Are the universe and time abstract concepts?

[Time Machine]

It was suggested that this belongs in philosophy so I have moved as I was enjoying the thread.

Anyone have any views?

...Is the universe an abstract concept. Is time an abstract concept?

Originally Posted by TheAlkemist View Post

Yes and yes.

An abstract concept = A mental construct. Not concrete reality or an object.
Mental concepts are constructed (with 2 or more objects). Concepts are derived from the relationships between objects.
In science, the relationship between objects are recorded by measurement. Measurements are used to determine (and express) the QUANTITY of an OBJECT. Eg., that brick is 10 KG. How many seconds is the bricks?

You can't use time as a measurement for concrete objects. Only as an abstract concept for measuring relationships.

"Time is a non-abstract event"

I don't understand what this means. In physics, isn't an event something that needs to be defined--qualified and quantified?
Unquote:

Trying to find seconds in bricks is as confusing as trying to find a weight in time. An abstract concept indeed.
If, however you wanted to know how long the bricks will last, a measurement of time would be appropriate. The measurement is a concept but the passing of time is a physicality.

As I am in layman's terms, please excuse any deviation from actual physics.
Your earlier comment mentioned love and beauty being abstract concepts as well as the universe and time. This rather deviates into the realm of human social interaction, the study of which making physics seem as though childs play. Admittedly I have much to learn in both fields especially where talking to physicists.

An abstract concept = A mental construct. Not concrete reality or an object.
This does not describe the universe as observed by me or not the bits I can observe anyway. My universe is a very much concrete and other carbon based reality of objects.

I believe that the event of time is being defined--qualified and quantified. Here are some links that I found really interesting. I am aware that I am off course in that your question is about gravity, however it would seem that time and gravity are linked.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/sc...e-2088195.html

http://www.brighthub.com/science/spa...#ixzz11ulsv9o7

http://www.astroengine.com/?p=24201
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[apeiron]

The commonsense philosophical answer is that reality exists, but we can only know about it through our "abstract concepts".

So the stress here is on the modelling relation. It is all about a fruitful interaction between what's "out there" and the way we chose to conceive it.

The problems arise when you push the argument and say, well, we cannot then be certain about anything because ultimately it all comes back to our mental concepts. Or alternatively, that our abstractions - pure reason - may indeed be enough on their own to arrive at true knowledge about reality.

Both these lines of argument are familiar. But it is more meaningful to get on with a consideration of the actual issue, which is what is the proper formal description of the modelling relation itself? What do we know about the principles of good modelling?

 

[Time Machine]

Having been talking about gravity in a physics forum, it was TheAlkemist who brought up the notion of the universe and time being comparable to love and beauty as abstract concepts.
I personally don't see the connection other than to agree with your comment that a human perception of all four can be considered abstract concepts. Other than this, the universe and time are physicality's surely?

 

[apeiron]

I personally don't see the connection other than to agree with your comment that a human perception of all four can be considered abstract concepts. Other than this, the universe and time are physicality's surely?

I agree with the urge to see some definite distinction between the two kinds of abstraction. So what is it?

Love and beauty would seem to be rather local human responses to the world - a mix of cultural beliefs and some neuro-genetic wiring. So they are not properties of the universe or material reality in general. They are more about our evolutionary history and so functional as abstract concepts only in that quite restricted setting.

And the fact that "love" and "beauty" are indeed concepts - social constructs - is well explored in the psychology of emotions and cross-cultural anthropology. There may be a neurochemistry of attraction and attachment, but ideas about love and beauty are more in the nature of evolved cultural scripts to scaffold desired, evolutionarily functional, social behaviour.

We can re-write those scripts. This is why we see so many variations of ideals of love and beauty across cultures.

But the universe and time prove themselves as more physically fundamental, more general, as abstract concepts by the fact that it is much harder to vary the story.

Yet still, there are many ways of thinking about universes and time. So even those are still concepts used to scaffold ways of perceiving reality.

So we can have localised human society level abstractions and more global material reality level abstractions. Each effective in their own settings. But one more contingent, the other more foundational.

 

[Time Machine]

But the universe and time prove themselves as more physically fundamental, more general, as abstract concepts by the fact that it is much harder to vary the story.

Yet still, there are many ways of thinking about universes and time. So even those are still concepts used to scaffold ways of perceiving reality.

So we can have localised human society level abstractions and more global material reality level abstractions. Each effective in their own settings. But one more contingent, the other more foundational.

I have very much enjoyed your dialogue on love and beauty. A good mix of philosophy and common sense.

But regarding the universe and time itself (rather than as a measurement) and I do hope you don't mind me trying to pin this down.

