Comparing Apples to Inches by John Brodix Merryman

Tom,

Does the symbol create the sheet of paper, as would be premised by Big Bang theory, or does the paper permit the symbol? An expending metric, that of redshift, would suggest the first, but a stable metric, the speed of light, would suggest the second.

As an abstraction, we should treat geometry as a useful model and nothing more. Otherwise we must account for that other mathematical principle that multiplying anything by zero equals zero. So a dimensionless point doesn't exist. The problem so often with math is that people treat the principles they like as absolutes and ignore the ones they don't like and that defeats the purpose. The Planck unit is where divisibility meets its limit, but this is inherently fuzzy because defining it further would require a level of definition beyond the planck scale. Math is modeling.

John,

I enjoyed reading your essay. Most was familiar to me from previous discussions we had in these blogs. But the style of writing was easy, smooth and clear. I liked it. Since we agree in many fundamental views (especially as it concerns cosmology) I hope your essay makes it to the 'finals' -- along with Peter's and Georgina's and Eckard's and many others that now seem to converge on the same 'view' of physical reality. Who knows. If a sizable number of essays in the final round play on the same central theme then our call for greater 'physical realism' may begin to be taken more seriously by the judges. I will definitely give you a good rating and hope you make it to the final round!

Recalling our discussions on cosmology. I have a curiosity and concern I like to share with you.

In my essay I show that Thermodynamics (The Fundamental Thermodynamic Relation as well as The Second Law) requires that physical time be 'duration', t-s, rather than 'instantiation', t=s. Thermodynamics as I argue asserts that 'every physical process (event) takes some duration of time to occur'. This, of course, fits well with my claim that 'there is accumulation before manifestation' of energy. My curiosity -- and physicist's concern -- is that Thermodynamics thus would seem to invalidate GR where 'events' in the Universe are given (x,y,z,t) coordinates in a spacetime continuum. Clearly, time so used in GR is 'instantiation' t=s, and not 'duration' t-s as I argue is required by Thermodynamics. And if GR violates Thermodynamics, wont then the Cosmology based on GR and deeply Thermodynamical, also be false?

This goes well with your notion of 'counting clicks' (instantiation) rather than 'counting the time between clicks' (duration).

Wishing you well,

Constantinos

John,

As usual - very thought provoking stuff!

Constantinos,

I think spacetime geometry is equivalent to epicycles, in that it is trying to give a physical explanation for how time goes from past to future, since that is the bedrock of rational thought. As opposed to the simple fact that we have the relationship inverted, much like it is actually the earth which is rotating and not that the sun actually moves. Remember that for their time, epicycles were extremely advanced math and laid the foundations for much of the cosmology and physics that came after, once the correct pivot was established and all the parts came together in a much more simplified whole.

Safe to say, for those who have spent their lives loading the old program, this just "does not compute."

Having been following the news out of the LHC, they have pushed many of the boundaries for super symmetry quite far and haven't found any of what they are looking for. Combine this with the likelihood that evidence for a galaxy to be discovered, further away than the universe is presumed to be old, within the next few years, considering the current oldest discovered one is 13.2 billion lightyears away and I suspect the physics world is going to have some major earth guakes rattling in in the coming decade. Who knows, by the time this contest is finished in June, some discoveries, or lack thereof, might be rattling the china.

Chris,

Thanks. Good to hear from you again. I haven't been reading too many of the entries, but am meaning to get to yours. I burn mental fuses reading too much of this sort of stuff.

John,

Great title, catchy and somewhat profound.

"The main reason why particles won out over waves is because there is no suitable

medium in which such quantum waves might propagate and this is a very valid concern."

I contend that models can only simulate reality.

Jim Hoover

Jim,

Thanks. It is a bit scatterbrained, but I tried to cover a fairly broad range of ideas and bring them into some degree of focus in as few words as possible.

