A Justification of Time

so when ever it is read it is always simultaneous with the reader regardless of when I posted it
 
EmptyForceOfChi said:
nice thread, it almost works aswell but you left out the proving of times existence but you had basic motion covered :) .

time is an abstract not a real physical force that effects our universe,

read this editorial by siepmann,

"The concept of time is probably the most misconstrued and misused concept in science. Most scientists as well as the public think that “time” actually exists, just like the physical dimensions of length. Some have gone so far as to even give these “particles of time” the name “chronons.” Many of the so-called reputable journals even publish articles by these ignorant practitioners of voodoo science.

You should have heard the gasps from a presentation on time to a group of scientists when I told them that time did not exist. It was like I had blasphemed their sacred religion. Let me try to explain the concept of time so that you can go forth and spread the factual truth to those with open minds:

The concept of “time” is actually quite primitive with early man recognizing that their were repeated cycles of natural events which could be used to measure the duration of other events. From the recognizing that the four seasons were such a repetitive cycle, to that of a cycle of day/night, which we later came to understand was one revolution of the Earth about its axis. Then came the falling of sand in an hourglass to the repetitious swing of a pendulum, and currently to the oscillation of a quartz crystal.

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

But in all of this where is Time as a physical entity. Nowhere. All we have done is to define the duration of a physical event.

Einstein really screwed up most everyone’s perspective with his erroneous use of time and reference (the subject of my next editorial). After his Theories of Relativity, everyone thought they could go and measure time like one would measure the length of a box with a yardstick. I’m not saying that the concept of time does not have a purpose in the measuring of a single event by comparing it to the number of repetitive cycles of a naturally occurring event (i.e. the time it takes me to run a 40 yard dash to the number of quartz oscillations in my stopwatch).

Then how can time work in Einstein’s formulas. It works in the same way that gravity does. Neither gravity (or its “gravitons”) nor time (or its “chronons”) exist as discrete entities. Gravity is nothing but the reactive force from Space to its displacement by matter. Likewise Space and its density cause what we see in the relative variations of the duration of these repetitive naturally occurring events. The more dense that Space is, the slower time is. This is why time slows down as gravity increases.

If one really needed a true concept of time, the best that I could give would be the linear duration of the lifecycle of the universe. This would be the only true time absolute that is not affected by the density of Space, as all time in this universe would have the same starting and ending point. Any subdivision would therefore be allowable. The problem is that we being the ignorant mortals that we are do not know the duration of the universe’s lifecycle (someday with better technology and theory we can do so based upon the expansion and contraction rates).

Therefore the best definition of time using its current understanding would be: “Time as a physical entity does not exist but we have utilized this concept to make relative comparisons of event durations to that of repetitive and reproducible naturally occurring cycles or subdivisions thereof.” But I would like to take time beyond that to my practical definition of time.

What is the only true constant in this universe besides its lifecycle? The speed of light of course. Time can be easily defined as, “The duration that it takes a photon to travel a preset distance divided by the speed of light.” The smaller that we can define the distance that a photon travels, the smaller the unit of time that we can measure. With this definition, there is virtually no limit to how infinitesimally small of a unit that we can measure. Also we are not limited by using repetitious natural event for our measurement.

In summary, time as a physical entity does not exist, rather it is a means for comparing the duration of an event to the duration of another which is considered the reference standard. Optimally, this reference standard should be the duration that it takes light to travel a preset distance, as this would finally make sense out of our reference standards as we would have the same definition for distance and time: t=d/c and d=c/t.*

James P. Siepmann"




peace.
Click to expand...
''Wow thanks for sharing that. This is the best explanation for what I have always considered to be true all along, but in a very easy to understand manner. Very interesting if you ask me.
 
Information and its measurement are a projection of a (human) neurobiological system. Information is always uncertain. There is no such thing as “complete” information. The human mind is capable of constructing models of reality. The existence of an external objective universe projecting information in our direction is a "given". We assume that something doesn't disappear when we aren't looking at it. How can you explain time or any other measurement as other than our own "mapping" of this information, that we accept is out there, outside of our brains?
 
ja

couple of quotes

the purpose of physical law is....

“only to track down, so far as it is possible, relations between the manifold aspects of our experience.”(bohr)


Take space-time, for example. We organize our perceptions into events, and for many purposes it is illuminating to represent those events as points in an abstract four-dimensional continuum. This is so useful that most of us reify this abstract scheme, believing that we inhabit a world that is such a four- (or, for a few of us, ten-) dimensional continuum. The reification of abstract time and space goes so far back in human history that it's easy to miss the intellectual sleight of hand. The reification of electric and magnetic fields is more recent but also came to be taken for granted, until it started to unravel (for some of us) with the arrival of quantum electrodynamics. The strongest hints of how we have been fooling ourselves emerge when we try to reify quantum states, and thereby run into “the measurement problem” and “quantum nonlocality.” (mermin)

reification
 
If time were to suddenly reversed, we would not be aware of the change because we would be thinking in reverse. That being said how do we know we are not thinking in reverse right now? How is the direction of time relevant to our thought processes? I don't know. I am just curious as to how time is relevant outside the metabolic frenzy of the active brain. Intuitively, I would think that without motion there would be no time. So what difference would the direction of the motion (in time) make? Granted I am no Roger Penrose, but these questions seem persistent.
 
No, the idea is that time is a number (we 'make it up'), like temperature is.
We 'see' change happen, but we have to change, to 'see' (anything); we have sticks poking up out of the ground (instruments), that can relate this idea, or notion, of ongoing change, and record and 'measure' things ("take the temperature", "take another temperature", "calculate the difference" or separation), and see pattern and order, but any observation is time-dependent.

Substitute the word 'change' for time, and any sentence still 'works', usually. Distance, heat, and entropy are fundamental behaviours of the real world, and so is harmonic motion, or cyclic processes.

Then I guess the question shifts to: why does change (entropy) only go one way? Why do we see an "arrow" of time?
 
Isn't asking why still being a slave to that very force? As an answer always follows the question, and never in reverse. In a way, you are only enforcing it, and perhaps this is what keeps us from the 'answer'.
 
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