What is information?

Information is context/ relationship: categories of information (like mass, position and time) are relationships, where the relationships can be represented as equations or algorithms. Information is also the numbers that apply to these categories.

Does information "travel"?

Categories of information, e.g. velocity (speed and direction), and their associated numbers, apply to things like particles. Particles "travel", but information is not like a particle.

Does "nothing--not even information--... travel faster than the speed of light"? Things like particles travel, but information obviously doesn't travel in the same sense that a particle travels.

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.

  • [deleted]

"however, it does not make sense to talk about the temperature of a single particle."

That has to go into the same box as [you can't define what a particle is]. So how can you say that? As for the 'illusionary time' or emergent time, that only holds if you assume ( as Eddington contended that we might as well ) that the scale of a span of duration in time, is the same as the scale for a span of seperation in spcae. If you assume that, then you are stuck with Minkowski's Blocktime and the subsequent paradoxes that then pretend.

I guess I don't see the issue here, but that may be because I'm an amateur and don't know all the intricacies and all the math. For me, time is not fundamental. It's just a function of physical things happening (e.g., physical change). One could think of physical change as a tally of the number of events that have happened. If there were absolutely no physical change in the universe, there would be no time. This explains why time is moving irreversibly from past to future: because things keep happening. To go from future to past, there would have to be a reduction in the number of things, or events, that have already happened in the universe. This doesn't occur. Even if the events of a process look like they're happening in reverse, like if a broken cup spontaneously reassembles, this doesn't mean that time is going backwards; it just means that additional physical events have happened that reassemble the cup and that happen to look like the previous events in reverse. But because physical change is still happening as the cup is reassembled, and the number of events is still increasing, time is still moving forward.

I think this is why humans notice the flow of time. Because we can see that change keeps happening, or events keep happening, this increase in the number of events looks like a flow of time from less events (past) to now to future (more events will have happened).

On a related note, physicists say that time is related to entropy or the amount of disorder in a system. Because entropy increases in the universe as a whole with time, physicists wonder why there would be very low entropy (disorder) at the beginning of the universe. But, this makes sense to me if the universe started from a single existent entity which then somehow proliferated to produce more entities that are present in our current universe. In this situation, there would have been initially a very low amount of disorder. Additionally, based on the above reasoning, there would not have been any events that had occurred at the stage of one initial entity, which also suggests a very low level of disorder. As more entities are formed and they interact, this means that change is happening (increase in number of events), so time would start with 0 and move constantly forward as the number of events increases.

Also, many physicists think that just because they can change the sign of a variable in an equation describing a physical phenomenon that the physical process this variable describes should also go in reverse. That is, because they change the t (for time) variable on their paper from positive to negative, they think that time itself should be able to go backwards. This reasoning seems to conflate the math in which time is involved with time itself. But, they're two different things.

Thanks.

  • [deleted]

"...information obviously doesn't travel in the same sense that a particle travels." L. Ford

I think that is a salient point, Lorraine, physics should be about what is physical, and what we use to distinguish that are tools more of the abstract.

With little care one can position two identical bar magnets so that like poles will allow the end of one magnet to be suspended against the acceleration of gravity above the end of the other magnet. Yet F=ma, and for there to be a counter acceleration to gravity, there must be something 'moving'. Whatever it is it is not something which can be siphoned off and collected. What can it be? jrc

The problem is not philosophical at all. Einstein's relative time, from which idiocies like time travel into the future or "time is an illusion" are validly or invalidly deduced, is a consequence of Einstein's false constant-speed-of-light postulate. Remove the falsehood and the problems with time will disappear.

Pentcho Valev

    "It just seemed so rock solid and such a striking departure from the way I figured things had to be."

    The math is rock solid, unfortunately, the physics is anything but. The math's only connection to physical reality, rests upon a foundation of quicksand - a false premise about the physical world, identified over 40 years ago. For a striking departure from all the absurd interpretations of this phenomenon, see my recent "Socratic Dialog" with Tim Maudlin

    Rob McEachern

    I guess I've made this point before, but it bears repeating;

    The only problem with understanding time is that we see it in reverse. As mobile organisms, we have a sequential thought process, in order to navigate. Then after a few hundreds of thousands of years narrating our journeys to one another and building civilizations out of the collective knowledge, this past to future sequencing seems pretty fundamental, but the reality is that change turns future to past. Potential, actual, residual. The earth turning is cause to the effect of tomorrow becoming yesterday.

