Scott Sieger said:
Neried, Thanks for your interest. I have checked the link and it appears fine to me, maybe try it again.
The question is about how fast the future becomes the past. And how relativity can answer this.
From what I understand to answer this question we have to take an unchanging ( timeless) frame of reference, as if we are outside the universe looking in.
When we view the observable world, that is everything that we can theorectically see, such as electron motion in the center of the earth, and we couple this with the ever rnearing closeness to the observor as his attention is rawn from the extrema of observation to closeness, such as the immediate surroundings, indeed the concept of on the " . . .outside the universe looking in." makes sense, more than sense. Somehow considering the 'questioner' in you' cannot be defined by the 'observable' of you, to wit your physical and observable reailty. All the participation of brain activity is only that, and we recognize that we are considering 'ourselves', or 'us' as other than mere chemical activity.
The language we use in this consideration is "
our body", "
my mind" etc. There is an implied coordination of something other than the observables. Like a previous posting in this thread of what is after the past and the future?, the here and now.
Forgive the psychological stroll here, but I think we may make some progress. We, I at least, have a sense that the here and now is not an instantaneous event that flickers away with each tick of the clock. But yesterday at this same time of day is clearly the past. Likewise, the futrure, while only a "figment " of one's imagination, the future is as real and important as the past, Plans, hope, fears etc and of course dynamically moving systems, events and the whole shebang. In other words, we contemplate the future as including the familiar items of the past. The sun rising, positions of the stars, repeatability of excpeimentalally verifiable events.
We know of the limitation on processes, at least those we've measured, though the 'how fast they change' is still a bit ambiguous: as fast to me may mean average speed to you who thinks in terms of cascading mountanins of photons churning along at the speed of light.
So, how fast does the future change to the past? The vast majority of the observed universe we move about in is invariant. The sun rising, positions of the stars etc. Futures to australian bushmen aren't of interest to what your future is, save those parameters that are commn : total Earth calamity, or righteous outpouring of peace on earth. In one sense the speed of future to past that is measured, or sensed , by the observer looking in, an be emasured by the time spna of your here and now. Depending on what you are specifically engaged in the here and now can vary, though we like to beleieve thagt our scientifically arrived at realities can effectibvley provide some accurate and meaningful average for events transitioning through the here and now.
AS electrons don't ask question like yours, we can safely say that the question os [pecuiliar to rational entioties able to forulate mental images of past, future and change. Lions in Africa knw when it is time to prepare foe he nightime, but do they contemplate the rising of he sun, probably not.
IN any event, I wols say thagt the speed of future to past changes is a personal rate involving awareness of events distinbguished by awaeness f the events occurring here and now. Contenplating a future action or a future natural event while technically 'here and now' is concepetually distinguishable by the relative lack of personal awareness of yourself as the observer.
After we've contemlated heobsercer and what is obsevable we ae left with some insanswered qiestion, like what is everyting else? That is, as some have said unobservable reality. We infer its coordinaion with the observable world and often after the fact of local/nonlocal force exchanges, but the defining process has carefully excluded the pinpointing of personal essence, which while nonlocal is ever present in awareness of that fact.
i suppose I will just take the easy way out and say that definitions of past and present may be sufficient to define the here and now from the lefovers of all the implications of the definitions of past and future. Using any physical theory, that I know of, probably won't fill your bill, except for those matters we take as granted without concern for their 'real physical description' such as the sun rising. Our only concern is that the expected events occur.
