Is Time an Illusion Created by Consciousness?

[sysreset]

There is a change from when it didn't exist to when it did exist, you can't deny this change, but if time is change, time didn't exist before the unit existed, nor does it exist after it is created, because only one thing changed, namely the existence itself.

So I'm wondering what this means.

Perhaps high energy collider physics could shed light on the concept of time because collisions sometimes result in particles that decay rapidly and sometimes in particles that do not decay, the only variable between the two is persistance in time. The same thing can be said about radioactive substances which decay at a particular rate with a half-life measured in time. Think of a block of uranium. Some of the particles persist over 'time', some decay. The only difference I can see between one particle vs another in these situations is passage of time, independent of motion or change.

 

[out of whack]

OK let's say for arguments sake that change = time = motion.

Note how I say that change = time instead of saying that motion = time. Motion is a change of position (in space), a specific type of change. But I cannot prove that it is the only type, or that all changes can be reduced to changes of position. JoeDawg was just saying that all changes may only happen within our consciousness. Until we define consciousness we cannot assume that it involves space. In this regard, change would still happen but not motion, time would be just "changing our minds".

It seems to me that ultimately for anything to get moving, so to speak, it would need something more than just one 'unit' of itself.

I agree, you cannot tell anything about a single "unit" since you cannot compare it with anything else. By the way, you would not even be there to compare it. The thought experiment assumes there is no thought either.

Do we always need more than one unit to have time?

Same rhetorical approach as before: with a single unit, what does change mean? (No meaning.) What difference is there between time that passes and no time? (None.)

There is a change from when it didn't exist to when it did exist, you can't deny this change

You assume that existence began. Of course you can deny this, it is an assumption without proof. It is equally likely that existence never began. Since we never see anything popping out of nothing but everything being transformed instead, why assume creation? The apparent paradox of change at creation only exists because we assume it. We assume a paradox that we then try to resolve, like we could assume that up is down without any reason.

 

[octelcogopod]

Well, I guess I'm all out of ammo then ;)

Makes sense to me anyway, at least what I/we know today.

 

[ripcurl1016]

The A Series: "..the series of positions running from the far past through the near past to the present, and then from the present to the near future and the far future.." McTaggart further declared that "the distinctions of past, present and future are essential to time and that, if the distinctions are never true of reality, then no reality is in time." He considered the A series to be 'temporal', a true time series because it embodies these distinctions and embodies change.

The B series: "The series of positions which runs from earlier to later.." The B series is temporal in that it embodies direction of change. However, McTaggart argues that the B series on its own does not embody change.

The C Series: "..this other series -- let us call it the C series -- is not temporal, for it involves no change, but only an order. Events have an order. They are, let us say, in the order M, N, O, P. And they are therefore not in the order M, O, N, P, or O, N, M, P, or in any other possible order. But that they have this order no more implies that there is any change than the order of the letters of the alphabet…" According to McTaggart the C series is not temporal because it is fixed forever.

 

[baywax]

A thought experiment: What if we put this unchanging thing in a box. We let an hour pass and then open the box. Even of nothing changed in the box, does that mean time stopped passing inside the box? Does that imply that, when the box is opened, there will be a one hour lag between the time inside the box and the time outside the box? (If that means anything.)

I don't know the answer to this, I'm just seeking an answer to the original question.

If all matter etc... stopped changing (ie. "energy destroyed", which is not supposed to be able to happen) would time continue to exist?

This is impossible to know since we, as observers, would have to stop existing to initiate the experiment. This is a similar dilemma to proving infinity in any other way than with mathematics.

However, movement is inextricably tied to energy... ie: energy is movement. And Einstein has shown "time and energy" to comprise a dimension we call the 4th dimension. So, were energy to be halted or "destroyed" one would think that time would be halted or destroyed as well... according to Einstein.

Disclaimer: I've never met Einstein.

 

[dst]

If all matter etc... stopped changing (ie. "energy destroyed", which is not supposed to be able to happen) would time continue to exist?

This is impossible to know since we, as observers, would have to stop existing to initiate the experiment. This is a similar dilemma to proving infinity in any other way than with mathematics.

