Brian Greene: "The Past is as Real as the Present

[Dr.Yes]

Here's what I say to this...

The past is not real; It was real.

Is now the same now without the past to support it?

Doesn't that make the past an integral part of now, therefore imbuing some form of the past into the present? If so, this would make the past an element of "real" time or... " the present".

And, similarily, doesn't the future belong to the present, as well, in that it is a product of the now? Today's tommorrow being yesterday's day after tommorow... and what not?

The "past", according to me, is happening now, along with everything else.

 

[Tournesol]

DrDick

I am not sure what your present/future distinction is supposed to be. It could be about the direction of time
(which relativity can deal with, albeit in a rather static way, in the spirit of the distinction between north and south),
or it could be about dynamism, the flow of time, the changingness of the present moment.
The complaint that Relativity cannot deal with this subjectively apparent feature of time is not new --
it was famously made by Bergson during Einstein's lifetime (he called that aspect 'duree').

There is a further confusion over the nature of the problem. As I said before the flow of time (duree, etc)
is subjectively apparent, but that does not mean it is subjective simpliciter. Interpretations of QM in
which collapse is treated realistically agree more with our subjective intuitions about time; they allow
the future to be open, to consist of multiple possibilities, which have not yet collapsed into a definitive past
(to skate over a number of complications). And in doing so, it puts our subjective apprehensions onto
an objective basis. we perceive things that way because that is the way they actually are!

Your comment that clocks do not measure time seems unwarranted. A more natural conclusion
from relativity is that they do measure times. Every reference frame has its own 'proper' time,
which is measured unproblematically by clocks -- my watch measures my time, your watch measure your time.
There is no universal, Newtonian Time to be measured, but that does not mean time is subjective.

There is a loose, analogical resemblance between relativity and relativism, but it is no more than that.
To say that something is subjective, ie relative to persons, is to make the epistemological claim that
the truth of a statement legitimately depends on someone's psychology. Thus, aesthetic preferences
are subjective because everyone has their own taste. To say that something is is relative, in the Einsteinian
sense is to say that physical measurements made by obserervers will vary accoding to objective, physical characteristics
of observers, such as their relative velocity. Even the word 'observer' is misleading here as the same relativistic distortions and dilations would
be recorded by an automatic apparatus, such as a rocket-mounted video camera, traveling the same trajectory as a human observer. Some subjectivists try to evade this counterargument by claiming that a human oberserver is still needed to examine
the video footage (or whatever) -- presumably meaning that the footage is somehow ontologically indeterminate until a human looks at it. But for a human observer to generate the right data, in agreement with the theory, she would have to know the trajectory of the camera, and what evidence would she have for that except the tape itself. This manoeuvre is surely pretty desparate.

 

[Tournesol]

Time is not a "measurable variable"; I do not say that particular instantiates of time are not representable via the readings on a particular clock, but rather that this interpretation is not universal. Universally speaking, time is not a measurable entity!

OK. So time is not Newtonian, as everybody knows.

But back to my complaint on the issue of "time" and "what clocks measure". My position is very simple: time is a concept generated by the mind of man.

That is in no way implied by what you say above.

 

[Doctordick]

Hi Tournesol,

Sorry but I had pretty well given up on having a rational discussion with you after your last few statements to me

You may have a solution to the abstract problem of guessing which data follow on from a partial dataset, but it is only going to muddy the waters if you insist there is a real, concrete problem of "absolute ignorance".

If "it" didn't all begin from "absolute ignorance" exactly what was known when "it" began?

I am not sure what your present/future distinction is supposed to be. It could be about the direction of time (which relativity can deal with, albeit in a rather static way, in the spirit of the distinction between north and south), or it could be about dynamism, the flow of time, the changingness of the present moment.

Has it occurred to you that my complaint has to do simply with the "definition of time"?

There is a further confusion over the nature of the problem. As I said before the flow of time (duree, etc) is subjectively apparent, but that does not mean it is subjective simpliciter. Interpretations of QM in which collapse is treated realistically agree more with our subjective intuitions about time; they allow the future to be open, to consist of multiple possibilities, which have not yet collapsed into a definitive past (to skate over a number of complications). And in doing so, it puts our subjective apprehensions onto an objective basis. we perceive things that way because that is the way they actually are!

Is this more than hand waving and distraction designed to avoid thinking about time? I never said Einstein's theory gave incorrect results (I am very familiar with those results and the mental process used to develop them), what I said was that, in my opinion, he made a very significant error: "he presumed clocks measured time". The scientific community's position seems to be, that was what clocks were invented for; if that invention doesn't work, all must be lost.