Here is another possible explanation for how light could be redshifted due to distance, courtesy of Israel Perez;

http://www.fqxi.org/data/forum-attachments/2008CChristov_WaveMotion_45_154_EvolutionWavePackets.pdf

From Dan Benedict's footnotes, here is another large hole blown in Big Bang theory;

http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2007/9/modern-cosmology-science-or-folktale

As with the many other problems with this belief system, if it can't be plastered over, it gets ignored.

Hello John:

I'm no horseman like you but have been around them a bit. Standing next to a scared horse is very scary and somewhat predictible, kicking and running etc. Figuring out the universe is much less predictible... but possibly someday, a divergent and thought provking essay like yours (or mine) might eventually aid understanding. It is great to have this essay contest available!

I enjoyed your essay. Good luck!

Joseph Markell

Dear John,

I very much appreciate the title of your essay, your courage to address some holy but perhaps nonsensical flocks of cows and the current discussion that arose from this attitude.

It does not matter that I do not agree with you on all details. For instance, I am left-handed and familiar with a lot of details concerning the hemispheres of brain.

I just feel challenged to take issue because you wrote:

"We can't have free will if the present is dimensionless point between past and future, since we can't change the past or affect the future, but if it's the motion of the present turning potential into effect, our actions are part of the whole."

Of course, our actions and our free will are part of the whole. Nobody doubts that the past cannot be changed. However, why do you contradict e.g. Shannon? Why do you deny the possibility to affect the future? I see no logical alternative but to strictly separate in physics between past and future by means of a mathematical ideal, a point, something that does not have parts.

I consider at lest Georgina Parry and Albert Einstein people who are called presentists. They do not consider the present in the sense of an intangible demarcation between past and future but deliberately imprecise as for instance in expressions like today, this year, or in the time being.

The more I am dealing with the idol Einstein, the less I respect him. When I read his seminal 1905 paper on relativity, I could not understand many details because they were obviously incompletely stolen from Poincaré without any hint. Perhaps, the editor Max Planck did not see any problem because he was familiar with this stuff. Recently, a German minister of defense lost his job because his dissertation plagiarized work without giving all due references.

While my judgment on Poincaré's method of synchronization is not yet complete, the book "The Special Theory of Relativity" by David Bohm did not convince me. Has the question really settled?

Regards,

Eckard

John

Good blog post, and excellent link from Israels refs. I also attach an up to the minute one Wilhelm has passed to me, and it's probably about time you followed that by looking at a recent preprint of mine ref a full paper in formal review.

Wills is a short review of another imminent publication; http://www.world-science.net/othernews/110223_blackhole.htm

My own is very fundamental and takes the discrete field (DFM) solution to CSL to some extraordinary logical conclusions. It's also consistent with your own views on the BB, and provides resolutions to a myriad of major issues, the smooth profile, the re-ionisation issue, the 'spiral' CMB assymmetry, etc etc etc.

It should not have been lost on you that while the redshift paper is quite brilliant, and fully consistent with the DFM (as is the other item above and all other latest data), they are all absolutely unequivocal in requiring an effective 'fluid medium' condensate of some sort (below condensed 'matter' - which cannot condense from nothing any more than it could in a big bang!).

Your arguments are generally excellent, but if you'll forgive me, and for positive reasons. I see two glaring weaknesses; One; the troglodytes will use and write you off with - the reversed tiem thing which is a perfectly reasonable way of looking at it but almost entirely semantic. .. And Two; the denial of any 'energy field' continuum (even though it's 2.7 degrees), which will neither let you in to the troglodyte society or endear you to the enlightened! (although I haven't heard you promoting that recently). With those two cleaned up a bit I think you have the basic concepts of a cast iron coherent theory.

Please read the enclosed and considering before responding. (It may prove a test of whether or not you can doing what you're asking the relativists running with blinkers to do, forget initial beliefs and go with the logic)!

Very best wishes

Peter

PS I'm waiting with interest for a response from Tom on his essay string.