    Duration is this present state, as events come and go. It's the face of the clock going counterclockwise.

    Different clocks can run at different rates for the simple reason that they are separate actions. Think metabolism, or frequencies.

    Time is asymmetric because what is measured, action, is inertial. The earth turns one direction, not both. The relative order of the system is irrelevant.

    There can't be a physical dimension of time, because of the 1st law of thermodynamics, the conservation of energy. Meaning it is always and only present. The past is consumed by the present, in order to inform it, aka, causality.

    The present is not a dimensionless point between past and future, but the configuration of this energy. Its changing form is what creates time.

    As an effect of this energy, time is like temperature, pressure, color, etc. We could use ideal gas laws to correlate volume with temperature and pressure, but no one calls them the 5th and 6th dimensions of space, because they are only foundational to our bodily and environmental functions, not the processing of thought.

    While energy goes from one form to the next, past to future, these forms come and go, future to past. Process versus pattern.

    With factories, the pattern/product goes from start to finish, while the process/production line goes the other way, consuming material and expelling product. As with life, as the individual goes birth to death, while the species goes onto the next generation, shedding the old. Consciousness goes one thought to the next, as thoughts come and go. It is a feedback loop, as the patterns affect the direction of the process.

    As biological organisms, we have the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems processing the energy driving us on, along with the central nervous system distilling and sorting the patterns directing our journeys. Patterns steering the motor of the process.

    For the cognoscenti though, it's all about the patterns, not the process. The head, not the heart and gut.

      • [deleted]

      'Physicists in general, are" more inclined to dismiss passage, flow and the sense of openness of the future as illusions," - ' Jenann Ismael

      That may be from an underlying expectation, for the sake of simplicity in mathematical analysis, that time only comes in one flavor. Physically it can be 'flowing' (for want of a better metaphor) but not going anywhere. More like the irreconcilable difference spatially between a cube and a sphere, and the inherent stress there-in between time and space is the origin of energy.

      Joe,

      As children, we certainly only see the surface and many people don't get much beyond it, but some of us are curious about what goes on under the surface and what makes things tick. For instance, as a child, we might look out across the surface of the ocean and it doesn't occur to us of what might be beneath the surface, though we quickly get the sense not to go too far in.

      As for seeing time in reverse, by looking only at the surface, a similar situation occurs when we look up at the sky and see the sun and the stars flowing across the sky, from east to west. Brilliant and predictively accurate geometric models of these actions, called epicycles, were constructed, based on these observations. When we tried to explain these models, by proposing crystalline spheres to carry the celestial bodies, we overlooked an important detail under our very feet. That it is this ground we are standing on, that is spinning the other way. West to east.

      Spacetime is the modern version of those crystalline spheres. As a physical explanation for the very effective mathematical model of Special and General Relativity, it doesn't take into account that this narrative sequence, measured as duration, is effect, not cause. The present doesn't move, the events do.

      Information (e.g. mass, position and time information) seemingly does not float in some abstract ether: information is context; information comes in categories which are relationships between other such categories of information; and category and number information is carried by things like particles and atoms.

      But algorithmic information seems to exist in the universe: the equations of physics, which represent laws of nature, rely on the delta symbol, which represents change of number information that can only be derived algorithmically. (Note that, when looked at closely, these numbers don't change smoothly, they "jump".)

      So, it might once have been thought that, apart from numbers and the symbols representing categories like mass and position, only the following symbols are required: + - รท x = to represent law of nature relationships. But in addition to these symbols, the representation of algorithmic information and its outcome requires the following symbols: IF THEN TRUE FALSE, and symbols like: < > . The "hidden" presence of algorithmic information in the equations of physics indicates that higher-level concepts are present in the universe, at a more fundamental level than might have been expected.

        (continued)

        So, the existence of information which comes in categories and is "carried" by things like particles, and the existence of algorithmic (i.e. higher-level) categories of information, are the link between particles, atoms and molecules on the one hand, and living things on the other hand.

        May we accept the reasoning by Nicholas of Cusa who was born in 1401 in Kusa, nowadays Bernkastel-Kues at the river Mosel, who inferred from the absence of observable limits to the universe that the universe is endless and has therefore no center?

        While Oresme, Buridan and a bit later Kopernikus criticized the geocentric model of Ptolemaios, and science replaced it by the heliocentric one, Cusanus concluded that there is no preferred point of reference in his center-less universe. Doesn't this mean that Maxwell's hypothetical light-carrying aether is merely a lazy unjustified analog of a mechanic medium and the negative outcome of Michelson's experiments in Berlin/Potsdam and later in Cleveland was to be expected?

