Does Time Truly Exist or Is It Merely a Human Construct?

[Tournesol]

So... how is that different from "cause and effect"?

Good question. Since randomness is conceivable, a temporal
series of random events is conceivable, and time is possible
without causality. Maybe.

Is causality possible without time ? Something has to distinguish
cuasality from mere implications -- bachelors are not caused by being unmarried -- and a lot of people think it is time.

 

[sneez]

I think there is something to the argument that time might be just a perception. There is this illness which causes brain not to record "frames" of events into memory which causes a person perceive things not continually. Example: That person would see a car 100 feet away and the next time he/she would see the car would be 10 feet away without seeing how the car got there. Just like very slow frame rate in while watching movie.

 

[Billy T]

I think there is something to the argument that time might be just a perception. There is this illness which causes brain not to record "frames" of events into memory which causes a person perceive things not continually. Example: That person would see a car 100 feet away and the next time he/she would see the car would be 10 feet away without seeing how the car got there. Just like very slow frame rate in while watching movie.

You are correct. Not many people know about this. What is your field/ interest? Have you looked at my other "crazy idea" - See atachment to first post of thread "what price free will" in general philosophy. I am assuming you must know a good bit about cognitive science to report the above. In that attachment I give three proofs that the std cognitive scientist's view about perceptions is simply wrong and suggest an alternative which has a lot of "explanatory power." Making it posible for free will to real without any violation of physics or just an illusion based on the quantum mechanical chance events in the synaptic connections is just one minor detail that drops out of my new view. Would like to hear your view about it.

 

[Tournesol]

Of ocurse that doesn't support the 'time is just a percpetion' idea, since the whiole virtual reality thing starts with the idea of latencies -- processing delays, lapses of time --
in the brain which must be taken realistically ITFP.

 

[Canute]

OK, if I must wade into the metaphysics swamp: How can one claim ontological status for something which has no effect, causes nothing?

I'm not. I've agreed with you from the start that time does not exist (in a fundamental ontological sense). I'm saying that you cannot have your cake and eat it. If time does not exist then neither does change, motion, energy and so forth.

You haven't yet explained how or why it is that before we eat a cake we have to bake it, and after we've eaten it it's gone. If you can explain this curious temporal sequence then fair enough, but if you cannot then your hypothesis contradicts the obvious evidence that events are perceived as happening one after the other. At a quantum level time may be symetrical in both directions and perhaps cancel out, but not at a classical level.

I think that all this can be explained and so have no problem agreeing with your view of time. But you have argued that there is nothing to explain, and to me that view contradicts common sense.

 

[Billy T]

I'm not. I've agreed with you from the start that time does not exist (in a fundamental ontological sense). I'm saying that you cannot have your cake and eat it. If time does not exist then neither does change, motion, energy and so forth.
You haven't yet explained how or why it is that before we eat a cake we have to bake it, and after we've eaten it it's gone. If you can explain this curious temporal sequence then fair enough, but if you cannot then your hypothesis contradicts the obvious evidence that events are perceived as happening one after the other. ...

I think I have, but I will say more, even though I bet it does not help, only confuses. I will admit it is essentially impossible to not think / understand that baking cake before eating it has something to do with "time," "past" being something preceeding "present" in time etc.

I think you agree with me that "events cause events" not time passing. The trend towards entropy increasing is observed because of statistics (and man's conceptual unification of "like sets"). This also reinforces thought patterns that understand event sequences as implying time is some how envolved. Let me both demonstrate why entropy increases and try to explain what I mean:

Consider a box which will just holds 100 marbles in one layer on the bottom. Put 100 black ones and 100 white ones in it, close the lid and shake box with steadly decreasing vigor (so that it is likely that no marble is in the "third layer." Now open the box. Would you be surprized to find all of the white ones on the bottom layer and all of the black ones on the second layer? I would be, but yet I know that this arrangement is just as probably as any particular other one. (each marble considered individually) It is natural for me to lump together all the many "mixed configuration" as if they were one arrangement. Entropy increases, not by some rigid law, but because the configurations we consider to be essentially one are infact a great set of different ones we do not conceptually distinguish.

Thus in example I gave earlier about glass accelerating towards the kitchen floor it is much more probable that this event will be followed by the event of broom picking up many small pieces of glass (a set of zillions of individual cases we consder to be one) than by the unique event of the intack glass bouncing back to land on the table again, exactly where it was.

That is we often presume that event A proceeded event B and caused it, but it is physically possible that event B proceeded and caused A, just that in the life of the universe, it has never done so yet. We construct our concept of time (if it is not innate) on many observations (actually inferences) of A being before B.

inserted by edit later:
Let "event M" be any particular one of the set of marble box configurations possible which we would tend to call "marbles all Mixed up" and "event O" be either of the two perfectly Ordered arranagements (only one color in each layer.) Assume that the box has been shaken zillions of times with pauses to note the marble arrangements after each shaking. Furthermore assume it is a mater of fact that one of these events (M or O)immediately preceeded the other in this long sequence of events.

You can not tell me if event O was before or after event M. The exact form of the shaking and the state of the box in the prior event is what caused the second event. In fact if event O is anywhere in the sequence, then some mixed state event M' plus shaking did cause the lower entropy state O.

The point is that you are sure the glass falling to floor preceeded the broom event because of the overwhelming probability that this was their order and fact you understand time as something real as evidenced by your ability to normally tell which of two events causally related events is cause and which is effect.

The odds against your eating the cake before it is sitting on the table uncut infront of you are so great that everyone will agree that it is imposible to eat it and then later have it in front of you uncut. Certainly, when one considers how many atoms are envolved (many more than my 200 marbles) and how unique their arrangement in the uncut cake was, it would not happen in many zillions of universe life times that these atoms were expelled from whatever functions as the cake consuming creature's stomach and reformed the uncut cake in front of it/him/her or whatever.

Usually it is obvious (or at least a very safe bet) which of two events in a causal relationship is cause and which is effect. I chose my 200 marble example to help you understand that this is true because of probabilities and the way man tends to form single event categories of many different events, not really because one is from "time past" and the other is happening "now." I admit that like everyone else, I think this way, unless I am being very careful to think logically with the aid of mathematics etc.

Cause and effect are real an usually easy to tell which is which. Mass is real, energy is real, etc. but time is not. My math proof shows that it is not even necessary as a parameter to describe the universe, and you already agree with me that it is not the cause of anything. Do not be confused by the lumping together of many particular cases as if they were one and the associated probabilities that result from comparing a truly unique event with this superset considered as one also.

The government runs a lottery in Brazil with less than 50% payout which is very popular. My wife plays often. Telling her it is not a good bet did nothing, so one day I surprized her by playing. (You pick 6 numbers from about 60.) I bet on 1,2,3,4,5,and 6. She said that was silly - my numbers would never win. She understood they were just as probable as hers, which involve people's birthdays etc, but like you with your belief in time, she knew I was just silly and too inclinded to believe in mathematical proofs. Never in the history of the lottery have four consective numbers turned up, much less the first six!

She was right. I was just being silly(She still pays the lottery). I no doubt am being silly now by trying to show that past, present, future have nothing to do with time, but rather are "event chains" for which we can usually infer which was the cause of which (or as you would no doubt say: which "proceeded" which.) My denying time, does not deny change, event chains, movement, mass, energy, change, etc. and you should not infer that my acknowledgment of even identified "A caused B" events in a chain is contradictory to the claim that (1) time does not exist AND (2) identified sequences of "A caused B" events occur.

See I can have my cake and eat it too, it is just not very probable.

 

[Billy T]

cutting the butter

It is not original with me but one event chain I'd like you to think about is a knife blade passing thru some soft butter: Is the knife passing down thru the butter because the butter is separating in front of the knife, or is the butter separating because the knife is passing down?

Most people want to try to complicate it by asking how warm is the butter or is any hand pushing down on the knife etc? But both butter temperature and hand pressure are continuously variable factors. Thus they will not resolve the questions in some narrow range. What is cause and what is effect is not always clear. Taken in isolation (of course that is not possible, but assume it were) it is not clear which is proceeding which. i.e. which is a "past" causing a "now." somemovie sequence can be reversed and you can not be sure. However most of us think a film sequence showing a building rising up out of a pile of ruble is a movie in reverse and this implies time is real etc. I will only grant that it is extremely improbably that the rubble reassmbles into a building. Many zillions of universe life times between such events.

 

[Tournesol]

Of course on can throw a ton of scepticism at the idea of the
directionality of time, time's arrow, without makin the slightest dent is time as a dimension...those ordered and disordered states aren't occurring on top of each other.

 

[Billy T]

Of course on can throw a ton of scepticism at the idea of the directionality of time, time's arrow, without makin the slightest dent is time as a dimension...those ordered and disordered states aren't occurring on top of each other.

Who is suggesting this straw horse: "on top of each other"? Only someone who is only able to conceive of a chain of events, one causing another, as something that requires time be real would suggest such a thing. Certainly not Billy T.

One thought can lead to another, one event can lead to another, Time has nothing to do with this. Part of the purpose of my prior post was, as you correctly guessed, to show that even "the arrow of time" (entropy increasing points to the future) is just statistically likely, not necesarily true. If you can not even be sure which way is future and which was past, how can you think time real?) Calling demonstrations such as my marble box demo a "ton of scepticism" is not much a reasoned argument. It is border line name calling, and not your first either (see below.)

Time is not required for complete discription of the universe, thoughts included if you are a physicalist, not an idealist, or one of their ilk who assumes thoughts are given to you by some "spirit."

That is, I have demonstrated mathematically that every equation describing physical events, including their changing characteristics, can be written without any reference to time. I.e. the conection from event to event is direct, without using time as an intermediary. This is possible and demonstrated. QED in post 1.

Only a person firmly holding a limited view ("time must exist") and incapable of understanding other alternatives would persist in thinking "events must be on top of each other" if not "displaced in time" (Ergo time is real.), rather than understanding the obvious: "Events cause events" (not time) - The mantra I have been chanting in more than a dozen posts.

This counter proof: "time must be real because if it were not, then events would be on top of each other and since they are not, time must be real." Is circular reasoning, question begging or whatever you want to call it, and not the first time you have so violated the only really universally accepted rule of your beloved metaphysics.

I challenge you to show time is real, without first assuming it is as part of your "proof." That is give me a proof, even a metaphysical one, but a math proof would be much stronger, that time does exist, which does not effectively begin by the assumption that it does. Your above counter proof: "Since events are not on top of each other (but distributed in time - only alternative you recognize as possible) then yes they are distributed in time and consequently time must exits" is more clearly seen as circular if expanded to fully expose your "logic" as I have just done.

