Time and Life: Testing a Tilt in the Arrow of Time by C. K. Raju

Thanks for the paper!

You write, "(Mere verbal reasoning about time is paradox-prone since it simultaneously uses the notion of time already in the tense-structure of language.)"

Well, using math does not necessarily allow us to escape the tautological, circular definitions of time.

You write, "Briefly, Maxwell's equations admit two types of solutions: retarded and advanced, corresponding to the

well-known retarded and advanced Lienard-Wiechert potentials.[6] Retarded electromagnetic waves have been likened to the ripples that spread out when a stone is dropped into a pond. Advanced waves correspond to the time reversed situation and propagate into the past: in the pond analogy, seen in the forward direction in time, ripples would seem to converge onto the centre of the pond, and throw the stone out. This is not normally observed."

This alone should be enough to scream that the math is not quite grasping something fundamental about our physical reality, as we have never seen advanced waves. This is because the fourth dimension is *physically* expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions, and thus radiation, which is but matter caught upon the fourth expanding dimension, appears as expanding spherical wavefronts and never shrinking spherical wavefronts.

The simple physical model of Moving Dimensions Theory comes with a physical postualte and equation: "the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions at c."

MDT provides all of time's arrows and assymetries across all realms, while also providing a foundational model for entropy, and quantum mechanical entanglement and nonlocality. All of relativity is derived from MDT's postulate in my paper.

MDT provides time's tilt.

Your note the problem with the tautological definition of time that Einstein also noted--a seemingly paradoxical, circular definition (c is defined by t and t is defined by c) which MDT resolves by postulating that dx4/dt = ic is a fundamamental universal invariant--the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions, and t, or dt, is an emergent parameter that we measure on our watches and clocks, as timeless, ageless photons surf the fourth expanding dimension, giving rise to the oscillating change in our clock's cicuitry, which we tune to mark the propagation of time in seconds.

However, time is not the fourth dimension, nor did Einstein ever state it was. Instead, Einstein wrote x4=ict. And t and ict are very different things. If God had wanted the fourth dimension to be t, He would have commanded Einstein to write x4=t. But He did not.

Please see MDT in the context of simple, tautological light clocks in the attached figure.

Our definititions of time are based on measurement, which is based on the propagatin of energy, which propagates at c, which is defined in units of m/s (distance/time)! So it is that the time measured on our quartz crystal watches and on our computers, which depends on the emission and propagation of photons, which propogate at c, which is measure in m/s or distance/time, is tautologically defined!

The great thing about MDT is that it also accounts for this tautology, with a deeper fundamental invariant--the fourth dimension is expanding at c--which sets the velocity of light to c, the maximum and minimum and only velocity through spacetime to c, while also weaving into the fabric of spacetime the fundamental rate of change--c. MDT postulates that the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions at c.

"My solution was really for the very concept of time, that is, that time is not absolutely defined but there is an inseparable connection between time and the signal [light] velocity." -Einstein

So it is that time rests upon the velocity of light, which of course is defined by units of m/s or distance/time, and this tautological definition and paradox is nothing new.

MDT takes the paradox head on and blows the tautological fog away, exposing a new fundamental universal invariant which weaves change into the fabric of spacetime for the first time in all of history, liberating us from frozen time and the block universe, while providing a physical mechanism for entropy and quantum entanglement and nonlocality--the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions at the rate of c: dx4/dt=ic.

You would enjoy my essay, where the source of this tautological, circular definition of time is finally apprehended by the relaization of a new physical invariant--the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions at c:

"In his 1912 Manuscript on Relativity, Einstein never stated that time is the fourth dimension, but rather he wrote x4 = ict. The fourth dimension is not time, but ict. Despite this, prominent physicists have oft equated time and the fourth dimension, leading to un-resolvable paradoxes and confusion regarding time's physical nature, as physicists mistakenly projected properties of the three spatial dimensions onto a time dimension, resulting in curious concepts including frozen time and block universes in which the past and future are omni-present, thusly denying free will, while implying the possibility of time travel into the past, which visitors from the future have yet to verify. Beginning with the postulate that time is an emergent phenomenon resulting from a fourth dimension expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions at the rate of c, diverse phenomena from relativity, quantum mechanics, and statistical mechanics are accounted for. Time dilation, the equivalence of mass and energy, nonlocality, wave-particle duality, and entropy are shown to arise from a common, deeper physical reality expressed with dx4/dt=ic. This postulate and equation, from which Einstein's relativity is derived, presents a fundamental model accounting for the emergence of time, the constant velocity of light, the fact that the maximum velocity is c, and the fact that c is independent of the velocity of the source, as photons are but matter surfing a fourth expanding dimension. In general relativity, Einstein showed that the dimensions themselves could bend, curve, and move. The present theory extends this principle, postulating that the fourth dimension is moving independently of the three spatial dimensions, distributing locality and fathering time. This physical model underlies and accounts for time in quantum mechanics, relativity, and statistical mechanics, as well as entropy, the universe's expansion, and time's arrows."

