Exploring the Implications of Time Not Being Real

[fabsuk]

Would any Laws be violated if time was proven not to be real.

 

[CEL]

Would any Laws be violated if time was proven not to be real.

What do you mean by time not being real?

 

[Tac-Tics]

Would any Laws be violated if time was proven not to be real.

Time is certainly real. For the time being at least...

 

[S_Happens]

Time is certainly real. For the time being at least...

I certainly haven't had the time to find any certainty.

I don't wish to appear ignorant, but my education is limited to college level kinematics, electromagnetism, etc. In my dabbling with higher physics here and there I have not come across any real proof of time. Is it implied by entropy, simply a philosophical question, or is there some other nonsymmetrical physics that serves to define "time?"

 

[fabsuk]

I am not asking for an opinion of if you think it is real or not,

I am saying equations or formulas that would be violated.

 

[Tac-Tics]

I certainly haven't had the time to find any certainty.

I don't wish to appear ignorant, but my education is limited to college level kinematics, electromagnetism, etc. In my dabbling with higher physics here and there I have not come across any real proof of time. Is it implied by entropy, simply a philosophical question, or is there some other nonsymmetrical physics that serves to define "time?"

On the one hand, time's existence is so fundamental to the whole game that it is almost an axiom.

On the other hand, as is demonstrated by relativity, how time works isn't as straightforward as it seems.

Are you talking about the arrow of time, in particular? Or just time in general? The arrow of time, no one really understands.

 

[Tac-Tics]

I am not asking for an opinion of if you think it is real or not,

I am saying equations or formulas that would be violated.

Physics without time is just geometry.

 

[fabsuk]

What i am trying to get at if you prove the existence of Psi ( ie psychic functioning beyond all reasonable doubt ( that any skeptic couldn't criticise))

Would this violate any theory, from my readings into quantum mechanics and in relativety the answers work out the same if u you use imaginary time in certain equations.

 

[Tac-Tics]

What i am trying to get at if you prove the existence of Psi ( ie psychic functioning beyond all reasonable doubt ( that any skeptic couldn't criticise))

Would this violate any theory, from my readings into quantum mechanics and in relativety the answers work out the same if u you use imaginary time in certain equations.

You mean real as in a real number (as opposed to complex?).

If you wanted to describe time as a complex number, you're really talking about a universe with two-dimensional time. You'd have to do a hell of a lot more than "reading" up on QM to convince anyone.

 

[zoobyshoe]

What i am trying to get at if you prove the existence of Psi...

This is uselessly ambiguous: there are many alleged paranormal phenomena which don't require time to operate outside normal expectations. For example, if I proved I could hear your thoughts in my head, it would have no bearing on our understanding of time. Likewise, if I proved the spirit of a person who died in 1847 still hangs around the vicinity of where that person lived, it says nothing about time.

Additionally, proving one paranormal thing (stipulating that's possible for this discussion's sake) does not prove any other paranormal thing: they're not all part of a unified, mutually dependent hypothesis or theory.

 

[S_Happens]

Are you talking about the arrow of time, in particular? Or just time in general? The arrow of time, no one really understands.

Yes, the arrow of time, as that's what I see as the most important aspect.

The arrow of time, no one really understands.

This is my understanding from my limited knowledge. I didn't know if any very specialized field had come up with anything.

 

[nottheone]

What's not to understand? Time is movement, perception of it is a matter of perspective. Our perspective is governed by chemical reactions in our brain. Our perception of time is directly related to the amount of time it takes for electrical signals to travel in our neurons and how fast certain chemical reactions take place in our synapses. Change those velocities or reaction times and our perception of time and movement will be directly affected. Slow them down enough and we could watch the galaxy spin, slow them even more and we could watch our galaxy and Andromeda dance, slow them a lot more and we could watch the universe go out like a broken light bulb. It's all relative. Time is also meaningless unless you have memory so time only exists for life. There is only now, no past no future (which eliminates the concept of time travel).