You concluded an earlier post by stating that I do bad metaphysics (and or Math - I forget which, but will dig it out if you like and cite other examples of your circular reasoning also if requested.) Although I don't put much weight in metaphysical arguments, I would at least avoid circular ones.

 

[sneez]

hey billy T,

i'd like to have more input of rather philosophical nature of time.

If man did not have memory, then his brain would not make such interpretations and therefore would never have formed the concept of time. The only reason why someone determines himself to be thirty years old is because he has accumulated information pertaining to those thirty years in his mind. If his memory did not exist, then he would not think of the existence of such a preceding period and he would only experience the single “moment” in which he lives. (try sclerosis..., kinda concept of time forgotten,in some heavy cases one have to remind a person everyday that what his/her name is and how old he/she is, in short only the moment exists for that person)

Flow of time is not "physical" rality. Since our brain is accustomed to a certain sequence of events, the world operates not as is related above and we assume that time always flows forward. However, this is a decision reached in the brain and is in itself relative. In reality, we can never know how time flows or even whether it flows or not. This is an indication of the fact that time is not an absolute fact, but just a sort of perception.

If let's say one could wihtstand to stay in black hole. There would be no time running for the person. (Time does not exists in there [as far as my limited education of black holes go]).

Dont get mad at me for the black holes if i got it wrong. But from phylosophical point of view time does not have to be absolute eternal thing.

 

[Tournesol]

Who is suggesting this straw horse: "on top of each other"? Only someone who is only able to conceive of a chain of events, one causing another, as something that requires time be real would suggest such a thing.

Yes, and that is most people, since most people think causal relations embed or
imply temporal relations. If you have another definition of causality, let's hear it.

One thought can lead to another, one event can lead to another, Time has nothing to do with this. Part of the purpose of my prior post was, as you correctly guessed, to show that even "the arrow of time" (entropy increasing points to the future) is just statistically likely, not necesarily true. If you can not even be sure which way is future and which was past, how can you think time real?)

Because time-as-a-dimension is conceivable seprately from time's arrow. There are
at least four major aspects to Time (dimension, measure, direction and change/becoming) and you really need to dispose of all of them.

Time is not required for complete discription of the universe, thoughts included if you are a physicalist, not an idealist, or one of their ilk who assumes thoughts are given to you by some "spirit."

Since time is need for a Physics description of the universe, it is
a forteori needed for a physicalist one.

That is, I have demonstrated mathematically that every equation describing physical events, including their changing characteristics, can be written without any reference to time. I.e. the conection from event to event is direct, without using time as an intermediary. This is possible and demonstrated. QED in post 1.

Replacing time variables with clock-readings does not show that time is non-existent.

Only a person firmly holding a limited view ("time must exist") and incapable of understanding other alternatives would persist in thinking "events must be on top of each other" if not "displaced in time" (Ergo time is real.), rather than understanding the obvious: "Events cause events" (not time) - The mantra I have been chanting in more than a dozen posts.

May I suggest you work on you atemproal theory of causation rather than
repeating your mantra.

This counter proof: "time must be real because if it were not, then events would be on top of each other and since they are not, time must be real." Is circular reasoning, question begging or whatever you want to call it, and not the first time you have so violated the only really universally accepted rule of your beloved metaphysics.

If events are not separated by temproal intervals, what are they separated by ?

I challenge you to show time is real, without first assuming it is as part of your "proof." That is give me a proof, even a metaphysical one, but a math proof would be much stronger, that time does exist, which does not effectively begin by the assumption that it does. Your above counter proof: "Since events are not on top of each other (but distributed in time - only alternative you recognize as possible) then yes they are distributed in time and consequently time must exits" is more clearly seen as circular if expanded to fully expose your "logic" as I have just done.

My oriignal metaphysical argument is a reductio:

1. something (eg a clock) can have contradictory properties at different times
-- eg it can display 1 o'clock and 12'o' clock.
2. If time doesn't exist, it [ the clock ] must have contradictory properties at the same time. [or atemporally, at no particular time ]
3. This cannot be , so , by reductio, time exists.

IOW

i) either time exists, or not.
ii) if not, things have contradictory properties
iii) so it exists.

Which is not circular. The existence of time is not assumed beyond the
non-existence of time -- it is just that out of the two assumptions, one leads
to contradiciton.

 

[Billy T]

hey billy T,

i'd like to have more input of rather philosophical nature of time.

If man did not have memory, then his brain would not make such interpretations and therefore would never have formed the concept of time. The only reason why someone determines himself to be thirty years old is because he has accumulated information pertaining to those thirty years in his mind. If his memory did not exist, then he would not think of the existence of such a preceding period and he would only experience the single “moment” in which he lives.

Glad to have your comments. You are almost entirely correct in the above observations. The famous case (David H or Henry H - I forget patient's name) where both sides of the hippocampal area were removed in effort to control his epilepsy resulted in his traject total loss of the ability to form any new declaritive memory. (And taught mankind the importance of this area for memory). - He has short term memory and can talk to you, but if you leave the room and return 5 minutes later, you will need a new introduction to him. While at JHU many years ago, I talked with one of the psychologists that did extensive study of XXXXX H.

The focus of this study was on the extent to which he could learn operations(had "procedural memory" still). The Tower of Hanoi puzzle was the main test item. (Three posts with object to move one ring at a time from one post to another, never placing a bigger ring on a smaller one.) XXXXX H, had no idea what the Tower of Hanoi puzzle was or puzzle's objective at the start of each new testing period, but he did become significantly more proficient as he learned. There are about four clearly distinct types of memory, but the main one is gone.

...Flow of time is not "physical" reality. Since our brain is accustomed to a certain sequence of events, the world operates not as is related above and we assume that time always flows forward. However, this is a decision reached in the brain and is in itself relative. In reality, we can never know how time flows or even whether it flows or not. This is an indication of the fact that time is not an absolute fact, but just a sort of perception.

I agree - Can't say it any better. Welcome aboard.

If let's say one could wihtstand to stay in black hole. There would be no time running for the person. (Time does not exists in there [as far as my limited education of black holes go]). Dont get mad at me for the black holes if i got it wrong. But from phylosophical point of view time does not have to be absolute eternal thing.

I am not much of an expert on BHs, but as I understand it the idea that BHs stop time is mainly related to the idea that if you watching someone fall into a BH (neglecting the fact that its gravity gradient would tear him apart) you would see longer (on your clock) intervals between ticks of his clock. Eventually your final view would be his clock is stopped. This is mainly, if not entirely, because he is accelerating and SRT time dilation is operating.

Appendix 3 of my book Dark Visitor has a very simple (not even calculus required) short proof that even a single proton falling all the way to BH singularity gains more than any finite amount of energy from the HB's gravitational field. I.e. BH is infinite energy concentrated in zero volume - much like the "Big Bang" which started our universe. (Could spawn other unverses?)

Problem is actually too complex to treat the way I do - Dark Visitor is my effort at recruiting student to physics, so I keep all the physics in it simple and hidden in a very scarey "cosmic disaster" story, which could be true. You will find more details about BHs etc. at www.DarkVisitor.com, if interested, including how to read entire book for free. (Not spamming for profit or fame as book is also by Billy T, not my real name.)

 

[Billy T]

...There are at least four major aspects to Time dimension, measure, direction and change/becoming) and you really need to dispose of all of them.

Post 1's math proof that time is not requied for a complete discription of universe did this. Burden of proof is now yours. Either (1) demonstrate error in my math proof. or (2) give some proof that at least one of these four is essentially real. I.e. has some ontological status outside of man's mind. IF you can do (1) I will conceed the "reality" of time. If you can do (2) with rigor of my math, then we will have an interesting conflict.

IMO, all of your efforts so far are circular arguments. You do not allow for the conceptual posibility that time does not exist and then show that this leads to some conflict. You sometimes claim, without any agrument in support, that if time did not exist (as you unstatedly, but circularly at the outset are assuming that it does) then something unobserved like "events on top of each other" is predicted. I reply to this, no, one event produces the next an man infers time is what is "separating them." Rather than make even this inferrence, I just accept fact that change is real, as is motion, etc. I do not postuate some special massless fluid in which to embed the changes. - Or whatever is the nature of your "real time" if not the popular "invisible massless flowing fluid dragging events along with its flow." You are the metaphysicist - tell me what time is, if it is real and you don't like this common view of "real time."

I thank you for telling me what I "really need to do," and now feel free to return the favor: You need to assume that time does not exist and prove (rather than claim) that this leads to a conflict. Your claim that a conflict exist with this assumption is based on your firm belief that time does exist - a circular "proof." More specifically later on your item (ii) at end.

Since time is need for a Physics description of the universe, it is a forteori needed for a physicalist one.

No it is not - Proved this in post 1 where I formally eliminated time for compete discription of the universe.

Replacing time variables with clock-readings does not show that time is non-existent.

Post 1 proof eliminates, not replaces time. I admit that many things that must be included in a complete discription of the universe can be considered to be clocks, motion of the planets, etc.

That is why I (in addition correcting other of your false interpretations of what I stated) set up the example of marble falling thru randomly heated and cooled oil. With this specific example, I refuted your false claim that I had only "replaced" time with a clock variable. Both equations of this example initially had time "t" explicitly in them. I reduced the set (despite your claim I could not) to one equation without any reference to time. I then asked you specifically: "What was the "clock variable?" (in the remaining equation which I had substituted for time.) You have yet to respond (and you can't; because of the random heating and cooling. There is nothing that looks like a clock in the motion of the marble as it falls thru the oil, randomly.

If events are not separated by temproal intervals, what are they separated by?

Sneez's answer was a good one. - Your perception. (I might not have been as kind and said: "your imagination," or Your "invented time.")

...
i) either time exists, or not.
ii) if not, things have contradictory properties
iii) so it exists.
Which is not circular. The existence of time is not assumed beyond the
non-existence of time -- it is just that out of the two assumptions, one leads
to contradiciton.

If not circular, then (ii) is an unsupported assertion. I will let you choose what to call the flaw in your defective logic.

(ii) is supported only by the unstated assumption that it is time which is keeping things from "being on top of each other"

I think there are other alternatives (for example Sneez's "separation in perception") but if you chose to claim (ii) is suported as time is the only way for example, that one can avoid clock a showing 12 o'clock and contradictorly showing 1 o'clock, (I would add "at the same time" except your ii begins under the "time is not existent case") then your agrument is circular.

Let me ask you specifically, in case I error: What do you claim is the basis for (ii)?

I think you think (ii) is supported and true "because time does exists and is separating otherwise contradictory things." That is why I think your argument is circular instead of just unsupported, but it is your right to state what is the nature of the flaw, not mine.