--http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/238

I would be quite wary of jettisoning words and logic and reason, while exalting blind math.

Do not take my word for it, but heed the Greats:

Just found this quote from Plato:

"I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning."

It is hanging in the Boston Museum of Science, and it seems to agree with Albert Einstein, Galileo, and Max Born:

http://www.ilfilosofo.com/blog/2008/04/12/plato-mathematician-quote/

"I personally like to regard a probability wave as a real thing, certainly as more than a tool for mathematical calculations. ... how could we rely on probability predictions if we do not refer to something real and objective? (Max Born on Quantum Theory)"

Max Born wrote, "All great discoveries in experimental physics have been made due to the intuition of men who made free use of models which for them were not products of the imagination but representations of real things."

"Gradually the conviction gained recognition that all knowledge about things is exclusively a working-over of the raw material furnished by the senses. ... Galileo and Hume first upheld this principle with full clarity and decisiveness." --(Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions)

To reject *physical* intuition and replace it with the nonsensical block universe MDT does away with seems to go exactly against the spirit by which physics has ever advanced, according to Galileo, Einstein, and other noble physicists.

It seems a preposterous conclusion that quantum mechanics, which works so very well, must be thrown out and reformulated for something which MDT shows there is no need for--the block universe.

"In the long run my observations have convinced me that some men, reasoning preposterously, first establish some conclusion in their minds which, either because of its being their own or because of their having received it from some person who has their entire confidence, impresses them so deeply that one finds it impossible ever to get it out of their heads. Such arguments in support of their fixed idea ... gain their instant acceptance and applause. On the other hand whatever is brought forward against it, however ingenious and conclusive, they receive with disdain or with hot rage - if indeed it does not make them ill. Beside themselves with passion, some of them would not be backward even about scheming to suppress and silence their adversaries. I have had some experience of this myself. ... No good can come of dealing with such people, especially to the extent that their company may be not only unpleasant but dangerous."--(Galileo Galilei)

"my dear Kepler, what do you think of the foremost philosophers of this University? In spite of my oft-repeated efforts and invitations, they have refused, with the obstinacy of a glutted adder, to look at the planets or Moon or my telescope." --Galileo Galilei

We must forver keep physical reality in the front and center, along with logic and reason and *physical* intuition--otherwise progress in physics will grind to a halt, as it has for the past thirty years.

"But before mankind could be ripe for a science which takes in the whole of reality, a second fundamental truth was needed, which only became common property among philosophers with the advent of Kepler and Galileo. Pure logical thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world; all knowledge of reality starts form experience and ends in it. Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality. Because Galileo saw this, and particularly because he drummed it into the scientific world, he is the father of modern physics -- indeed, of modern science altogether." --Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions

Math can be very pretty, but Einstein reminds us that physicists ought pursue *physics,* founded in a physical reality--"Mathematics are well and good but nature keeps dragging us around by the nose.""

"It is anomalous to replace the four-dimensional continuum by a five-dimensional one and then subsequently to tie up artificially one of those five dimensions in order to account for the fact that it does not manifest itself." -Einstein to Paul Ehrenfest. Just think what Einstein would have said about entire parallel universes we cannot see!