And of course, Einstein was a god and it is not possible that he made an error is it? His catechism is now laid down so firmly that it is heresy to even suggest the existence of an alternative view. Just for your information, I am fully aware of the details of Einstein's theory and its experimental successes (well, at least as it was laid out fifty years ago anyway). I will admit that, as selfAdjoint pointed out, there are probably a number of changes in the popular shorthand representations since my ostracism. But there haven't really been any fundamental changes. What I have to offer does not contradict any aspect of any experimental result credited to Einstein's theory at all. I am not even saying that Einstein's perspective is not an excellent way of perceiving and solving a number of very important problems. What I am saying is that there exists an entirely foreign way of looking at the problem of relativity itself (100% consistent with every experiment so far performed) which solves some other very serious problems which are not solved by Einstein's theory. Problems the academy guaranteed were on the verge of being solved forty years ago when I first brought the issue up; problems still as unsolved today as they were then. My opinion:

It is my position that this perception [that clocks measure time] so blocked his view (as even today it blocks the view of the whole scientific community) that he made a mistake in his fundamental view of the problem one would not expect of a high school science student much less a trained scientist.

has so offended all the Einsteinian disciples of physics that they would rather throw rocks than listen to anything I might have to say. I am very glad that the "physics" academy has yet to established a "scientific" inquisition or I would be up on blasphemy.

Your comment that clocks do not measure time seems unwarranted.

Of course it doesn't seem warranted! If it did seem warranted, the physics community would have discovered a hundred years ago what I discovered in the 1960's.

A more natural conclusion from relativity is that they do measure times. Every reference frame has its own 'proper' time, which is measured unproblematically by clocks -- my watch measures my time, your watch measure your time.

As I said, misdirection of attention is the very best way to hide what is really going on behind the scenes.

There is no universal, Newtonian Time to be measured, but that does not mean time is subjective.

I didn't say it was subjective (not in the sense you mean it anyway), what I said was that "clocks do not measure time". Yes, in very special cases, under specific constraints, they can be used to give the appearance of measuring time (i.e., that variable one wants in those powerful equations of motion) but that fact merely deflects attention from the fact that "clocks do not measure time".

There is a loose, analogical resemblance between relativity and relativism, but it is no more than that.

This comment implies that you don't think I have any knowledge of physics at all. Really, I do have a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from a reputable university and I was at the top of my class in relativity and quantum mechanics. Apparently you haven't read much of what I have said. Either that or you are in the process of setting up a straw man to deflect attention from what I am saying. If that's the case, you got me again! You and Faustus can "bump chests".

Back to the issue of exactly what clocks measure:

1.The twin paradox points out that clocks can not be used to arrange meetings. If we are going to be "in the same place at the same time", personal clocks cannot assist us in that goal. Notice that personal rulers can be used as their readings have nothing to do with how we get to our destination. Our rulers go right back to being correct when we return to the original reference frame; but our clocks don't. The argument here is that there is a very real and important difference between time and space and clocks are not at all analogous to rulers.

2. Einstein's space time theory has a variable called the "invariant interval". All clocks accelerated or at rest measure exactly the integral of the invariant interval along its space time line of existence. This is a fairly fundamental concept in relativity and clocks always measure it without any special arrangements at all. If "what clocks measure" is time then why don't we call the invariant interval "time" and call that coordinate axis Einstein uses in his continuum something else? Ah, the real reason is that the fact that when two objects follow different paths (from point A to point B), the fact that the invariant interval calculated over the two paths is the same does not mean that that when the two objects arrive at B at the same time. (Clocks, though they measure that integral very accurately, do not measure time!)

3.The central concept of relativity is that the laws of physics are not a function of the coordinate system. The functioning of a clock is a mechanical process governed by the laws of physics. It follows that the reading on a clock can not be a function of the coordinate system it is in. In fact, this very issue is used to prove that decay times for fundamental particles (a fundamental clock) appear extended when they are moving at a relativistic velocity. Yeah, I know "they are measuring time in their rest frame". More misdirection of attention. Note that the reading on a specific clock at any specific event or interaction in the path of that clock is not a function of the observers frame of reference at all; it is what ever it is as we are talking about a specific event.

4.Which brings up another conundrum. The invariant interval along the path of a photon is zero. Under the math I know, that makes photons singular phenomena. Since all our information comes to us via photon interactions, that kind of puts us on the wrong side of the singularity doesn't it?

5.Einstein's space time continuum possesses paths which cannot be followed by any object (any path where the differential of the "invariant interval" is imaginary). Why does his geometry possesses paths which cannot be followed? The answer is, of course, because in order to follow such a path, they would have to travel faster than the speed of light. The fact that that reasoning is invalid is pointed out by the serious scientists looking for tachyons. His geometry may be convenient for solving some problems but there certainly is no evidence it is the only possible geometry or even the correct geometry. That his geometry is the only possibility is a religion, not a scientific fact.

