Real-Time Physics

jcns

Everything is a 'clock'. As with all measurement systems the reference point chosen is ultimately arbitrary, it is just a matter of useability. Time is our experience of the rate of change in any given entity.

Paul

Somewhere I read a worry expressed about whether quantum mechanics/etc had got it wrong about time. I think they have. Essentially what has happened is that the concept of time has been reified and asserted as an intrinsic dimension of our reality (hence space-time), when it is not. 'Time' (as in rate of change, as opposed to general progression of events) can be explained as a function of the speed of light in the process of experience. So in that sense, the idea of space-time works since delay (relative or otherwise) should always be accounted for. But 'time' is not an intrinsic dimension of our reality. It is an experiential phenomenon and is a function of distance.

On the 'direction' of time. Since the medium tranmitting the experience has a fixed speed, by definition we will experience the rate of change as one dimensional, changing states will be experienced by us in the order they occurred.

Paul

If you have no memory, time does not exist, our memory places the different quanta of time in a row and creates a "history" a movie constituted of images, we have difficulties in explaining the "arrow" of time, because of the fact that the NOW moment is not existing, time becomes in my opinion more comprehensible if we leave the flow of causal deterministic time and create in our minds a totality of ALL moments (quanta) which means a dimension where ALL POSSIBLE pasts , nows and futures ARE SIMULTANEOUSLY PRESENT, that we call the fifth (for example) we enter in this dimension when we pass the planck time, our consciousness is able to "touch" this dimension and creates the time-lines (world-lines) that form our "real" world, so here I think is one of the possibillities to create a line between the quantum world (here we also encounter the wave function as an addition of possible places, that you can compare with the possible time moments of the fifth dimension) and the reality on the human scale, the human observer who creates (like the consciousness that creates the world lines) his Universe.

Was that post a zen koan?

"we have difficulties in explaining the "arrow" of time, because of the fact that the NOW moment is not existing"

What are the difficulties in explaining the arrow of time that are not already explained by entropy?

This moment right now is the only moment you can affect the real world. If you believe the "NOW" moment does not exist then why are you lumping all of time into the present?

By "fifth dimension" do you mean adding another row to the four vector or is the fifth dimension something mystical?

Lastly, do you believe that "consciousness" collapses the wavefunction?

Wilhelmus

Memory just logs the experience If you're lucky & not getting old like me!). Our sense of time stems from the continuous sequence of change that we experience. We do not create it, and indeed do not create any attribute of our reality. The arrow of time is our sense of the general procession of events, whilst 'time' is our appreciation of the rate of change of the sequence of change, which is continuous (or strictly, limited by the frequency of the medium conveying the information). The fact that there are two concepts of 'time' gives the hint that current understanding is flawed. What exists before we experience it is unknown, not part of our reality. They are metaphysical assertions on a par with religious doctrines or 'apparently' ludicrous ideas (ie Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy solution)

Paul

B^2

I can see how the concept of NOW not existing arises, its a consequence of believing that reality exists before we experience it & by experiencing it we create the NOW (ie reality). But this whole theory that it all exists a priori (whether its all possibilities, a range, a random selection, etc) is all wrong and one of the reasons quatum mechanics gets stuck.

Paul

Hi Paul,

Getting old is one of the enigmas that seems to tell us that a lot of time has passed (me too I am retired), but in your mind all the moments that "are" your life are stocked up in your memory in a way that only when you active think of them they form the causal flow of time, but even when you are getting old you still feel young.

What I propose as the "fifth" dimension where all quanta of space/time are simultnaneous present you can compare also with cutting all the characters out of a dictionnarry, and then mixing them up, still all the words are present and can be formed, only you have to form them, all the words present can form all the possible books from the past and the future, you could even say that you only need the alphabeth for this trick, but translating this into a Total Simultaneity is perhaps possible in mathematics,I don't know.

The future is not known to us in this causal deterministic universe, that is true, but all the futures exist already I presume, in this so called total simultaneity (see my essayon the subject Is reality digital or Analog.

B^2:

Entropy is a result of causality and so an effect in our universe where the flow of time is in the direction of what we name the future, entropy is only existing on a larger scale as quantum scale, so you are right when you say that the arrow of time is "also" explained by entropy, but with the remark that this is valable in our universe, there may be universes where it is different.

I am not lumping all of time into the present because of the fact that we can not experience the NOW. And why not ? I propose that when reaching Planck Time (5.39121x10^-44sec) and by passing it we enter in this "fifth" dimension, the Total Simultaneity of world lines (String theorists place there their enrolled 10 dimensions). So the treshold of NOW could be placed there, in this total simultaneity all possible moments are lumped together but they make no longer part of our reality.

