And yet our consciousness -- although I think it would be reasonable to say it only "exists" in the moment -- is not restricted by thinking about what's happening "currently," in the moment.
The first sentence would be correct. Although it is possible to "relive" the past -- i.e., in the present.
Oh, you must be referring to the "lag time" that exists between sensation and thought, right? Which is stay we may not be able to truly experience "the now." And yet the principle of it does exist.
But when "does" it occur?
right. I try to make distinction between 'virtual time' (perceived) and 'real time' (source of existence)
Basically right, but not completely. IMV, 'real time' is actually essence of change, perceived as 'virtual time' through measuring change, thus the two are deeply related. But not same.
Maybe that's additional twist. What I meant here is that if time were stopped for you for few hours, you'd not notice that. For you, duration of static state would be no 'longer' than minimum possible (planck) time unit you could detect. Like sleeptime. And by perception I mean not consious perception, but objective technical highest energy measurement. After the 'pause', you could discover that universe outside your paused frame 'jumped' in an instant few hours in time. And you'd never possibly know, which it was, you paused or all else jumped. Nevertheless, time exists outside your ability to detect it, and outside your ability to change. Thus, time is not just measure of change. Its something more than that.
There is no known or even speculated mechanism how energy changes timeflow. afaik there is also no explanation to inertia, mass, or mechanism for space curvature. They are just there, in decently consistent theories.
imo, whole reason why its called spacetime is that they both, space and time depend on each other. Where timeflow slows, perception of space changes, because you can't detect change in timeflow, only change in your frame in relation to outside. Space is positional coordinates. How do you detect distance if you don't travel it? And if you travel, can you do that 'outside' time? What is meaning of space, if to any imaginable coordinate you could travel in equally zero time? traveltime makes coordinates.
quantitavely different. Do you know what is source for stadard of meter? Its combination of atomic clock and distance traveled by light in specific amount of time. Doesn't require c? Time independant?
Originally posted by Mentat
Very interesting. I've never heard anything like this before, and don't really understand it, but very intersting
I was afraid of that. It seems you want us to stay within GR. I'm trying to take another perspective, although I try to not get into contradictons with anything. You see, I don't want to stay within GR :)
Ah, you have very strong preassumption that something must exist first to have time. That makes it hard for us to talk about it. I see that without time there is no existence. So there can't exist something first. You can take this as paradox, or take and say that time itself becomes that something.
I don't want to argue GR. Its a working model. But I can't agree with you that this shows that there is no independant existence of time. GR doesn't really even bother about its independant existence. You postulated time as soon as you said 'interactions'. There is no room for interactions without concept of time. You can't interact.
well, I can imagine aliens, that doesn't make them real. Let's better talk about how can you be aware of real string without any concept of time? How can you possibly 'measure' its extent?? And when I imagine string, I imagine dormant string in time, not just string outside time. When you try to detect a string, you have to interact with it. Without interacting, you can't possibly even know of its existence. Now, we have to ask, does interaction happen instantly? If not, then you again have introduced concept of fundamental time. Its uniform flow is the only means by which you could possibly measure (quantify) its extent. If you are the string, then yeah, no perception of time without 'vibrations'. But if you are observer, there is time without vibrations of string. Static timeless strings do not vibrate.
No I'm not actually. I meant technical observation. What, do you mean that conscious mind is the only fool who has the illusion of time and existence?
I think it was good example, and is quite well on subject, as this is often thought about and serious idea. I just tend to argue about it.
well, I wanted to point that 'just change' is not correct definition of time, since change isn't involved in all forms of it.
Come on, you add fundamental time on every corner. Instant change + finite static time is equivalent to zero static time + finite change time. The only way to throw out time is to say that both, change instant and static state occur in zero time, which is essentially static 4D view.
inertial frames. all laws are same in any inertial frame. If we still can have time difference in those frames, there is no explanation to timeflow as just matter of change.
We talked about wasteful usage of geometry. I think you can't build cube from infinite amount of zero-thickness plates.
I think you can. I think you can even go as far as to create space or loops from that alone. Its a matter of what you postulate. Postulate units of existence that have arbitrary finite time of dormant existence in undefined geometry before some interact and exchange their dormant existence duration. Only those that happen to be 'ready to go' in same instant can interact, forming all else as illusions, perceived time included.
