens at different rates the rod is still wholly at the same time. Both within the same and only configuration of material reality.

Consider ice cream in hot coffee. They stay together, 'in time', as thermodynamic equilibrium is approached.

Georgina,

There is no instantaneity along the rod or within the coffee. It is all perception,a picture. Everything is away in time from us. (There is no now) The Sun at 8 minutes, the Moon half a second and so on. Your computer etc. There is no fine print that says the rule stops when we feel uncomfortable about it.

The "material reality" of the rod is that it is made of particles bound by fields, none of it being at the same moment. But, If I am hit with the rod it will hurt, just the same.

Marcel,

Here you are talking about the transmission time of potential sensory stimuli to reach an observer. Before the observation products can be generated by the observer.

When an experiment is conducted, just one parameter should be changed. The one thing being investigated. If that is not so the test is not fair and the results untrustworthy. You would not think it fair if a comparison of duration of an event was conducted using two identical mechanical watches, one immersed in very fine mineral oil- the other in thicker oil. The clocks on planes experiments show a material change has happened not just a signal delay effect that would have the clocks tell the same time when reunited. A material difference indicates exposure to different conditions. Difference in concentration of the base existence at lower and higher altitude could account for the 'GR' component. It is then difference in the material environment being compared; not a comparison of time passage in the same environment.

Georgina,

1) From the maths` effectiveness, we know the universe is a logical system.

2) Such a logical system requires for its operation only one typeof stuff or process and only one type of cause. This is called a monism and there is only one existent out there (no apples and oranges)

3) It could be difficult to identify the substance and cause of the universe.

4) But it has already been done in 1993, unknowingly, by the physicist Bill Unruh. Below from (or arXiv:gr-qc/9312027v2 for this version)

A more accurate way of summarizing the lessons of General Relativity is

that gravity does not cause time to run differently in different places (e.g., faster far from the earth than near it). Gravity is the unequable flow of time from place to place. It is notthat there are two separate phenomena, namely gravity and time and that the one, gravity,affects the other. Rather the theory states that the phenomena we usually ascribe to gravity are actually caused by time's flowing unequably from place to place.

The time-process is the substance and a difference in its rate of evolution is the cause. After that, everything falls into place. Gravity, photons, particles etc. This is the metaphysics that underlies all of physics. Now, we may understand whta we know.

Marcel,

The stuff perceived via the senses is not the stuff materially existing, independently of those senses. Do you think the output of a robot's visual system is the material environment the robot is within? There are many differences, actual and categorical.

The different clock results are not necessarily showing unequal time flow but more likely different conditions of operation while their existence is keeping pace in the same universal configurations of existence. Like the two mechanical watches operating in different media are not showing a difference in flow of time. One has more work to do for the same output value as the other, so it runs slow.

Non-simultaneity of observation of the same source event can be fully accounted for by differences in receipt and processing of EMr emitted from the source. The observers each produce their own observation products from their own received inputs. There is no need to assume those products are part of the external environment / individual slices of a spacetime continuum. The spacetime continuum is mistaking emergent output for material reality. That mistaken 'background' is then said to be curved by mass and as a consequence effects the motion of matter. Though the materially existing is categorically different from the likenesses of objects that populate observation products and perception.

Marcel, John, what do you think of the arguments I have presented?

Georgi,

Overall, we differ on the Nature of Time. No surprise there, Time seems to be a very personal persuasion and as individual as humanity.

I can't exactly pinpoint why, but I have always come away from your writings with the distinct sense that you personally regard Time as being One Thing described in a number of ways. Whereas I see those various descriptions as being foundationally distinct dimensions, both linear and non-linear coexisting to varying degrees. I do not hold with the notion that Time or Space emerges from motion in nothingness which commits the rhetorical fallacy of Omission. It omits that there would need be some reference for a distance or a velocity to be 'beable'. Nor do I agree with the idea that how we experience Time as if it permeates everything in a ceaseless metronomic cadence which we call intervals of one or some nth of a second, and which otherwise has no effect on any entity moving through it as it permeates the entity in motion. Simple connectivity throughout SpaceTime is foundational to my thinking, and EMR is emergent from power fluctuations in physical fields volumes which can exchange energy through simple field density difference. So all along I have found your arguments being reliant on signal emission and absorption, very similar to arguments in the QM concordance of the cosmological standard model of particle physics. To which I always inquire, "what is a particle?' Onward! through the fog! :-) jrc