Peter,

I find your ideas of moving fields quite interesting, but given my own serious limitations of time, education and intent, can't really give them the attention they deserve and so tend to leave such more focused observations to those with the abilities to address them.

I do understand the two directions of time is semantic on some levels, but it does does address some vexing issues on other levels. It could equally be argued that whether the sun moves across the sky, or the earth rotates on its axis is an equally semantic distinction. Both are true, but the delineation of the relationship had significant effects on how humanity understood its relationship with the universe. That it gets dismissed, I find amusing, to put it bluntly.

It's not that I'm denying the energy field continuum, as I do feel my concluding observations on light as a continuous medium requires it as implicit, but that I feel there is a deeper issue about the function of space which gets overlooked. I'm not saying it even has any physical effect of attraction or repulsion, as both are forms of energy acting on other forms of energy, but that its very non-existence sets parameters that have consequences. Rather than go over the various points, simply consider that the alternative to an infinite and absolute field is the singularity. In simple geometric terms, zero is posited as the centerpoint of the coordinate system rather than the blank space. So before simply dismissing space as an effect of measurement, consider the parameters intrinsic in any alternative.

I will read, I promise!!!

Pardon me, but I have many friend who are complete troglodytes. Some of whom I have to go work with shortly.

John,

Do you really deny the line because it is too small for your car to drive on it? After its shutter is closed, your camera does not get input anymore. I hope you and Georgina will distance yourself from Einstein's presentism. Is there really a mysterious somewhere hidden process that creates time or could we agree that we need the notion time as to describe all processes?

I do not consider "the future as being in front of us and to which we are physically moving toward". I rather consider two aspects of the notion future:

- something particular that we can steer to some extent but not predict for sure and

- in a more general sense an abstract order of all not yet observable features of and events within certainly ongoing processes.

I do not see "our immediate consciousness" perceiving something "as existing at this point of the present". I rather see our consciousness a quite normal spatially distributed process located in the past as are all processes in reality. The point now is as abstract as central point of earth.

You wrote: "In this sense, the concept of four dimensional spacetime is actually a very useful model, but must be understood as a model of how information and energy interact."

Here I strongly disagree. I did not take the effort to read Georgina's discussion after I realized that her arguments got diffuse. Can you please summarize what if any I should try to understand on a clean logical basis?

What about Poincaré and Lorentz, did you deal with the synchronization on which spacetime has been based?

While I guess, the dissertation by zu Guttenberg was not important, Einstein might have stolen something wrong with definitely serious consequences for the history of physics, not necessarily something valid for good.

Eckard

Eckard,

As I've said, I see time as an effect. We see evidence of things which occurred in the past, but as the energy radiates around, it moves from that event to our eyes and as our eyes are processing the information, it is of some prior event, but the occurrence of our perception is our existence. Now is as abstract as past and future.

"- something particular that we can steer to some extent but not predict for sure and

- in a more general sense an abstract order of all not yet observable features of and events within certainly ongoing processes."

I agree with both points. As I point out, the changing configuration of what is, turns potential into actual. Future possibilities merge into actual events.

The problem with the past to future arrow of time is that to the extent physical laws are fundamental, events which occur are those with the highest probability and thus effectively deterministic, but we don't know all potential input until the event occurs, since information can be arriving from opposite directions at the speed of light. So the total causes of any particular event are in the future until that event occurs and all probabilities are calculated by those fundamental laws of nature. The event then recedes into the past. In this sense, cause is in the future and effect is in the past.

In that sense, a big problem with physics is trying to incorporate the past to future arrow of time as a fundamental factor, rather than an emergent effect of motion. Projecting the deterministic past onto the probabilistic future leads to the concept of multi-worlds, as all probabilities exist as a function of the percentage of their occurring.