And don't bother giving me the standard answers to these questions; I am well aware of them all. My position is simply that they are all magician's tricks to deflect your attention from the fact that "clocks do not measure time". And they have been totally successful at that goal for over a hundred years.

To paraphrase Lincoln, "you can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time", and that's all you need to keep the wool over their eyes and the authorities in charge: i.e., it is never necessary to fool all of the people all of the time. Why do you think astrology is still such a lucrative profession.

Have fun -- Dick

 

[Tournesol]

Sorry but I had pretty well given up on having a rational discussion with you after your last few statements to me

same here.

If "it" didn't all begin from "absolute ignorance" exactly what was known when "it" began?

Already explained. Know-that emerged from know-how emerged from survival.

Has it occurred to you that my complaint has to do simply with the "definition of time"?

That's a possibility. But you haven't been clear about what is wrong with the
current definition and what justifies your fix.

Is this more than hand waving and distraction designed to avoid thinking about time?

It's exactly the opposite: an attempt to analyse and clarify the issue of time.

I never said Einstein's theory gave incorrect results

Neither did I.

(I am very familiar with those results and the mental process used to develop them), what I said was that, in my opinion, he made a very significant error: "he presumed clocks measured time".

But you haven't explained why that is erroneous.

And of course, Einstein was a god and it is not possible that he made an error is it? His catechism is now laid down so firmly that it is heresy to even suggest the existence of an alternative view.

That is the kind of comment cranks are always making. well, not all cranks are wrong. But the ones that are right, are right because they can put forward a gogent case. You still haven't explained your alternative view.

What I am saying is that there exists an entirely foreign way of looking at the problem of relativity itself (100% consistent with every experiment so far performed) which solves some other very serious problems which are not solved by Einstein's theory.

And perhaps one day you will spell out what it is.

I didn't say it was subjective (not in the sense you mean it anyway), what I said was that "clocks do not measure time".

Firstly, you still haven't explained what this means or what justifies it.
Secondly your statement "time is a concept in the mind of man" is
exactly what I eman by "subjsective".

This comment implies that you don't think I have any knowledge of physics at all. Really, I do have a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from a reputable university and I was at the top of my class in relativity and quantum mechanics. Apparently you haven't read much of what I have said. Either that or you are in the process of setting up a straw man to deflect attention from what I am saying. If that's the case, you got me again! You and Faustus can "bump chests".

Dozens of words of ad hominem; you could have proved, and not just claimed, how smart you are by using the same amount of words to put
forward a convining case.

1.The twin paradox points out that clocks can not be used to arrange meetings. If we are going to be "in the same place at the same time", personal clocks cannot assist us in that goal. Notice that personal rulers can be used as their readings have nothing to do with how we get to our destination. Our rulers go right back to being correct when we return to the original reference frame; but our clocks don't. The argument here is that there is a very real and important difference between time and space and clocks are not at all analogous to rulers.

OK

2. Einstein's space time theory has a variable called the "invariant interval". All clocks accelerated or at rest measure exactly the integral of the invariant interval along its space time line of existence. This is a fairly fundamental concept in relativity and clocks always measure it without any special arrangements at all. If "what clocks measure" is time then why don't we call the invariant interval "time" and call that coordinate axis Einstein uses in his continuum something else? Ah, the real reason is that the fact that when two objects follow different paths (from point A to point B), the fact that the invariant interval calculated over the two paths is the same does not mean that that when the two objects arrive at B at the same time. (Clocks, though they measure that integral very accurately, do not measure time!)

That's semantics.

3.The central concept of relativity is that the laws of physics are not a function of the coordinate system. The functioning of a clock is a mechanical process governed by the laws of physics. It follows that the reading on a clock can not be a function of the coordinate system it is in. In fact, this very issue is used to prove that decay times for fundamental particles (a fundamental clock) appear extended when they are moving at a relativistic velocity. Yeah, I know "they are measuring time in their rest frame". More misdirection of attention. Note that the reading on a specific clock at any specific event or interaction in the path of that clock is not a function of the observers frame of reference at all; it is what ever it is as we are talking about a specific event.

4.Which brings up another conundrum. The invariant interval along the path of a photon is zero. Under the math I know, that makes photons singular phenomena. Since all our information comes to us via photon interactions, that kind of puts us on the wrong side of the singularity doesn't it?

You mean null connections ?
That is quite interesting from the POV of action-at-a-distance and non-locality, but how
does it connect up with what your saying ?