This "fifth" dimension is as mystical as the enrolled 10 dimensions of String theory, it is just another way of trying to explain OUR reality, you can make it mystical like all the things we cannot explain in our existance.

I think (believe?) that an observation collapses the wave function of a particle, observation needs consciousness (for humans) so that we become aware, if for example we take the YOUNG experiment with the one or two slits, in my vieuw I can explain why the particle becomes a wave when there are two splits, the two possibillities exist in total simultaneity, the definitive "decision" depends on the number of slits that are present in the Planck time , here I don't have to create a paralel world when the "decision" is made, (all possibilities existing already, also the answer to Paul)

The whole idea is worked out in my essay (see link in my answer to Paul above)

keep thinking

Wilhelmus

Paul could elaborate on your statement?

Wilhelmus at first I was surprised by you mentioning consciousness and different/multiple universes. Then I realized you were trolling me, that was well played sir.

What did you the two of you think of this article on real-time physics?

B^2:

I think the article on the project of Smolin is interesting, trying to merge Quantum Mechanics and GR with the dimension of time ? okay I will read their findings and if they give me good reasons to change my own view I'll be the first to do so, time is money (the grant of FQXi).

The flow of time from past to future (where we introduce the present as an intermediaire) is I repeat causal, the ultimate rithm of a clock is created by placing "intervals" in a row, the ultimate interval is the Planck time, if you place two units of Planck time in a row it becomes already a "flow", when we have two units of Planck time not placed in a row but just apart from each other (the situation in Total Simultaneity) then they have the "possibillity to be placed one after another to form a causal time flow, in our consciuosness we organise these "flows" and so become aware of a physical process this proces we call "real time". Every where where we are in the universe no matter what speed we have (this speed will always be realtive, and speed involves a "flow" of time, so a row of Planck units) the basical unit will always be the same.

I am very poor in maths but there should be a way to explain mathematically the Total Simultaneity that I propose.

keep on thinking

Wilhelmus.

Wilhelmus

Been away enjoying the sunshine.

2 'admin' points: 1) I don't understand how to do links & blogs, etc so I've dumped my thoughts on a Facebook page, 2) I have no background, or current context, from which to get my thoughts 'out there'. I ended up here via Craig Callender's comments on Hawking's latest book. Any assistance would be welcomed.

I'll comment on your essay via e-mail, rather than clog this thread up, please send an e-mail to Re_ality@hotmail.co.uk so I can respond.

Paul

B^2

Been away in the sunshine. I could elaborate but best if I refer you to that Facebook page. My thought on Time is only 1 page. My thought on reality is only 5 pages. When I find the ref to the article on real time physics I'll read it & comment.

Paul

Wil/B^2

Can you please point out where I can find the article on Real Time Physics that was mentioned please.

Paul

Ah ha, it's piece at the start?? Rather 'out of sight' by the string of comments. Is there an essay/article somewhere else?

B^2 (and Wilhelmus) my comments on the article by Kate Becker (as requested by B^2:

Einstein was wrong, is the simple answer!

It is not time, but change, that is real in our reality. For measuring purposes, including 'time' is correct since there is always a delay (and sometimes a relative delay) in our experience of reality. But that delay (in a sight experience) is a function of light travelling (ie distance), it is not an intrinsic, different, dimension of our reality, purely a function of the way we experience it. This is why one can have a theory that works (in measuring terms-'space-time')) but then seems to give rise to problems (because a concept-'time'-has been reified and deemed to be an inherent attribute of our reality). Additionally, it is why one can have two theories that seem to work-almost-because the speed of light is so fast it only impacts on measurements in more extreme circumstances. Furthermore, it explains 'time' (as in rate of change) as distance travelled by light (different speeds= different distances=different rates of change), and 'time' (as in Arrow of Time) as a sequence of change (each successive change of state in any given entity must be experienced in sequence since the medium (light) conveying the information is fixed).

It is very simple once one escapes the existential conundrum that Einstein created.

Paul

Pauls explanation is for me very acceptable, indeed we "experience" everything later as it "happens", things that happen are transformations from one state to another, what we experience is the "difference" from the two states, so what we do is "compare" two states, for example the wave function and the particle, question rises is the wave function a movement ? No the wave function as I see it is a superposition of states of possibillities. So...we cannot "perceive" the wavefunction, observing it makes it collapse and indicates that there is a particle (moving). However this observation is made by instruments in the human scale, there also is "time" needed to bring the data to our brains (I will not talk about the timelaps needed to become "aware" of the observation)

When we go to the bigger scale of milky ways, we happily see also the past , because of that we are able to study the history of our universe, what we tend to is when we see the universe expand ,apply causal linear logic and comme out with a singulairity, this linear thinking is in my opinion not right, there is no singulairity and no big bang, for exemple :

SR is applicable for objects in space and not for the expansion of space itself.