Pretty much the basis of human rationality is the result of past to future examination of cause and effect. So it is natural for us to consider it as fundamental, but this chronology is a function of examining prior occurrences and their subsequent effects, not a consideration of the physical processes in the act of occurring.

Time is different kettle of fish when we read about it in books and the linear series is known, then when it is occurring in our face and the possibilities are coming from all directions.

Eckard,

I find myself defending Einstein's relativity in conversation with you and attacking it in conversation with Thomas Ray, so I thought would cross post this observation to somewhat clarify my position:

Tom,

I realize there is a delicate and precise balance between light, mass, duration and distance, such that tweeking one affects the others, but let me try an analogy of why it rattles my chains, if I may;

You are the center of your perspective of the universe. As such you could develop a coordinate system of the entire universe, using your location as its center. If you were to do this, though, the earth would not rotate on its axis, but revolve in a loop around you, same with the moon and sun and stars, even the entire Milky Way would spin around your final resting place every 225 million years. This Tomcentric cosmology could theoretically be developed to be so accurate as to predict the location of the planets far into the future. Obviously this is what a geocentric cosmology does, with the earth as its center. When you get down to it, what really makes a heliocentric cosmology more useful than a Tomcentric or geocentric cosmology isn't so much the theoretical accuracy, as that it is vastly simpler and less complex.

The real problem with the geocentric cosmology was trying to develop a physical model to explain its mathematical structure. The solution was that all these planets were fastened to huge cosmic gear wheels and it spun around as an enormous clockwork. You point out they made a mistake by assuming circles were perfection and thinking they had to move in perfect circles, but I suspect the actual reason is more prosaic. Trying to make oval gears is far more conceptually, mathematically and technically complex than circular gears. In theory though, it might still be made to work. The fact though, is there is no physical evidence of these gears, just planets and stars making strange, yet precise loops around the heavens.

Now consider spacetime and relativity. Mathematically it is a very precise, yet also very complex theory that works with utmost precision. The problem is when we try explaining it with some physical theory and end up with things like blocktime, warped spacetime, time travel, etc. Just like those cosmic gearwheels, they seem necessary to explain what seems to be a very effective and useful mathematical theory, but there is just no physical evidence, other than that functional theory. As with epicycles, is some factor being overlooked?

John,

J:

As I've said, I see time as an effect.

E:

I see it a measure. Don't causing influences precede any effect?

J:

We see evidence of things which occurred in the past, but as the energy radiates around, it moves from that event to our eyes and as our eyes are processing the information, it is of some prior event, but the occurrence of our perception is our existence.

E:

Isn't existence independent from perception? What about the role of energy, look at the harmonic oscillator in phase plane. Energy is in this admittedly idealized case expressed as constant radius while the parameter t proceeds along a circular path.

J:

Now is as abstract as past and future.

E:

of course.

(E:)

"- (a) something particular that we can steer to some extent but not predict for sure and

- (b) in a more general sense an abstract order of all not yet observable features of and events within certainly ongoing processes."

J:

I agree with both points. As I point out, the changing configuration of what is, turns potential into actual. Future possibilities merge into actual events.

E:

In reality only some possibilities, not all.

J:

The problem with the past to future arrow of time is that to the extent physical laws are fundamental, events which occur are those with the highest probability and thus effectively deterministic,

E:

I disagree: Even highly unlikely events may happen. Probability is only reliable with many trials.

J:

but we don't know all potential input until the event occurs,

E:

Often it is even after the event impossible to reconstruct all influences.

J:

since information can be arriving from opposite directions at the speed of light.

E: ?

J:

So the total causes of any particular event are in the future

E:

Such anticipation could at best be true within a closed system. In reality, it is reasonable to reject fatalism and to consider the future not yet existing.

J:

until that event occurs and all probabilities are calculated by those fundamental laws of nature. The event then recedes into the past. In this sense, cause is in the future and effect is in the past.

E:

Nature does not calculate probabilities. Any cause always precedes its past. I understand your fallacy.