5.Einstein's space time continuum possesses paths which cannot be followed by any object (any path where the differential of the "invariant interval" is imaginary). Why does his geometry possesses paths which cannot be followed? The answer is, of course, because in order to follow such a path, they would have to travel faster than the speed of light. The fact that that reasoning is invalid is pointed out by the serious scientists looking for tachyons. His geometry may be convenient for solving some problems but there certainly is no evidence it is the only possible geometry or even the correct geometry. That his geometry is the only possibility is a religion, not a scientific fact.

so it is not logically necessary , only empirically correct. Everyone already knew that.

And don't bother giving me the standard answers to these questions; I am well aware of them all. My position is simply that they are all magician's tricks to deflect your attention from the fact that "clocks do not measure time". And they have been totally successful at that goal for over a hundred years.

And you STILL haven't explained what this great insight is supposed to be.

 

[Doctordick]

same here.

I wish I could trust you! I'll give you the benefit of the doubt but I am certainly not expecting a rational response.

Already explained. Know-that emerged from know-how emerged from survival.

Ah so, those who couldn't do it died off did they? Doesn't that sort of beg the question? Some of them managed to do it didn't they? How can you sit there and tell me it can not be done?

That's a possibility. But you haven't been clear about what is wrong with the current definition and what justifies your fix.

And the statement that there are conflicts between quantum mechanics and relativity theory is insufficient to take a new look? Or don't you believe there are conflicts between quantum mechanics and relativity? I have met plenty of indoctrinated professional physicists who hold steadfastly to the idea that no conflict exists. That's what makes physics a religion.

It's exactly the opposite: an attempt to analyse and clarify the issue of time.

Sounds more like reassertion of the Einsteinian catechism to me.

Neither did I.

I never said you did! But you were certainly going all out to imply that I didn't understand Einstein's theory.

But you haven't explained why that is erroneous.

Well, I would! Except for the fact that every time I bring the issue up I get immediately shoved into the "crackpot" category.

That is the kind of comment cranks are always making. well, not all cranks are wrong. But the ones that are right, are right because they can put forward a gogent case. You still haven't explained your alternative view.

Not all cranks are wrong? Isn't being wrong the definition of a crank?

And perhaps one day you will spell out what it is.

Ah perhaps one day! I would say against that statement that I read every post you have submitted to this forum up to and including your response to Pensador at 10:15 AM on 04-01-2005. I would have continued except for the fact that at about that time, you had made it quite clear that you had no interest in anything I might say. So I gave up on you. I only comment on that because of my very first post to the physics forum. You have obviously never read that. If you check that thread, you will also discover that no responses were ever posted to my comment. Implying that you and Faustus weren't alone in your desire not to think about such blasphemous issues.

Firstly, you still haven't explained what this means or what justifies it. Secondly your statement "time is a concept in the mind of man" is exactly what I eman by "subjsective".

No, I don't think it is. I don't think you have thought the issue through. If you are going to attach the word subjective to any and all "concepts in the mind of man", then you are a solipsist by definition. My point is that one must be very careful with ones definitions.

Dozens of words of ad hominem; you could have proved, and not just claimed, how smart you are by using the same amount of words to put forward a convining case.

First, I don't think you have a very good understanding of the general use of the term "ad hominem", second, at no point have I ever claimed to be "smart" and finally, no case on any subject is "convincing" if the audience refuses to pay any attention to what is being said. And you have as much as told me you have no interest in what I say.

That's semantics.

Semantics? Isn't that being careful about what you are expressing? Methinks you are just trying to avoid the issue of the confusion in your thoughts.

And you STILL haven't explained what this great insight is supposed to be.

And that is a complete misrepresentation of the facts. As I said earlier, my very first post on the physics forum points out an alternate geometry 100% consistent with special relativity. On top of that, I have posted many conclusions (together with cross references) which can be reached with a little logic and the realization that clocks do not measure time. Faustus even had the gall to criticize what I was saying without even looking at the references and you congratulated him for expressing your opinion. If you want references to more significant posts, I'll give them to you. This is a good one. You might try reading the whole thread (if it doesn't exceed your attention span).

If you are interested, read that essay on the issue of http://home.jam.rr.com/dicksfiles/flaw/Fatalfla.htm and, if you can understand what I am saying, and have any interest in how it effects general relativity I will help you; however, it's not a trivial issue even if it is much simpler than Einstein's results. At any rate, don't bother to respond unless you are interested in having a rational discussion.

Have fun -- Dick

 

[bottomfeeder]

. Why do you think astrology is still such a lucrative profession.

Have fun -- Dick

careful, one of our illustrious moderators is a 13 year veteran who doesn't take kindly to being put on the spot or defend her "profession"

she will just ban you in which case you might have to reincarnate

after a few PF lives you almost reach nirvana

 

[Smurf]

That's a possibility. But you haven't been clear about what is wrong with the current definition and what justifies your fix.

You must be behind in the times, the search for a 'Theory of Everything' has been going on for a while, turns out our current definition(s) are in direct conflict with each other.

