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Burning Braineye shifter
321 posts
Location: between my headphones


Posted:
Is time linear? If it is then couldn't you view the universe as 2 demensional. the first being the physical and the second being time. And if time is linear then what does that mean for free will. Or is it the other way around?

If I could be granted one wish I would ask for all the questions of the universe.


pkBRONZE Member
Lambretta Fanatic
4,997 posts
Location: United Kingdom


Posted:
*keeps out of this one, my head hurts*

vanizeSILVER Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,899 posts
Location: Austin, Texas, USA


Posted:
Written by: spiralx



But it seems to me a bit of a leap to claim that this fact means that the value of the measurement you have taken is invalidated by that fact. Just because you can't know the system's current state at a given time doesn't make the fact that you measured it to be X at time T any less true...






no, it does not invalidate the measurement, but with increasing time that measurement has less and less significance on the way things are now or how they got to be this way.



just as the effects of something done now lead to a wider and wider array of possible things in the future and have a smaller and smaller probable influence on future events, events in the past have a smaller and smaller probable influence on the now and there is an increasing array of possible ways to get from said event to now.



a measurement from the past is not invalidated, just as a video tape still shows what happened when it was recorded. But ok, that happened - so what? it has increasingly less and less to do with anything happening now the further it gets into the past, and interpretations of the measurement or the video become increasingly conjectural. On the time scale of a thousand years, precise measurements virtually become hogwash. Human memory can't be relied on for accuracy for more than a few hours in most cases. Video tapes do not tell a complete story ever.



As far as I can see, the past is no more concrete than our interpretation of it. Thanks to entropy or whatever we can have a little more knowledge looking backward on the timeline than forward, but really all that statement does is makes me wonder if time has anything to do with anything besides entropy... Hmmm... I'm going to have to go think about that now.



Let me thro this out there for the likes of Coleman ond SpiralX and anyone else who wants to have a go at it (I only just now thought about it, so I haven't had much of a chance to shoot holes in it, so shoot away):



we measure time using regular entropic processes (earth going around sun, atomic decay, mechanical mechanisms winding down). Time seems to pass faster when more is going on around us (hence the entropy of our local system is greater) than when nothing is happening and we are bored (lower observable entropy). So then, is our tool "time perception" actually akin to a subconcious rationalization of entropy? If so, what does entroy than have to do with higher dimentionality, since time also seems to be linked to this?

-v-

Wiederstand ist Zwecklos!


_Clare_BRONZE Member
Still wiggling
5,967 posts
Location: Belfast, Northern Ireland (UK)


Posted:
"So then, is our tool "time perception" actually akin to a subconcious rationalization of entropy?"

Yes.

"If so, what does entroy than have to do with higher dimentionality, since time also seems to be linked to this?"

Don't understand biggrin

Getting to the other side smile


vanizeSILVER Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,899 posts
Location: Austin, Texas, USA


Posted:
Written by: Firepoise


"If so, what does entroy than have to do with higher dimentionality, since time also seems to be linked to this?"

Don't understand biggrin




Me neither.... yet. wink

-v-

Wiederstand ist Zwecklos!


spiralxveteran
1,376 posts
Location: London, UK


Posted:
Written by: BrandyH


I'm saying that "time" is a label that we have created in order for us to help keep some order to our little lives. I'm saying that before someone was able to "perceive" time, then no....it did not "exist". Maybe things are happening all at once now....but we have conditioned ourselves to only concentrate on the small blip of reality that we call "our time", and have ultimately trained ourselves to grab onto events only to try and prove to ourselves that we are really here right now. We make ourselves comfortable by trying to name the nameless and stopping the unstoppable. Time is a little thing that has been developed to try and make order out of chaos.

Much Love....so what is the third thing???? After dumb and lazy, that is? biggrin



So then... why can we measure the age of things to be older than humans were ever around? Radio carbon dating on rocks shows them to be billions of years old, older than perhaps life itself. If time is just perception why is it the case that there are all these things which seem to be all different ages? It's a bit like the question "if god created the world 4000 years ago why are there fossils?" to me...

"Moo," said the happy cow.


spiralxveteran
1,376 posts
Location: London, UK


Posted:
Written by: vanize

just as the effects of something done now lead to a wider and wider array of possible things in the future and have a smaller and smaller probable influence on future events, events in the past have a smaller and smaller probable influence on the now and there is an increasing array of possible ways to get from said event to now.

a measurement from the past is not invalidated, just as a video tape still shows what happened when it was recorded. But ok, that happened - so what? it has increasingly less and less to do with anything happening now the further it gets into the past, and interpretations of the measurement or the video become increasingly conjectural. On the time scale of a thousand years, precise measurements virtually become hogwash. Human memory can't be relied on for accuracy for more than a few hours in most cases. Video tapes do not tell a complete story ever.