J:

In that sense, a big problem with physics is trying to incorporate the past to future arrow of time as a fundamental factor,

E:

Isn't this illusory? I see physics obliged to separate between (b) where future time is just a void placeholder and (a) where future does simply not yet exist.

Up to now, physics operates with closed modeling systems instead of reality. For models, the future can indeed be calculated.

J:

rather than an emergent effect of motion. Projecting the deterministic past onto the probabilistic future leads to the concept of multi-worlds, as all probabilities exist as a function of the percentage of their occurring.

E:

Isn't there an uncountable variety of possibilities? Let me mock: Uncountable worlds are perhaps pointless.

J:

Pretty much the basis of human rationality is the result of past to future examination of cause and effect. So it is natural for us to consider it as fundamental,

E:

I agree.

J:

but this chronology is a function of examining prior occurrences and their subsequent effects, not a consideration of the physical processes in the act of occurring.

E:

Well, preparation is possible. However it does not shift reality.

J:

Time is different kettle of fish when we read about it in books and the linear series is known, then when it is occurring in our face and the possibilities are coming from all directions.

E:

While I did not quite understand your metaphor I guess I can agree.

Let me ask again for any essential argument by Georgina, Einstein or you that might defend presentism in physics.

What about spacetime, I see its proponents mingling (a) and (b).

Eckard

Joe,

Sorry to have not replied to this, but I thought I would read your essay first, yet still have not found the opportunity.

Horses actually are quite predictable, but like anything, it comes with lots of practice and a bit of pain.

Good luck.

E:

I see it a measure.

J:

What is it that we measure? Changes of configuration, preferably those with regularity.

E:

Don't causing influences precede any effect?

J:

Yes, but there is no way to calculate how they will interact prior to the event, since information can be coming from opposite directions at the speed of light, so knowing all potential input requires that God like "objective perspective."

E:

Isn't existence independent from perception?

J:

Perception is a small, subjective part of existence. The problem though, is that there is no such thing as an objective perspective of existence, because "objective perspective" is an oxymoron.

E:

What about the role of energy, look at the harmonic oscillator in phase plane. Energy is in this admittedly idealized case expressed as constant radius while the parameter t proceeds along a circular path.

J:

We can only know that subjective part our minds register. The problem with knowledge is the dichotomy of specialization vs, generalization. As an electrical engineer, you have quite a lot of specialized knowledge about electrical properties, but someone who spend their life as a painter would have a completely different, yet equally valid understanding of the properties of light.

E:

In reality only some possibilities, not all.

J:

That's why they are only possibilities.

E:

I disagree: Even highly unlikely events may happen. Probability is only reliable with many trials.

J:

The point is that once a particular event has actually occurred, the odds of it having happened are 100%. Not that there are not many subjective arguments as to what might have happened, but all events that are in the past have that 100% probability.

E:

Often it is even after the event impossible to reconstruct all influences.

J:

True. That is why the idea that information isn't destroyed is nonsense. As I said earlier, the past is chewed up to feed the future. Energy is conserved, so old information is destroyed in the process of creating new information.

E:

Such anticipation could at best be true within a closed system. In reality, it is reasonable to reject fatalism and to consider the future not yet existing.

J:

In a closed system, there would presumably be a way to know all input. It is because the light cone of any event is still open prior to its occurrence.

E:

Nature does not calculate probabilities. Any cause always precedes its past. I understand your fallacy.

J:

Maybe "calculate" was not the right term, as it implies intent. The arrow of time goes from what comes first, to what comes second. Tomorrow is the 7th of March. Shortly that date will be yesterday. So the arrow of time for the actual events is future to past. Now your point is that prior events precede succeeding ones, therefore the past is cause of the future. The fact is that it is never past, or future, but only the present. The same energy which manifested as yesterday, is currently manifesting today and will eventually manifest tomorrow. That energy is never in the future, or in the past, its existence is what is the present. As that energy moves around, it creates these configurations, Past configurations dissolve into the present configuration, which is dissolving into the next. Neither past or future physically exist because the energy moved on. Now until a particular event occurs, it is a probability, ie, in the future. The probability of an event precedes its actual occurrence. The future is the probabilities and the past is the effect of those probabilities being resolved.