People get confused about this because they work well enough for practical purposes at the present. And I say at the present because it's quite evident they will need to be refined eventually. Only half a century ago Newtonian physics was considered infallible (at least for all practical purposes), but it wasn't until Quantum Mechanics and Relativity that we were able to figure out nuclear power and the really really really really small computer bits that are enabling you to read this right now.

 

[Doctordick]

careful, one of our illustrious moderators is a 13 year veteran who doesn't take kindly to being put on the spot or defend her "profession"

she will just ban you in which case you might have to reincarnate

after a few PF lives you almost reach nirvana

I think you misread what I say. I am not criticizing anyone's beliefs; all I am saying is that a rational discussion should follow the rules of logic. The issue between physicists and astrologers is not with their beliefs but rather with the predictive value of those beliefs. Most people who's success is most directly dependent upon the accuracy of the forecasts put stronger stock in the physicist's views than they do in the astrologer's view. They do that in the interest of good logic not for emotional reasons. None the less, if your life depends on it, I would say going with your gut is the best bet over any logic.

But, when I say that, I don't mean go with someone else's gut; I personally feel leadership in the world is usually provided by the people worst qualified for it (anybody with any sense and decent morality doesn't want the job). I often say, "god save us from the guy who knows what ought to be done". Everyone should make up their own mind as to what is best.

Have fun -- Dick

 

[bottomfeeder]

Dr Dick

do you mean GUT as in one's very own "grand unifying theory" which may or may not be backed up by empirical data and may defy logic and reason yet you somehow intutitvely "feel" it to be true ?

and i hope you mean everyone should make up their own brain as opposed to mind because you can sometimes lose your mind given that it's not really yours you just tap into it for a while and feedback to it but it belongs to everybody and some people never even know they have the same one or are sharing it with others

I'm all about having fun though cos it makes me happy and there are no degrees of freedom in happiness you either are or are not

at least that's my opinion and I'm sticking with it until somone can convince me theirs is better in which case I'll tka e theirs on board as well

 

[Andre]

Time? Augustinus has explained that already in the fourth century, let's see ..errrm

http://www.bgbach.asn-ktn.ac.at/latein/tempus_2000.htm
Si nemo ex me quaerat, scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio.

What then is time? If nobody asks me, I do know; but when I want to explain it to an enquier, I don't know.

 

[Tournesol]

DrDick

Where have you posted anything relating your theory of time to QM ?

 

[Doctordick]

Where have you posted anything relating your theory of time to QM ?

​

You are joking of course! Don't you have any understanding of the "religion" you are discussing?

When I first began posting (to QM and other relevant divisions) the response of the "powers that be" was overwhelming. Every post I made was moved over to the "Theory Development" section (except for that philosophical post and one to the feedback thread). I also suspect a number of posts to extant threads were deleted by those very same authorities. Now, in my head, nothing of what I was saying was theoretical in any way but I certainly was willing to accommodate myself to their desires so I posted only to that section. I wasn't totally put off by that development until it became quite clear that the academic abilities of the people posting there was quite short of what one would expect of a "physics forum" (which lead to that "feedback thread" referenced above). It was made clear to me by some of those certified "Super Mentors" that the "Theory Development" section was reserved for nuts and crackpots. They even, on occasion, referred to it as the "Nuts are Us" forum.

Well, if that was the situation, that was the situation. Really it wasn't much different from my earlier experiences. Even back as a graduate student in the "theoretical physics" section, I found very little interest (if any at all) in thinking about the basis of theories. It was the presumption of every theoretician I ever met that "theoretical physics" was a closed subject. Everybody was spending all their time trying to find proper approximations which would allow numerical computation of the "already accepted as correct" theoretical position. My thesis was the development of a calculation method which would accomplish a valid sum of a large number of terms in a particular expansion. I think it is hysterically funny that one of the greatest breakthroughs of the twentieth was Feynman's notation (which was an accounting method of keeping track of terms in a QED expansion not an advance in the theory at all). By the way, that doesn't imply I don't respect Feynman! I do, I managed to talk to him in 86 and he agreed to take a close look at my work; after he finished with that challenger thing. Next thing I heard, he had died of cancer.

So, only quacks think it is possible that alternate perspectives might be possible and I was relegated to the "Theory Development" section. I even managed to get some intelligent people interested in what I was saying. That's when chroot decided that only mentor's could start new threads in the https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=39733 section and began locking the threads where I was posting. (I suppose he was worried that I might generate a following to my logic and disrupt the authorities power).

