AlphaFraktaL

Entropy is probability, and so seems to be a too unsatisfactory definition of time. It should have no effect in defining time since there is no distinct idea of what universal entropy is.

Also: How do you know that given a million years to run, the particles of a room may not at some instant reform themselves into an ordered pattern? It's easy to form simple simulations that can do this spontaneously! Moreso, wouldn't it possible there is an ordered pattern the universe works in, making entropy globally invariant?

The idea that more entropy => more time is in my mind sort of bunk. The difference between identity and probability is too much for me.

tronvillain

I have always argued that there is no problem with an infinite regress, as long as we are willing to abandon the idea of the present as a point moving forwards in time.

Now, this argument seems to be pointing out that in relativity you can start with two objects at a given point in space-time, seperate them, and bring them back together at another given point in space-time, but have it take less time for one to get there than the other. Does this imply that there is some sort of "absolute time"? I don't see that it does.

Liquidrage

A few points.

Entropy is not probability. It is "the measure of a system's energy that is unavailable for work, or of the degree of a system's disorder"

Now, under QM, all the particles in the universe are effected by all other particles.
It wouldn't matter that entropy decreases in a small localized section. What matters is the overall amount of disorder. If it is increasing then all particles need to account for the possiblities of all other particles. If the overall disorder increases, the amount of possibilites increase.

crocodile deathroll

I am of the view time exists in whole numbers of Planck time units of 10^-42 of a second like little atoms of time then there would be a finite number and not infinite number of events from time zero at the Big Bang event a human observer. These little Planck time increments give some to build time up on so will not stay floundering back a time zero because a infinite number of zeros would still add up to zero no matter how much time is added, but these Planck time increments to give the universe 4 dimensional structure and every object within every event are all equally real if it is at all possible for them to exist.

I rather like the Hugh Everett's many worlds interpretation (MWI) that was first put forward in 1957. Kind of a bit like Murphy's law who states if it can go wrong it will go wrong, the MWI seems to put a much more optimistic light on it to state if it can also not only go wrong but it can go right then it will go right if not in the world, then one of the plethora other possible worlds. If it is even possible to happen at all than it will happen....... somwhere This idea seamed to be put on the back burner for a very long time but was more recently reinvigorated since the early 1980s by Andre Linde's and Alan Guth's inflationary theory. I feel not only all these possible events exist but the events of our subjective past have just as must a valid existence as the event of our subjective present.

You notice I said a "subjective past" and a "subjective present" and not just simply the past and the future which erroneously implies they are an absolute quality of the universe, because I think the idea the the division of time into a past present and future for the entire universe is just a stubborn illusion imposed on us by the events in our physical brains and it really more true to state that any given event including the one in which you are look at your computer screen right in your subjective "now" is a event that is no more real then the event of a Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur stalking its prey. There is not privileged present moment for the universe as a whole, just millions of idiosyncratic pasts presents and futures with in events in themselves . This present moment for you relies entirely on the physical condition of you healthy brain - your episodic memories - which gives you sense of time and place. When you die you will loose all this and forget you have been born at all in the first place. So with all your life's memories obliterated than how can you know that you have had some experience of life?, you may as well of never been born I can make no distinction. I would be analogous the reading a very interesting book then just before you get the end you slam it shut and forget that you have ever started to read it all. So you might just as well start reading that very interesting book all over again and find it just as interesting for ever more without every reaching the end.

The only way I feel time can be examined is through the subjective experience of it because there was 14 billions years of time from the Big Bang to the event you were born and did that feel like 14 billion years to you? I doubt it. If you were born a thousand years earlier when the Normans invaded England then I believe you will exist in that time frame in what many philosophers call block time events within their own space and time and not a universe with single time continuum. Many people's intuitions tell them that the now or the present is the universe with single time continuum but I am of the view the universe has many time continuums as there are all the some total of all the events that can possibly happen. All these events contain in themselves their own little idiosyncratic past present and future.

CD

Mr. Sammi

Jenn : Therefore the past, present and future are also perceptions.Which are we living in?

The past exists in our memories. Humans experience NOWtime. We encounter the flow of experience which then flows into our memories. The future exists for some, which is the impending scope of possibilities of experience. It does not seem that everyone lives a future life!

There is in my mind a seperation in this flow of experience. There is the internal flow of experience for which I believe, intrinsic time is
responsible. There is also extrinsic time to which we attribute science and the universe. The intrinsic time and extrinsic time I also believe is connected by, or has a commonality with simultaneity...

It seems to me that relativity which can connect two systems, may be ideal in sorting out the times between the internal and external.

The intrinsic time is a measure of personal perception, which may include how fast one can think. I become bored a lot because I can complete so many things in 10 minutes. Extrinsic time seems to be an invariant - the same for all. This way we can meet for coffee.

Sammi Na Boodie ()

Ierrellus

Hans,

Fantastic thread! I don't know if the following will be pertinent or not, but it's fun.

There is an old story about time machines that goes like this. I get into my time machine and set it for fifteen minutes before I got into it.
Problem: if I arrive back at fifteen minutes before I started, there are two of me trying to fill the same space at the same time.

Science fiction writer, Stanislaw Lem had a lot of fun with that concept. (STAR DIARIES). The hero has a defect in his space ship and goes back in time to get his previous self to help repair the ship. The Calvin and Hobbes book, SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS GOES BOINK, applies the same concept.

Apparently, time is only a forward motion, whether it is clock time or experential time.

Ierrellus


[ June 10, 2002: Message edited by: Ierrellus ]</p>

Hans

Thanks. I don't understand eveything that has been posted here. But I try.

Mr. Sammi

With all the talk about zero time, here, there and everywhere, I thought I would take the time to try to clarify what no time entails.

No time is a misnomer for ordinary people. Most people cannot understand what exhibiting no time means. When scientists use the term time, they mean extrinsic time through the availability of the outside world.

Simultaneity which exists in the world outside is based on relations of experience/existence in this outside world. Being simultaneous is natural to the world but difficult for humans to simulate.

In a local-universe, some elements of experience can be qualified as constrainable, hence its name, localized universe. A local-universe mostly exhibits simultaneous behaviour in the sense of it being extrinsic to us humans. The scope of simultaneity within a local-universe tells us which events happen at the same time.

Light is simultaneous over a small area of space because in the instant of propogation the whole area is filled with light simultaneously. Outside this proper area it takes some time for the light to propogate. In a relative sense the same thing happens with sound.

Particles can only exhibit no time passed when they are bounded by their scope of simultaneity within the universe in which the particle is bounded. The implication is the particle can appear within the local universe SIMULTANEOUSLY, or appear at any time without entrophy within ITS FIELD.

Sammi Na Boodie ()

ps. I am not the greatest in physics, but I am not clued out.

[ June 17, 2002: Message edited by: Sammi ]

[ June 17, 2002: Message edited by: Sammi ]</p>

Mr. Sammi

Is anyone here with me on this?

Should we continue?

Is time independent of entrophy?

It may not be time which is the factor, but the interplay of mass & energy which qualifies entrophy within a system. EXTRINSIC TIME.

The intrinsic time within materials may help decide when the material is no longer viable as the material per se. Enter entrophy and the material degrades.

Sammi Na Boodie ()

Theli

I think there are some problems with infinite regress.
As events are product of- or influenced by prior events, infinite regress doesn't allow a source.
If there is no source that would govern events happening now, then how can those events be specific?

If there was no past-present-future at a certain point in space, the effect could proceed the cause, and thereby influencing the cause, wich is illogical.

[ June 18, 2002: Message edited by: Deggial ]</p>