 

[K.J.Healey]

Summary: Time can not be observed. Time does not cause or modify anything that can be observed. Time is not necessary for a complete description of the universe or the changes of its state. Time’s existence is a “natural assumption” of most humans and a very useful parameter in the equations of physics.

I sort of agree with you. If you look at all the events of the universe you can say "this event caused this one which caused this one..." and so forth. Am I correct in that this is what you're trying to say? Looking at it in events causing events, it is true there is no need for an abstract measure that we make time to be.
But similarly can you disprove the need for three spatial dimensions? They also are something we made up to describe objects/events with each other. How are they different from time? If you lined up a bunch of objects in a row, and from one object you could tell which was in front and which behind, does there then exist no dimension for measurement?

Also, the fact that you can describe something with one variable instead of another does not mean one does not exist.
Just for ease of use, let's assume time exists.
I have a pendelum that's swinging back and forth. I can describe its X coordinate by its position in time, or its position in the Y dimension. If I say that it has some function x=f(t) does that mean the y dimension doesn't exist?

Can you also prove that there doesn't exist an event that requires time to describe it?

 

[Billy T]

I sort of agree with you. If you look at all the events of the universe you can say "this event caused this one which caused this one..." and so forth. Am I correct in that this is what you're trying to say? Looking at it in events causing events, it is true there is no need for an abstract measure that we make time to be.
But similarly can you disprove the need for three spatial dimensions? They also are something we made up to describe objects/events with each other. How are they different from time?

Time is unique parameter in the equations of the universe. My proof in post 1 only allows it to be eliminated from all equations (not space). I am avoiding comment on the reality of space.

You basically have me right, I think, but note that I am only trying to understand the implications of time not being required to describe anything, including change. (I already believed before the proof, that time does not cause anything. I discussed why I am growing old to show that time had nothing to do with it.)

Please actually read post 1. There you will see that not only did I eliminate the "t" parameter formally from all equations, I also gave a specific example which happened to be your pendulum case.

...Can you also prove that there doesn't exist an event that requires time to describe it?

I prove this only with my general post one argument. Obviously I can run thru a long list of events and still not prove anything about ones I have not considered. That is why I had to used abstract formalism. Don't be scared, post 1 proof is short, well illustrated by the pendulum example and easy to follow. Read it.

 

[Tournesol]

Post 1's math proof that time is not requied for a complete discription of universe did this. Burden of proof is now yours. Either (1) demonstrate error in my math proof. or (2) give some proof that at least one of these four is essentially real. I.e. has some ontological status outside of man's mind. IF you can do (1) I will conceed the "reality" of time. If you can do (2) with rigor of my math, then we will have an interesting conflict.

A purely mathematical proof cannot demonstrate anything (meta)phsycially by itself. There must be some means of bridging, or interpreting to (meta)physics.
You are implicitly appealing to some principle along the lines "if we can eliminate a variable from our equations, then what it represents does not
exist" . However, I am arguing that the standard approach in physics is to regard
redundancy in an equation as a sign of determinism.

IMO, all of your efforts so far are circular arguments. You do not allow for the conceptual posibility that time does not exist and then show that this leads to some conflict. You sometimes claim, without any agrument in support, that if time did not exist (as you unstatedly, but circularly at the outset are assuming that it does) then something unobserved like "events on top of each other" is predicted. I reply to this, no, one event produces the next an man infers time is what is "separating them."

You are confusing logical implication with metaphysical causality. If x is not odd,
x is divisible by 2; that does not mean x causes anything.

Bachelors are by definition unmarried men.
Threfore, If bachelors do not exist,
unmarried men do not exist.

Time is by definition, what separates events.
Then, if time does not exist, events are not separated.

Rather than make even this inferrence, I just accept fact that change is real, as is motion, etc. I do not postuate some special massless fluid in which to embed the changes. - Or whatever is the nature of your "real time" if not the popular "invisible massless flowing fluid dragging events along with its flow." You are the metaphysicist - tell me what time is, if it is real and you don't like this common view of "real time."

At last you are beginning to see that this is about how to characterise time.
If time is really best thought of as an invisible fluid, then you have an argument agaisnt it. If it is really what separates events, then I have an argument for it.

I thank you for telling me what I "really need to do," and now feel free to return the favor: You need to assume that time does not exist and prove (rather than claim) that this leads to a conflict. Your claim that a conflict exist with this assumption is based on your firm belief that time does exist - a circular "proof."

No it is based on a characterisation of time. To say
that "unicorns have horns" does not imply that unicorns exist.

That is why I (in addition correcting other of your false interpretations of what I stated) set up the example of marble falling thru randomly heated and cooled oil. With this specific example, I refuted your false claim that I had only "replaced" time with a clock variable. Both equations of this example initially had time "t" explicitly in them. I reduced the set (despite your claim I could not) to one equation without any reference to time. I then asked you specifically: "What was the "clock variable?" (in the remaining equation which I had substituted for time.) You have yet to respond (and you can't; because of the random heating and cooling. There is nothing that looks like a clock in the motion of the marble as it falls thru the oil, randomly.

No, but there is no prima-facia time dependence to be
eliminated either. The P.E is a function of x.
What you have yet to do

a) is take a physical situation with prima-facie time dependence (such as my example of a frictional pendulum,
to which yo never respondede)

and

b) eliminate time mathematically

without

c) introducing something that looks like a clock.

Sneez's answer was a good one. - Your perception. (I might not have been as kind and said: "your imagination," or Your "invented time.")
If not circular, then (ii) is an unsupported assertion. I will let you choose what to call the flaw in your defective logic.

I am aware that a response [*] to this argument is to suggest
something other than time is separating events. That is why I ahve been asking "what spearates events, if not time ?".

The response you suggest is in fact a bad one. Is "my perception" having a causal influence on events,
so that if I stop looking, they stop being separated ?
Was there no separation between events before the human race ? Or are events in "my perception" along with the
gaps between them ? Does this ability to generate time
indicate that the human brain works under exceptional
physical laws? And where does our ability to agree intersubjectively about time -- to keep appointments -- come from ? (And, ultimately, thuis is characterising time as subjective rather than flatly non-existent).

[*] There is at least one more.

I think there are other alternatives (for example Sneez's "separation in perception") but if you chose to claim (ii) is suported as time is the only way for example, that one can avoid clock a showing 12 o'clock and contradictorly showing 1 o'clock, (I would add "at the same time" except your ii begins under the "time is not existent case") then your agrument is circular.

What we need is a *good* alternative.

I think you think (ii) is supported and true "because time does exists and is separating otherwise contradictory things." That is why I think your argument is circular instead of just unsupported, but it is your right to state what is the nature of the flaw, not mine.

I don't need to assume the actual existence of time in
(ii), only that it is hypotheticaly characterised by the ability to separate events.

 

[russ_watters]

Billy_T, your premise is pretty straightforwardly flawed. If time didn't exist, then there would be no way to distinguish between past, present and future. So you must know what I'm going to say next...do you?

What we actually observe is something changing, not time. I'll take a changing observable related to time, the continuously moving hands of a clock, but any changing observable would do. (The mathematical formulation I give is general.) These hands advance in relation to some other change, specifically in the case of a grandfather clock, they correlate with the swings of the pendulum.

With what other physical process can I correlate the timing of nuclear decay?

There is always a base process after which you can't go further. You opened the door: the hands on the clock are based on the motion of the pendulum, so then what is the motion of the pendulum based on? And what is that based on? And what is that based on? You've forced yourself to provide an infinite list of physical processes on which other processes are based.

My proof in post 1 only allows it to be eliminated from all equations (not space).

Please provide an example. Eliminate all time paremeters from the equation for speed (speed=distance/time).

Please actually read post 1. There you will see that not only did I eliminate the "t" parameter formally from all equations, I also gave a specific example which happened to be your pendulum case.

No, you did not provide an example: the equations for simple harmonic motion (the pendulum) do not appear in your post. Rather, you claimed you can provide an example.

I am not growing older because of the passing of time. I am growing older because of causal events in my body. For example, in my joints small crystals are forming, when my cells divide, their telomares are growing shorter, etc. "Time passing" has nothing to do with my aging. Time causes nothing.

Maybe this is the problem: you don't understand what time is. Of course time doesn't cause anything. Neither does length. Does that mean length doesn't exist? Time, like length, is a scale on which to measure things - such as your aging. The causal sequence of events of your aging can be measured on the scale called time.

You do not allow for the conceptual posibility that time does not exist and then show that this leads to some conflict.

I'd say the inability to reference a sequence of events without time is a pretty fundamental conflict.

Post 1's math proof that time is not requied for a complete discription of universe did this. Burden of proof is now yours.

Sorry, Billy, that's not how science works. You're the one proposing the new idea. The burden of proof is completely yours.

 

[Billy T]

A purely mathematical proof cannot demonstrate anything (meta)phsycially by itself. There must be some means of bridging, or interpreting to (meta)physics. You are implicitly appealing to some principle along the lines "if we can eliminate a variable from our equations, then what it represents does not exist" .

No, it is not only because I have demonstrated that time is not required for a complete description of the the universe that I conclude time does not have any ontological status. This claim is also based on the two facts about which I think we have no dispute: (1)Time is not directly observable. (I am not saying that clocks do not exist, or that planets do not periodicly orbit the sun, etc.) and (2) Time passing is not the cause of anything, not why I am growing old, not why the hands of a clock advance, not why the sun rises etc.

I don't see how I could, but if I could eliminate the strong nuclear force from all equations of physics, that alone would not prove it does not exist, at least not until some new theory can explain how protons stay together inside the nucleus despite their mutual electricl repulsion. Perhaps some day some clever nobel-prize-winning physicst will produce such an alternative explanation and it is able to be unified with the theory of gravity etc, so mankind will conclude, as he did long ago about the very successful theory of the real existence of phlogiston, that the strong force does not really exist. (In case you do not know how successful "real philogiston" was, I will just note that all the results of calormetric measures were in accord with it being a real, massless substance, every much like your time )

However, I am arguing that the standard approach in physics is to regard redundancy in an equation as a sign of determinism.

I need an example to understand what is this "redundancy in an equation" The only time I have heard of this is that two different equations can be redundant. E.g. 2x = 10y is redundant with x = 5y. Please give an example so I will have some idea what you are talking about.

...{I skipped some of your comments about even and odd numbers and causality and about a characteristic of sub group (batchlors) appling to the entire gourp (men) or just to themselves but when using a another name (unmarried men) as not worth rebuttal, but perhaps I did not understand.}...Time is by definition, what separates events...At last you are beginning to see that this is about how to characterise time. If time is really best thought of as an invisible fluid, then you have an argument agaisnt it. If it is really what separates events, then I have an argument for it.