So I am now posting to the "Philosophy" section. I suppose that tells you what the opinion of the "physics authorities" is of philosophy! I am sorry, they have made it quite clear that they don't want me posting to the "QM" or the "Relativity" sections. Reminds me of an event which occurred when I was in my first year of graduate study. The chairman of the department was teaching introductory quantum. After class one day, I showed him the perspective I discussed with Hurkyl earlier. His response was, "well what you say is certainly correct, but don't show it to any of the other students, it will just confuse them!" (By the way, he gave me a A+ in the course.)

I think Greg, chroot, et al. are afraid I will "confuse" their following. (I may be baned after this post, so wish me luck.)

Have fun -- Dick

 

[Doctordick]

do you mean GUT as in one's very own "grand unifying theory" which may or may not be backed up by empirical data and may defy logic and reason yet you somehow intutitvely "feel" it to be true ?

I mean the intuitive feeling! (But, after all, isn't that your real GUT feeling anyway?) If you can follow my thoughts, I think put the issue of how I view things pretty clear in my post to Is theory development possible in the absence of thought?

If nobody asks me, I do know; but when I want to explain it to an enquier, I don't know.

That seems to be the summary of everyone's answer.

Where have you posted anything relating your theory of time to QM ?

It occurs to me that I may have misunderstood what you meant. The essence of the relation between my representation of time and quantum mechanics is pretty well laid out in the reference I gave you. If you are trying to understand the detailed relationship, you need to first understand my representation of QM. Essentially, I derive QM directly from first principals (that is what I am doing with saviormachine right now). My destination is the equation given in my post to magus niche. It is the solutions of that equation which constitute all of QM, even general relativistic QM. If you care to take the trouble, I can first show that ordinary non-relativistic QM is an approximate solution of that equation. That fact allows me to define certain concepts as specific factors in the equation. Once that identification is made, a specific interpretation of the approximations used in the first step turn out to be the standard non-relativistic approximations.

I then show that Dirac's equation is also an approximate solution of that equation when those specific approximations above are not used. That solution yields terms which must be interpreted as electromagnetic fields. When one looks at circumstances where those terms are significant (not just given values), it turns out that Maxwell's equations are an approximation to my fundamental equation. In order to get that result, one must assume that the exchange events are massless. The form of the equation allows interpretation of fields where the exchange events have mass and that result is quite similar to nuclear forces. The actual forces are a consequence of the detailed structure of the exchange events so there is no contradiction of conventional physics.

When you get there, it is only a small step to finding solutions which correspond to general relativistic circumstances. At that point, I get results almost identical to Einstein only not quite. My results have another term (a small correction) which is as small with respect to the general relativistic effects as the general relativistic corrections are with respect to the Newtonian result. At the moment, I don't think the differences between Einstein's results and mine are within the range of experimental verification. In addition to that, I may have made a minor error somewhere (I have been known to do that). To date, I am not aware of any competent examination of my work.

If you are interested, do your best to follow what I am presenting to saviormachine and comment if any of it seems unreasonable to you.

Sorry if I misinterpreted your comment above.

Have fun -- Dick

 

[bottomfeeder]

I mean the intuitive feeling! (But, after all, isn't that your real GUT feeling anyway?) If you can follow my thoughts, I think put the issue of how I view things pretty clear in my post to Is theory development possible in the absence of thought?

Have fun -- Dick

yeah man, I know what you meant, I was just pulling your chain

I tend to react by blind instinct which in my postings as RingoKid and spicerack have been consistent with my postulate of a passenger consciousness we tend to overide to assume manual control in the form of logic and reason

my "grand unifying theory" is mainly about bubbles and nothing in particular

nothing is perfect
in the space where nothing exists
will one find perfection
the perfect nothing

accept nothing as fact
question everything
determine your own truth
define your own reality

Imagine, if you will bubbles...
expanding as they float around
bumping into other bubbles
and inside of these bubbles
is another bubble expanding
and so on...

...and if all these bubbles
made a musical note,
as they bumped and merged
and expanded,
they created chords and melodies
and so on...

and for what it's worth in real life. I work in the arts as an art director here in New Zealand for short films, music videos, commercials as well as being a graphic designer and screen printer all of which requires evolving, adapting to change and making subjective decisions based solely on instinct and intuition in real time, real fast. I also do rigging for the entertainment industry which requires putting my ass on the line in a very real way.

I don't have any formal education in anything even remotely physics/maths oriented and don't feel I need to. I visualise and project a reality that i can make real in an illusory form as art.

Make and take from it what you will and come hang out in the strings and branes section

peace

 

[Gaijin]

time is a figment of our imagination

Im not shure who to side with because, the last buch of posts between the doctor and tounesol have been have been more aimed at each other than at the definition of time.

ok, on with this.

