The Times They Are A-Changin'

"So, do we travel the fourth dimension from the past into the future, or does the constant rearrangement of what is, turn the future into the past?"

The rearrangement of "what is" turns the present into a new and different present. The future does not exist, nor does the past. The past (i.e., a previously objectively real configuration of the universe) formerly existed but has evolved into the configuration which we currently perceive and which we call the present. We infer that the present configuration will evolve into new configurations which we think of as the future, but these hypothetical future configurations have never been objectively real.

Correction: when I wrote "The past (i.e., a previously objectively real configuration of the universe) formerly existed but has evolved into the configuration which we currently perceive and which we call the present."

I should have written, "The past (i.e., previously objectively real configurations of the universe) formerly existed but they have evolved into the configuration which we currently perceive and which we call the present."

The remainder stands as written. Apologies for any confusion.

J.C.,

I basically agree with your position, but I'm thinking part of the problem with physics is we get a little too demanding of what's real and what's not. We agree past and future do not exist, but then we turn around and try to define the present and it becomes this dimensionless point between past and future, but that doesn't work because there would be no duration to affect the change that both creates and replaces the configuration. Then when we try to understand duration, we're back to past and future.

The problem is that time is an emergent effect that if we look too closely at, begins to fade, much as the effect of temperature begins to evaporate when we get to the level of individual activities.

Past, Present, Future

There is no "overall present". The present is the coincidence of multiple signals in one point called the observer. Look at the Moon and it is a second away in time. Look at the Sun (not directly!) and it is about 8 minutes away. Everywhere you look around you is the past. Because the speed limit of light is a limit also for everything ... this distance in time is EFFECTIVE, OPERATIONAL and final. There is no NOW between you and the Moon or Jupiter or even your computer screen... It does not make sense to ask "what is the weather like now on Mars". We may find out in minutes and hours the answer but, .. this is a trick of consciousness and memory and some language thrown in... The observer on Earth and Mars were never part of the same moment or "now". Past and future are equally .... Block ideas ... and time travel suggests moving between two of these blocks that do not exist ...

Marcel,

Marcel,

I fully agree that the effect of time can be entirely explained in the context of motion and the projection of events as a dimension is only a narrative model and not physically real in any way, shape or form. Spacetime is a correlation of distance and duration using the speed of light as a conversion factor, rather than a fundamental structure of reality. The problem is this does create problems for current physics models and it's easier to reject it than consider the consequences.

As a friend once said, when I pointed out that time is actually the future becoming the past, rather than movement from the past into the future, "Stop it. You're hurting my head."

"The present is the coincidence of multiple signals in one point called the observer."

"Spacetime is a correlation of distance and duration using the speed of light as a conversion factor, rather than a fundamental structure of reality."

Bing, you guys have nailed it. I've tried to make these point on several threads, perhaps less eloquently, but it didn't fly with the few people on here who reject special relativity. It seems that some people just need to think of the universe as a giant shooting gallery of photons ontologically zooming from here to there for billions of "universe-years," like tiny wayward space travelers wondering where they will end up. Even most popular-science magazine articles depict the Cosmos this way. The sooner we realize that this is a false, anthropomorphic view of reality -- a human projection of the "true" universe onto a context that makes intuitive sense to us -- the sooner we'll have a realistic, workable definition of time and what it really means.

Karl,

The irony is that the linear narrative that is the dimension of time, is profoundly anthropomorphic.

Basically Einstein rejected Newton's "God's view" of an absolute flow of time for a subjective understanding, where the individual perspective determines what can be observed. What gets overlooked is that since there is no "God's view" in the first place, what was being rejected was an anthropomorphization of objective reality, rather than an actual attempt at objective reality. The presumed universal narrative was being rejected in favor of the individual narrative, without considering that the very quality of narration might not be fundamental. So that "universal flow" from past to future was replaced by a four dimensional spacetime geometry, in order to incorporate the fact that clocks are inherently subjective. The simple basic fact though, is that similar processes will evolve at different rates under different conditions, as opposed to there being some fundamental geometry of spacetime telling them how fast to evolve.

"We agree past and future do not exist, but then we turn around and try to define the present and it becomes this dimensionless point between past and future,"

It only becomes a dimensionless point between the past and the future if we fail to recognize and understand that particular times are identically equivalent to and are completely defined by, and only by, particular configurations of the universe. The universe always has some configuration, and this configuration changes; it evolves. We, as sentient beings, are able to observe this evolution, and we have given it a special name: "the flow of time."

This word "time" is a human invention, and it is the source of a great deal of mischief and confusion. The existence of this word and the ways in which we use it tend to blind us to the fact that we are simply using the word as a tool to describe the environment in which we find ourselves as it rearranges itself. In our sometimes inelegant and imprecise way of communicating with one another, we have all tacitly agreed to describe various arrangements of the universe which we observe by referring to them as various "particular times." The universe is dynamic; its configuration changes in more or less predictable ways which we strive to understand and which we have dubbed the laws of physics. Unfortunately, our word "time" has become inextricably tangled up with physics in ways which ultimately may not serve it, or us, well. We need to rethink our use of this word and the concept with which it is linked.