E:

Isn't this illusory? I see physics obliged to separate between (b) where future time is just a void placeholder and (a) where future does simply not yet exist.

Up to now, physics operates with closed modeling systems instead of reality. For models, the future can indeed be calculated.

J:

That's why they end up with multiworlds. Our brains physically exist and thus are always present. Our minds are a record of events, as they recede into the past. If you view time as the probabilities collapsing and not as some fundamental dimension along which events exist, which splays out on encountering the future, then how (A) is separated from (B) makes sense.

E:

Well, preparation is possible. However it does not shift reality.

J:

Preparation is action, which does shift reality, though not always as intended.

E:

What about spacetime, I see its proponents mingling (a) and (b).

J:

They, along with the quantum theorists, are trying to reconcile how the effect of time, ie. the sequential series of events, is fundamental, without considering that the process of time, the changing configuration of what is, is the inverse. Much as we see the sun moving across the sky and spent millennia trying to figure out how, before realizing it was the ground we stand on that was moving the other direction.

Dear John,

I enjoy the word Tomcentric. Before the allegedly relative Poincaré desynchronization, there was no doubt: Fortunately, the Tomcentric time is ubiquitously valid.

J:

What is it that we measure? Changes of configuration, preferably those with regularity.

E:

Measures like temporal or spatial distance are means of comparison that are based on recognizable discrete features.

(E:)

Don't causing influences precede any effect?

J:

Yes, but there is no way to calculate how they will interact prior to the event, since information can be coming from opposite directions at the speed of light, so knowing all potential input requires that God like "objective perspective."

E:

Good point.

(E:)

Isn't existence independent from perception?

J:

Perception is a small, subjective part of existence. The problem though, is that there is no such thing as an objective perspective of existence, because "objective perspective" is an oxymoron.

E:

I did not use the expression objective perspective but I consider objective existence the only reasonable guess and always confirmed without exception.

(E:)

What about the role of energy, look at the harmonic oscillator in phase plane. Energy is in this admittedly idealized case expressed as constant radius while the parameter t proceeds along a circular path.

J:

We can only know that subjective part our minds register. The problem with knowledge is the dichotomy of specialization vs, generalization. As an electrical engineer, you have quite a lot of specialized knowledge about electrical properties, but someone who spend their life as a painter would have a completely different, yet equally valid understanding of the properties of light.

E:

I am claiming to be closer to logically foundational questions than an artist. He can create the illusion of getting younger. I am forced to judge reasonably.

(E:)

I disagree: Even highly unlikely events may happen. Probability is only reliable with many trials.

J:

The point is that once a particular event has actually occurred, the odds of it having happened are 100%. Not that there are not many subjective arguments as to what might have happened, but all events that are in the past have that 100% probability.

E:

Opponents of a clear distinction between past and future like Georgina argue, the past, while 100% decided in the present moment, gets increasingly uncertain, and they do not look at reality but on our possibility to retrace it.

(E:)

Often it is even after the event impossible to reconstruct all influences.

J:

True. That is why the idea that information isn't destroyed is nonsense.

E:

I meant it is often impossible to observe and analyze all influences.

J:

As I said earlier, the past is chewed up to feed the future. Energy is conserved, so old information is destroyed in the process of creating new information.

E:

Sounds as if we should burn all old books and destroy all fossils.

(E:)

Such anticipation could at best be true within a closed system. In reality, it is reasonable to reject fatalism and to consider the future not yet existing.

J:

In a closed system, there would presumably be a way to know all input.

E:

Yes.