With an heroic spirit, MDT takes us back to origin of modern physics--to the original papers on relativity and QM, and it humbles itself upon that mountaintop. And when it comes on down, off the shoulders of relativity and QM's giants, MDT presents us with a fundamental view of reality that conforms to all experimental evidence, while not only resolving the paradoxes of the non-locality of the EPR effect and seemingly frozen time in Godel's block universe, but also unifying the resolution of both physical curiosities within a simple physical postulate--the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions, or dx4/dt = ic. In a sense, this is the first theory to predict QM's nonlocality and entanglement, by postulating that the fourth dimension is inherently nonlocal via its expansion--an empirical fact that the timeless, ageless, nonlocal photon agrees with, as the photon surfs the fourth expanding dimension. And not only does MDT predict this, but it also provides a *physical* model for entropy and time and all its arrows and assymetries throughout all realms. And finally, all of relativity may be derived from MDT's simple postulate, as it is in my paper--the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions--dx4/dt = ic. A postulate and an equation representing a novel *physical* feature of our universe--a fourth expanding dimension--and the natural, subsequent prediction of all of relativity, qm's nonlocality, entropy, time's arrows and assymetries in all realms, and quantum entanglement.

I don't believe in mathematics. --Einstein, Quoted in Carl Seelig.

Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics, I assure you that mine are greater. --Einstein

Geometry is not true, it is advantageous. --Jules H. Poincare

Best,

Dr. E (The Real McCoy)Attachment #1: 11_MOVING_DIMENSIONS_THEORY_EXAMINES_THE_GRAVITATIONAL_REDSHIFT_SLOWING_OF_CLOCKS.pdf

Thanks for the post Dr E. Here are some immediate clarifications.

First, I do not subscribe to the idea of mathematics as truth or even tautology. My fallibilist philosophy of mathematics is articulated in my book "Cultural Foundations of Mathematics" (Pearson, 2007). That book also examines the significance for mathematics of the time-logic relation that I use to connect a "tilt" to quantum interference via quantum logic.

I agree with Poincare that geometry is convenient, not true.

Against this background, the point of advocating a mathematical model is that it forces us to lay on the table our metaphysical assumptions about time so that they can be examined and rejected if necessary.

Thus, Newton's view of time was metaphysical. ("Absolute, true and mathematical time...flows...without relation to anything external"; note the series of adjectives "absolute", "true", "mathematical" intended to emphasize that Newton's time is metaphysical, and has no relation to anything external). Newton thought this metaphysical belief about time was essential to justify his use of the calculus ("fluxions") needed for the Newtonian view of physics as ODEs.

However, electrodynamics threw a spanner in this Newtonian scheme of things, forcing a more physical view of time and its measurement. The theory of relativity flows from Poincare's postulate that the speed of light must be constant (and that physically defines "equal intervals of time"). [For details please see the chapters in the part on "The Measurement of Time", in my book "Time: Towards a Consistent Theory", Kluwer, 1994.]

Unfortunately, in almost a century, it has not been clearly and widely understood that FDEs are a natural and necessary consequence of relativity.

As Benjamin Whorf suggested long ago, this difficulty in understanding relativity may be due to the metaphysical assumptions about time in English. He argued that the Hopi language has a different metaphysics of time, therefore the Hopi would not have had any such intuitive difficulties with relativity.

Dear Raju,

i enjoyed the abstract of the essay, questioning the concept of 'causality'. it is nice to question the 'established' concepts if one wants to do some thing innovative. You also talk of physical interference by future into past! You are modeling mathematically but one does require some observed physical reality in Physics before proceeding mathematically. Purely mathematical concepts are good in pure Maths. but we can extend the same in Physics on some sound logical/observed consideration.

i have been speculating about the missing order in considering physical processes using probability. If some individual events have slight degree of correlation, the assumption of complete randomness falls! Order contains disorder but not the other way around. How to consider such interference in processes we assume to have completely random individual events. Can Chi-square test even the slightest of lack of randomicity?

Nature shows highly intelligent logic in its evolution of the Universe. How can order be completely missing when a physical process is described purely on the basis of 100% randomcity of individual events? We ahve gone thus far in Physics without such considerations, as we seem to get exptal data to conform to the statistical averaging. However, individual events that we are unable to observe, may have some directed correlation with 'order' that remain illusive because of our limitations in measurements.

Dear Mr Nath,

Thanks for your post. You say you have read the abstract, but may I draw your attention to the sub-title: "Testing a tilt in the arrow of time". The operative word is "TESTING". The paper is about how to experimentally test whether the cosmos is fully causal or only partly so.

In case you missed the title, this is clarified in the second line of the abstract: "how should this be tested experimentally?"

