• [deleted]

JM,

You asked how I would specifically define the present. I'd define it the same way I'd define any particular time: a particular time is identically equivalent to and is completely defined by, and only by, a particular configuration of the universe. Think of our shoebox and billiard balls. What has "duration" there, i.e., what endures? The billiard balls endure. The way they're arranged relative to one another does not endure; it changes. It's always the present in our shoebox. The present configuration may include information which tells us something about configurations which preceded it. It never includes information about configurations that we infer will be subsequent to it, because these latter configurations have never been objectively real.

I like your analogy comparing time with temperature. Both are what may be thought of as "emergent" concepts, and I explicitly pointed out this emergent nature of time in the essay to which I've referred elsewhere in this thread. Modern physics has gotten itself into trouble, in my opinion, because it has failed to recognize this subtle fact. Physicists treat time as though it were real, in and of itself, separate and independent of the broader notion of configurations of the universe from whence it sprang.

This charade has been reinforced by the international system of units, the so-called "MKS" system, which puts time on the same footing with mass and length, It would be like including a separate unit in the MKS system for temperature. Including a unit for temperature is not done because the emergent nature of temperature has been recognized, whereas the emergent nature of time has not been generally recognized.

We have been tricked and victimized by our imprecise use of language. In the second post to this FQXi article I stated that anyone writing articles about "time" should be required to define exactly what he/she means by the word time. I was not being facetious. It is not safe or correct to assume that this term needs no clear and explicit definition. It is our general failure to do so that probably has led to problems such as the disconnect between general relativity and quantum mechanics, in my opinion.

Regarding your question about whether or not we are illusionary, I'll leave that for others to address.

  • [deleted]

JM,

I should hasten to add to my previous post that yes, I am familiar with the SI unit for temperature, the Kelvin. I would simply comment that this unit, like the unit for time, is derivative rather than fundamental, in my opinion.

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Amrit

I agree with Eckard, but that doesn't require time for anybody to be any more than now. The word time has many interpretations and I consider argument rather semantic.

The importance of its use as a reference for physics can be missed. Now is apparently different for every single observer when judged by events, not just due to different positions but due to different inertial frames.

We could co-ordinate 1,000 clocks at a point in space, and 1,000 people take tham on their travels. When they observe a cosmic event they record the time and return with evidence of their motion and position at that time. We find that each has recorded a different time.

That is what is meant by 'local' time. Events are communicated by light which takes different periods to reach different position. My concept of local time is valid, and important it's just not what you interpret that I mean by it.

The evidence brought back by the 1,000 people and their different recorded times of that event will tell us much about nature. If we use logic it will tell us more about inertial frames than we have understood so far.

Time, i.e. 'c' and the laws of physics, is the same within all inertial frames, but an inertial frame can be a region of space, not only mass in motion but both the mass and the fields around and attached to it.

Only with this model can we finally explain all observation, like how we can observe events years apart across space at the same moment in Einstein Lenses. Two different 'times' at one moment. Do you have an alternative explanation foior this?

Peter

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One Universe can only have one dimension. One Universe can only exist one time once. Hawking insists that the proof of the black hole Big Bang occuring 13.75 billion years ago rests entirely on the discovery of background radiation. Question: Does the phenomena in the background have a different commencement and duration than the phenomena in the foreground? Of course it cannot. As the foreground consists of the here and now of pragmatic human sensation, the background radiation can only belong to the here and now. One Universe exists in the one dimension of the here and now.

  • [deleted]

Joe i give you 5

yours amrit

  • [deleted]

IN PHYSICE SIMBOL t HAS ONLY MATHEMATICAL VALUE

In physics time is considered to be part of the space and so a medium where material change runs. There is no experimental evidence for such a view. With clocks we measure numerical order of material change running in space. As we have shown in previous article published in Physics Essays (Amrit S. Sorli, Davide Fiscaletti, Dusan Klinar, Time is a measuring System derived from Light Speed, Physics Essays, Vol 23. Num 2. (2010) ), Planck time as a fundamental unit of numerical order is derived from the light speed.

Velocity v of physical object is derived from distance d between A to B that the object has passed and numerical order t of its motion measured with clocks. There is no point to change meter/second (m/s) with some other words. A "second" is the "tick" of clock and is unit of numerical order of material change running in space.