J:

It is because the light cone of any event is still open prior to its occurrence.

E:

I dislike attributing mental constructs to reality. What is "the" light cone of any event? You meant the cone of future in the sense of exclusding impossible processes.

E:

Nature does not calculate probabilities. Any cause always precedes its past. I understand your fallacy.

J:

Maybe "calculate" was not the right term, as it implies intent. The arrow of time goes from what comes first, to what comes second. Tomorrow is the 7th of March. Shortly that date will be yesterday. So the arrow of time for the actual events is future to past. Now your point is that prior events precede succeeding ones, therefore the past is cause of the future. The fact is that it is never past, or future, but only the present. The same energy which manifested as yesterday, is currently manifesting today and will eventually manifest tomorrow. That energy is never in the future, or in the past, its existence is what is the present. As that energy moves around, it creates these configurations, Past configurations dissolve into the present configuration, which is dissolving into the next. Neither past or future physically exist because the energy moved on. Now until a particular event occurs, it is a probability, ie, in the future. The probability of an event precedes its actual occurrence. The future is the probabilities and the past is the effect of those probabilities being resolved.

E:

Here you are horribly wrong. Effects can only be ascribed to causes, not to probabilities. Consider a clock. Isn't is nonsensical to ask which energy is manifesting yesterday, today, and tomorrow? "Neither past or future physically exist". In what sense do you mean does the present time exist? You means only configurations exist. In that I agree. Nonetheless I see existing while of course declining evidence of what happened but no future fossils.

(E:)

Isn't this illusory? I see physics obliged to separate between (b) where future time is just a void placeholder and (a) where future does simply not yet exist.

Up to now, physics operates with closed modeling systems instead of reality. For models, the future can indeed be calculated.

J:

That's why they end up with multiworlds. Our brains physically exist and thus are always present. Our minds are a record of events, as they recede into the past. If you view time as the probabilities collapsing and not as some fundamental dimension along which events exist, which splays out on encountering the future, then how (A) is separated from (B) makes sense.

E:

I share and appreciate this insight.

(E:)

Well, preparation is possible. However it does not shift reality.

J:

Preparation is action, which does shift reality, though not always as intended.

E:

With shift of reality I meant shift of time scale in reality. You will agree that this is not feasible.

(E:)

What about spacetime, I see its proponents mingling (a) and (b).

J:

They, along with the quantum theorists, are trying to reconcile how the effect of time, ie. the sequential series of events, is fundamental, without considering that the process of time, the changing configuration of what is, is the inverse. Much as we see the sun moving across the sky and spent millennia trying to figure out how, before realizing it was the ground we stand on that was moving the other direction.

E:

Despite your adherence to presentism, you seem to be among the very few who can agree with a considerable part of my essay. I consider rewarding it.

Best regards,

Eckard

E:

Measures like temporal or spatial distance are means of comparison that are based on recognizable discrete features.

J:

Yes, but what are we measuring? In space, two points can simultaneously exist, but in time the initiating reference ceases to exist, when we get to the concluding reference.

E:

I did not use the expression objective perspective but I consider objective existence the only reasonable guess and always confirmed without exception.

J:

Objective existence is real, but perspective is subjective.

E:

I am claiming to be closer to logically foundational questions than an artist. He can create the illusion of getting younger. I am forced to judge reasonably.

J:

What artists deal in is perspective. They have to extract some narrative focus from that non-linear objective reality. Consider that people were creating quite lifelike sculpture 2500 years ago, but until they really began to develop vanishing point perspectives some 6/700 years ago, efforts to impart three dimensionality on a flat surface amounted to putting smaller objects between the larger objects, but without giving it that central point of focus, it rarely achieved the desired effect. A similar dichotomy exists between scientists and journalists, as scientists possess large amounts of information, centered around particular subjects and get overwhelmed trying to draw some manageable narrative thread from it, then accuse someone writing about it as being shallow and biased for focusing on points which might stand out, but loose their context. It goes back to the problem with perspective versus the underlaying reality. Currently politics has similar problem, as society grows ever larger. While it is said power corrupts, the underlaying reality is that power blinds. The ability to rationally deal with exponentially growing information is quickly overwhelmed, so even the best intentions get washed away and emotion prevails

E:

Opponents of a clear distinction between past and future like Georgina argue, the past, while 100% decided in the present moment, gets increasingly uncertain, and they do not look at reality but on our possibility to retrace it.