I tend to agree we are finnaly making some progress towards mutual understanding, if not agreement. I will agree that if you define time to (exist and) be the thing that separates events, then I can not agrue with you. I could equally well define philogiston to (exist and) be the thing that makes all caloric measurements as they are. Such a definition would not make either time or philogiston a thing with real ontological status.

I again admit that events change their nature, cause other events, etc. I just see no need for time (or philogiston) in any explanation for these things. It is just and observational fact that I perceive/ measure caloric results and events the way I do. (I hate to admit it to you, but on my left wrist as I type there is a timex, but I hasten to note its display is changing because a battery is keeping a small crystal ocsillator running and some logic division circuits are count the number of oscilations driving a LCD etc. - Nothing to do with time passing.)

...No, but there is no prima-facia time dependence to be
eliminated either. The P.E is a function of x.

This is simply not true. There was explicit dependancy on time in both of my original equations (both went as -t) One equation was for the PE and the other was for the marble's position, Y. In the original pair of equations there was no obvious relationship between PE and Y. That PE was proportional to Y was a result of eliminating the parameter "t" for both equations.

What you have yet to do ...

If you are going to again tell me what I need to do, I will again return the favor: You need to be more careful in what you claim I have done. I will just cite the original posts to prove you wrong in false claims (as I did and will do in next responce.)

a) is take a physical situation with prima-facie time dependence (such as my example of a frictional pendulum,
to which yo never respondede)

Again, simply not true. My responce is post 76 and RAD4921 even commnets on it in his post 78.
In my post 76, I modified, at your request, my original pendulum example:
A(t) = 15sin(7t) to be A(t) = exp(-t)15sin(7t), worked thru the math again to eliminate "t" and then, to quote myself, asked you:

So what!

My formal elimination of "t" NEVER DEPENDED UPON THE SPECIFIC FORM OF THE INVERSE FUNCTION.

It is you who have failed to respond.

I must be missing your point. Please explain how making the pendulum decay changes anything.

and

b) eliminate time mathematically

without

c) introducing something that looks like a clock.

I will not answaer this more than four times. I set up the marble falling thru randomly heated oil example to illustrate that the equations after eliminating time have noting in them that resemples a clock (unless you are now claiming time proceeds randomly as that is the way the marble falls thur the oil). I continue to ask you to back up your cliam that I am only replacing time with a "clock variable" by telling me specifically which of the two remaining varialbel (PE or Y) is the clock variable, but you continue to make your claim that I only replace time with clock variable and never answer this question. What is the clock variable, PE or Y - those are your only choices. In contrast, I did adopt your damped pendulum example and demonstrrated it made no change in the ability to eliminate time from all the equations of the universe but you never responed to my So what? or subsequent comments reproduced from post 76 above.

I won't go on - there does not seem to be much point. You claim I do not respond, when this shoe fits you very well. You define away the question as to time's ontological status, by defining it to be the separation between events. You did not comment on fact someone else noted that not every one even perceives time as continuous (Car seen far away suddenly is seen at 10 feet etc.)

Long ago, I offered and sugested that we should just agree to disagree. Because of the immediately above stated, I am now adopting this policy unilaterally - I.e. I will not respond more. It has been a too onesided experience. If you respond to some of my repeated requests, I may reconsider.

 

[sneez]

Hey everyone,

Let me ask you. Do we have some particle called "..." that carries time? (just like photons or something?)

From all of these definitions of a “unit” of time, we have been able to artificially divide it. The most basic subdivision is that of a second which is 1/3600 of one revolution of the Earth, which we have most recently defined as 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium - 133 atom. The smaller the repetitive natural event that we can measure, the more accurate our measurement of time can be.

Can someone give me the smallest unit of time? If we take time t=d/c where c is speed of light the smallest time unit we can get is bound only by our measurement is it not? We can divide distance infinetelly. (sounds like zeno :) ). What are your toughts about this?

In summary, time as a physical entity does not exist, rather it is a means for comparing the duration of an event to the duration of another which is considered the reference standard.

 

[Billy T]

Billy_T, your premise is pretty straightforwardly flawed. If time didn't exist, then there would be no way to distinguish between past, present and future.

If this is your reason for saying my premiss is flawed, please read post 106. There in the 200 marble in box example, it is shown that entropy (time's arrow pointing the way to the future), is not always increasing by some law, but only a very probable happening if the number of particles in the system becomes large. That is, we can only distinguish which way a movie is running (forwards or backwards) most of the time. Suppose for example I show you 3 seconds of a film in which a white billard ball is approaching 10 colored one arranged in a neat, mutually-contacting, triangle but in the last of the 3 seconds you observe these 10 separating form each other. I strongly suspect you will think this moving is being shown in the forward directions.

But let us now suppost I show a few seconds more in which you see all the colored balls stopped and some hands carefully aligning some laser beams to intersect the "original" locations of the colored balls when seen in the compact group and furthermore these laser beams are coming from small boxes with lables on top giving their name as "precise linear impulsers." Now you realize that your first 3 seconds were the end of the movie, not the start. Some people carefully set the real initial velocity vectors to make them all collide and stop in the traingle form.

Don't know if it helps, but we know the future form the past two ways: (1) we perceive time as some continuous flow from past to future (at least most people do) and (2) when many particles /atoms are envolved, entropy does tend to increase for an isolated system (To lower it usually takes enegry from outside the system.)

...With what other physical process can I correlate the timing of nuclear decay?

Good question, but you should be asking it of someone who thinks time is the cause of something or at least exists, not me. I have stated that "events cause events" Someone else has already asked what is the event that causes beta decay etc. I have already admitted that I do not know the answer, and noted that Einstein thought he did. - his "hidden variables" cause beta decay when the "combine just right" to cause this decay. My inability to explain everything is quickly admittted.

...And what is that based on? You've forced yourself to provide an infinite list of physical processes on which other processes are based. Please provide an example. Eliminate all time paremeters from the equation for speed (speed=distance/time).

I can not eliminate any variable that is explict and functional in a single equation. I need two independent equations that both contain the same variable. Then I can at least, in principle, eliminate it. As I have several times observed, the time variable is common to all equations that are of the form A = a(t), where the functional form a is not explicitly written. I call the inverse function for t a' (or b' or c' ...etc) and symbolically t = a'(A). Then in my proof/ demonstration, then I set a'(A") = b'(B) = c'(C) = ... etc. for all the quations of the universe. (This is as someone correctly pointed out, not strictly correct as in general function a' will depend on many observables, so it is really a'(A,B,C...) = b'(A,B,C,...) = c'(A,B,C...)... etc. but in either case time variable "t" is not required, only very convenient for describing the universe.

No, you did not provide an example: the equations for simple harmonic motion (the pendulum) do not appear in your post. Rather, you claimed you can provide an example.

WRONG ON BOTH COUNTS: The pendulum equation I used as example (only to help mathematically weak understand - it does not enter into the proof) was A = 15sin(7t) and at Tournesol's request, in post 76, I added the damping factor exp(-t).
Your second statement is also wrong because the above is a mathematical demonstration, not an unsupported "claim," that time can be eliminated for all the equations of the universe, at least in principle.

Maybe this is the problem: you don't understand what time is. Of course time doesn't cause anything. Neither does length. Does that mean length doesn't exist? Time, like length, is a scale on which to measure things - such as your aging. The causal sequence of events of your aging can be measured on the scale called time. I'd say the inability to reference a sequence of events without time is a pretty fundamental conflict. Sorry, Billy, that's not how science works. You're the one proposing the new idea. The burden of proof is completely yours.

We disagree, I think, about the nature of time I have several times in this thread refused to speculate on the ontological status of space, length etc. and admit I can not apply my proof that they are not essential to a complete discription of the universe, because unlike time, they are not unique (Modern theory suggest there are 10 or 12 dimensions to space - I could at best eliminate only one.) As recently noted I wear a timex. Time flowng fro m past towards the future is very a useful, probably unavoidable way to think. Once this was true of other "natual assumtions"/ inventions of man, such sun rising, philogestion being conserved, etc. this does not make these "facts" real or give them ontological status. I think the fish bite better, just before sunrise. etc. I completely agree that life insurance companies should use "years" when calculating how much to charge you, that I should use what my timex dial indicates when meeting you for lunch etc. If this is what you mean by "how sciences works," I agree.
Galaleo did not have a timex. While presumably bored with the sermon, and noting that the chandeler's amplitude of swing, changing with the wind thru the windows in the church, did not seem to seem to change the number of times his heart beat per cycle etc. is in fact the way science is done. I worked 30 years as a PH.D. physicist and spent another 15 at two good universities earn it (I liked being a student and was in no hurry to leave the university.) so I do know a little about how sicience works. And BTW, time not being real is not my new idea. Read the post I made quoting Kant. If I have done anyting, and I doubt it, it is only to offer an easy to follow, well illustrated, demonstration (not claim) the time is not needed to describe the universe (very probably not even the first to do so.)

 

[reilly]

Billy T -- Interesting, but not new. The National Bureau of Standards uses an atomic clock to define a second as so many cycles of emitted light- if I recall correctly, the clock is a cesium atom. So, for most of us, time is indeed measured as a series of events, but in princple, two would do. As Einstein pointed out, time is what we measure with clocks.

We chose to call the variable describing the event time. Of course this is physicist's time and not necessarily philosophers time. There soon may be a neuroscience time, based on our brain's ability to have enough memory to be able to track changes -- and, of course, there are our circadian cycles.

Your mathematics. First, it does not prove the nonexistence of time in any mathematical sense. To do so, you would have to find a contradiction in the usual mathematical use of time in physics. With your scheme, I can always map back to normal physicist's time. And, all you have shown is what might be called a general covariance in time coordinates-- exactly what's done in general relativity. You just left out the spatial coordinates. For that matter, what you did for time, can be done for spatial coordinates as well. Put together the coordinates and time, and you have the general covariance part of GR. Einstein is all about events.

You are quite right to stress that events do not happen just because of the passage of time. But this idea goes way, way back. (It is, for example, discussed in two books I coauthored on the subject of urban dynamics, back in the late 70s.) From an Einsteinian perspective, physics is about the relationships among events, a perspective that's been around for over a century.

In your argument about removing time, you obviously must deal with functions that have an inverse, and as far as describing events that's a fairly restrictive constraint. Without even thinking about quantum theory, there are many phenomena that are random in nature. (Just to be clear, these are phenomena that cannot be precisely predicted, coin tosses, radioactive decay, noise in communication channels, business sales, molecular motion in diffusion(Einstein again)and on and on. And, most of the time we can compute the appropriate probabilities with standard techniques of proability, statistical, and stochastic process theories.) The point being, the equations of motion can't always be inverted for specific events.