The point of the paper is to experimentally test the dogma of perfect causality. I am not ready to take anyone's word about the nature of reality. So, where is the experimental support for this dogma? For such experimental support, we should be able to say (1) here is this theory A which is perfectly causal and (2) here is theory B which is exactly like theory A except that it allows some "violations" of causality, and (3) experiment supports theory A over B. But you criticise me for even thinking about such a theory B! That is why I call the belief in perfect causality a dogma. Don't you agree that the nature of reality should be decided by experiment? And for an experiment to be meaningful don't we need competing theories?

The mathematical model I talk of is derived from just Maxwell's equations and the Heaviside-Lorentz force law. NO FURTHER ASSUMPTIONS---not even the assumption of perfect causality!

Just any experiment and just any theory which rejects causality won't do. Partridge carried out an experiment based on the Wheeler-Feynman theory. The experiment could neither reject nor confirm the theory. Moreover, the Wheeler-Feynman theory is internally inconsistent.

So what we need is to derive empirical consequences starting from a good theory which drops from standard physics just the one assumption of causality. I thought I had stated this point clearly in the abstract.

That leads to the mathematical model above. You are quite right that pure mathematics may not lead to a good physical theory. But that remark is completely irrelevant to my paper.

More to the point, bad mathematics does not lead to good physics either, and, in the last century, physicists treated the classical electrodynamic n-body problem in a mathematically incorrect way.

Finally, my point is that if we do things the corect way, then (non-mechanical) life is an expected empirical consequence of such a physics without perfect "causality". It would be pretty sad if that were not part of reality!

Therefore, may I suggest that you read the paper before commenting on it?

Dera Raju,

i was frank enough to tell you that i was commenting on the essay just after seeing only the abstract. This problem arose as i had the impression that the last date for postings was dec., 01 butv it seems it got extended! i apologize for half cooked study before putting in my equally unjustified comments.

However, i am not fortunate to see your ideas on paras 2 and 3 of my post.It will also be of help if you may consider response on my essay too in this competition, so that we may establish better understandings about our respective contributions. No more comment now until i see the full text of the essay!

Dear Mr Nath,

Sorry for this delayed response. I didn't respond to paras 2 and 3 of your post since the points that you are making in those paras are not clear, at least not to me (though I have taught probability and statistics and have long used the notion of order/entropy, as in my paper here).

i read the full text of your paper & found it refreshing in many ways. Yes, i seeem to understand better what you term as a tilt in the time arrow. You propose an Expet. that should be able to detect excited system emitted radiation to be detected such that one separates out the prompt and retarded components. The former is expected to be weak. You suggest that biological macromolecules, like the human proteins are ideal for such a study.

You do talk about there is something about living organisms connected with creativeness that may well result in isolating such a behavior. Do you mean that the process then does become not 100% random in nature. That is it is not a pure chance phenomenon! That creativity is tied to an element of order in the observed effect.

The points i happen raise in para 2 &b 3 of my previous post were concerned with what little i know of statistics. There is a Chi-square test that you perform on a set of a large no. of observations of any process. If there is any regular event(s) mixed with purely random events that gets identified from the deviation of Chi-square value for the degrees of freedom to lie witin the probability curve range of 5-95% range out of 100.

The third paragraph desired your opinion on the aspect of evolution of the Universe that appears to follow a logical design. Then , one may say that the reality lies in order hidden within the randomicity of the events observed for any physical process/phenomenon being studied at any given time.

i hope i have made some tangible queries for your expert response!

Dear Dr. Raju,

I find very interesting your FDEs applications to the electrodynamics n-body problem. I have a question. If we consider only the sources (charged particles), in order to describe the evolution, we need to use the FDEs. This leads, for the retarded potentials case, to a confluence of the phase space trajectories, and in the case of advanced potentials, to a branching. My question is: If we reintroduce the electromagnetic fields, together with the sources, don't we regain the "Newtonian paradigm"? If this is so, then in the retarded case the systems will be identical after t>1 (fig. 2) only in the sources, but not in the electromagnetic fields. In the advanced case, the causality is preserved, being hidden in the fields, which disturb the charged particles to evolve differently in the three cases, after t>0 (fig. 3). The same happens for the mixed FDEs. In all three cases, it seems that if we account for the fields, we obtain the same two-ways deterministic view as in the case of the PDEs.

I think that you are right to say that the electromagnetic arrow of time explains, at least partially, the thermodynamic arrow.

I like the idea of the tilt in the arrow of time. Perhaps it can be related with my essay, in which I apply an apparently countercausal reasoning in Quantum Mechanics, as well as in the problem of free will.