The standard model of cosmology indicates that galaxies which have a red-shift of 1,5, this means that their wavelength of light equals 150% of the one we measure in the laboratory, move away from us at the speed of light.

Right now we know about 10.000 galaxies with a red-shift greater as 1,5. this objects are moving away from us with a recession speed faster as the speed of light.

The cosmic background radiation has covered a much longer road, its cosmological red shift is about 1100 !!!. So when the hot plasma that radiated the waves that we observe today, it is probable that it moved away from us at a speed of 50 times the speed of light. The emitted photon has his local speed of light, so it looses distance compared with its origin (like someone trying to go up on a fast moving down staircase ) her we meet the Hubble Constant .

The Hubble constant right now is 70Km/sec/Mpc (one Mpc=3.262.000light years).

In this view also the speed of light is variable and without its limit as indicated by Einstein.

keep on thinking

Wilhelmus

Tom,

Peter Lynds thanked not just Paul Halpern and Roger Penrose but among others also Lee Smolin for valuable comments and suggestions regarding the contents of his paper "On a Finite Universe with no Beginning or End". Therefor I doubt that Lee Smolin will be in position and ready to really introduce reality into the so far tense-less physics.

What about the twin paradox, I would like you to help clarifying the matter. When I was unhappy with the explanations given e.g. by Einstein himself and by Bohm, I was not alone. NPA revealed a lot of mutually excluding explanations. Allegedly none of them has proven tenable. For this reason they wrote a petition that asks for clarification in order to end the bewildering situation that textbooks and lessons are teaching mutually inconsistent tenets.

Maybe, you are in position to make this petition redundant. This would however be a surprise to me because the petition is already signed by a huge number of scientists worldwide. Perhaps it will be best if we both admit surrender and decide to sign the petition too.

Eckard

W

The delay in experiencing what was is merely a mechanical point that inevitably arises out of the process whereby we become aware of our reality. We can understand how this process interferes with what was, reverse engineer it, and establish what was (ie our reality). Einstein correctly identified that experience is on an individual level, etc, etc but then conflated the two issues by attributing the problem (and hence the solution) to being an intrinsic dimensional attribute in our reality, rather than a function of the mechanics of experiencing. Reality exists independently of us, we experience it. We do not create it. We interfere with it in various ways when we experience it, but those effects can be identified (even if it involves observing stuff that is moving faster than light). What the 'true' situation might be is a fascinating question, but in the realm of metaphysics. In those circumstances any answer will qualify, because by definition we can never know.

Paul

Paul and Wilhelmus,

I found this video goes into more depth and highlights the differences between emergent and fundamental "real time". I read this article awhile ago and I'm glad he has received some funding from FQXI to pursue this approach.

This video is much shorter than the first. I had heard of the debate between Leibniz and Newton. When everyone breaks their concepts down to simple ideas they seem to view time as Leibniz or Newton did. Succinctly how do you view time?

As for interpretations of the wavefunction I have found the ensemble interpretation the most satisfying.

B^2

This is as short/simple as I can be:

An independent reality exists. We do not create it, we experience it (note: experience includes logically inferred hypothetical 'experiences'). What might lie beyond what we are able to experience is an irrelevant metaphysical consideration. That is entirely different from the fact that there are parts of our reality that we may never experience, but they still exist. There are a number of variables involved in the process of experience which interfere with the reality. But as we come to understand the process, we can apply reverse engineering and identify the original. All entities which comprise our reality change. It is a fundamental characteristic of our reality, and in the sense that it is an all-prevailing constant, it can probably be ignored for most theories/calculations. We label this phenomenon 'time'. However, the interference that occurs in the experience process cannot be ignored, and that revolves around the speed of light/sound and distance. But 'time' (ie the rate of change) in this context is an arbitrarily imposed measuring system, and the issue (contrary to what Einstein concluded) is merely a technicality in the process of experience (which just becomes more complicated if the speed of light has varied), not proof of an intrinsic dimension in our reality (ie space-time).

On your specific question about Ensemble Interpretation:

Having invoked a metaphysical assertion that we create our reality, ie that some form of reality (whether it be all possibilities, random states, whatever) exists a priori and our experiencing it results in a 'selection', then one can invoke any number of 'theories' to explain it. The problem is that the base supposition is null and void. Experience is a complex process, it does interfere with the reality but those effects are identifiable. It might involve some form of 'selection', but we can never know. Beyond our experience is a matter for religious doctrines, mystical beliefs, or 'apparently' ludicrous statements, as there is no proof so any 'explanation' is equally valid.

Paul