Another important point, just for completeness. When physicists and mathematicians work with very general coordinate systems and transformations, they work with differential forms -- like transformations of all the covariant and contravarient vectors and tensors of Riemannian geometry. This is not easy stuff.

Finally, re the general covariance issue. It's based on the simple idea that events are independent of how they are described. That is we are free, for example, to use virtually any scheme we want to describe events -- like epicycles of old. But, for the most part, we use physicist's time t for pure convenience -- some times physicists go so far as to use an imaginary number for time.

Time exists? We're certainly programmed by evolution to have an innate sense of time. To the extent that we say tangible things exist, then our neural time-structure, probably exists, and clocks certainly exist.

So, what are the criteria to judge whether time exists?

Regards,
Reilly Atkinson

 

[Tournesol]

No, it is not only because I have demonstrated that time is not required for a complete description of the the universe that I conclude time does not have any ontological status. This claim is also based on the two facts about which I think we have no dispute: (1)Time is not directly observable. (I am not saying that clocks do not exist, or that planets do not periodicly orbit the sun, etc.) and (2) Time passing is not the cause of anything, not why I am growing old, not why the hands of a clock advance, not why the sun rises etc.

Which are based on 2 disoutable assumptions:

1' Things don't exist unless they are directly observable
2' Things don't exist unless they cause other things.

Please give an example so I will have some idea what you are talking about.

Determinism implies prediction implies redundancy; if you can repdict
a.b and c from x, y and z, then ab, and c are informationally redundant.

I tend to agree we are finnaly making some progress towards mutual understanding, if not agreement. I will agree that if you define time to (exist and) be the thing that separates events, then I can not agrue with you. I could equally well define philogiston to (exist and) be the thing that makes all caloric measurements as they are. Such a definition would not make either time or philogiston a thing with real ontological status.

Phlogiston doesn't exist becuase it has the additional hypothetical property of being
emitted, not absorbed, during combustion.

I again admit that events change their nature, cause other events, etc. I just see no need for time (or philogiston) in any explanation for these things.

It explains (not causes) why events are not all on top of each other.

I won't go on - there does not seem to be much point. You claim I do not respond, when this shoe fits you very well. You define away the question as to time's ontological status, by defining it to be the separation between events. You did not comment on fact someone else noted that not every one even perceives time as continuous (Car seen far away suddenly is seen at 10 feet etc.)

a) If time is objective, their failure to perceive it correctly is just that.

b) who said that separations have to be continuous ?

 

[Billy T]

I agree with much of what you have to say, but will adda few corrections/comments

Billy T -- Interesting, but not new. The National Bureau of Standards uses an atomic clock to define a second as so many cycles of emitted light- if I recall correctly, the clock is a cesium atom. So, for most of us, time is indeed measured as a series of events, but in princple, two would do. As Einstein pointed out, time is what we measure with clocks.

Several times I have noted that I am not stating any thng new and probably not even the first to give this proof. Cesium was an earlier version. (Rubidium now I think.) The second is defined by about 12 atomic clocks. (The one at the Applied Physics Lab of JHU, where I worked for almost 30 years contributed a few percent - don't know if it still exist and does - Retired more than 10 years ago.)

One of Einstein's major accomplishment was to show that clocks in different frames indicated different amount of time lapse between the same two events. He knew full well that the interval between two events was not any definite thing. (Not 5 seconds, not 10 seconds, nor any other number of seconds.) Others have already pointed out in this thread that he and his friend, Goedel, questioned the existence of time. You must be putting words in Einstein's mouth. Please give a reference to where and when he said what you claim he did.

...Your mathematics. First, it does not prove the nonexistence of time in any mathematical sense. To do so, you would have to find a contradiction in the usual mathematical use of time in physics. With your scheme, I can always map back to normal physicist's time.

I only claim that the math shows time is not required for a complete discription of the universe. Here you are putting words in my mouth. I infer that time does not exist because of this and two other facts, given in recent post when Tournesol erroneously accusted me of the same claim (Time is not observable and causes nothing.) I admit the title of this thread is a little misleading. It should have been: "Time Does Not Exist - An Opinion, Supported by Math Showing Time is not Required to Describe Universe" but there are space limitations.

...In your argument about removing time, you obviously must deal with functions that have an inverse, and as far as describing events that's a fairly restrictive constraint.

Very good point. I have been expecting it for a long time, as the existence of the inverse function is essential to my proof. You seem to know something about "conformal mapping" and that not all transforms are one-to-one mapping. In the first post of this thread I noted that I was using example A = 15sin(7t) because it has a named inverse (the arcsig) "despite..." I really am surprised that it has taken so long for anyone to point out this flaw. - the failure of the simple inverse to exist in many-to-one mappings like the sin / arcsign. Congratualations.

The "rescue" of my proof gets a little complex and I did not want to do it, until forced. Basically every many-to-one mapping must be broken up into "indexed segments" For example, to stick with my original example of the A=sin(x) and working in degrees: Seg1 = 0<= x < 90 has the inverse (continuing my original notations of lower case letter with a prime/single quote for the inverse function) of a'1.
Seg2 = 90<= x < 270 with inverse: a'2
Seg3 = 270<= x < 450 with inverse a'3 etc (each segment spanning 180 degrees except the -90 to +90 segment is two.)
Now it gets very messy. I can no longer say:
t = a'(A,B,C...) = b'(A,B,C...) = c'(A,B,C...) ... and then reduce the number of equations by one by dropping the first (the t = ). Instead I must do something like:
tx = a'x(A,B,C...) = b'x(A,B,C...) = c'x(A,B,C...) and,
ty = a'y(A,B,C...) = b'y(A,B,C...) = c'y(A,B,C...) and,
tw = a'w(A,B,C...) = b'w(A,B,C...) = c'w(A,B,C...) and, ...etc.

where tx is that small interval of time common to all the one to one segments of the mappings on the right side of the first equation. etc. That is when any physical observable of concern begins to repeat, I give a new index number.

This seems very strange, but you are very familiar with this scheme. The Earth repeats it position after a year of travel around the sun. In contracts you sign, it is no good to have it stated that your mortage is completely paid on 30 June. You must give an index number for which 30 June. That is the current index number for the repeating position of the Earth going around the sun is 2005. That is all that is required, in principle, to rescue my proof, but it is very messy.

In physic, as normally used in the equations giving the functional relations between interacting objects, we neglect many things. For example, the gravity of Pluto is rarely consider even when planning a rocket trip from Earth to Mars. That is, the observables A,B,C,... are not, in pratice, of significant importance to consider many of them together. Thus, when eliminating time variable from a set of equations, it is only a relative short set, not the infinite large set of my formalism, that are used. Admitedly, if one is eliminating time from the equations which describe a physical observable which repeats in a short period, the "inverse function segments" will also be short. My example of the grandfather clock pendulum is a good illustration of this. Before the weights driving the clock mechanism need to be wound up again, the "index parameter" will achieve some rather large numerical values, but we always have an infinite supply new values, so that is just messy, not a problem. I might need to speak of half pendulum cycle 479,867,952 etc. for some segment of the inverse connecting the observable pendulum position to the variable "t" I am eliminate, piece-by-peice.

I will not go into such detail about your other concern where the sequents of events is either "random" and/or discrete (coin toss good example of both). Basically to rescue inverses, one simply makes a list and indexes it also. For example "head 475" "Tail476"... correspond to t475 and t476 respectively and one now has the required inverses, although they are not analytic functions - they are tabular functions. Given any t in the table one knows the H or T event. Given any H or T event in the tabulation one know the correcting t variable - I.e. not a problem to define the function or its inverse here either.

...tensors of Riemannian geometry. This is not easy stuff.

I agree. I was alway impressed by the compactness of tensor notation, summation being implied by repeated indexes, etc.

But, for the most part, we use physicist's time t for pure convenience -- some times physicists go so far as to use an imaginary number for time. Time exists? We're certainly programmed by evolution to have an innate sense of time. To the extent that we say tangible things exist, then our neural time-structure, probably exists, and clocks certainly exist. So, what are the criteria to judge whether time exists?

I agree the function of time approach is very convenient and very deep in man's thought patterns. As I think many lesser things are innate, I believe it is even innate. Glad you mentioned imaginiaryt - it does have some very useful applications. I should have mentioned it as many would be more inclined to understand that regular time variable t is also just a convenience.

Not really possible to prove nonexistance on anything; however, if one can demonstate, the postulated thing does not cause anything (and as an obvious consequence of this, is not observable) and that it is not necessary even for the discription of anything, then I for one am willing to assume the postulated thing does not have any claim to ontological status.

You definitely threw the best rock at me yet. Warm Regards, Billy T

 

[cronxeh]

Ok Billy T, I agree with you, but we have a problem. What is the alternative?

How would you synchronize sequences of events, motion, forces, to each other?

Lets start with classical physics. If my average speed was 20 miles per hour and I traveled 200 miles, then the time was 10 hours. This is well understood. However let's say my position simply changed - I was going on a plane tangent to the Earth (for example), and my path was a nonlinear function. I had beginning (x,y,z) and end (x',y',z'). The distance is 200 miles. sqrt(x^2 + y^2 + z^2) = 200. This is all fine and neat. No time so far. The problem arises when another individual, call it hexnorc takes off from point (x',y',z') at same time as I am and travels in same direction as me. Somewhere along the function we meet - how do I find where? What if his speed is not 20? What if he stops and goes for unknown duration of time - I mean sure you can say but I just kept going and you can plot this and the point of collision will keep changing, and so on. But how do I do this without time?

 

[Billy T]

... Do we have some particle called "..." that carries time? (just like photons or something?)
... The smaller the repetitive natural event that we can measure, the more accurate our measurement of time can be.
Can someone give me the smallest unit of time? If we take time t=d/c where c is speed of light the smallest time unit we can get is bound only by our measurement is it not? We can divide distance infinetelly. (sounds like zeno :) ). What are your toughts about this? In summary, time as a physical entity does not exist, rather it is a means for comparing the duration of an event to the duration of another which is considered the reference standard.

I am not well enough informed to really reply, but since no one else has, I will make a few coments.

Some good mathematical physicists think it quite possible that both time and space come in discrete increments (obvioulsy very small). I have never heard of there being the exchange of some "timons" - this "exchange idea" is basically related to the need to have some idea as to how force can act at a distance (the exchange of "glueons" for the strong force acts etc.) Because time does not exert any force on anything, I doubt anyone is suggesting that time "acts" by exchange of timeons etc. (Time does not act - point I have been stressing and most seem to agree with. I.e. few now argue that time can do anything.)