J:

What Georgina is trying to do is clarify that relationship between perspective and the underlaying reality. I think she is doing a very good job of it, but then I have a good idea what she is trying to express. As with anything, unless you are in a similar position to the perspective being drawn, the observation might as well be in another language. Much like a star chart drawn from the earth would be meaningless if we viewed the heavens from Alpha Centari.

E:

I meant it is often impossible to observe and analyze all influences.

J:

Yes, because perspective is not objective.

E:

Sounds as if we should burn all old books and destroy all fossils.

J:

They are views back in time, much like a star is information from the past, but much reduced from what was originally radiated. Consider the position of the person who wrote the original draft of that old book, a thousand years ago and what he would think of a fossil dug up then. Even though slightly closer in time, but not having centuries of progress in geology, anatomy, biology, etc. he would not have much information to contextualize it and likely view it as evidence of dragons. On the other hand, he would have far greater understanding of the immediate context in which that book was written, than we would have, though we might have more perspective of the larger political circumstance than someone directly immeshed in them might. Much like those star charts, they only make sense from their own perspective, but if we can still place them in that context, it gives us the ability to multiply our knowledge, much as binocular vision combines to give us greater depth of perspective..

E:

I dislike attributing mental constructs to reality. What is "the" light cone of any event? You meant the cone of future in the sense of excluding impossible processes.

J:

It's a good example of using a concept, that of a cone, in a slightly different perspective, that of the sphere of influence, such that it might clarify, but also might confuse the issue. It is a consequence of trying to define time, ie. the changing configuration, as another dimension, which is a spatial concept. Thus we have cones, which take the three dimensional sphere of influence, reduce it to a two dimensional circle and then project it along that timeline, such that the circle increases in diameter. If we simply projected out ever larger spheres of influence, there would be no way to incorporate the timeline, as the center would remain a point.

E:

Here you are horribly wrong. Effects can only be ascribed to causes, not to probabilities. Consider a clock. Isn't is nonsensical to ask which energy is manifesting yesterday, today, and tomorrow? "Neither past or future physically exist". In what sense do you mean does the present time exist? You means only configurations exist. In that I agree. Nonetheless I see existing while of course declining evidence of what happened but no future fossils.

J:

Isn't that "declining evidence of what happened," the particular configuration receding into the past, as it is constantly being overwritten by new configurations? Yes, effects can only be ascribed to causes, but the exact configuration emerges from the range of causal influences.

E:

With shift of reality I meant shift of time scale in reality. You will agree that this is not feasible.

J:

Basically, but if you increase the level of activity, you increase the rate of change. One ages faster with a higher metabolic rate.

E:

Despite your adherence to presentism, you seem to be among the very few who can agree with a considerable part of my essay. I consider rewarding it.

J:

Presentism still assumes time is foundational, but exists in the present moment. I simply see it as a sea of energy and the changing configuration creates the effect of time. Georgina does put a lot of effort into trying to clarify how time and the events used to measure it, emerge from this foundational activity. There is no point of the present, since it requires varying durations of input to coalesce into particular events. The more we try to isolate duration down to its shortest possible unit, the less input and information we receive and the smaller our perspective. On the other hand, if we go the opposite direction and try to include to much information, it blurs together, like setting aperture and shutter speed to large. It's a function of perspective. Our limitations are what give us definition and focus.

Thanks for the compliments, but thanks even more for taking the time to discuss it.