In physical world "past", "present" and "future" exist only in a mathematical sense as a numerical order of material change running in space. Duration of material change exists only as a flow of its numerical order that we measure with a clock. Ticking of the clock experienced into psychological time creates sensation of "duration in time". However material change run and clocks tick only in the space that is timeless.

This "timeless framework" does not exclude existence of "clocks" and "seconds". In timeless space we measure with clocks numerical order of material change. A "tick" of clock that is a "second" is an unit of numerical order.

Physics works better replacing concept of time with timeless space where with clocks we measure numerical order of change because this picture correspond more adequately physical reality.

-This approach resolves time travel into past (they are excluded). One can travel in space only and not in time.

-This approach explains physical phenomenon which have numerical order zero, where t is zero. Such phenomenon is EPR and others where timeless space is an immediate information and energy transfer medium. See our article in Physics Essays: Fiscaletti D. Sorli A.S. (2008) Nonlocality and the symmetrized quantum potential, Physics Essays, December 2008, Vol. 21, No. 4,

-This approach resolves Zeno problems of motion showing that persons and objects move in space only and not in time. Zeno arrow is not moving from the past to the future and is not still in the present. Zeno arrow is moving in space only. Numerical order of its motion we measure with a clock that also tick in timeless space only (not in time).

"Temporal experience" past-present-future is result of experiencing material change i.e. motion in space through psychological time. Once we are aware of psychological time we experience experiment what eyes sees: flow of material change in a timeless space. Numerical order of this flow we measure with clocks.

You take a stone and left it to fall towards the earth. Stone will fall through space only, not through the presence, past or future. "Past", "present" and "future" exist only in a mathematical sense as a numerical order of change n, n+1, n+2....running in a timeless space. "Duration" of physical phenomena exist only in a sense of its numerical order that we measure with clocks. Ticking of a clock experienced into psychological time creates sensation of "duration in time". However physical phenomena run and clocks tick only in the space.

Here Einstein view on time is developed. Einstein use to say: "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".

For Einstein there was no division between past, present and future, there is rather a single existence we define as "timeless space". 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."

Amrit,

"Eternity is contained in the present moment"

You would like the movie "Slaughterhouse Five" and the Tralfamadorians ...???

Maybe Billy pilgrim only traveled in his mind. In this sense, our lives do not shrink, they actually expands since we get more and more places to travel to.

Marcel,

Dear Amrit,

We do discuss this, you and I, on many thread and websites like FQXI and ISST.

You can never convince real physicists of what you say. Physicists work with the empirical approach and this mean by testing with experiments in our physical reality. In order to do experiments, they need to retain both space and time since the testing of these requires the dimensions of the reality we experience.

Physicists may discover things about the universe, but they always express them in terms of space and time or space-time for the purpose of testing or making their ideas testable. They don't have a choice. So, to say that time does not exist is irrelevant to them. Space-time is a hybrid concept that reflects what they know about the universe but in terms of space and time so it remains testable in our reality.

If you want to tell someone that time does not exist, you have to declare your statement as metaphysical i.e. not of the domain of physics. My essay does that. It declares that physics is right but, under a metaphysical approach there is no time duration and no space. Then, because I declare my statement as belonging to a different system (metaphysical truth system) the testing has to be based on logic, not on some test bench in a lab.

Even at the speed of light, the photon in its travel to the moon is never at the same moment. To call the "distance" or "space" of this travel between Earth and moon is to sum up this journey that took a second as a single moment in time. Space is just our way to integrate or sum up this travel as if it were instantaneous! There is really no space! And there is no block time. The passage of time is universal but the value of its rate is a local property.

So, I would say that YOU are not aware of your words!

All the bests,

Marcel,

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    "Journey that took a second" -- Photons do not embark on journeys that take time to complete. Photons do not experience proper time. For the photon itself, space traveled and time experienced contract to zero (offsetting each other) according to special relativity.

    So, if the photon were the one doing the empirical bench testing, it would find no evidence of time or space. Both are experienced only by non-photon observers.

    Karl,

    That is true for photons. But for the rest of us sub-luminal entities, as matter, people, observers, the reality is different.

    The photon travels at the speed of expansion of time itself and therefore does not experience time. For that very reason, every point along its wavelength is in fact at the same moment and constitutes the only dimension that corresponds to our notion of space; an aligned collection of points all at the same moment. Any other notion of space applied elsewhere is perceptual/conceptual.