My say is that that time is not a sperate dimention from space, it is really just the decay of matter, and that "time" at its measurement are constructs of the mind. Time, as the progression from past to future, is really not a thing but a movement of matter from low entropy to high entropy, the normal flow of matter in this universe. "Time" is only a construct of the human mind to help simplify our understanding of the changes we see in matter(decay and transformation) and to deal with our own mortality. It helps us to invent a concept of time to help us a. go about our daily scheduled lives and b. explain why things get old, people die, and why we can remeber the past and not the future.

The reason why we can remeber the past is because our brain registers past senses, that were at the moment of reception were present occurances, as memories in our brain. Now we cannot "remember" the future because we have not had the current experience of it to store the sensual memory of it in our brains.

Humans created the idea of time like other constucts, words and numbers, to express and comunicate thoughts and messages to each other. But like the other constructs, especially words, they are a point of refenece to the user and differ by the different user. Take the word "happy" we cannot perfectly define what it means because it does not exist. We are not "happy" because we say the word, but because we have an emotion of pleasure.
People were quote "happy" long before they had a word to define it, and to be "happy" has a slightly different meaning with everyone because we cannot see others peoples point of view. The same reason we created words to "try" to express things to each other(because we can never truly communicate) was why we created time to express our present moment with past experiances and our predictions of the "future". We created time to help catalog our memories of experiances.

There is only a past and future in time in the sense that with our point of refence(now), an event has either already happened(in our memory) or it has not happened(not in our memory).


wow. good thing that words aren't real, so i can have an excuse for why this doesn't make sense. Go ahead and tear this up (i would actually like to see what you think, either on my idea or immature wrighting style) but the main point was that time does not exist because it is a constuct of the human mind to simplify what information it gathers.

 

[Tigron-X]

Steven Hawking once asked why can we remeber the past but not the future.

We do. It's called deja vu. :P

Chain reactions don't just go from link to link, one at a time, all events are linked to one another. These links are also readily observable in what is today called linear time. But even more obvious are the simultaneous chain-reactions seen in quantum studies.

So time moves three dimensionally, and in reaction to posing and opposing forces?


Anyhow, here's something I'm working on:

To me time is not really a dimension I can consider at the moment, but rather I see it as a concept we attempt to plot by calculating various other dimensions simultaneously with respect to one another. And we fail because we can't find a sound beginning and an end to always follow. And, we cannot predict the expansion and contraction of space. It seems there are too many variables to measure and to plot as a consistent array of sequences that would define a given event properly.

However, I do recognize gravity and magnetic fields as two separate dimensions. Gravity defines a moving point through space, and a magnetic field defines a linear wave expanding through the dimensions of space simultaneously as if a 3D ripple occured. I also recognize magnets as the sixth dimension. This defines the intensity of passing energy through a magnetic field. The next two dimensions are measured with use of thermodynamics and calculation of kinetic energy. Of course, thermodynamics define the fluctuation of heat, and kinetic energy expresses the amount of stored energy. And, the last dimension is radiation which is used to show the fluctuation and transfer of stored energy between each magnetic pulse.


more later... I need to go to bed before I go crazy.

 

[GiZeHy]

hi
i just want to throw in one way of thought. itz just an argument not based on any scientific results. we all only exist in the 'now'. when we mentaly look back in time we can also only do it in the 'now'. so the past was not, instead it 'is'. of course one can only imagine it but the only way of the mind to exist is in the 'now' which is not bound on time. in this 'now' we always imagine the past and the future. for the brain there is no difference of now and past either. the same electronical impulses are measured in the brain when reality is interpreted in the now or even imagined from the past. only the mind makes the difference to build up a logical construct in which it is able to learn end evolve. now, why do we perceive time flowing in this certain direction? i think many facts are responsable for this, even facts no human being ever thought of. related to a spiritual matter one could say: we perceive time passing with rising entropy because our true selfs should realize that we're here to create and bring order to kosmos. whatever dudes, time is a difficult topic...

 

[Dr.Yes]

Time is our method of measuring change.

Each change gives rise to another change.

This makes every change part of/or rooted in/ the change that came before it.

This makes the present changes we are experiencing part of the past changes that bring about the present and those changes associated with the present. This makes the past real in that it is a part of "real time" or "the present".

If we can remember the past we can remember the future. There are certain "sequences" that lead up to certain conditions. These can be used to "remember the future". We get our cues from the past and how it has effected the present, then use this set of sequences to remember how things turn out... in order to remember what will happen in the future. We have to figure in various developments that have evolved out of all the c hanges making up the present but the evolution of change is usually on a slow and steady course. So, the future will usually look similar to the present or the past according to certain laws that change very slowly or not at all.

What is sequence equated with in quantum studies?

 

[Smurf]

Steven Hawking once asked why can we remeber the past but not the future.

A better question would be, Why can we only remember one past?

 

[Doctordick]

Time is change in what one knows!