However, movement is inextricably tied to energy... ie: energy is movement. And Einstein has shown "time and energy" to comprise a dimension we call the 4th dimension. So, were energy to be halted or "destroyed" one would think that time would be halted or destroyed as well... according to Einstein.

Disclaimer: I've never met Einstein.

How about if we had a universe with perfect energy spread, completely homogenous and in heat death, would that be "frozen time" or is there still a "flow of time"?

Is it actually valid to imagine the universe as a 3D object sweeping a path through a 1D time?

 

[baywax]

Is it actually valid to imagine the universe as a 3D object sweeping a path through a 1D time?

"Valid" is relative.

"Sweeping a path" requires 3 dimensions.

 

[DaveC426913]

"Sweeping a path" requires 3 dimensions.

A point cannot sweep a path on a line or a plane?

 

[baywax]

A point cannot sweep a path on a line or a plane?

A point is not a 3D object. Its 1D. And a "sweep" involves a curve which is 2 dimensional whereas the question involves a 3D object "sweeping" through a 1 dimensional "time". (?)

Edit: A 3D object can pass through a point or plane. But the point or plane are purely abstract concepts of anthropocentric origins.

 

[dst]

A point is not a 3D object. Its 1D. And a "sweep" involves a curve which is 2 dimensional whereas the question involves a 3D object "sweeping" through a 1 dimensional "time". (?)

Edit: A 3D object can pass through a point or plane. But the point or plane are purely abstract concepts of anthropocentric origins.

It's up to you if you want to get lost in semantics, but what I meant was whether it would be valid to just think of the universe moving through a 1D time. And a point particle moving through 1D would sweep out a line.

 

[DaveC426913]

A point is not a 3D object.

I didn't say it was. I was merely questioning your claim that sweeping requires a 3D object. Who said so?

Its 1D.

Even that's not right. A point is 0D.

And a "sweep" involves a curve which is 2 dimensional

Where did you get this definition from?

 

[baywax]

It's up to you if you want to get lost in semantics, but what I meant was whether it would be valid to just think of the universe moving through a 1D time. And a point particle moving through 1D would sweep out a line.

That's an interesting concept. So we could imagine that time is this 1 dimensional condition through which the 3D universe is passing. We experience the effects of the condition (1D time) in the form of change. Without the 1D condition of time we would be static and without the benefit of energy. Its an interesting concept but why do you want to make "time" a separate condition from "energy"? edit: Is this separation for the sake of your thought experiment?

 

[baywax]

I didn't say it was. I was merely questioning your claim that sweeping requires a 3D object. Who said so?


Even that's not right. A point is 0D.


Where did you get this definition from?

I hadn't realized how long its been since I studied Geometry (or any math) until you came along DaveC426913! Thank you.

 

[DaveC426913]

I hadn't realized how long its been since I studied Geometry (or any math) until you came along DaveC426913! Thank you.

I'll bet it hasn't been as long as me...

 

[baywax]

I'll bet it hasn't been as long as me...

But of course you can see right here how dst's idea won't work because the amount of time passing since studying geometry would depend on "how long" it's taken for the universe to pass through a 1 dimensional "field of time". This would be impossible since there would be no "distance" when passing through the 1 dimensional "time field".

What I'd like to know is how there can be a distance assigned to the 1 dimensional field and how a 3 dimensional object could ever be considered to be passing through it.

Further to that, I was under the distinct impression that if a line is one dimension and cube is 3 dimensions then the line would either not effect the entire cube or it would effect only a single plane within the 3 dimensional object.

However, we must remember that some physicists claim that the universe is as flat as a plane... yet, for it to pass through and be effected by a 1 dimensional "plane of time" this would require that the plane of the universe be oriented at the same angle as the plane of time. This would require 3D space.

My answer to all of this is that you cannot have time without movement (energy) and so the 3 dimensional object would not "pass" through anything since it would (appear to) be void of energy unless it reached the "plane of time" (which it wouldn't do because it isn't moving). I think trying to separate time from energy is difficult to get away with.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

If change and time are the same, what is the difference between different inertial reference frames in special relativity? It seems that there is the same latitude for change within each of them, yet identical changes within both frames differ in degree or magnitude or something of this thing we call "time". It seems as though this time thing, whatever it may be, is able to exert constraint upon change?