Always remember that time flies like an arrow and fruit flies like a banana.

If you think I am wrong you have my express unrestricted permission to delete this post by going back in time and killing me when I am a child.

 

[fabsuk]

Lets just be clear here, I am not asking for a pseudo interpretation of time,

I mean you show tangible evidence for the existence of psi through objective results.

All i am getting here is that you would need to prove 2 dimensions of time.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I mean you show tangible evidence for the existence of psi through objective results.

What would that have to do with time? See my post above.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Lets just be clear here, I am not asking for a pseudo interpretation of time,

I mean you show tangible evidence for the existence of psi through objective results.

If you do the thread will be locked. There is no forum at PF that allows such a discussion.

If wish to present a formal conjecture, then you would need to meet the posting requirements in the Independent Research Forum. You asked if laws would be violated if time is not real, so the thread was moved to philosophy.

 

[russ_watters]

I am not asking for an opinion of if you think it is real or not,

I am saying equations or formulas that would be violated.

Well, pretty much all of them!

If you wanted to describe time as a complex number, you're really talking about a universe with two-dimensional time. You'd have to do a hell of a lot more than "reading" up on QM to convince anyone.

You can call it whatever you want, but if you still use it in the equations, it's still the same time.

 

[ThomasT]

Would any Laws be violated if time was proven not to be real.

That's not going to happen. Ever. TIME is a word that refers to pretty much the same thing in physics as it does in ordinary language. It refers to indexes of incongruent spatial configurations -- ordered records of various observations of the physical world which define objective reality.

I suppose you could define the word, TIME, in such a way as to render it a collection of symbols that don't refer to anything in objective reality. But what would be the point of that? And anyway, that wouldn't obviate its extant de facto and technical meaning.

I am not asking for an opinion of if you think it is real or not, I am saying equations or formulas that would be violated.

What i am trying to get at if you prove the existence of Psi ( ie psychic functioning beyond all reasonable doubt ( that any skeptic couldn't criticise))

Would this violate any theory, from my readings into quantum mechanics and in relativety the answers work out the same if u you use imaginary time in certain equations.

The only way to establish "the existence of psychic funtioning beyond all reasonable doubt" is to produce objective records of it -- not just imaginary ones.

Lets just be clear here, I am not asking for a pseudo interpretation of time, I mean you show tangible evidence for the existence of psi through objective results.

If "tangible evidence for the existence of psi through objective results" is produced, then you can begin to answer the question of whether or not that behavior, that data, violates any extant physical laws or the predictions of any theoretical construction. But, wrt to your original question, that wouldn't prove TIME "not to be real". That wouldn't contradict the operational definition of TIME in physics, or its de facto meaning in ordinary language. And, if you chose to define TIME in unreal or imaginary or physically meaningless terms, then that wouldn't facilitate the production of "tangible evidence for the existence of psi through objective results".

 

[Ivan Seeking]

This is your philosophy

When Physics World ran a special poll last year to find out how physicists think philosophically, more than 500 readers replied. Here are the results.

...Table 1 shows the percentage of poll respondents who considered each item to be a real thing, along with the percentage who did not and those who were not sure.

...Direction of time:
Real 43; Not real 38; Not sure 15; No reply 4
[continued]

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/5279

 

[Dmitry67]

But there is still one question, what happens if time becomes REAL (as pposed to imaginary), so the space becomes 4D eucledian. (Interestingly enough, the transformation from Minkowsky spacetime into 4D euclidean space can be done gradually and smoothly).

4D space is static, but there should some 'static' solution if we try to reapply there all physical laws we know.

 

[fabsuk]

If somebody could win the lottery on a consistent basis, I think that would be a pretty good indication of psi.
( for the heck of it/different state lotteries)

More than 3 times ( i think that is objective unless somebody would say that is luck)

so people can't think its a scam.

Surely this would violate our understanding of time and wouldn't work in our current model of physics.

 

[ThomasT]

This is your philosophy

When Physics World ran a special poll last year to find out how physicists think philosophically, more than 500 readers replied. Here are the results.