    Marcel,

    8 days later
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    We have duration and motion in our timeless universe.

    Does duration elapsing, have a dimension?

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    Hailton should be Hamilton

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    There is no time at all,

    and it has two dimensions.

    (at least)

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      It is a deep misunderstanding that time is part of the space.

      Time we measure with clocks is only a numerical order of change.

      Time we measure with clocks is exclusively a mathematical quantity.

      Sincerely Yours Amrit SorliAttachment #1: Time_measured_with_Clocks.pdf

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      Dear Georg,

      I have been playing with F-theoretic models and agree that there are at least two dimensions ("real" and "imaginary") of time (possibly 4, but I don't understand "Quaternionic" time unless it is somehow related to Supersymmetry), but I don't understand how you can also say "There is no time at all". If time is one or more dimensions, then it does exist - it simply has a different sort of metric/ geometry/ Lie algebra from spatial dimensions that may depend on the famously-regular 8-D Gosset lattice or the 24-D Leech lattice, but it still needs to be accounted for. I think that every type of time corresponds to something similar to a photon or graviton, therefore something "real" (at least "real" in the sense of Second Quantization and Feynman diagrams) does arise from time's existence. Consider the fact that the speed-of-light would not be one of our limiting scales if "There is no time at all".

      Have Fun!

      Ray Munroe

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      but I don't understand how you can also say "There is no time at all".

      Dear "Dr. Cosmic Ray",

      You only have to read some popular physics papers like SCIAM

      or some blogs. "Time is an Illusion" , "Time does not exist"

      are some rather popular statements recently.

      And if You read about Pauli and Dirac, You might find some

      quip of Pauli on not existing god and who is his prophet.

      Dr. Georg

        • [deleted]

        Dear Dr. Georg,

        Ouch! You hit close to home talking about Dirac. I attended Florida State University while he was a Prof Emeritus here, and I visit his family grave on occasion (because he is buried within 50 meters of my grandparents and 5 km of my home). In my current work, I am trying to keep Dirac's Large Number of ~10^40 relevant. I have great respect for Dirac's works, but Dirac is not my God.

        I am well-aware of the popular philosophical concept that time does not exist. I have had many discussions with my FQXi friend, Steve Dufourny about reality *NOT* being strictly 3-D. I have seen Amrit's claims about "block time" and chose not to counter his claims, but I see significant "structure" that is related to, and may have arisen from, the properties of this "non-existant time" such as the speed of light, the photon, and entropic change.

        Personally, I would define time differently from its current negative metric-squared signature. But even if you follow that restrictive definition, the 26-D metric implies 24 space-like (a Leech lattice?), one time-like (TL), and one light-like dimension (LL):

        1^2 + 2^2 +3^2 + ... + 24^2 - 70^2 (TL) = 0^2 (LL)

        Because the light-like metric is *EXACTLY* zero, the slightest purturbation of this metric could make this light-like dimension behave space-like *OR* time-like depending on the perturbed metric sign.

        I am not claiming to be a prophet, but if it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it *MIGHT* be a duck (regardless of popular literature and opinion - that just means that more people *MIGHT* be wrong).

        Have Fun!

        • [deleted]

        Hi

        very interesting all that.

        The reality is in strictly in 3D a,d time is strictly also irreversible.

        The time is not a dimension but a constant of duration for an evolutive dynamic.

        It's totally different.

        All these extrapolations,strings, Mtheory, Ex,extradimensions, reversibilities of time,Multiverses and MWI,even the Hawking radiations, all that is purelly hypothetical.

        These extrapolations insert maths without any respect of our ultim referential.

        The symmetries are bad extrapolated.The time is bad understood.The external cause of mass is not possible.

        read the post of Eckard about the causality please Dr Cosmic Ray.We see any cause of these theories and thus any effect.

        The dimensions aren't a pueril play of decoherences of our foundamentals.If it exists a 3D of our reality , it exists a cause of these laws.

        And all laws are in a dance of harmonization of our constants.

        All our experiments,datas, technologies respect this referential in 3D.If the duration of time is a constant,there is a reason !

        Ray you know the best way to use maths is when they describe the reality around you ! If you insert the 0 the - and the infinity for your perception , never you shall understand the uniqueness and its pure number.

        Regards

        Steve