A better question would be, Why can we only remember one past?

Now doesn't it seem reasonable that, "The past is, by definition, what we remember." With regard to the "we" in your statement, anyone who has any experience with life to speak of is well aware that disagreement about the past is actually quite common. It follows that "we" as a collective unit actually do not remember only one past. Each remembers the past they think is correct.

What is more relevant is: "Why do so many people agree that there is but one past?" We certainly can not go back and check. Each of us only remember events personally experienced by themselves; for the rest of the past, we depend upon the descriptions of others. Why do we believe what they tell us? The answer to that question is actually very simple: the answers we believe make sense to us and the answers we don't believe don't make sense to us.

So we are living in a hypothetical world of our own creation and firmly believe that we are undoubtably correct in the opinion that there is only one possible past which could give rise to that view: i.e., it is the general opinion of mankind that anyone who disagrees with them must be insane. This opinion has been quite common throughout history in spite of rather substantial variation in what various groups believed to be the nature of that world.

However, today, we (in the western world) have gone well beyond the opinions of guru's who know the truth and want to share their insights with us. We now have exact science against which there can be no argument. Wait a minute, isn't that what all the guru's say. Well of course not, exact science doesn't make statements it can't show to be correct; well, at least they will change their position the moment any error is discovered (just ask them if you don't believe me).

So, let's get back to that question. Why is it that exact science manages to get such universal agreement on the description of the past (or at least the governing phenomena) if it is no more than a hypothetical world of our own creation? Surely it cannot possibly be a hypothetical creation as then we could all live in whatever world we wanted and science would have nothing to do with it. That is what all the scientists say anyway.

In case you have missed the point here, the question was essentially, "why is there only one past?" And the answer is (by universal acclaim) because I say so; the "I" of course being the guru of current belief.

The correct answer is, as a matter of fact, quite different; however, it takes some serious thought to figure the thing out.

Have fun -- Dick

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Which is exactly what Schrodingers Cat would say. But if you asked a photon, well, I'm not so sure.

 

[Pi_314B]

"clocks do not measure time

This is just dead wrong. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII am sure of this.

I can't believe I'm giving a reply to the eye doctor.

 

[Smurf]

It follows that "we" as a collective unit actually do not remember only one past. Each remembers the past they think is correct.

I love it! I havn't even read the rest of your post, but that right there just made my day.

 

[Dr.Yes]

According to quantum theory sequence really can't exist. Superpostion suggests that people can exist in the (state of the) past at the same time as the present etc... Many people can be found stuck in the past . The question about whether the past is real or not belongs to the traditional relativist.

I'd say the equivalent of sequence in quantum studies is "regionalism". The superposition or entanglement of states "experienced" by an object do not occur in a sequence, (as in past, present, future) but it simultaneously "experiences" a region of states. It may not "experience" all states but only those states that pertain to its existence.

You have to calculate how much the past state is influencing your present, real time state. If it has no influence on your present state, then the past really isn't "real" in terms of the amount of influence it has on you, now. However, according to quantum logic, the past, present and future are all part of the region of states that support your existence. This tends to make all those states "real" in terms of being "essencial" to the existence of the present state. Thank you.

 

[Smurf]

According to quantum theory sequence really can't exist.

Superpostion suggests that the past is a state people can exist in at the same time as the present. Many people can be found stuck in the past. The question about whether the past is real or not belongs to the traditional relativist.

I'd say the equivalent of sequence in quantum studies is "regionalism". The superposition or entanglement of states "experienced" do not occur in a sequence, (as in past, present, future) but simultaneously "experiences" a region of states. It may not "experience" all states but only those states that pertain to its existence. Thank you.

Can you explain that a bit clearer for the amateur physicist? starting with why can't sequence exist according to quantum theory?

 

[Dr.Yes]

Can you explain that a bit clearer for the amateur physicist? starting with why can't sequence exist according to quantum theory?

Try reading my edited section... I added some stuff. Sequence only exists in a relative universe. The quantum theory suggests more of a simultaneous co-existence of waves, objects and states.

 

[Doctordick]

This is just dead wrong. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII am sure of this.

Ah, he has arrived! The guru of guru's At last we have someone who we can depend upon to give us the correct answers to all our questions.

Have a ball -- Dick

 

[Doctordick]

Try reading my edited section... I added some stuff. Sequence only exists in a relative universe. The quantum theory[/color] suggests more of a simultaneous co-existence of waves, objects and states.

Do you not understand the meaning of the word "theory" or are you so limited that you cannot comprehend the possibility that an accepted "theory" might be wrong?

Have fun -- Dick

 

[Dr.Yes]

are you so limited that you cannot comprehend the possibility that an accepted "theory" might be wrong?

Just making small talk on a small board like you.

In fact... out a here.