Smaller objects have lesser magnitude of length, slower changes have lesser magnitude of time?

 

[out of whack]

A finite limit necessarily exists in the rate of change relative to an observer, a maximum that cannot be exceeded. If there were no such limit, an object could be said to change position instantaneously: the same object could co-exist in two separate places. But this would not be a true change in position, it would be two separate objects, each occupying its own position. True change therefore precludes an infinite pace. In other words, change is necessarily limited to some finite, maximum rate. As far as we can tell, this maximum matches the speed of light.

Given that a limit exists in the rate of change, the "slowing of time" in a fast-moving satellite can be seen as a figure of speech for what happens under the restrictions imposed by this limit. Within each inertial frame, observers cannot not feel this limit since changes seem to occur at a normal pace relative to the tick of their own clocks. But observation from a stationary base show that they are internally changing at a lesser pace relative to the tick of a stationary clock. The ticks of a satellite's clock drop out of sync relative to a stationary one. The rate of change in the position of the satellite contributes towards the maximum, along with its internal changes.

This interpretation just shows a different angle, by the way. Theories that deal with anything that changes can be reworded in terms of these changes relative to each other instead of making reference to time. It won't change the fundamental relationships expressed by the theory but a new angle can help to clarify.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

I'm just saying, in terms of coming up with a definition of time that is separate (though certainly not independent) from change, maybe "the thing that determines the relative pacing between change in different inertial frames" could help. (Maybe you're responding to that, I'm just having trouble parsing it out of your response.)

 

[out of whack]

Ah okay. No, I was not responding to your post correctly so let me try again.

My approach was not focussed on finding a definition for the word but on showing that it is redundant. I feel that reality is better understood if we drop time because what actually matters is change and Occam's razor works well with language too. Given my stance on this, I see no reason to define the word except perhaps as a synonym of change (or maybe "the fact that changes happen") until someone clarifies why a concept other than change is needed.

 

[baywax]

Ah okay. No, I was not responding to your post correctly so let me try again.

My approach was not focussed on finding a definition for the word but on showing that it is redundant. I feel that reality is better understood if we drop time because what actually matters is change and Occam's razor works well with language too. Given my stance on this, I see no reason to define the word except perhaps as a synonym of change (or maybe "the fact that changes happen") until someone clarifies why a concept other than change is needed.

"Time" is the method and practice of measuring change so I'd say it's as valid a piece of vocabulary as the word "ruler". Nice definitions etc...!

 

[CaptainQuasar]

Given my stance on this, I see no reason to define the word except perhaps as a synonym of change (or maybe "the fact that changes happen") until someone clarifies why a concept other than change is needed.

Hmmm. But paced, clock-tick-type coordinates - which seem to be a different thing from change itself - seems rather important to our analysis of special relativity. And, come to think of it, time is rather important even to basic applications of calculus - how would you express something "changing over time" rather than "changing over distance"? It seems like you'd have to say "changing over change" or something. That seems to be removing more than redundancy.

And for that matter, why dispense with time in particular? It seems like instead you could dispense with space and describe everything as "changing over distance" instead of ever talking about length, width, or depth.

Can't you basically toss out any characteristic that varies, whether along time, distance, or continuum x, and replace it with the concept "changes over x"?

 

[baywax]

Hmmm. But paced, clock-tick-type coordinates - which seem to be a different thing from change itself - seems rather important to our analysis of special relativity. And, come to think of it, time is rather important even to basic applications of calculus - how would you express something "changing over time" rather than "changing over distance"? It seems like you'd have to say "changing over change" or something. That seems to be removing more than redundancy.

And for that matter, why dispense with time in particular? It seems like instead you could dispense with space and describe everything as "changing over distance" instead of ever talking about length, width, or depth.

Can't you basically toss out any characteristic that varies, whether along time, distance, or continuum x, and replace it with the concept "changes over x"?

I don't think you can measure space without using the concept of distance. Space is a natural phenomenon, distance is the measurement of that phenomenon. You can't measure the phenomenon of change without employing the concept of time. The method of "timing" uses comparative analysis between perceptively slower and faster changes. You can't have change without energy and so the natural phenomenon of change gives us the opportunity to measure energy with "rulers" like time, distance etc...