Well, I'm not trying to dispute GR, obviously. GR is model that works. Hope that's enough to relax you from trying to defend it. But, it has limits. These limits are at fundamental Planck levels. Something there must pop up that would lead to GR. There are many ways probably. Scientists are 'working on it'. I'm not one, so I'm not making science here, I'm doing thought exercise. If you are scientist and want to bring me down, its obvious that you could, so that's useless as a goal. I'm trying to think below GR. I have no hopes in that I have anything new, no. I just try to ponder from different perspective instead of just stay with one model. It helps to comprehend.
This is okay for model. But I'm not happy with it, and I think they are not fundamental, but 'made of' something. Look, you define 'field lines' - parts, define their properties - geometric extent, and then define their relations. okay. But then, without notice, you go ahead and implicitly define time, hiding behing defining it as 'change' of relations. You define actually your parts to already include concept of time, and then only show that time as we perceive it needs no more independant time concept. Its redundant. Yes, in this way it is redundant, but you close your eyes on fact that you introduced time anyway, without actually defining it. You introduced it by defining that properties can change. We use dT and calculate changes, at the same time saying that those changes are reason for dT. Isnt it circular?
GR says you don't need independant time to calculate anything GR has to say. Thats different. GR deals with relativity of time, not its essence. If you like, constancy of c is what defines independant time, in a twisted way.
There is no need to dispute GR to think about something else. I have no idea if something else can lead to coherence as you mean it, but we still want to ponder about it.
Not fix (its complete), but explain why its so. Go beyond initial definitions.
Why? you don't do without it, you can just ignore it. No, I think I can't exhaustively define it. Perhaps only some of its properties. Note that I'm not talking about absolute time reference! I'm talking about distinction between detectable time by means of measuring change, and independant intrinsic time as enabler for change. Neither is absolute nor unchanging.
What you effectively say is that independant time is fundamental property of the field, and that we perceive it is as our counted time through detecting changes in the field. What you don't want to say is that change seems to take nonzero time duration. dT > 0. If it weren't so, then for any event X there could occur infinitely long event chain Y. Whats there to limit the rate difference? Between any 2 points you can fit infinite number of points. To have finite amount of them, they need to have size.
Oh, it does. It allows you to dismantle field lines into points and timeunits. There must be minimum meaningful finite unit of time, as zero time has no sense. Therefore you have (anthropic?) explanation of fact of fundamental Planck unit of time, and you can use it as means to quantify the field into spacetime quantums. Now you have explicit definition of spacetime quantums that seems to have fundamental property of change. Further, you can think of what can change, and ask if the fundamental property of time itself could be the only thing to change. The very property that gives meaning to quantified extent, velocity and change.
Thats very interesting. Can you expand? I thought entropy and lowest-energy direction are objective evidence of time.
Its not a matter of direct evidence, our only means to measure time is by counting events.
Because rates of change can differ by finite factor? Heat doesn't change timeflow?
Duration for which state doesn't change. Thats not something you can detect, but you can have evidence of it indirectly. Quantum fluctuations of vacuum do not occur at infinite rate, thus vacuum has static states for nonzero duration.
Infinite times zero is zero. I mean, in reality, there must be finite fundamental size to be possible to create cube.
Time is too weird to be defined easily. Maybe that's why we try to get away without it. Time can't come alone, it'd lead to other concepts. We could try to define it if you could let GR be for awhile.
Thats one result of defining time as change alone. Obviously, there is no measure of time without change, thus no length to talk about. This doesn't mean zero time though. I think math term infinity fits here well. Pathetically low limits of values.
It occurred to me, that when speaking of space, we first define 3D infinite continuum of axes, and then define measures of distance along them. Then we deal with set of relations between those measures of distance, that are necessarily finite (>0). But with time, we deal only with relations of measures, without speaking about what we really measure. But somehow, we DO measure something finite. Because we can compare it.
