Now

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by Bowser, Mar 10, 2018.

  1. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Crap

    Schrödinger's cat is crap

    Zeno - No mention of speeds involved - no mention of distance involved
    You can juggle those variables around to have any result to a tortoise win, dead heat or hare win

    Schrödinger set up a faulty situation and then rabbited on about collapsing wave functions

    Failed the explain it to the janitor test

    Don't think Quantum Mechanics has any simple verbal explanation as yet - only extremely complicated mathematical idea's

    I'll wait for the verbal version

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  3. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    Think of it as an old movie reel, each packet of time being a single frame. When watching the movie, we on the outside looking in can stop the movie at any time, restart it. But for those within the movie the perception of the passage of time is uninterrupted, irrespective of whether we on the outside stop the film or not.

    So we would be like the people in the movie, and our perception carries on regardless of whether those outside of the movie, outside of time, if you will, stop and restart time.
    Since all of these questions are effectively asking what happens outside of time, even if such is possible, I can give you the same answer for all: "no idea!"

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    But from the perspective of those within time, their experience would be no different. Does an actor in the movie you watch get weirded out each time you press pause, or rewind, or fast forward?

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    Or does their experience of time remain consistent regardless of your proclivity to toy with them?

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  5. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    Alternatively "now" is simply the timeless gap between the future and the past. Cut a piece of paper in half and ask yourself how big the piece of paper in the middle is.

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    How much time actually passes at a given time, such as midnight? Or is midnight just the timeless gap between "before midnight" and "after midnight"?

    Not intended as answers, just some ponderings as I try to avoid the mounting workload on my desk.
     
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  7. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    I used the movie film example when in another fotum explaining why time travel is impossible

    Cut off the top reel all bar say 10 frames
    Same with bottom reel all but 10 frames

    As you would be aware there is a line between frames when the shutter is in position and the next frame advances

    Now if you cut off the 10 frames above and the 10 frames below you only have one frame before the light being projected onto the screen

    The NOW frame. So a single frame - like a single slide - but on the screen activity is still happening

    Again that is possible to do with a physical movie strip. No can do in real life because nothing exist either side of now

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  8. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Not sure that works

    He answer would be there is no paper there

    Ditto here but working on it

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  9. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Has anyone actually ever observed a quantum event? If so what did the observation reveal?
     
  10. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Of course all this would already be in the past in this analogy.
    But you would be missing the next 10 frames and the activity would skip 10 frames into the recorded future and the activity would show a jerky moment from one NOW to the next NOW.
    I am a little confused by that phrase.
    Fundamentally I see the same thing, but my perspective is that the "timeless gap" exists between the Past state and the Now state and between the Now state and the Future state.

    IMHO, that would account for the mechanics of the quantum function. Bits of quanta in a chronological order, each quantum change occupying a different spacetime coordinate.
    If time is a result of change, then would it be logical to say that time itself is quantized, but happening so fast that there is an appearance of continuity (as in a movie)?
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2018
  11. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    No. The single frame remains. No moving on to the next frame. We have a single frame NOW with what we perceive as change occurring and it seems, to me, inadequate language to explain how / why change is so smooth

    I can't imagine a timeless gap nor Bits of quanta in a chronological order, each quantum change occupying a different spacetime coordinate - sounds like a interweave

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    If time is a result of change - age my friend

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    then would it be logical to say that time itself is quantized, but happening so fast that there is an appearance of continuity (as in a movie)?

    Can't see it but I know what you mean - the illusion of movement is a result of persistence of vision

    ??? Persistence of memory perhaps until the change if great enough to register as movement?

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  12. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation

    If I read this correctly it would seem everybody has and many times

    But to be honest I really do not see reality operating as depicted

    I really do not see timelines splitting as depicted

    Where would the extra stuff come from? What would constitute or make any event worthy of producing two time lines
    If I waa a conspiracy person I would say the physicist are having us Minions on pretending to know the secrets of the Universe just to lead a a cusshy life on grant money

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  13. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    That isn't my understanding of infinitesimal. As far as I'm concerned it has no dimension.
     
  14. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    By 'crap', presumably you mean not a real paradox; it can be resolved.

    I agree. Just like the issue of time not requiring a gap of any length.

    There are many flavours of the paradox, all of which have a similar apparent conundrum: if you subdivide any measurement (speed, distance, time) regressively, you get a number of subdivisions approaching infinity. How can any thing span a nigh-infinite number of subdivisions? That was his paradox. And yours.

    It is quite easy to resolve.

    Here is an infinite series of numbers: 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ...
    Guy covers 1 metre in one second, a half metre in a half second, a quarter metre in a quarter second.
    How can he ever get to the finish line if he must go through an infinite number of subdivisions?
    Easily. It takes him 2 seconds to move 2 metres.
     
  15. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    If you were projecting a single frame for any length of time, the film would either burn, or the image on the film would fade eventually. Even then the NOW frame would slowly fade away into the PAST (aging).

    But using your example, a movie appears to change smoothly only because it passes our observation @ 24frames per second, which is incomparably slow to quantum change. But it is sufficiently fast for us to not see the gaps between the frames. Don't forget that each gap between frames does not record a state of NOW in reality. It has to be that way, else a movie running at quantum speed depicting a 12 hr time span would last 12 hrs!
    Is that not why we speak of "the fabric of spacetime" and "spacetime coordinates"? This presents to me as a type of tapistry.
    Unfortunately we all age....

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    ....but that is not a result of time, it is a result of change, which we can physically measure over a sufficient measurement of duration of decay. Some people decay slower than others. Of course today we use botox to hide decay...

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    There is definitely that also, as well as the time needed for processing the information in the brain.
    There is that and our ability to mentally fill in the blanks between NOWs. As Seth proposes, we create reality as much (if not more), as we observe it through our "best guesses".

    For instance, in a movie we can see people entering a car to go shopping. Then we see the car arrive at the parking lot at the shopping center. What happened to all the NOWs between departure and arrival?
    Our experience tells us that the trip went smoothly and most likely without incident. We can imagine a number of possible NOWs, even in the abstract.
     
  16. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    But does it have any properties or potentials? If not .......

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  17. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Then why do we build levies to prevent future flooding. Is that not doing something NOW in anticipation of a FUTURE event?
     
  18. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    So, do you see time as a separate and continuous static dimension, apart from change? Being that nothing is static in universal spacetime, why should we assume that time is unalterably static and continuous?
    How would measure Time with time?
     
  19. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Over that distance, you're right.

    But lets raise the stakes. Guy covers 1 meter in one second at the start, but that takes energy.
    Now suppose he has to run 100,000 meters. As he expends energy he will slow down and after a few thousand meters he does no longer cover one meter per second, but only half a meter per second, another few thousand meters and he can only manage a quarter meter per second, etc., until most all his energy is used and he can only advance a millimeter per second with 90,000 meters to go. He may never reach the finish line during his lifetime.
     
  20. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Take my view - time does not exist - problem solved

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  21. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I agree.
     
  22. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    That has nothing to do with the discussion at-hand.
     
  23. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    "Now" is a place (on the time line), not a thing. Didn't we have a discussion about the size of a point somewhere?
     

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