What is "time"

[Farsight]

No need to be afraid Farsight. Some of those scientists I do not know, but others are far more reputable then yourself. The others at least still align with accepted mainstream science, and I don't believe any of them peppered their Interviews with the fairy tale that you are forever peppering us with.

Some of what you think of as mainstream science is just popscience junk. Really.

On the subject in hand, time is as obvious as the nose on your face. If we had no time you would not have had the "time" for your nose to develop or even your face for that matter.

It isn't as obvious as the nose on your face. I can show you the nose on your face. And space, and motion, and other things too. But you can't show me time.

Ps check out the 2 4 8 video above, the conclusion at the end is very poignant to the discussion, and logic being applied in this discussion re only asking/trying to confirm, "what 'is' time"

I watched it. Nice. I like to think that I learned all about my own confirmation bias about eight years back. I remember looking in the mirror and saying you believe in things for which there is no evidence at all.

 

[Dr_Toad]

You look in the mirror a lot, hm? That answers some things...

 

[paddoboy]

Billy T said: ↑ Past also does not exist.
Hi Pad,
I think it is extremely important where being scientific not to start with presumptions, becasue they may cloud our vision ( e.g. confirmation bias ).
you may show an example of that here.

I don't see reflected light of an object as any evidence that time or the past does not exist.
And again, the confirmation bias you keep mentioning, can be applied both ways.
That along with the fact that you have published a book, and obviously would like to see that do well on the public market.
I wish you the best in that regards.
I know I'm continually going over old ground, but from my point of view, the "old ground"I'm going over, is forever being ignored by those proposing that time is not real or does not exist.
The most logical point so far that reveals itself, is the fact that the subject of time is still debatable and open.
That should be the first thing those claiming time does not exist must accept to overcome the confirmation bias that they themselves are guilty of....

Again my question has yet to be resolved. Can any of my friends who sit there, moment after moment, in the course of the progress of time, show me any scientifically viable realm, world, or Universe, that does not have time as an integral part of its existence and reality.

 

[PhysBang]

Some of what you think of as mainstream science is just popscience junk. Really.

And most of what you tell us is your own fantasy, as you have demonstrated with your continued refusal to provide evidence when questioned. Pease stop polluting this thread with your insults to professional physicists and your own dogmatic fantasies.

Unless you can suddenly produce an application where you can show how "inhomogeneous space" leads to the fall of a pencil (your own chosen example) or to the rotation of a galaxy (your own chosen example to attack the integrity of professional physicists), your claims are baseless.

 

[Dr_Toad]

But his mirror supports his fantasy! How can you not see that?

 

[paddoboy]

Some of what you think of as mainstream science is just popscience junk. Really.

I actually see that as a compliment coming from someone who can sit there day after day, claiming the nonsensical anti GR rubbish that you have claimed.

Again, for the dummies.....I may not be able to hold time in my hand, but the fact that I am here, 13.83 billion years after space and time [henceforth known as spacetime] came into existence and evolved over TIME, to what I see today....a micro second ago....a minute ago.

Oh, and before I let you off the hook Farsight, you keep on about clocks.....Do you remember chinglu? He's another anti SR/GR novice, driven by delusions of a magic pixie in the sky, rather then delusions of grandeur, such as yourself.
He often used that same argument.
Even Einstein's "static Universe" and the CC to adhere to that had a time component.
Again, my view on time, I'm happy to say, aligns with what most of the experts are saying, and gauging carefully what they have said, I see loads of common sense and logic, despite the fact that we have plenty more to learn about the indispensable nature of time.......along with of course space, spacetime, gravity, and matter and energy.

 

[paddoboy]

You look in the mirror a lot, hm? That answers some things...

Yep, I find using the reflective properties of mirrors as an argument against the nature of time is rather grasping at straws.

 

[paddoboy]

Even Issac Newton acknowledged in "Principia Mathematica" the inevitable flow of time.
The time that we are familiar with, and that we all take for granted, and that brings the future to the present, and dismisses the present to the past.
It is the uniform passing/flowing of the rate of time [within each FoR] that enables us to construct our equations of motion and how objects and their positions change over the course of time.

 

[Farsight]

I actually see that as a compliment coming from someone who can sit there day after day, claiming the nonsensical anti GR rubbish that you have claimed.