I have attempted to offer a more thorough explication of this in the essay which may be found here.

Karl, John,

Let's not forget the partition of the different truth systems. That I can see at the same time both the Sun and the Moon in the sky remains a truth for me, the observer and his truth system. What we talked about and agreed with above is another truth system that belongs to the ontology of the universe. What I am saying is that within a specific truth system the truths do not agree with other truth systems, this is normal and logical. No one is wrong if he specifies to which truth system the absence of choice a.k.a. facts a.k.a. truths it belong to. Many arguments and paradoxes are eliminated by recognizing this partition.

Marcel,

flow of time is flow of numerical order of materal change running in a timeless space

J.C,

I pretty much agree with your description. My main point all along is that since this universal configuration we commonly refer to as the present is more fundamental than the units of time being created, then it is the present which is the constant and the units which move. Thus, on this fundamental level, it isn't the present moving from past to future, but future configurations becoming past configurations, due to the universal change.

It seems counterintuitive from our perspective as individual sentient beings, because by comparing it to space, it seems equivalent to moving from one situation to the next, much like walking along a path. But when we consider that we exist totally within our context and are in no way separate from it, then our motion is part of the larger change and the events of our lives recede into the past, as new ones replace them.

"Thus, on this fundamental level, it isn't the present moving from past to future, but future configurations becoming past configurations, due to the universal change."

The problem with phrasing the issue as you've done here is, in my opinion, that it gives an undeserved (and potentially misleading and confusing) ring of substance and reality to "future configurations." Yes, it's true that we can imagine future configurations, and we can even predict with some varying degree of certainty the rough form which some of them undoubtedly will have. But they are no more "real" than ghosts. They do not "become" or "do" anything.

Perhaps a thought experiment will help explain my thinking on this. Imagine for the sake of argument that the universe is a shoebox containing a few billiard balls. Now, the billiard balls will always have some configuration relative to one another and to the shoebox. But where are the past and future configurations? They are nowhere to be seen. They are not objectively real.

Now, if the shoebox were shaken, for example, the configuration would change, and if we have studied our physics textbooks diligently we might even be able to predict how the configuration of our small universe should evolve. We can infer with some varying degree of precision the likely nature of its evolution. But what we refer to as past or future configurations still are nowhere to be seen.

If we are willing to become somewhat speculative at this point we can add that any sentient creatures such as ourselves who might inhabit this small universe might have a "memory" of once-real but no-longer-existing configurations. Those creatures might think of those configurations as the past. And they might imagine possible configurations which they have never observed and imagine them as the future. But where are these past and future configurations? If we peek into the shoebox we will see only one configuration. That configuration is what our sentient creatures probably would think of as their "present."

Your thoughts on this are invited.

Wow! John, Eckard, and Marcel in particular.

Brilliant perception from the misty gloom! May I attempt a floodlight? but be careful as most are blinded; Some time ago I had a moment of inspiration which I'm fearful to share. But in truth I have no choice but to ask those with vision if they can see it.

Eckard, as usual, it's your Localised Observer, in each and every inertial frame, which as Weinstein said we haven't considered well enough. Now bring in Marcels's 'each EM field as just different dynamic dimensions of time.' and consider how each massive particle (or group) in motion has it's own EM field. With local limits. And every point, as John says, is the centre of it's own 3D co-ordinate system, each being one of the essential 'innumerable truth systems.' This is the same as the "infinitely many 'spaces' in relative motion" which Einstein described, but never did quite find the link to his "all mass is spatially extended" .. but with limits, which brings us back to the EM and other fields around all mass, behaving differently with relative motion through it's 'next field up' background.

Marcel again; "Observers on Earth and Mars were never part of the same moment or 'now'. They are in real and physically different inertial fields and thus will have their own local time, as each of the infinitely many spaces in relative motion' does. And EM waves must change speed at each of these EM field limits to maintain 'c' locally as it moves into the next. The laws of physics are the same in all inertial frames, including 'c'. And here is where we've been blinded.

Light changes speed moving from, say, water into a vacuum, or from air into ice. All we need to prove is that when we move that ice cube, relative to the air, the light within it passes through it at a constant speed wrt the ice cube, i.e. locally, no matter which vector we choose or which way the planet is moving. Then we have a whole new simple physics. Discrete fields in relative motion resolving anomalies. Acceleration changes frames, and conservation is served in balancing frequency with wavelength.

But wait, we have already proved this! We've just been blinded. We even have both quantum and classic processes for the speed change between inertial frames. Ah! But there is no Lorentz/Fitzgerald contraction, and we'd be able to observe gas jets at 6c or more, and 'lensing' delays of years! (that's observing two 'times' at once!) so of course it can't possibly be correct. Are there any not blinded yet?

Very best wishes

Peter

Marcel again; "Observers on Earth and Mars were never part of the same moment or 'now'. They are in real and physically different inertial fields and thus will have their own local time, as each of the infinitely many spaces in relative motion' does. And EM waves must change speed at each of these EM field limits to maintain 'c' locally as it moves into the next. The laws of physics are the same in all inertial frames, including 'c'. And here is where we've been blinded.

