Sidian

very interesting from both of u. u hurt my noodle with the apparent paradox. but i think yer both right. yes the earth would continue on it's motion. motion is not something human intelect invented and wouldn't be hindered in our absense. but it would not be as though everything happened at once.

there are regulated sequences happening seperately but intermingling also. the rules we know by various sciences are this government of the sequences. they happen outside of time based on motion and we have (mistakenly?) imposed time on motion to help our prediction and discovery.

Infinity Lover

Isn't it funny how a concept as seemingly simple as time, can lead to such a lengtghy thread, with such clashing views, and elaborations fit to make the average person's head spin.

On a random, though I think hardly off topic note, any attempt we make at 'gaining time', through new technolical devolpments, ultimately leads to us hasting ourselves more and more, because it does, to my perhaps simple uneducated mind, boil down to a matter of movement and rest.

In that sense you could also translate the title of this thread into: what makes us fool ourselves into believing we can beat the clock?

atrahasis

so i have nothing to reply to!!!

crocodile deathroll

wdog

tron,

FYI, there is another form of uncertainty. it comes from nonlinear terms in the diferential equations that describe a lot of phenomena. I believe the correct mathematical term is branch point, the solution gives two or more possible future evolutions, and as someone else pointed out above, it doesn't matter how well you know the initial conditions.

what is the problem with rate of change anyway? as an arbitrary parameterization, rate of change is a meaningless question.

you seem to be saying that causuality is not necessary then, right? I find that a little hard to swallow.

tronvillain

wdog:
Perhaps you could give an example? I suspect that for any example you give, the description of the phenomenon will turn out to only be an approximation. In other words, this "uncertainty" of yours is simply an artifict of the equations, and not a physical reality as quantum phenomena likely are. In any case, it has no bearing on the nature of time.

There is simply no way to describe the universe without using a time dimension. Just try it. Now, the common sense view of time has the present as a unique entity moving from the past to the present, but this leaves us with the rate question: "At what rate is the present moving forward in time?" As far as I can tell, the only viable answer is that the present is not moving fowards in time, and to reject the idea of a unique present altogether. From an individual perspective, these two views of time would be indistinguishable, but one has the virtue of avoiding the rate question.

I have said no such thing. What I have said is that uncertainty - a lack of a complete causal explanation - presents no more difficulty for my view of time than it does for yours. Some facts about the universe will simply be brute facts. If you find that a little hard to swallow, then you find the existence of uncertainty hard to swallow, and should stop bringing it up in arguments for your position.

[ November 17, 2002: Message edited by: tronvillain ]</p>

Starboy

For what it is worth could our perception of time be the direct result of the expansion of the universe? The expansion of space and time are linked to each other. We have a rough concept of what expansion of space would look like. Could it be that expansion of time along with our experience of the three spatial dimensions would result in what we perceive to be the flow of time?

Starboy

Fritz The Kat

There is no reality, there is only perception.

Time is just one perception used to explain one particular reality.

It has been widley speculated that "Time marches on.", but that "time waits for no man".
I've always been told that "There's no time like the present."
Ans whenever I've asked my father for money, he always said, "Time to go."
Douglas Adams once speculated that "Time is an illution. Lunchtime, doubly so." and Tommy Chong said, "I'm not into time, man."

I guess that "Time Is On My Mind".

Gauge Boson

• What we do know:
• There is no such thing as absolute time; it depends on your frame of reference.
• There is no such thing a simutinaity; the same events that are simutaneous is one reference frame are not so in another.
• The idea of time flowing is meaningless. What is is flowing relative to?
• The separation of past, present, and future as we normally think of it is physically meaningless. The category "present" is meaningless (see simultinaity). The distinction between past and future only makes sense in the context of causality.
• The Second Law of Thermodynamics does not cause the (apparent) arrow of time. The laws of physics are time-symmetric, so to argue this requires a hidden assumption of an arrow of time. Hence, it is a circular argument.

• What we don't know:
• Does spacetime exist independent of objects or does it exist independent of 'stuff'? Both hypotheses have several unsolved problems.
• Does time exist at all or not?
• Why do we percieve a constant flux of time?

• Some tantilizing new information:
• The Wheeler-DeWitt Equation, which describes change over time, lacks any time variable. If the process that was used to derive it, cannonical quantization, works for General Relativity, it suggests that time does not exist at all.
• A possible explanation for our perception of the passage of time: information is closely related to entropy and entropy increases with the apparent passing of time. Therefore, we remember the apparent past but not the apparent future. So our perception of the passing of time may be no more than the states of our brains.
• M-theory is apparently moving toward a time-free model. However, it still requires spacial substantivilism (the existence of space independent of 'stuff').

Essentially, physicists and philosophers (you can find plenty of people from each group on both sides) are still debating this one, with no end in sight. I doubt us ameteurs are going to come to a conclusion that still eludes the pros after millenia (centuries for physicists) working on it.

[ November 18, 2002: Message edited by: Gauge Boson ]

[ November 20, 2002: Message edited by: Gauge Boson ]</p>

Mr. Sammi

hi ya all, itz been a long time since I had this iidb window open...

The rate of time... As previously posed is an interesting question. Does this seem to imply how long does it take to move out of the NOW window. What I am saying is how many lowest level (QM) change-sequences are available before any matter recedes into the past which is a non-volatile, inactive expression of previous change - a memory.

Would this be the base rate of time? Then this base rate would be the fastest rate at which change can occur at any level and it SHOULD TELL the physical story of the phenomena of TIME.


Sammi Na Boodie ()