Quantum physics identifies certain pairs of obserables which will produce different results if their order of application to the state function is exchanged. (They do not "commute" under the Hamiltonian in the jargon of QM.) Time and energy are such a pair. All such pairs are victums of the "uncertainity principle." That is, the error in the concurrent measurement has a minium product. Thus if you measure one member of the pair very accurately, you will quite uncertain about the other member of the pair.

I doubt if this is the basic pratical cause, but all atomic clocks take a lot more energy to measure time than my timex. If you want to measure a time interval that is very short, you will pay a large price in energy. I am just trying to give some ideas about this. I am not really well enough versed to say it accurately.

 

[reilly]

Billy T -- Bravo & thank you. However, I prefer to think of my remarks as bringing a different perspective to a very interesting and difficult topic, time. I'm a theoretical physicist, or was one, with a strong empirical bent. As I was taught, and taught, Special Relativity is highly operational, as in: time is what you measure with clocks, space is what you measure with measuring rods, and these are the tools with which you lay out a coordinate grid in inertial systems.

I'll cite p. 28 in Einstein's short book, Relativity (Crown Trade Paperbacks) in which he states:

"...we understand by the "time" of an event the reading (position of the hands) of that one of these clocks which is in the immediate vicinity (in space) of the event. In this manner a time-value is associated with every event which is essentially capable of observation."

This approach provides the basis for physicist's time -- in inertial frames -- and is widely accepted in the mainstream physics community.

Your more detailed explanation of the math is, I think, basically correct, particularly your use of infitesimals, or really small intervals.

When you get to strong gravitational fields with gradients sharp enough to shred any clock, or space-time foams and whatever, time becomes much more problematical. Another weakness, is that in QM we don't typically treat time as an operator, which creates a distinction between space and time, which seems contrary to SR.

Interesting topic, and very interesting thoughts on your part.


Reilly

 

[Billy T]

Billy T -- Bravo & thank you. However, I prefer to think of my remarks as bringing a different perspective to a very interesting and difficult topic, time. I'm a theoretical physicist, or was one, with a strong empirical bent. As I was taught, and taught, Special Relativity is highly operational, as in: time is what you measure with clocks, space is what you measure with measuring rods, and these are the tools with which you lay out a coordinate grid in inertial systems.

I'll cite p. 28 in Einstein's short book, Relativity (Crown Trade Paperbacks) in which he states:

"...we understand by the "time" of an event the reading (position of the hands) of that one of these clocks which is in the immediate vicinity (in space) of the event. In this manner a time-value is associated with every event which is essentially capable of observation."

This approach provides the basis for physicist's time -- in inertial frames -- and is widely accepted in the mainstream physics community.

Your more detailed explanation of the math is, I think, basically correct, particularly your use of infitesimals, or really small intervals.

When you get to strong gravitational fields with gradients sharp enough to shred any clock, or space-time foams and whatever, time becomes much more problematical. Another weakness, is that in QM we don't typically treat time as an operator, which creates a distinction between space and time, which seems contrary to SR.

Interesting topic, and very interesting thoughts on your part.


Reilly

Thanks - I think we agree (and probably should given somewhat similar educations, although I would classify myself more as an experimental physicist than a theoretical one.) I have no problem accepting that Einstein said: "...we understand by the "time" of an event the reading (position of the hands) ..." and am pleased to note he has the "scare quotes" around time.

I think that one of the major reasons physics has transformed man's existence in 100 years much more than philosophy has in 1000, is it that it tends to be operational. QM is a good example. QM is a detailed cook book about how to calculated. Unfortunately many people who have never done any of the calculation recipes, think it is saying something about how the universe is. "photons are particles and waves" etc. QM is really quite neutral on ontological questions.

 

[Billy T]

Ok Billy T, I agree with you, but we have a problem. What is the alternative?

How would you synchronize sequences of events, motion, forces, to each other?

Lets start with classical physics. If my average speed was 20 miles per hour and I traveled 200 miles, then the time was 10 hours. This is well understood. However let's say my position simply changed - I was going on a plane tangent to the Earth (for example), and my path was a nonlinear function. I had beginning (x,y,z) and end (x',y',z'). The distance is 200 miles. sqrt(x^2 + y^2 + z^2) = 200. This is all fine and neat. No time so far. The problem arises when another individual, call it hexnorc takes off from point (x',y',z') at same time as I am and travels in same direction as me. Somewhere along the function we meet - how do I find where? What if his speed is not 20? What if he stops and goes for unknown duration of time - I mean sure you can say but I just kept going and you can plot this and the point of collision will keep changing, and so on. But how do I do this without time?

I won't do specal cases very often (because I have done the general case) but this once I will oblige you:

C's speed is Cs(t) and hexnorc's speed is Hs(t). I do not know how to make intergral signs here so I will use II and if I mean the definite integral from a to b I will indicate this by aIIb ok?

C's location as a function of time is Cx(t) = 0IIt Cs(t)dt and your inverse function that tells when (what time T) C is at x where 0<= x <=200 is Tc(x) which is just the t vs x table you could construct by considering lots of different t in the first given intergral equation for Cx(t). Very important to note that once any value for t has been placed in this interal, what results is a distance, not a time. (time has been integrated over or out.)

I do the same to construct table for Th(x). Now I fold both the tables so that the T index column can not even be seen! (It really is only an index, not needed.) You may have passed each other several times. If, for example, the 27 and 732 entries in the h and c "x tables" are the same value for hx and cx, then those are the two locations where you passed. Your example was actually quite easy as time integrates out.

I don't like to mention it, as you may take it as some indication that time is real, not just a parameter, but you could know when you passed as follows: Unfold the either table so the "T index column" is visible again and interpret T as time shown on your clock. You could also get it by setting equal: oIIt Cs(t)dt = 0IIt Hs(t)dt but I don't suggest this as you will surely think it is "time t" rather than index T you find that produces the equality of Cx and Hx.

If something is shown to be true in generality, it is true of all particular cases. I won't do any more of specail cases. Of course, in pratice, if I want to synchronize the sound from a tape machine with the silent movie film, I will do the same as you. I used clocks to measure time all my life. that does not give it ontological status. - Just shows I am pratical.

 

[cronxeh]

so in essence this won't work for QM because of determinism (absence of)

 

[Billy T]

so in essence this won't work for QM because of determinism (absence of)

Not following you - what won't work?

 

[K.J.Healey]

So you're basically saying you can eliminate time from any equation describing an event, but you cannot derive equations describing events without using time?

Please do the same case you just did without using any form of time. At all. If it doesn't exist I want to see something completed without its use.

 

[Lucretius]

I'm new to these forums and by NO means any expert in anything like this (but I desire to understand!). I'm only in high school pre-calculus so don't expect me to understand the mathematical aspect of things…

I've heard that change can take place in the absence of time, something called presymplectic mechanics…is this what you are suggesting? I've been trying to make sense of "state evolution" in the absence of time, but so far I am at a loss.

 

[Billy T]

So you're basically saying you can eliminate time from any equation describing an event, but you cannot derive equations describing events without using time?

Please do the same case you just did without using any form of time. At all. If it doesn't exist I want to see something completed without its use.

No, I am not saying that it is impossible to develop physics (derive the equations) without reference to time, but as said earlier, I have shown time is not required for description of anything in universe. This does not mean that all physics has been developed without reference to time, only that in principle it could have been.

Some branches of physics, for example geometric optics, seldom if ever make any reference to time. You may even be familiar with fact that "Energy Conservation" is a more powerful and convenient means for calculating how high a rock thrown up in a gravity field will go than integrating the retarding force of gravity (-mg) acting on it as a function of time.

More generally, the motion and path of a particle (or rock etc.) actually takes does not need to be computed from F=ma, but I admit it usualy is. Back in 1824, Hamilton developed the "action principle." Feyman did much the same thing more recently with his "Feyman diagrams." There is also "Lagrangian mechanics" and "virtual displacements." In all of these approches to deriving the equations of motion, formulating physics, etc. time plays a minor if any role. That is, one does not use instanteous concepts like momentum and local current forces of the instant to see how the rock or particle will be moving "at the next instant of time" given how it is moving "now." Instead one evaluates certain quantities "over all possible paths" and the actual path realized by nature is the one which produces a stationary value for the quanity, usually a minium.

I am not going to try to derive all physics or even do an ill defined problem with any of these sophisticated methods for you. I do want you to know that in some cases it is the only way that works. (In quantum physics the "F=ma" approach fails because the particle may not have any defined location.) Hamilton's approach is the foundations of quantum mechanics. This is not the place to teach you about these things, and I am growing rusty with the use of these powerful tools that ignore the step by step evolution of the system "in time." Get a graduate level book on mechanics, especially one that is really a trying to lay the classical foundations (mathematical tools) required for quantum mechanics.
,

 

[Billy T]

I'm new to these forums and by NO means any expert in anything like this (but I desire to understand!). I'm only in high school pre-calculus so don't expect me to understand the mathematical aspect of things…

I've heard that change can take place in the absence of time, something called presymplectic mechanics…is this what you are suggesting? I've been trying to make sense of "state evolution" in the absence of time, but so far I am at a loss.

Welcome. Don't try too hard to understand things without time. Humans are not wired up to do it any other way. When you have progresses into areas that defy human understanding, like quantum mechanics, you will understand how important a role math plays in descriptions and in prediction of results.

I wrote a book, called Dark Visitor for young people like you. I am concerned that the jobs available to my grandchildren with be only "local jobs" that can not be exported (like selling fast food or cutting someone's hair) and wanted to attract more student to some of the harder science areas that the future of the western world depends upon. Technological leadership has already been lost to Asia. You will live to see scientific leadership lost also unless there is a big change in attitudes in the West.

Because it is designed to attract people not currently interested in science, all the science is hidden in a scary story of an approaching cosmic disaster. - which might be really coming and we would not yet know. Please visit www.DarkVisitor.com where you will learn how to read book for free, get a list of all the physics that is hidden in it, etc.