...Table 1 shows the percentage of poll respondents who considered each item to be a real thing, along with the percentage who did not and those who were not sure.

...Direction of time:
Real 43; Not real 38; Not sure 15; No reply 4
[continued]

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/5279

Ivan, who are you quoting here? It's also not clear to me who you're responding to.

My computer locked up when I clicked on the link to the physicsworld article -- also when I tried to go to the physicsworld.com homepage, and also when I tried to access it from Google.

 

[zoobyshoe]

If somebody could win the lottery on a consistent basis, I think that would be a pretty good indication of psi.
( for the heck of it/different state lotteries)

More than 3 times ( i think that is objective unless somebody would say that is luck)

so people can't think its a scam.

Surely this would violate our understanding of time and wouldn't work in our current model of physics.

Given the history of the universe all the coming winning lottery numbers are fixed, predetermined, inevitable. Your scenario would simply force a change in our appreciation of how specifically the human brain can calculate coming events, and would not change our view of time at all.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Ivan, who are you quoting here? It's also not clear to me who you're responding to.

My computer locked up when I clicked on the link to the physicsworld article -- also when I tried to go to the physicsworld.com homepage, and also when I tried to access it from Google.

I was quoting the results of a survey of 500 physicists who apparently can't agree if the direction of time is real or not. The point is that op assumes that physicists treat time as something real, but a significant percentage of physicists surveyed disagree.

Their site may have been down earlier. The link works for me.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Given the history of the universe all the coming winning lottery numbers are fixed, predetermined, inevitable.

If a person picks the number from a drum, we have a choice determining the number selected. I don't think it has been shown that "choice" is a Newtonian [predictable] process.

Ultimately, choice, or good random number generator would rely on processes that, according to QM, are not deterministic.

 

[ThomasT]

I was quoting the results of a survey of 500 physicists who apparently can't agree if the direction of time is real or not. The point is that op assumes that physicists treat time as something real, but a significant percentage of physicists surveyed disagree.

Their site may have been down earlier. The link works for me.

Thanks, I've since got it to work and read the article. It demonstrated the ambiguity of the word REAL. In addition to the "direction of time" stats, it was interesting that a few physicists don't think the Earth is real.

In my reply to fabsuk I should have started by asking what he meant by the words TIME and REAL.

 

[ThomasT]

If somebody could win the lottery on a consistent basis, I think that would be a pretty good indication of psi.
( for the heck of it/different state lotteries)

More than 3 times ( i think that is objective unless somebody would say that is luck)

so people can't think its a scam.

Surely this would violate our understanding of time and wouldn't work in our current model of physics.

Surely you jest.

 

[russ_watters]

I was quoting the results of a survey of 500 physicists who apparently can't agree if the direction of time is real or not. The point is that op assumes that physicists treat time as something real, but a significant percentage of physicists surveyed disagree.

The two statements...

1. The direction of time is not real.
2. Time is not real.

...are not equivalent.

The direction of time is a far more difficult issue.

 

[russ_watters]

Given the history of the universe all the coming winning lottery numbers are fixed, predetermined, inevitable. Your scenario would simply force a change in our appreciation of how specifically the human brain can calculate coming events, and would not change our view of time at all.

You're discussing a different question: whether the universe is completely deterministic/whether randomness truly exists.

 

[fabsuk]

Surely you jest.

You never know.

But i am not liking this theory of chemical reactions in brain (seems very loose terminology)

But are we going into randomness or time here.

Time in mind is just reference points from our observation point
and what you are saying we can't have negative time, unless we are unconsciously living in negative time.

 

[zoobyshoe]

You're discussing a different question: whether the universe is completely deterministic/whether randomness truly exists.

I'm not discussing a completely deterministic universe, I'm stipulating it, in order to show the "psi" scenario he proposed would not force a rethinking of time. In other words: his undeniable proof of knowledge of the future does not limit us to a misunderstanding of time as the only explanation. We have to ask what else might account for it.