Best wishes,

Cristi Stoica

Flowing with a Frozen River

Dear Mr Nath,

Apologies for this delayed response, as I was otherwise preoccupied.

You are quite right that I am saying that creativity is not a 100% random process, and that it relates to creation of order.

Indeed, this is the key point of my model that it makes order creation possible, without introducing any new physical hypothesis. My model permits processes that are (a) "spontaneous" in the sense of being unpredictable from the past, and also (b) create order.

This is exactly why my model is able provide such a natural account of the observed existence of life, and complex ordered systems. Even the origin of life now appears as something natural rather than mysterious, as it would be under "randomness".

Mathematically speaking, by "randomness" or chance, I understand a process modeled by stochastic differential equations (SDEs) which is unpredictable from the past, but nevertheless remains probabilistically predictable. Physically, such random processes lead to decreased order or increased entropy (on stock thermodynamics). Thus my model, using mixed-type FDEs, provides an account of spontaneity which is both mathematically and physically distinct from "randomness" or "chance".

As regards your question about possible design in the cosmos which is hidden under apparent randomness, it seems to me that this question perhaps goes beyond physics. You are doubtless aware of the answer in the RgVeda that only he in the highest heaven knows, or perhaps even he knows not!

Possibly the cosmic design is partly our own. And we would better understand things if we were able to model our apparent mundane ability to design a tiny bit of the future cosmos.

Dear Dr Stoica,

Thanks for your comments and for your interest in my paper, and apologies for this delayed response.

First of all may I clarify that, in my book "Time: Towards a Consistent Theory" (Kluwer 1994) I proposed FDEs as a generalised model of physical time evolution, and not merely for electrodynamics. (This is why I have remarked that I regard General Relativity as an incomplete theory, since it has no model of particles.)

Secondly, you ask: "If we reintroduce the electromagnetic fields, together with the sources, don't we regain the 'Newtonian paradigm'?"

The answer is a clear NO. While particle motion governed by ODEs is deterministic, and fields governed by PDEs are deterministic, the two together, involve coupled ODEs+PDEs = FDEs which are not deterministic.

This is the surprising part.

This was the key confusing point during the Groningen debate, where Zeh maintained that no paradigm shift is involved. I have clarified matter in detail in my 2004 paper on the retarded electrodynamic 2-body problem, by explaining how FDEs = ODEs + PDEs.

Let me here make explicit what happens in the case of mixed-type FDEs. In this situation, suppose you choose to work with the right hand side. To solve the relevant PDEs, we need to "prescribe" all fields at one instant of time (i.e., on a spacelike hypersurface). Because of the coupling of particles and fields, these fields now relate to particle movements, in _both past and future_. So, to be able to prescribe these fields, we need to know the particle movements for all past AND future times.

Now if one already has that knowledge, of all particle movements for all past and future times, then, of course, the world is deterministic. But the preceding sentence is obviously just an empty tautology, which says "we have the knowledge we have". One needs to separate such tautologies from physical statements. Actually, that knowledge (of particle movements at all past and future times) cannot be obtained by any observations made or any measurements performed here and now.

And, if it is asserted that that knowledge (of all particle movements past and future) can somehow be obtained by direct observation, here and now, we don't need any further physics, or equations or solutions: just observe the world to know all the past and future!

The particle picture makes things clearer. Let us stretch a point, and allow Laplace's demon a record of _all_ past particle-movements. But this knowledge is not enough to determine the future with mixed-type FDEs.

Another way to see this is to see that entropy (information) about the world does not stay constant with FDEs (as it does with ODEs).

I am glad you like the idea of a tilt in the arrow of time. I too have related it to quantum mechanics and also to what I call "mundane time" instead of the theological term "free will" in my book cited above, which has two separate chapters on these.

I will try to look at your article and respond as soon as possible.

Best wishes,

C. K. Raju

Thanks for the response that met my queries well. Best wishes for your continuing success professionally

Just a couple of sentences more, specially on the last three lines of your dec., 21 post to me. I really like the way you put. The evolutionary aspect is logical because we think so or else we need to build a bit of 'future' universe ourselves to project the matter further! i wish you all success,as you have the time to accomplish such apparently difficult propositions being carried to some conclusive end.

If you have some comments on my essay, may i see it on my essay post, as i expect U to come out with something worthwhile.