John,

Thank you for responding. I was hoping for evaluation of the specific arguments I had just posted- rather than something general. About that, I don't think time is just one thing. 'Time' has many distinct meanings. Time t measured, perceived passage of time, changing universal configurations, becoming, that I call foundational time, the concept of the time dimension of spacetime, and the time dimension of observation products are all very different (though the ideas are 'related' in some way). Distance and velocity are relative measurements. Relevant to observation products but not necessary for unmeasured motion of an existing beable. I've not suggested motion in nothingness; far from it. I'd really appreciate it if you would read my posts of 21st and 22nd, and then tell me what you think of those specific arguments.

Sorry, Georgina,

I have had a busy summer and am racing the change of season getting cleaning and outdoor rid-up done before foul weather. So I can indulge is some discussion but not in great depth. Pardon me.

I quite agree that what we perceive from sensory input of signals (EMR) is not the reality of existential structures, where we disagree is that in GR, spacetime evolves structure. I do think that many writing about Relativity do abbreviate the fuller context and that is what most readers get. I've never felt that the old saw that goes "Mass tells space how to curve and curved space tells mass how to move" really fills the bill. So I can agree with you to that extent. However, quite apart from Einstein employing (in part) Riemann"s spherical geometry, We differ in that I hold that an overabundance of energy in a supersaturate universe naturally condenses matter to conserve space and hence space does compact (quantum gravity) and a physical curvature results which makes time as measured on a straight line of gravitational fall (Newton's apple) non-linear. That may effectively produce 'more work' for a timepiece with the differing clock time results for common kinds of clock, but the phenomenal extended working output of radioisotopic electrical modules on deep space probes (Voyager I & II ) argues physically that gravity doesn't simply make a clock run slower due to working against gravitational attraction. And those extended outputs mirror what we can deduce from the current census estimate of surviving radioactive isotopes on and in the Earth. If gravity simply makes clocks work harder, rather than the rate of Time slowing in a gravitational well, then those radioisotope decays would speed up in deepspace. We wouldn't have the statistical abundance of daughter radioisotopes left by the time the earth began forming. The heat output in radiological thermopile modules on deep space probes would fall as the half-life decay rates speeded up and the electrical output would fall below nominal. Exactly the opposite occurs. The designed output curve has roughly held so little or no change has occurred in the rate of half-life decay, but the active working life of the radiologic generators has exceeded expectancy of working life in earth's gravity by a factor of three. The rate of Time is predictively faster in lower gravitational domains. It doesn't produce a different work function for the Plutonium, its just on board a spacecraft out in space where Time goes much faster than here on Earth. So, No, I disagree with your assessment of Times natural role. It does take a while to wrap your head around how we would get more earth Time results from deep space than if the the radiological generator had remained with its control twin here on earth. best - jrc

Thank you John. What did you think about the questioning whether altitude time comparison is a fair test? I'll think some more on the atomic clocks. You say rate does not (you used the term) "accelerate", I take that to mean here a change in velocity but not ongoing increase. Yet later you say time is going much faster in space. But a faster rate gives the appearance of time passing faster. Is it that a faster clock operating rate makes it seem time is passing faster (rhetorical). Then using that resultant faster time rate (output) for timing the process that leads to time setting. So the combination does not show the change that has happened.

Time itself is a superfluous concept. Time is either, bound to the material-spatial configuration of the Object universe, being the temporal expression of it. Or time is emergent from sensory signal processing. The observation product possesses a time dimension. That is related to the varied material configurations of origin of the input signals, from which it is generated.

Clock time, what a clock shows, is related to the two kinds of time mentioned. The material configuration of the clock is a part of the material configuration of the object universe. The seen clock is a product of electromagnetic signal processing.'

I think this is clearer. What do you think?

I think 'spatial' may be the wrong word to use. I want to emphasize that the configuration is not just material but that the relations of parts is important. Maybe the word configuration already has that covered.

In an enzyme for example form is necessary for function, Not just shape but where there are charges...

Perhaps 'material configuration and relations of parts within' is better.