 

[rvolt24]

i'm no mensa, but...

i'm no genius, but maybe that's why it's so obvious to me...

time (and space) are constructs of the mind... they are NOT REAL!... face facts, people... if they were real, we could determine ways to alter them... energy, we can alter... matter; alter... we cannot alter time or space... despite what Star Trek would tell you...

okay... here's the philosophical part... but it involves some belief that physics works... we observe the world... we use five senses (+/-)... but what ACTUALLY HAPPENS?... say it with me now, "Energy Transfer"... that's all... light is emitted... it focuses through our eye onto rods and cones (whatever)... an ELECTRICAL SIGNAL is sent to the brain... same thing happens with touch, taste, smell, et cetera... this signal is processed and catalogued...

space and time are our PERCEPTIONS of transferred energy... we are translating the world around us into concepts...

now, again, I'm no mathmetician, logictician, or a very good speller ... but i know that the world can be described (albeit, very lengthy description) through the transference of energy only... we use time and space to separate the SEQUENCE of transference... i.e. ice cannot melt until the substance in contact with the ice increases to a temperature above that of the ice which can only happen when the substance in contact with that substance does likewise (or convection, radiation, et al.)...

two trains heading toward each other can be described as energy... transference from coal to heat; heat to pressure; pressure to kinetic energy; kinetic energy from gear to wheel; wheel to track; track to earth... the trains' "distance" from each other can be shown as molecular gravity systems... very weak at first, but with proper energy transference, these forces become very strong... eventually resulting in the rapid deformation of molecular bonds (e.g. crash, explosion, etc.)...

but what we perceive is two trains some "distance" apart and crashing some "time" in the future...

but this would not be the result except for the transference of energies which forced these two masses to interact... (read: the train rails, gravity and stupid engineers)...

it is only a sequence of energy transfers... since energy cannot be created or destroyed (give or take), the train crash cannot happen all at "once"... the energy must be transferred from place to place and form to form...

(pen)ultimately, time is just mental counting... how many seasons; how many sunrises; how many times has Orion chased his prey around the heavens... we count... then we divide... then we count again... hours, seconds, nanoseconds... ocilations of atoms inside atomic clocks... whatever... ... it's all a construct of our observations...

FINAL WORD:

the world can be described much easier and simply when we remove ONE factor... not time... not space... we must remove OBSERVATION... the first thing a scientist MUST do is remove himself from the equation... our preconceived notions of time and space make our notion of the world difficult and ponderous... find as much proof of energy transference as possible, and don't worry about how long it took or how far it went... find out where the energy came from and where it went... that's it... once we can do that, we will be as gods... omnicient and omnipresent...

thank you for your time and presence...

 

[rvolt24]

btw... Dark Visitor looks cool so far... I'm downloading the entire text and will read it later... but I'm definately interested... if it's as good as it looks, i'll buy the book...

yes, the internet is my library... read first... buy later... sorry... that's the way it is...

 

[K.J.Healey]

No, I am not saying that it is impossible to develop physics (derive the equations) without reference to time, but as said earlier, I have shown time is not required for description of anything in universe. This does not mean that all physics has been developed without reference to time, only that in principle it could have been.

Some branches of physics, for example geometric optics, seldom if ever make any reference to time. You may even be familiar with fact that "Energy Conservation" is a more powerful and convenient means for calculating how high a rock thrown up in a gravity field will go than integrating the retarding force of gravity (-mg) acting on it as a function of time.

More generally, the motion and path of a particle (or rock etc.) actually takes does not need to be computed from F=ma, but I admit it usualy is. Back in 1824, Hamilton developed the "action principle." Feyman did much the same thing more recently with his "Feyman diagrams." There is also "Lagrangian mechanics" and "virtual displacements." In all of these approches to deriving the equations of motion, formulating physics, etc. time plays a minor if any role. That is, one does not use instanteous concepts like momentum and local current forces of the instant to see how the rock or particle will be moving "at the next instant of time" given how it is moving "now." Instead one evaluates certain quantities "over all possible paths" and the actual path realized by nature is the one which produces a stationary value for the quanity, usually a minium.

I am not going to try to derive all physics or even do an ill defined problem with any of these sophisticated methods for you. I do want you to know that in some cases it is the only way that works. (In quantum physics the "F=ma" approach fails because the particle may not have any defined location.) Hamilton's approach is the foundations of quantum mechanics. This is not the place to teach you about these things, and I am growing rusty with the use of these powerful tools that ignore the step by step evolution of the system "in time." Get a graduate level book on mechanics, especially one that is really a trying to lay the classical foundations (mathematical tools) required for quantum mechanics.
,

I've read graduate level theoretical mechanics books, and I think I do recall time being mentioned once or twice... but seriously: I see what you're saying, that time is not necessary to describe the universe in a static frame.

But about the pathing...
You can describe the "future" by an infinite amount of paths, each with a finite probability of occurring. The example of this is object at A, then object at B, how did it get there? And you can draw all the possible paths and find which one the physical laws of nature would choose, thus collapsing a system of probabilities to one unique possibility, or "future".
Unfortunately this model doesn't leave a way of predicting the future. You cannot say the next position of an object that is going from A to some unknow. You don't have momentum, velocity, kinetic energy, or many other properties to work with because they cannot be defined without time. So you have no past information, because there was no past. Hence, there is no physical way to collapse the probability function of which path it will take, since there is no known upper limit. See what I'm saying?
I'm sure everyone has thought about a deterministic universe that doesn't need time at least once in their lives.
The fact that you acknowledge that an object can even MOVE means there must be time. And by time I solely mean a METRIC of a dimension.
Thats all time is, a measure.

 

[rvolt24]

. . . you can draw all the possible paths and find which one the physical laws of nature would choose, thus collapsing a system of probabilities to one unique possibility, or "future".
Unfortunately this model doesn't leave a way of predicting the future.

i don't want to sound rude, but do you get hit by falling objects a lot?... you intuitivly know the future path of many objects... can't one determine the forces acting on an system and determine to a high degree of accuracy future trends?... i know on a micro scale, this is difficult due to the miniscule quantities of energy required for high effect, but that is a problem of detection and quantifying... in the macro, we do this everyday... you drive a car, don't you?... did you check the weather this morning?... aren't there astrologers tracking and predicting the movement of celestial objects?... we used these methods to land an unmanned craft on Mars, right?... (it took us a few tries, true)...

You cannot say the next position of an object that is going from A to some unknow[n]. You don't have momentum, velocity, kinetic energy, or many other properties to work with because they cannot be defined without time.

sure you can... energy transference... we use the notion of "time" to describe the sequence of transference... the energy does not require time; just we do... "time" is just our way of making a cumbersome mathmatical series a simple counting proceedure...

So you have no past information, because there was no past.

what is past but the remembering of energy states?...

I'm sure everyone has thought about a deterministic universe that doesn't need time at least once in their lives.

sure... and, in many ways, it is... if we allow it... research the butterfly effect... though it sounds silly on the surface, just think about what would happen if (theoretically) a series of energy transfers as large as a hurricane began or ended due to the smallest beginning... just think about the beginnings of a nuclear bomb... we may have some limited control of forces, but once released, the universe is DEFINITLY deterministic...

The fact that you acknowledge that an object can even MOVE means there must be time. And by time I solely mean a METRIC of a dimension.

define movement without using time... you can't do it unless you also don't use space... but you can still define movement through a series of energy transfers... define a system based on nothing else, and it is still definable...

Thats all time is, a measure.

no... a measure is a quanification of energy... just as there is no "weight", only mass in gravity... two energies in a function... (actually several energies as gravity is relative to TWO or more energies... but unlike time, gravity still exists as a quanifiable energy of a sole object)... time is not a measure... it is a memory... it is a prediction of probability... it is a simplification of a complex system... it is a construct... use it all you wish, but wishing does not make it so...

 

[Billy T]

...Unfortunately this model doesn't leave a way of predicting the future. You cannot say the next position of an object that is going from A to some unknow. You don't have momentum, velocity, kinetic energy, or many other properties to work with because they cannot be defined without time. So you have no past information, because there was no past. Hence, there is no physical way to collapse the probability function of which path it will take, since there is no known upper limit. See what I'm saying?...The fact that you acknowledge that an object can even MOVE means there must be time. And by time I solely mean a METRIC of a dimension. Thats all time is, a measure.

Fact that can't predict the future is not much of a problem for me. I will even go so far as to agree that a lot of things that seem to require time (your "momentum, velocity, kinetic energy" etc.) even "change in general" are damn usefull ways to understand things. You speak of the "probability function" - not sure you are referring to the state function of quantum mechanics, but being in a generous mood at the "moment" I will assume you are and even grant that QM's equations are time based and strictly deterministic in their evolution with time ("equations", not the observational results predicted.) I will however, again note that I have little problem with the idea that the separation between two events can be measured by clocks etc. BUT my clock (in my inertial frame) gives it as 5 seconds and yours gives it as 10. The very fact that the metric between these two events can have any value you like should at least make you think that perhaps it is not anything real, but just that - a convenient metric.

 

[K.J.Healey]

i don't want to sound rude, but do you get hit by falling objects a lot?... you intuitivly know the future path of many objects... can't one determine the forces acting on an system and determine to a high degree of accuracy future trends?... i know on a micro scale, this is difficult due to the miniscule quantities of energy required for high effect, but that is a problem of detection and quantifying... in the macro, we do this everyday... you drive a car, don't you?... did you check the weather this morning?... aren't there astrologers tracking and predicting the movement of celestial objects?... we used these methods to land an unmanned craft on Mars, right?... (it took us a few tries, true)...

I'm not dumb, of course you can know the future of many objects, so long as you use time to describe the system. How do you define Force and momentum in a system where time does not exist? There is no movement, in the classical sense, of celestial objects, if you follow the original post. "Time doesn't exist" so please redefine momentum other than p=d(m*x)/dt without the time.

You see what I'm saying? I don't believe this nonesense really.

sure you can... energy transference... we use the notion of "time" to describe the sequence of transference... the energy does not require time; just we do... "time" is just our way of making a cumbersome mathmatical series a simple counting proceedure...

the energy doesn't require time, but a CHANGE in energy does, doesn't it?

what is past but the remembering of energy states?...

right, but how can you remember if there is no time? How do you label a previous energy state? If you created a sequence of energy states, and their change, would that not then just be re-labeling time?

sure... and, in many ways, it is... if we allow it... research the butterfly effect... though it sounds silly on the surface, just think about what would happen if (theoretically) a series of energy transfers as large as a hurricane began or ended due to the smallest beginning... just think about the beginnings of a nuclear bomb... we may have some limited control of forces, but once released, the universe is DEFINITLY deterministic...

Hmm, maybe my definition of deterministic is misconstrued. I thought that in a deterministic universe, you could look at a system and its properties and determine where its headed. I thought this is wrong because the act of looking at a system changes its properties? So you could never gain an initial value while retaining the properties of the system.

define movement without using time... you can't do it unless you also don't use space... but you can still define movement through a series of energy transfers... define a system based on nothing else, and it is still definable...