 

[CaptainQuasar]

Sure you can. If you're doing what out of whack is talking about and removing words, you would just talk about direction of motion, duration of motion, and change in what you see at each point.

It's like the "periplus", the way that people would navigate before they invented maps. You follow a particular road or coast or river and the periplus is a list of things you'll run into as you travel. It's the same thing as using an accelerometer to track your location instead of a GPS system triangulating off of satellites.

Yeah, replacing "space" with "change" for describing it is clumsy and takes lots more time than describing lat and long on a map or x,y,z, but it's possible. It's just as possible as replacing a rectangular coordinate system with a radial one. I'm saying that out of whack's proposal to replace "time" with "change" is just as possible but just as unfruitful.

It's like pretending that our standards for describing modern physics are being handled by Phoenecians.

 

[baywax]

Sure you can. If you're doing what out of whack is talking about and removing words, you would just talk about direction of motion, duration of motion, and change in what you see at each point.

It's like the "periplus", the way that people would navigate before they invented maps. You follow a particular road or coast or river and the periplus is a list of things you'll run into as you travel. It's the same thing as using an accelerometer to track your location instead of a GPS system triangulating off of satellites.

Yeah, replacing "space" with "change" for describing it is clumsy and takes lots more time than describing lat and long on a map or x,y,z, but it's possible. It's just as possible as replacing a rectangular coordinate system with a radial one. I'm saying that out of whack's proposal to replace "time" with "change" is just as possible but just as unfruitful.

It's like pretending that our standards for describing modern physics are being handled by Phoenecians.

Ah, I get ya. Nothing as sophisticated as knowing that the "distance between the tree and the rock" is filled with "space".

I'm not sure how to prove this to you but I think the Phoenecians or their peers actually had the knowledge that the Earth was a sphere and that it revolved around the sun with 9 other planets. Some of the evidence is in their art and literature. Not all that "primitive" for a bunch of 5000 year olds!

 

[CaptainQuasar]

Have you read the rest of this thread? It's about terminology, what words to use. If you think I'm saying that the Phoenecians didn't understand the concept of space, not only do you not understand what side of the argument I'm on, you don't have any idea what we're arguing about.

 

[out of whack]

"Time" is the method and practice of measuring change so I'd say it's as valid a piece of vocabulary as the word "ruler". Nice definitions etc...!

You must realize that your definition of time is not shared by all and has a number of problems (as well as so many other definitions propounded by others). When people talk of time slowing down, they do not talk of the method and practice of measuring change slowing down. A time unit is not a unit of some method or practice either. Fans of time travel will plainly object to your definition as well. Coming up with a universally acceptable definition of time is a nasty exercise. Comparatively, change is rather simple and clear (and sufficient).

Hmmm. But paced, clock-tick-type coordinates - which seem to be a different thing from change itself - seems rather important to our analysis of special relativity. And, come to think of it, time is rather important even to basic applications of calculus

The term "time" is used, but calculations don't require this word. Pick another word and everything still works.

how would you express something "changing over time" rather than "changing over distance"?

The first expression "changing over time" is redundant; just "changing" describes everything there is to express. I'm not sure what the second expression "changing over distance" indicates.

The reason to dispense with the word "time" instead of the word "change" is that change is clearly understood whereas time is has exceedingly diverse definitions and connotations that foster confusion and misunderstandings. Since change and time are equivalent concepts, it seems reasonable to drop the obfuscated word.

I don't quite follow the examples you give about the use of time in various expressions so I will offer my own to illustrate my view, starting with elementary dimensions or fundamental aspects of reality. "Change" is the fact that all things are not constant in the same way that "space" (distance, area, volume) is the fact that all things are not at a single point. We have units of space such as the linear meter and we have units of change such as the second. But the second is mentally linked to time rather than change so I will use a different unit for change and call it the clock tick or just the "tick". Speed becomes distance over change expressed as meter per tick. Acceleration is speed over change expressed as meter per tick per tick. A change in position implies of course that change happened and that distance was covered, so it implies a speed. A change in "something else" implies that change happened so ticks will be part of the measurement along with whatever unit of that "something else" applies.

Now for a disclaimer...