 

[ThomasT]

You never know.

But i am not liking this theory of chemical reactions in brain (seems very loose terminology)

But are we going into randomness or time here.

Time in mind is just reference points from our observation point
and what you are saying we can't have negative time, unless we are unconsciously living in negative time.

I'm not sure where you're going with this, or where it came from. I think I don't understand what this thread is about.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The two statements...

1. The direction of time is not real.
2. Time is not real.

...are not equivalent.

We don't know that. Define "real".

The direction of time is a far more difficult issue.

How?

 

[ThomasT]

The two statements...

1. The direction of time is not real.
2. Time is not real.

...are not equivalent.

We don't know that. Define "real".

I think what russ means is that the 'direction' of change that time indexes of the physical world reveal isn't synonymous with the index, 'time', itself. One can at least imagine, say, advanced waves, or ctc's, etc., as well as produce them vis accepted theory, even if we never see them.

Because there isn't yet a unifying fundamental dynamic in physics, TIME doesn't imply any particular direction of change.

The direction of time is a far more difficult issue.

How?

Because we observe that our time indexes of the physical world reveal a particular 'direction' of change (away from lower ordered configurations) wrt the incongruent spatial configurations that the time indexes contain -- and physics has no fundamental dynamic(s) to explain that (eg., the 2nd LoT isn't an explanation, just a generalization of what's observed).

 

[zoobyshoe]

Because there isn't yet a unifying fundamental dynamic in physics, TIME doesn't imply any particular direction of change.

Because we observe that our time indexes of the physical world reveal a particular 'direction' of change (away from lower ordered configurations) wrt the incongruent spatial configurations that the time indexes contain -- and physics has no fundamental dynamic(s) to explain that (eg., the 2nd LoT isn't an explanation, just a generalization of what's observed).

Without being able to specifically follow what your saying, it's clear that the concept of "direction" wrt time is a manner of speaking that's been adopted for lack of any better. We speak of ourselves as going "forward" in time, or of time going "forward" or of ourselves standing still while "time passes", but all these analogies to physical motion are essentially arbitrary. There's no real reason we couldn't get everyone saying "up in time" rather than "forward in time" and have the same understanding of what we're all saying. The "direction" of time might be called real or unreal depending on what you think the question means; what level of rigor it aims for. Your earlier point about rigor was a good one.

One question on the poll demonstrates the need for rigor really well: "Are hallucinations real?" Both Yes and No, are correct answers depending on what you assume or decide the question means. The poll doesn't really give a sampling of what scientists think about the reality of various things. It serves, instead, to separate those who sent it back unanswered, or with "It depends." written in, from those who decided they understood the questions and committed to a yes or no answer when they probably should not have.

 

[ThomasT]

Without being able to specifically follow what your saying, it's clear that the concept of "direction" wrt time is a manner of speaking that's been adopted for lack of any better. We speak of ourselves as going "forward" in time, or of time going "forward" or of ourselves standing still while "time passes", but all these analogies to physical motion are essentially arbitrary. There's no real reason we couldn't get everyone saying "up in time" rather than "forward in time" and have the same understanding of what we're all saying. The "direction" of time might be called real or unreal depending on what you think the question means; what level of rigor it aims for. Your earlier point about rigor was a good one.

One question on the poll demonstrates the need for rigor really well: "Are hallucinations real?" Both Yes and No, are correct answers depending on what you assume or decide the question means. The poll doesn't really give a sampling of what scientists think about the reality of various things. It serves, instead, to separate those who sent it back unanswered, or with "It depends." written in, from those who decided they understood the questions and committed to a yes or no answer when they probably should not have.

What was it that you didn't follow or agree with. Often I don't agree with something I've said, or the way I've said it, after I give it more thought.

From what you've written, I think we pretty much agree on the salient points.

I do think that a 'direction' of time, is as good a way as any to speak of a dynamic (the archetypal example of which is the radiative 'arrow of time') that seems fundamental to the evolution of all physical systems.