Ok, but that's not a fundamental point, you're saying that there still is a concrete past. And while our knowledge of it is lacking and fades with time that isn't to say it doesn't affect us - the stars we see are millions of years old, and anyone looking at the night sky is certainly being affected by the past!

Written by: vanize

we measure time using regular entropic processes (earth going around sun, atomic decay, mechanical mechanisms winding down).



That's not saying much - every process is entropic smile

Written by: vanize

Time seems to pass faster when more is going on around us (hence the entropy of our local system is greater) than when nothing is happening and we are bored (lower observable entropy). So then, is our tool "time perception" actually akin to a subconcious rationalization of entropy? If so, what does entroy than have to do with higher dimentionality, since time also seems to be linked to this?



More going on around out does not correspond to a greater entropy - a greater rate of increase perhaps, but that doesn't say anything about the actual level. And time perception is more related to psychological factors than physical ones.

"Moo," said the happy cow.


mo-sephenthusiast
523 posts
Location: Edinburgh, UK


Posted:
Written by: spiralx


More going on around out does not correspond to a greater entropy - a greater rate of increase perhaps, but that doesn't say anything about the actual level. And time perception is more related to psychological factors than physical ones.




It does in the Shannon/Information Theory sense of entropy, i.e. there is a higher entropy in the signals reaching our brain than normal. Which is admittedly not really a physically measurable quantity.

I agree with Vanize that there's a relation between entropy in this sense and time perception.

Suprised noone has posted the definitive guide to four dimensional time: www.timecube.com biggrin

monkeys ate my brain


MiGGOLD Member
Self-Flagellation Expert
3,414 posts
Location: Bogged at CG, Australia


Posted:
our uni magazzine was called entropy smile



and how can there be a definitive guide on something nobody is sure exists? would be like me posting a 'definitive guide to making a cold fusion reactor using toothpicks and a tennis racket'. or 'the only true and/or correct guide to making lots of money by sleeping all day'. neither of which exist that we know of.



and please, can i not have one of the really bored people out there dig up a googl image of some yob thats built a fusion reactor out of toothpicks?
EDITED_BY: MiG (1101994797)

"beg beg grovel beg grovel"
"master"
--FSA

"There was an arse there, i couldn't help myself"
--Rougie


vanizeSILVER Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,899 posts
Location: Austin, Texas, USA


Posted:
Written by: spiralx



Written by: vanize

just as the effects of something done now lead to a wider and wider array of possible things in the future and have a smaller and smaller probable influence on future events, events in the past have a smaller and smaller probable influence on the now and there is an increasing array of possible ways to get from said event to now.



a measurement from the past is not invalidated, just as a video tape still shows what happened when it was recorded. But ok, that happened - so what? it has increasingly less and less to do with anything happening now the further it gets into the past, and interpretations of the measurement or the video become increasingly conjectural. On the time scale of a thousand years, precise measurements virtually become hogwash. Human memory can't be relied on for accuracy for more than a few hours in most cases. Video tapes do not tell a complete story ever.




Ok, but that's not a fundamental point, you're saying that there still is a concrete past. And while our knowledge of it is lacking and fades with time that isn't to say it doesn't affect us - the stars we see are millions of years old, and anyone looking at the night sky is certainly being affected by the past!








no, I'm trying to say exactly that there is not a concrete past. there are concrete things which happened in the past for sure, but the concept of a real and accurately knowable history is complete poppy-cock. History is a fiction created to explain events that happened in the past, and no definite explination can explain the past any better than you can explain the future, but the perception that certain things happened in the past lends itself to the illusion that you can do this history thing accurately when you really can't.



Say I have an argument about what happened at a party with my girlfriend. we both saw the same events but had different interpretations. later we don't remember so well, but still have some pictures around to bring a version of clarity to certain events in certain ways. later still, we may not even agree on who took the picture or why. suddenly my girlfriend starts arguing something that I do not recall happening at all, and she doesn't agree with my much of my version of events either. who is right? which one remembered things correctly? my answer is neither and both. both versions are about equally probably of having happened given that they are consistant with key verifiable evidence such as the photo.