From what you have said above:
Anything diluted through human perception is an abstract concept.
Anything associated with human interaction is a more contingent abstract concept.
Anything associated with human environment is a more foundational abstract concept.
If we divorce the universe and time from human perception and look at them as perceived by gravity, would the universe and time then be considered physicality's?

 

[apeiron]

If we divorce the universe and time from human perception and look at them as perceived by gravity, would the universe and time then be considered physicality's?

I don't really follow the question, sorry.

It is clearly naive and wrong to think that perception shows us "the world as it is". Our impressions of the world are mediated through our ideas about the world.

And it is just as wrong to then go the other way and say the world is simply a social construct - that there is no constraint on what we can can imagine it to be.

Which then leaves us with the commonsense position of modelling theory - where our ideas develop through an interaction with the world, and are valued according to the proven control they give us over the world.

So time and universe would be pragmatic (practical) concepts. We think that way because it works, rather than because it is "true".

But I don't get what you mean by gravity perceiving time and the universe. You might be talking about pansemiosis perhaps, an approach I endorse - http://www.springerlink.com/content/v04463r1mw286729/fulltext.pdf - but I don't think so.

 

[Time Machine]

But I don't get what you mean by gravity perceiving time and the universe. You might be talking about pansemiosis perhaps, an approach I endorse - http://www.springerlink.com/content/v04463r1mw286729/fulltext.pdf - but I don't think so.

I am seriously enjoying this link.

I have read books such as Sidartha, Jonathon Livingston Seagull,etc, that take a philosophical approach but have never read anything about philosophy itself.
I can appreciate that this is something different again and am fasinated.
I have come across systems theory and open systems in some of the physics books that I have read and appreciate the concept.
I read Matt Ridleys Genome, albiet a long time ago. The details are shady as it's not really my thing but the knowledge translates to other areas of life and has been useful.
I am delighted to recognise biosemiosis from my work with animals, namely dogs and horses. This comes into play very much in training, comunication and diagnosis. Be it illness, danger or of more joyous nature, when handling animals anybody language or signal is of great importance. My inspiration for this way of thinking came from Monty Roberts who devised a system for communicating with horses, wild horses and even deer.

I am not sure exactly how much I have understood from the link just yet. My brain needs time to assimilate. The language is unfamiliar to me and I had to cross reference a lot. If I said that time would give me a chance to assemble new info with old, that this process would be operational to understanding and that further understanding is forthcoming when put into practice, would you say that I had at least partially understood systems modelling?

As to not understanding my question:
I have given this a lot of thought and have come to the conclusion that to understand my question it becomes necessary to understand my agenda. Being the new kid on the block and all that goes with I believe that I may have arrived here feeling a little sensitive about being asked to move.
Having posed my question of the universe and time divorced from human perception, I was sure that your answer would quite simply be yes and that I could go back saying "so and so said..."
However, life and your answer are not so simple as that. On reflection and as your answer was as such, you have effectively saved me from my myself in that I had come perilously close to becoming smarmy.

I would be delighted to continue with you in our discussion, although I am aware that I am not your usual cup of tea.

If not then it's been a pleasure.
Thank you for the learning curve.

 

[apeiron]

Having posed my question of the universe and time divorced from human perception, I was sure that your answer would quite simply be yes

Perhaps to clarify, what you mean is that there is no causal connection between our perception/modelling of the world and its existence?

So "commonsense" says the world just is, and our impressions of it are just that.

But others might argue that quantum mechanics, for example, suggests in fact human consciousness, in its capacity as observer, is necessary for reality to exist. The relationship between mind and material reality is radically causal.

Semiosis would then be an example of a more subtle intermediate position. It says that "modelling" - an activity we associate just with minds - is in fact a general activity of the physical world. Reality in some proper sense interprets itself into being via self-interaction.

So there is indeed a thread of causality, of which human mental modelling of physical reality is a highly refined and particular example. The more general or pansemiotic process could be the decoherence approach to QM, or dissipative structure theory in thermodynamics - physics-level examples of semiotic logic.

This at least shows there is a range of views about the answer, if the question is whether there is a causal link between our impressions of reality, and its actuality.

 

[Maui]

It was suggested that this belongs in philosophy so I have moved as I was enjoying the thread.

Anyone have any views?

...Is the universe an abstract concept. Is time an abstract concept?

This is a difficult question but, by far, the best insight into the nature of our fundamental concepts can be gained by studying Bell's theorem and its implications. People's (joint) common-sense assumptions have been found to contradict experimental evidence. It must be either as you are supposing or every event is pre-determined or, alternatively, everything that is observable is one indivisible whole. Strange options indeed.