I'm not anti-GR. I'm pro-GR. Instead I'm anti-woo. Like the woo you believed in wherein space is falling inwards in a gravitational field. That totally utterly absolutely contradicts GR. So much so it's totally laughable. It's on a par with Chicken Little.

Oh, and before I let you off the hook Farsight, you keep on about clocks.....Do you remember chinglu? He's another anti SR/GR novice, driven by delusions of a magic pixie in the sky, rather then delusions of grandeur, such as yourself.

You're the one who believes in pixie magic, so much so that you dismiss Einstein and the evidence and bona-fide physics and try to defend that with abuse.

Again, my view on time, I'm happy to say, aligns with what most of the experts are saying, and gauging carefully what they have said, I see loads of common sense and logic, despite the fact that we have plenty more to learn about the indispensable nature of time.......along with of course space, spacetime, gravity, and matter and energy.

You're talking rubbish. You believe in popscience trash and try to defend by saying "it's mainstream" when it isn't, because you can't offer any evidence to support your belief. Because there isn't any. Now are you going to admit that you can't show me time? or show me time passing or flowing? No. So why don't you run along and go play with your multiverse.

 

[paddoboy]

You are doing that in the PRESENT. Same as looking at old photograph of your self as child - that does not show the past child exist, nor that the distant galaxies do. - ALL THAT IS IN THE PRESENT. Yes THE PRESENT does exist.

Sure, I'm doing that in "my present" but I'm looking into the past of Alpha Cetauri 4.3 years ago. And as we all know, each FoR is as valid as the other.
I'm not looking at a reflection.
The same that if I'm watching you from a safe distance falling into a BH, I will never see you actually cross the EH, just gradually fade from the receptive properties of my viewer and redshifted. From your own position though, you will happily [or unhappily ] cross that same EH without any undue effects. [ignoring tidal gravitationall effects]

 

[paddoboy]

No. So why don't you run along and go play with your multiverse.

Take it easy Farsight....
No, I don't accept much of what you say, or your claims, or your misquotes, misinterpretations and outright misleading and "out of context"quotes.
Albert would no doubt be turning in his grave!

 

[tashja]

People who think time is something real need to do two things, IMO:
(1) Tell some observable property of time.
(2) Tell some error in my post 28 mathematical proof that all the observable processes in the universe can be described without any mention of time:

I.e. if you have a set of equations n in number which have time, t, as an explicit variable and a bunch of other variables like mass, m temperature, T, energy, E, altitude, h, etc.
You can, in principle solve all n of them for t = F1(m, T, E, h, etc.) = F2(m, T, E, h, etc.) = F3(m, T, E, h, etc.) ... Fn(m, T, E, h, etc.) and then forget about the left end /side of this string of equations (never mention t again in your new set of n-1 equations).

For example, you don't really need to say the day is 24 hours long. You can say the day is 48 inches of standard candle burning, but that is not nearly as convient as making the two "decoupled statements" with a convenient t parameter:
(1) The earth rotates 360 degrees in time interval 24 hours. (Nothing about "standard candles" here. (1) is decoupled from that by use of parameter t.)
(2) Standard candle burns (one lit just as the earlier one goes out) for total burnt length of 48 inches in 24 hours; or the standard candle burns two inches each hour.

Time, t, is just a very convenient parameter in equations - it could be eliminated from a complete (classical at least) description of every thing that occurs in the universe.
The existence of something with no observable quantities, like mass, volume, extent, etc. is very questionable - most likely a fiction - time does not exist, except as a convenient parameter that can "decouple" equations.

Prof. Smolin:

Both of these issues are addressed in my books.

The reply to the mathematical argument is that this depends on two assumptions, first that the laws are deterministic for outcomes, which they are not due to quantum mechanics. Second, the argument assumes the laws are absolute and unchanging which leaves inexplicable the questions of why these are the laws and what chose the initial conditions. As I argue in great detail in the books, these questions are answerable only if the laws evolve in time.

Your friend's argument is an example of what we call the cosmological fallacy, which is to take a paradigm for laws applicable to subsystems of the universe and attempt to apply it to the whole universe. Please read the books! If you want a short version read my paper Temporal Naturalism on the arxiv.

Thanks,
Lee

Lee Smolin
Perimeter Institute
www.leesmolin.com

 

[paddoboy]

I'm not anti-GR. I'm pro-GR. Instead I'm anti-woo. Like the woo you believed in wherein space is falling inwards in a gravitational field. That totally utterly absolutely contradicts GR. So much so it's totally laughable. It's on a par with Chicken Little.

