Exploring the Implications of Time Not Being Real

[zoobyshoe]

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.

You said: "Because we observe that our time indexes of the physical world reveal a particular 'direction' of change (away from lower ordered configurations)..."

It's not clear to me why past things might be considered of a "lower" order.

and: "...wrt the incongruent spatial configurations that the time indexes contain..."

Why would the spatial configurations be "incongruent" as opposed to simply "changed" or "different" ? The choice of the word "incongruent" makes me wonder.

Also, I haven't read anything, really, about this and wasn't aware that people spoke of an "archtypical radiative arrow of time". I'm not sure what that might mean or why people suggest that as a good model; the 'radiative' part.

 

[ThomasT]

You said: "Because we observe that our time indexes of the physical world reveal a particular 'direction' of change (away from lower ordered configurations)..."

It's not clear to me why past things might be considered of a "lower" order.

I should have said lower in the order. Say you have a set of pictures of some street corner in New York City, each picture taken on January 1 of every year from 1900 to 2009, and you label each picture with the number corresponding to the year it was taken in. Then the lower the number, the farther back in the past is the picture it's associated with. The farther back you go, the more different the pictures look than from where you started.

and: "...wrt the incongruent spatial configurations that the time indexes contain..."

Why would the spatial configurations be "incongruent" as opposed to simply "changed" or "different" ? The choice of the word "incongruent" makes me wonder.

Some people think geometrically, so I threw that in there. It means essentially the same as 'different' or 'changed'. The thing is, in any set of time indexed photos of some part of our Universe every picture is unique. Represented geometrically, every picture would be incongruent with every other picture.

Also, I haven't read anything, really, about this and wasn't aware that people spoke of an "archtypical radiative arrow of time". I'm not sure what that might mean or why people suggest that as a good model; the 'radiative' part.

It's a simple way to demonstrate the difference between the past and the future. Also, if the boundary of our Universe is an isotropically expanding, more or less spherical, shell or wavefront, then the radiative 'arrow of time' that we can observe is a product and an example of that archetypal, prototypical, fundamental universal dynamic.

Of course, that could be wrong. Maybe our Universe isn't that way at all. But, imho, there are some good reasons to believe that it is.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I should have said lower in the order. Say you have a set of pictures of some street corner in New York City, each picture taken on January 1 of every year from 1900 to 2009, and you label each picture with the number corresponding to the year it was taken in. Then the lower the number, the farther back in the past is the picture it's associated with. The farther back you go, the more different the pictures look than from where you started.

Some people think geometrically, so I threw that in there. It means essentially the same as 'different' or 'changed'. The thing is, in any set of time indexed photos of some part of our Universe every picture is unique. Represented geometrically, every picture would be incongruent with every other picture.

It's a simple way to demonstrate the difference between the past and the future. Also, if the boundary of our Universe is an isotropically expanding, more or less spherical, shell or wavefront, then the radiative 'arrow of time' that we can observe is a product and an example of that archetypal, prototypical, fundamental universal dynamic.

Of course, that could be wrong. Maybe our Universe isn't that way at all. But, imho, there are some good reasons to believe that it is.

Thanks much for the explanations! It all made sense this time.