..................................

all observations are measured only in space and always in space, time is only numerical order of observation....clocks tick only in space and not in time

yours amrit

Einstein expressed time is numerical order of physical phenomena in a famous sentence: "Time has no independent existence apart from the order of events by which we measure it". In 1952, in his book Relativity, in discussing Minkowski's Space World interpretation of his theory of relativity, Einstein writes: "Since there exists in this four dimensional structure [space-time] no longer any sections which represent "now" objectively, the concepts of happening and becoming are indeed not completely suspended, but yet complicated. It appears therefore more natural to think of physical reality as a four dimensional existence, instead of, as hitherto, the evolution of a three dimensional existence".

Einstein did not interpreted time as a fourth dimension of space-time. This was and still is misinterpretation of the most physicists which do not distinguish between physical and psychological time. They "project" their inner psychological time into the physical reality although it is not there.

For Einstein there was no division between past, present and future, there is rather a single existence. His most descriptive testimony to this faith came when his lifelong friend Besso died. Einstein wrote a letter to Besso's family, saying that although Besso had preceded him in death it was of no consequence: "Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."

(out of my comming book)

Anon Peter Jackson,

I see growing consensus with John, J.C. and others: The future is uncertain but the past unchangeable, and this distinction belongs to a real observer. Religion as well as physics have unfortunately been emancipated from this realistic perspective. I doubt that the young Weinstein will have enough courage as to solve the case and separate physics from what is deeply rooted. I rather envision Van Flandern's fellows to succeed.

We all learned to either believe in SR or getting declared stupid. Meanwhile I feel free to rethink the arguments myself. Flandern coined the expression "time desynchronization" by SR. Einstein himself called relativity "seemingly" not agreeable with the constant velocity of light in vacuum. Was he right?

Let's assume four identical clocks, one on earth E, a second one just one second remote on the moon M and a third and fourth on identical shuttles moving towards E and M, respectively. Shouldn't it be reasonable for symmetry reasons that the shuttles can start and arrive simultaneously no matter how fast they move? Wouldn't a synchronization be simply possible in principle by correcting for the time of flight light propagates either from E to M or return? With this one-way method one could make sure that both shuttles will start simultaneously and for symmetry reasons also arrive at the same moment. What time spans the four clocks show is quite a different question. I cannot see any reason for ascribing different times to the same point in space just if there is something moving relative to something at a different point. Be honest, you all do understand it very well: Any light we perceive belongs to the past. It traveled at least one way.

Incidentally, I would like to add a caveat to the thesis that the laws of physics are valid in all coordinate systems: In reality we have to obey the restriction to only positive elapsed time. Negative elapsed time is as unreal as is negative distance.

Those who experienced a blast did first see it and heard it with some delay. Do not infer from this that it happened twice. While I may even respect the many impressive theories that are based on SR and Minkowski's metric, I suggest looking for simpler, honest, and more realistic results from Galilean mathematics and physics too.

Eckard

Eckard

Amrit,

Didn't E. here contradict to his own SR? Future events cannot be measured. Clocks do not show future time. Ergo future time does not exist in reality. This is the opposite of the allegedly only elusive distinction between past and future.

If E. distinguished between physical time and psychological time he perhaps attributed the physical one to the abstract notion but the psychological one to the elapsed time. Isn't this perverse?

Anyway, we should clarify whether or not it is justified to base the notion time on a direct measurement by means of a round trip of light. If I understood Van Flandern correctly, he argued that the multitude of local times is an artifact of SR. I share this view.

Eckard

Eckart

numerical order of events does not exist as a past and does not exist not as a future in a physical sense, it exist only inj mathematical sense.

That's why Einstien put i in X4=ict....imaginary coordinate of motion in a timeless space

The fact is that flow of change and flow of numerical order is running in a timeless space. Universe is NOW.

yours amrit

Amrit,

I understand those like you who attribute existence just to the present as follows: Physical existence of something means it is tangible and it can be influenced. Tangible refers to perception, which strictly speaking belongs to the past. The possibility to influence something belongs to the future. The notion presence is an imprecise overlap of past and future which strictly speaking exclude each other. When we say 'now', 'today', or maybe 'in this century', we are usually doing this if the precise time does not matter much.

Every single idealized moment, in particular the very now, corresponds to one measure out of the continuum of uncountably much real numbers. I maintain even if mediocre physicists tend to deny that : Absolutely infinite accuracy is as fictitious as are the notions point, line, infinity, zero, etc.

The expression sign(x) equals to +1 for positive values of x and to -1 for negative ones. At least common sense and practical implication tell us: There is no approachable value 0 for x=0 in between. From this strictly scientific point of view, the notion present in the meaning of a timespan between past and future does not at all fit into physics. Past and future are sufficient.

We cannot expect sound foundations of physics to be based on Hilbert's denial of the arrow of causality. The late Einstein admitted that the now worried him seriously. While he might have felt that his SR is wrong, he hoped for an explanation outside science.

Incidentally, ict was introduced by Minkowski, not by Einstein, admittedly based on Einstein's - as has been shown by Van Flandern - illusory SR.

Eckard, not Eckart