Look, loops or lines do not need time for definition, IF they do not posess property of "change". Time as concept behind change is what makes them applicable to real world. In any formula, you introduce time when you use "for n=1..X evaluate F(n)"
We say dX/dT=1. When asked, what is T, we answer, it is change dT=dX. When asked how fast X changes, we say at rate of dX/dT. When asked what is X, we easily say its distance, energy, etc. When asked what is T, we don't have answer, only fud. We measure rate of change dX in terms of dX. Its always 1, ie cannot change.
Yes, and that's precisely why I wanted to leave GR alone for awhile. GR does not answer why c is finite and constant. It only postulates it and then uses as a glue to fit all timeless geometry together.
I know. I'm not about divisibility. With continuous space, you don't attribute meaning of distance to 0. You can have meaningful distance only if it is above zero. And when it is above zero, you can always divide it into smaller pieces infintely. And I'm about precisely that. I don't care how divisible time is, but only about the fact that to be divisible there has to be something nonzero first. If you want to tell me that uniform continuous change in anything is measure of time, then you have to admit that variations of change rate are basically variations of timerate and any sinusoidal vibration is variation of time. Then ask what is justification to use uniform timeflow to measure varying changes? Then all changes must be uniform and equal.
Yes, that's exactly the direction I had in mind! But, I have to makes few corrections. It is true that it makes no sense to ask for the value of the duration of primordial time unit. It is irrelevant. We are beings dependant on it and can only measure relative durations of events. For that we need the primordial unit to be whatever but it must be finite. Only then can we compare relative rates of otherwise in all sense identical chains of events. Only then can different by a finite measure relative timeflow rates exist.
Eh, we still can't get on the same page here.
Of course, I haven't even tried. Whats the point in trying to define it if you don't even agree that there is merit in that. You CAN do without it as is obvious from our successes, but it gives birth to MANY mysterious properties instead of just few when dig into fundamentals. Things don't fit together easily.
There is no 'our reference frame' without separate time. Every single fundamental event is separate frame. How can we compare anything at all if we don't have a 'glue', ground for finite ratios for difference of duration?
Consider segment: -- when you take any segment of line, you can always divide it into 2 equal segments. You get 1 point that separates the segments. You can continue that infinitely. But always you will have 1 segment more than there are points. You take position that there are infinite amount of points and that therefore line consists of points, but that is misleading. Line consists of infinite amount of finite segments that are separated by imaginary points of coordinates. When you collapse segments to 0 length, you loose line and segments, and all that's left is single unique point. There is no way how you could get (in)finite amount of points between coordinates 0 and 0. Yet you can safely say that there are infinite amount of points and segments in a line or segment. Because in coordinate centric geometry you care about points, that becomes definition of line, ignoring segments as secondary.
Whatever. It (minimum time duration) just can't be zero.
Fundamental means undivisible into components with new properties. It doesn't mean constant. By your view field lines can't be fundamental, geometry can't be fundamental if can be curved. You talk about fundamental Constant, not fundamental unit of existence.
Take away energy, and universe will be gone with it. What kind of argument is this? Of course space is crucial component of existence.
My experience shows that compressed writing leads to deep misunderstandings. You discarding my effort makes me afraid you want to turn this into closedminded discussion.
disagree, for sake of this thread. Its conventional assumption and I'm not trying to be a crackpot, but I'm bringing it up to think about it.
It depends. Your question is leading. Seems you are not willing to look at it from other perspective.
I understand what you mean, and here lies one confusing difficulty with time. When you say you can have timeless universe, you actually won't have our universe. It can be vast, but it'll be static, no dynamics at all. Its not what we have. To have honest comparison, you'd have to allow for spaceless universe where time exists - it could be unstructured, void, but it is not logically inconsistent. It'd be just not our universe, equally. Our universe requires both.
ok. When I say "more fundamental", I don't mean like you that we can have universe after we remove one. Its more like I can recreate it again..
Whats the problem? Assume time had beginning. Then it must have started acausally. Event. It could as well disappear acausally, another event. Duration of existence inbetween - time. If it had appeared and disappeared without finite existence period or out of order, it would invalidate logic. 0D Universe that exists for duration of single primordial unit of time.
Inertia has you :) You still stick to assumption that events is all there is to time.