        Isn't therefore the historical basis of so far still not yet experimentally confirmed hypotheses by Lorentz up to Einstein's relativity of time shaky if Cusanus was correct?

        Eckard Blumschein

          Hi Eckard, the lack of limit to observation has been superseded by the so called cosmic background radiation which is an event horizon, from beyond which there are not any discernible signals. That puts a limit on what is observable on or near Earth.The Earth (and near Earth) is the centre of our observations and therefore our observable universe.

          I note you just say "universe" and not observable universe. Existing now is not what is generated from processing of received EM radiation. We are 'blind' to what is out there now, making simple estimation from observation insufficient. I think relevant ideas are such as, how the universe has developed over time and how the EM radiation has reached the telescopes, taking into account the effects of gravity on light paths en route and the motion of the Earth and solar system.

          Georgina,

          Keep in mind that causality doesn't apply to the current cosmological model. when there is a discrepancy between prediction and observation, some enormous patch is applied and everything continues as normal. What if accountants worked like that? Whenever there is a gap in the books, they just add a figure and call it dark money.

          The first patch applied was when it was realized this redshift increases with distance at the same rate in every direction, so it was changed from an expansion in space, to an expansion of space, because Spacetime! Presumably then every point would appear as its own center.

          Which totally overlooks the premise for spacetime, in the first place, that the speed of light is measured as a constant, in every frame. If it is being redshifted, obviously it's not constant to intergalactic space. Wouldn't the speed have to increase, if the distance is increasing, in order to remain constant?

          Two metrics of space are being derived from the same intergalactic light. One based on the spectrum and one based on the speed. Since the expansion is still relative to the speed, as it's based on the redshifting of this light, that means the speed is still the denominator.

          We are at the center of our point of view, so an optical effect would be a rational solution. In which case, that background radiation would be light shifted off the visible spectrum.

          One solution is that multi spectrum light "packets" do redshift over distance, as the higher spectrums dissipate faster than the lower ones, so then the question is whether individual photons travel billions of lightyears, or we are sampling a wave front.

          On light packets; https://fqxi.org/data/forum-attachments/2008CChristov_WaveMotion_45_154_EvolutionWavePackets.pdf

          On the quantization of light; https://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Reiter_challenge2.pdf

          • [deleted]

          So... John, Georgina and Eckard? Aside from differences of how we attempt to reason what time might be, and how it behaves... is Time existentially real? (I'm in the cheering section for a real physicality of Time.) :) jrc

            • [deleted]

            I have completed my research and experiments on discovery of new medium in Physics--The intangible Time Medium--which only transfer data and information.[https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/invention-natural-encryption-technology-neo-security-isi-siddiqui/]

            I presented the the Law of Intangible Time Medium states that " The Universe all living and non-living things existed , being creating will soon be destroyed when a divine encoded message to be received by the all things existed . The encoded divine message which is already released to be transferred to all things via Intangible Time Medium.

            Einstein said Time is the FOURTH dimension in Space and Time both are Tandem. My research proved that Time plays the role of intangible medium in transferring data and information.

            According to the Law of Intangible Time Medium the encoded message for the destruction of the Universe had been released by Allah. That is when the destruction Message to be received by the galaxy or galaxies or the Universe it will be destroyed.

            How the Divine message to be reached to the all material things ? The NET -- a new encryption technology is the answer of this query. Read the research paper on the NET on Link on Linkedin :https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/invention-natural-encryption-technology-neo-security-isi-siddiqui/

            mediasword@yahoo.com

            arc,

            As an effect of physical activity, time is as real as temperature, pressure, color and other such effects. The problem, is that we are assuming the narrative flow, along which the present moves, from past to future. Which physics codifies as measures of duration and then treats as though it is similar to a spatial dimension. Aka, the "fabric of spacetime."

            The evident fact is the underlaying physical dynamic, distilling the potential down to the actual, which then recedes into residual. The present doesn't move past to future, rather the events move future to past, as the present is the physical state.

            Not that anyone in the field seems willing to consider this, as it is outside the mathematical box.

            Joe,

            When I was young, my eyes were better than they are now. Is that because they don't see the world as clearly, or is that it the world actually is fuzzier? By your logic, it seems it is that the world has grown fuzzier and that's why I don't see it as clearly.