Having explained all this, I am not at all suggesting that we should start changing textbooks to reflect my out of whack vocabulary. I got involved in this discussion to point out that what science handles is simply the difference between states of reality, the fact that states go from one to the other, which is nothing more than change. Conflicts in attempts to define time and understand its nature are resolved if we realize that all that matters is how entities change relative to each other. Time units are units of this reality: they are measurements obtained from a device that changes, pure and simple. Change is necessary and sufficient. Time is only essential to writers of fiction.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

I think that "change" does not have the elementary meaning you're pairing with it and that's one reason why you didn't understand some of the things I was saying. One sense of "change" simply means "difference". Consider the following two sentences: "Here is your receipt and here is your change, sir." and "The foliage on the West Coast changes dramatically between Baja and Seattle."

I've heard calculus described as the mathematics of computing rates of change. You might figure out the rate at which the total mass of a bathtub changes over time as water drains out of it or you might calculate the rate at which pressure decreases over the height of a vertical pipe filled with water.

I notice that the formulas you're using above are algebraic ones. They only work if speed is constant or acceleration is constant. If speed changes over time, you need calculus to figure out the average speed, if acceleration changes over time, you need calculus.

(Don't let this confuse you but our good Mr. Newton discovered that speed changing over time actually is acceleration. With calculus you can untie an air-filled rubber balloon and let it flutter all over the room and if you can get its path down - just know its position x,y,z at time t - you can calculate its precise speed and acceleration at every instantaneous moment and its average speed and acceleration over any interval of time, because from a certain angle (i.e. with respect to time) distance, speed, and acceleration are sort of different flavors of the same thing. It's really fascinating to study if you ever get a chance.)

So while I understand your notion that change over time and time itself are very closely akin to one another, and while I agree that you probably could construct a way that the word time could always be replaced with an expression including the word "change", "time" is neither a redundant word nor redundant concept. The possibility of replacing it or other words with variations on "change" isn't a facet of the concepts involved but rather is a consequence of the flexibility of human language.

 

[out of whack]

I doubt that you are confusing the use I made of the word "change" with its various other unrelated meanings. If your point is that the English language is ambiguous, I agree. But this discussion has been about the observation that reality has more than a single state, that it is not frozen in a single, constant state. I think I was already clear that this is the topic, and not the differences in the foliage of various towns...

 

[octelcogopod]

Quasar, then what "is" time?

Can you give an example where time is in its purest form, where it is not dependent on change nor changing over a distance?
It's becoming more clear to me that time is actually when something moves in space, and that there is no further concept of time beyond this. The only way this can be debunked is to prove that there exists time outside of change over distance.

Everything that changes, must change from one place to another, even if it is a miniscule change.
Even just morphing something would move the atoms and molecules around, if nothing could move nothing would have time right?

The best instance of proving time is not change, is to talk about consciousness.
Now briefly one could say that consciousness experiences time, but if you think about it all change in consciousness comes from the movement of the body, and the environment, and of course the brain.
If I couldn't move my eyelids, and my body was frozen, I would not have consciousness, unless it can be proven that time exists outside of change.

This is what I'm starting to conclude after reading this thread.

Edit: also as a funny sidenote, I'm having issues defining anything as being outside of motion.

 

[baywax]

You must realize that your definition of time is not shared by all and has a number of problems (as well as so many other definitions propounded by others). When people talk of time slowing down, they do not talk of the method and practice of measuring change slowing down. A time unit is not a unit of some method or practice either. Fans of time travel will plainly object to your definition as well. Coming up with a universally acceptable definition of time is a nasty exercise. Comparatively, change is rather simple and clear (and sufficient).

Let me modify my definition slightly. Time is the practice and method of comparative analysis by an observer between 2 or more changes that are taking place simultaneously.

So here I can explain that observing the clock in a rocket ship traveling at a rate of c (changing at c) from the POV on Earth which is changing at a rate of x is how I arrive at the observation that time slows and or stops at the rate of c. This is because I have a reference or references between different (rates of) change(s). This also explains why someone, (who actually lives through c on the rocket ship), would not notice time slowing down or stopping. edit: (Because they are lacking an independent reference).

But, I wonder if someone traveling at c with a monitor to a camera on Earth would observe time speeding up on Earth rather than their own time reference slowing down?