You want to talk about a history where all we are concerned about is the earth orbiting the sun or some such thing - sure, that's been going on for a long time - at least in our current view. still, that could have come to be in many different ways. which one is correct? dunno, but there is a virtual probability function somewhere waiting to be collapsed given we make the right kind of observation. the way we choose to conduct an experiment will affect the outcome though. and if we forget the answer and let the probability function relax again, then choose another way to find out, then another answer is entirely possible.



but I'm just rehashing stuff I said in the other thread I mentioned earlier. but basically the universe is not a record keeper, and if we turn our back on it, it is more than happy to forget about everything we let it forget about. we are beginning to figure out the orgin of the universe itself, but many people in the field will admit that if we hadn't been specifiaclly looking for, say a Higgs bozon, we may never have found it and instead found something else that neccisarily excludes the existance of a higgs bozon. and what if we run into another civilization that has done just that - how do we reconcile the fact that we found it and they found an alternative? the universe has an easy solution for that - it is called a probability function! And so the universe will find a way to reconcile the paradox - but only if we look hard enough and collapse some other probability function on how both views could be correct. this would then give us addition new physics to learn and exploit in addition to that gained from the other culture as suddenly the universe will have to play a game that allows the rules of both at once instead of having the luxury of keeping them secret from each other and that will have many other consequences.



then both cultures get pissed off at each other and totally anihlate each other with the weapons they make from the new physics, and suddenly the universe can relax again - the probability function of how the universe was created and evolved can relax again and a new culture can evolve somewhere and find yet a 3rd, but just as completely valid explination for it all which depends on the questions they ask and the experiments they conduct.



with all that in mind, I have no hope in beleiving a single true past exists, and therefor am completely helpless in the wake of my girlfriend's unwavering beleif that she did in fact see me flirting with that cute new fire performer from out of town at the party last month.

-v-

Wiederstand ist Zwecklos!


spiralxveteran
1,376 posts
Location: London, UK


Posted:
I don't agree with you at all biggrin I believe that the past actually occurred in a consistent manner, and that our observation or not of it has nothing to do with anything. Which probably comes from the fact that I'm not a big fan of the whole "collapse of the wave function" pseudo-mysticism and anthropo-centrism that the Copenhagen Interpretation brings into QM. I prefer something like the transaction interpretation which avoids any special role for observers...

https://www.npl.washington.edu/npl/int_rep/ti_over/ti_over.html

As an aside have you read much Greg Egan? Both Quarantine and Distress deal very much with the ultimate effects of this sort of stuff... definitely worth a read!

"Moo," said the happy cow.


MiGGOLD Member
Self-Flagellation Expert
3,414 posts
Location: Bogged at CG, Australia


Posted:
i like the idea of 'the observer of time has no influence on the time itself'. which will always have problems with time manipulation.

"beg beg grovel beg grovel"
"master"
--FSA

"There was an arse there, i couldn't help myself"
--Rougie


vanizeSILVER Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,899 posts
Location: Austin, Texas, USA


Posted:
Written by: spiralx


I don't agree with you at all biggrin I believe that the past actually occurred in a consistent manner, and that our observation or not of it has nothing to do with anything. Which probably comes from the fact that I'm not a big fan of the whole "collapse of the wave function" pseudo-mysticism and anthropo-centrism that the Copenhagen Interpretation brings into QM. I prefer something like the transaction interpretation which avoids any special role for observers...

https://www.npl.washington.edu/npl/int_rep/ti_over/ti_over.html

As an aside have you read much Greg Egan? Both Quarantine and Distress deal very much with the ultimate effects of this sort of stuff... definitely worth a read!




ok, I can agree to disagree on that one. I have no faith in the past or history at all, and see it as no more concrete than the future, but it would be pretty chaotic if everyone else beleived that as well, so really it is just as well you aren't on the same page as me.

I'll look into your reading recommendations - thanks! I can always use good suggestions like that.

-v-

Wiederstand ist Zwecklos!


spiralxveteran
1,376 posts
Location: London, UK


Posted:
If you like physical ideas explored to their ultimate conclusions then Greg Egan is definitely your man... smile

"Moo," said the happy cow.


mo-sephenthusiast
523 posts
Location: Edinburgh, UK


Posted:
Yup, Egan is wicked. biggrin

monkeys ate my brain


Tommmember
39 posts
Location: Brighton / Southampton


Posted:
i just wanna blurt a few of my musings on time out before that bong i just hooted kicks in, its probably been said already but i like to get involved (even if i just mke myself look stupid!!)

I think time can be viewed either as a dimension, like another physical reality; a pool which in theory you could swim in all directions through, but the law says that you can only go in a straight line...

Or simply as a word, something with which to describe and measure the process of aging and the changing of the world around us, which would happen the same whether or not we percieved it this way...

On a personal level it is viewed as linear because no-one has, or will ever have exactly the same experiences as me or you; but i wonder if this does not have a lot more to do with the human condition and ego than with physics?

This is all a bit beyond my comprehension but i don't think i'm in the minority there...

On a lighter note i definitely think that time is relative: quite simply because hours will pass while ur happily spinning, but a one hour lecture seems to take all day in comparison!!

weavesmiley

Check t'ya bongall rass klan - Eh!
(chilltheworldout)
Lyreecalbombstylee...


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