Thats the point i was trying to make. You can't have movement without time. I was never agreeing with the origina post if that's what you thought, I just merely understand where he's coming from and am trying to gain insight into that way of thinking in order to help test the theory.
Isnt the fact that there's a series of energy xfers mean time? Its just labeled "index n in the series" rather than "second n in time"

no... a measure is a quanification of energy... just as there is no "weight", only mass in gravity... two energies in a function... (actually several energies as gravity is relative to TWO or more energies... but unlike time, gravity still exists as a quanifiable energy of a sole object)... time is not a measure... it is a memory... it is a prediction of probability... it is a simplification of a complex system... it is a construct... use it all you wish, but wishing does not make it so...

So you can't measure distances in spatial dimensions because there is no energy associated with those distances? I don't understand that.

I understand time that time is a prediction of probability, and its just something we use to describe our physical model of the universe. But than what isnt? What is momentum, what is energy, what is mass, if not some arbitrary label to some other physical process. I know that we can ssign properties left and right, but my problem is I can't see describing the universe as a whole, in its all complete possibilities, without using time. Time is the measure of spatial change, that's how i see it. Its just used to label the occurance of events.

I thought also that QT sort of clears away the notion of a deterministic universe, and puts forth the idea of a probabilistic universe.

 

[K.J.Healey]

Fact that can't predict the future is not much of a problem for me. I will even go so far as to agree that a lot of things that seem to require time (your "momentum, velocity, kinetic energy" etc.) even "change in general" are damn usefull ways to understand things. You speak of the "probability function" - not sure you are referring to the state function of quantum mechanics, but being in a generous mood at the "moment" I will assume you are and even grant that QM's equations are time based and strictly deterministic in their evolution with time ("equations", not the observational results predicted.) I will however, again note that I have little problem with the idea that the separation between two events can be measured by clocks etc. BUT my clock (in my inertial frame) gives it as 5 seconds and yours gives it as 10. The very fact that the metric between these two events can have any value you like should at least make you think that perhaps it is not anything real, but just that - a convenient metric.

Thats what I am trying to say. Time isn't some dimension we have control over, its merely a metric for indexing the order of events. I won't go as far to say its man-made, but ANY observation from ANYTHING requires it to describe the events. See how I said observation, I don't mean things can't happen without time, just that they cannot be observed. Animals have feelings of time passing as well, but they don't undertand it. Its still only a metric, but what isnt?

And yes, I was speaking in pseudo-QM terms, and there are the very very basic time independent equations that are based on energy and a spatial dimension, and you can determine the probabilities of location (quantum well).

 

[learningphysics]

define movement without using time... you can't do it unless you also don't use space... but you can still define movement through a series of energy transfers... define a system based on nothing else, and it is still definable...

Please give an example of the above without reference to time.

What kind of "series of energy transfers"? If there is no time... there is no ordering to this series. How do you get the first, second, or last in the series without using time?

 

[Lucretius]

Anyone here read stuff on time by Carlo Rovelli?

http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html

Go to that page and download his PDF called "Time". For some reason "Presymplectic Mechanics" does not seem to work on my computer very well.

 

[rvolt24]

god i love scientific philosophy

I'm not dumb,

of course, i did not mean to imply such... your very presence here indicates a vital mind...

right, but how can you remember if there is no time?

what is memory?... aren't these electrical impulses which we relate as sight and sound (etc.) transmitted to our cerebellum and stored as "memory"?... memory is just a construct, too... we index these electrical pulses and use other pulses to read them... I/O just like a computer...

Its just labeled "index n in the series" rather than "second n in time"

EXACTLY!... and space is "unit n in distance" instead of "potential energy differential matrix of molecular masses"... let's get real here... does anyone still believe matter is solid?... it's energy in high valence bonds with other energies (string theory notwithstanding)...

So you can't measure distances in spatial dimensions because there is no energy associated with those distances? I don't understand that.

what is distance?... there are energies which keep all objects apart as well as energies which bring them together... distance is just our construct for dealing with these concepts... remove our perception and all becomes energy transfers...


:shy: listen... i know this is a difficult concept... humans have relied on vision and hearing and feeling and tasting and smelling for so long that we have a difficult time removing these things from any equation... and the truth be told, it IS much easier to use space and time to describe things... you can't tell someone who is blind what "Red" is... you will have to tell them the properties of the color... wavelength and such... differences between red light and blue light (or microwaves or infrared)... "Red" is a construct... but it is a simple way to describe an apple's skin... is water really "Wet" or are the particles formed in such a way as to attach loosely to other materials, but not have enough viscosity to leave a thick film... once you accept that all is energy, losing time and space is so simple... trust me... would i lie to you?

 

[rvolt24]

reference...

Please give an example of the above without reference to time.

What kind of "series of energy transfers"? If there is no time... there is no ordering to this series. How do you get the first, second, or last in the series without using time?

the problem with a reference is that we need a COMMON reference... right now, your reference requires (by definition) space and time... let me see if i can explain a larger concept which may be helpful...

what is a year without time?... the time-based definition is "the quantity of time required for one orbit of Earth around the Sun" (or something similar)... but what is really happening?... the Earth (mass-1) has gravity (force-1) pulling it toward the Sun (mass-2)... centripetal force (force-2) roughly perpendicular to force-1 is also being applied to mass-1... the tilt of mass-1's axis provides a viewer on mass-1's surface to see mass-2... as these forces act upon mass-1, the viewer would observe mass-2 move from an apex (summer solstice) to a nadir (winter solstice)... observations would show that this replicates a slightly modified sine wave... one year is one full cycle of this wave... mass does not require time to exist... yet many would say that, by definition, a force has a time component... not so... break it down into energy transference... voltage, if you will... potential energy and kinetic energy... force-1 is potential... force-2; kinetic...

but the important factor is that time; that one year; is not a measurement of any actual thing... it is a constructed reference of predicatable events... we can calculate months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds, etc. from these common references... there are whole schools of science dedicated to defining time... vibrations of cesium atoms... it's still just counting cycles of energy transfers...

again... use time and space as common reference points... common language... but don't for one "second" think it's real...

 

[moving finger]

the important factor is that time; that one year; is not a measurement of any actual thing... it is a constructed reference of predicatable events... we can calculate months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds, etc. from these common references... there are whole schools of science dedicated to defining time... vibrations of cesium atoms... it's still just counting cycles of energy transfers...

again... use time and space as common reference points... common language... but don't for one "second" think it's real...

What we are suggesting here is that time can be thought of as simply a human construct which enables us to visualise causation and the ordering of events. I don't think rvolt24 is suggesting that causation is an illusion, or that the ordering of events is an illusion (please correct me if I am wrong), but that what we humans call time is simply an internalised concept manufactured to help us to understand the causation and ordering we observe around us.

A suggestion : The same argument can be applied to space, to show that space does not really exist in the same way that time does not exist. What is space but an ordering of entities in relation to each other. There is a telephone on my desk and there is a stapler on my desk, the way they stand in relation to each is an ordering in something that we call space, but take away all objects and can we say that this space still exists? No, space is simply a human construct that we use to describe the relative arrangements of objects "in" space. In the same way, time is a human construct that we use to describe the relative arrangements of events "in" time.

MF

 

[Billy T]

What we are suggesting here is that time can be thought of as simply a human construct which enables us to visualise causation and the ordering of events. I don't think rvolt24 is suggesting that causation is an illusion, or that the ordering of events is an illusion (please correct me if I am wrong), but that what we humans call time is simply an internalised concept manufactured to help us to understand the causation and ordering we observe around us.

A suggestion : The same argument can be applied to space, to show that space does not really exist in the same way that time does not exist. What is space but an ordering of entities in relation to each other. There is a telephone on my desk and there is a stapler on my desk, the way they stand in relation to each is an ordering in something that we call space, but take away all objects and can we say that this space still exists? No, space is simply a human construct that we use to describe the relative arrangements of objects "in" space. In the same way, time is a human construct that we use to describe the relative arrangements of events "in" time.

MF

Have not been very active here of late, but just wanted to say "Well done/ Well stated."

I agree with you on space also, but have been avoiding saying it, until "now" as unlike time, which is unique parameter I can eliminated from all descriptions of the universe (Math of post one as later refined under pressure, especially from Reilly) I can not mathematical eliminate the spatial coordinates/ parameters from all descriptions of the universe.

I have already noted, but it won't hurt to repeat, that anyone who is confident in the ontological status of either space or time ought to be at least a little bothered by facts (1) any two events can be separated by any number of seconds you like and (2)any two objects can have various number of meters separating them as you like. Both (1) & (2) "adjustments" just require choosing the frame you want to view them from.

 

[learningphysics]

What we are suggesting here is that time can be thought of as simply a human construct which enables us to visualise causation and the ordering of events.

Does anyone mean anything else by time other than the "ordering of events". This is what I mean by time. This is as far as I know what everyone means by time. If the ordering is not an illusion, then time is not an illusion.

What exactly is the construct you are referring to? Is the ordering a human construct?

 

[moving finger]

Does anyone mean anything else by time other than the "ordering of events". This is what I mean by time. This is as far as I know what everyone means by time. If the ordering is not an illusion, then time is not an illusion.

What exactly is the construct you are referring to? Is the ordering a human construct?

I think the point that is being made is that time is nothing more nor less than the ordering of events. There is no such thing as "time" in itself, and we should not think of events being ordered "in time", rather the ordering of events is what defines time. Take away the events, and time vanishes too.

The same applies to space.

All we are saying is that there is no basis for the Newtonian view that "Absolute, true and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external, and by another name is called duration"

Nobody is suggesting that the ordering is an illusion. But if we think that there is some fundamental reality to the thing we call time which is above and beyond the ordering of events, that is the illusion.

To summarise : If your point is that time does not exist in the absence of events, and that space. does not exist in the absence of objects, then we agree 100%

 

[moving finger]

Does anyone mean anything else by time other than the "ordering of events". This is what I mean by time. This is as far as I know what everyone means by time. If the ordering is not an illusion, then time is not an illusion.

What exactly is the construct you are referring to? Is the ordering a human construct?

I think the point that is being made is that time is nothing more nor less than the ordering of events. There is no such thing as "time" in itself, and we should not think of events being ordered "in time", rather the ordering of events is what defines time. Take away the events, and time vanishes too.

The same applies to space.

Nobody is suggesting (I believe) that ordering of events is an illusion. What is being suggested is that there is nothing more than "ordering of events". Adding the concept of time doesn't actually add anything to our understanding (in fact introducing the concept of time can cloud our understanding because there is then a tendency for some people to think of time as a kind of pre-existing backdrop against which ordered events happen, and it leads to misconceptions like the flow of time etc).

All we are saying is that there is no basis for the Newtonian view that "Absolute, true and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external, and by another name is called duration"

To summarise : If your point is that time does not exist in the absence of events, and that space. does not exist in the absence of objects, then we agree 100%