Your dishonesty continues unabated.
The space/waterfall analogy, is just that...an analogy...Much as is light cones and a myriad of other scientific explanations. You have been told that many times.
The absolute crap that has been claimed in various threads concerns itself with concepts such as the speed of light is not constant, light is seen to stop in all FoR's at the EH, and Time is seen to stop in all FoR's at the same EH.
Like I said up there...The great man would be turning in his grave.
Do better Farsight.

http://jila.colorado.edu/~ajsh/insidebh/waterfall.html

 

[Farsight]

The absolute crap that has been claimed in various threads concerns itself with concepts such as the speed of light is not constant...

Take that up with Don Koks who said this on the Baez website:

"...In that sense, we could say that the "ceiling" speed of light in the presence of gravity is higher than the "floor" speed of light. Einstein talked about the speed of light changing in his new theory. In his 1920 book "Relativity: the special and general theory" he wrote: "... according to the general theory of relativity, the law of the constancy of the velocity of light in vacuo, which constitutes one of the two fundamental assumptions in the special theory of relativity [...] cannot claim any unlimited validity. A curvature of rays of light can only take place when the velocity [Einstein means speed here] of propagation of light varies with position." This difference in speeds is precisely that referred to above by ceiling and floor observers...

 

[tashja]

Thanks tashja. I have to say that I think guys like Smolin and Carroll make things too complicated. How anybody can write a whole book about time beats me.

You're welcome, Farsight. I agree, the language can get too technical at times lol.

Thanks tashja (great name)

Hi, Matt. What are your thoughts regarding nonlocality? Can nonlocality be used as an argument or proof that time does not exist, or should we sacrifice space for the sake of time?

 

[danshawen]

This is more like it. I've seen so many discussions about time degenerate on other forums, it's a real pleasure to see such a wide variety of ideas here on the subject. I nominate this thread as one for the permanent archives.

 

[Farsight]

Your friend's argument is an example of what we call the cosmological fallacy, which is to take a paradigm for laws applicable to subsystems of the universe and attempt to apply it to the whole universe. Please read the books! If you want a short version read my paper Temporal Naturalism on the arxiv...

I thought Lee Smolin's response was rather dismissive and irrelevant myself. IMHO he didn't address Billy's point, and falsely accused him of a fallacy. Utterly unconvincing.

 

[paddoboy]

Take that up with Don Koks who said this on the Baez website:
.

No, I'm taking it up with you. The speed of light in one's own FoR, is always, but always constant....Just as light is NEVER seen to be stopped at an EH, and time is never actually been seen to stop, in fact the local FoR's of both, see nothing out of the ordinary happening.

And you have been advised of that by many experts, whom you have dismissed.
Quite typical actually for most alternative hypothesis and pseudoscience adherents.

 

[tashja]

I thought Lee Smolin's response was rather dismissive and irrelevant myself. IMHO he didn't address Billy's point, and falsely accused him of a fallacy. Utterly unconvincing.

He made a similar argument here (skip to 1:04:34):

 

[Farsight]

He made a similar argument here (skip to 1:04:34):

I though he addressed the issue there, but groan, they were talking about a universe made of mathematics. And Lee Smolin then talked about "passing moments" and the "flow of time". Time doesn't literally pass or flow. Such is just a figure of speech. A clock is not some cosmic gas meter. It doesn't really measure the flow of time.

No, I'm taking it up with you. The speed of light in one's own FoR, is always, but always constant....

Only because when light slows down you slow down too, because electromagnetic radiation and matter are "made of the same essence"

Just as light is NEVER seen to be stopped at an EH, and time is never actually been seen to stop, in fact the local FoR's of both, see nothing out of the ordinary happening.

That's what some say, but the "field interpretation" of GR referred to by Kevin Brown says a clock tops at the event horizon, and that's the end of the story.

And you have been advised of that by many experts, whom you have dismissed. Quite typical actually for most alternative hypothesis and pseudoscience adherents.

I haven't dismissed anybody. And as for experts, Don Koks agrees with me about the variable speed of light, and Tom Moore agrees with me that the light doesn't get out because it's stopped. And my references to Einstein and Shapiro etc demonstrate that I'm not the guy pushing alternative hypotheses or pseudoscience.