Spacetime?
If time is just the measurement of change, and not some kind of 'thing' that literally exists, or that 'flows' or has an arrow or what have you.... would it still make sense in Einsteins special relativity?
And would there still be a need to fuse it together with space into spacetime to make the theory fit?
In special relativity high speed and mass influences time.
The theory was tested with atomic clocks. These clocks are basicly counting the intervals of particles jumping back and forth. The interpretation of this experiment in einsteins theory is, i think, that time moves faster or slower with speed, and 'therefor' naturally the clock was lagging behind at higher speeds.
If time is a measurement of change, in special relativity this then would mean that high speed and mass influence the rate of change. Time then would 'pass' slower because at higher speed the particles in the clock jump back and forth slower, and not the other way arround.
And would there still be a need to fuse it together with space into spacetime to make the theory fit?
In special relativity high speed and mass influences time.
The theory was tested with atomic clocks. These clocks are basicly counting the intervals of particles jumping back and forth. The interpretation of this experiment in einsteins theory is, i think, that time moves faster or slower with speed, and 'therefor' naturally the clock was lagging behind at higher speeds.
If time is a measurement of change, in special relativity this then would mean that high speed and mass influence the rate of change. Time then would 'pass' slower because at higher speed the particles in the clock jump back and forth slower, and not the other way arround.
Comments (69)
Are you looking for something more stable to measure with? Or, are you asking whether or not time is a valid measurement of change because time itself changes? If the latter, I think that's a good question. What is ultimately doing the measuring if time is changing, too? What is the standard? It seems there would need to be another reference point.
I want to figure out if the hypothesis that time is just the measurement of change is compatible with current science, and special relativity in particular.
What i mean with 'time is just the measurement of change', is that time does not literally exist. We do not see time, we see things changing, and at some point invented units to keep track of that change for our convenience. Just like we invented units (or a standard) for measuring distances. A mile for instance also doesn't literally exists, it's an abstraction, or a convention if you will, that allowed us to keep track of distances and communicate them better.
Time (a second, an hour, a day etc...) is the standard. It's not that time 'the units' (in this hypothesis) itself changes really, it's that the normally fixed intervals of jumping particles change under different circumstances (high speed and mass). We measure change by fixed (or so we thought) change essentially.
But that's not really a practical problem (it is for satellites apparantly), because we do not normally live in these circumstances. So i'm not looking for a more stable standard. I also don't think there would be one if einstein was right. I'm looking to do away with what might be a mistaken metaphysical notion of time, as a thing... and am wondering if that notion isn't the cause of some of the weird implication drawn from the theories of physics. Like Spacetime, and the block universe etc...
I am not sure I understand what tension you see here. So there are "things" that "literally exist" - what are those things? Tangible things that you see, touch, smell? And then anything that does not "literally exist" - it does not make sense at all? So relations, for example, do not make sense? But how do we make sense of the world without relations?
Quoting ChatteringMonkey
What would "time as a thing" or conversely "time as not a thing" imply metaphysically or otherwise? What difference would drawing such a distinction make to anything?
We all understand that time is not a thing in the same way that cat or a mat are things, for example. But... what of it?
What is the difference you ask? The idea of timetravel for instance is nonsensical if time is not real. We maybe don't believe it can be done practically, but we sure theorise about the possibility... Or the block-universe is another one, i just don't see how you get to the belief that all 'points in time' exist simultanuously without a notion of time as something real.
Anyway, i'm not a physicist, and it may very well be that i'm mistaken about how they view time, in fact I think it's very unlikely that I somehow have a better idea than all these smart people, that's why i'm asking.
Well, anything we contemplate becomes an abstraction in our mind. This goes for "things" as well as not-"things".
Quoting ChatteringMonkey
Why not? We travel forward in time, obviously, and that makes perfect sense. We also can orient and move in space in any directions, and space is just as "abstract" as time, isn't it? The question of why we cannot (easily) travel backwards in time both makes sense to ask and not trivial to answer.
With that being said, we measure time using clocks that are based on cycles, which is not how time moves. Clocks behave more like the nature of energy, instead of the observed nature of time. Energy is a wave that moves in cycles. Time is mono-directional, which is not how the clock behaves.
If we used a standard clock to measure time, the clock repeats 12 o'clock noon, each day. Time on the other hand, never returns to any original point, as do clocks. Measuring time with cyclic clocks is like measuring magnetic north with a thermometer. It requires an elaborate conceptual schema that does not always make sense due to the conceptual disconnect.
A known physical parameter that parallels the nature of time, better than energy, is entropy. The entropy of the universe has to increase. Entropy moves in the same way as time; one direction. A much better way to measure time would be an entropy clock. This is analogous to using a compass to measure magnetic north. It is straight forward.
An example of an entropy clock would be a dead fish clock. We place a fresh dead fish on the counter and when it starts to stink, that will be one unit of time. This is not a reversible clock, since we can't un-stink the dead fish and reuse it the next day in a cycle. Like an interval of universal time, it can only happen once and is done.
What is interesting about this dead fish entropy clock is we can speed up our unit of time; stink interval, by increasing the room temperature. Or we can slow down the uint of time, by cooling the room. With the entropy clock, temperature, which is connected to energy, works like relativity.
Since everyone knows time is mono directional, why did humans decide to measure time using tools that cycle and repeat like energy? It had to do with human productivity and money. If you were a caveman working in the stone wheel factory, the factory owner needs you to replicate your efforts each day; quality control. He does not want you to constantly reinvent and evolve the wheel each day, even if this is how time behaves. Using the cyclic clock to express time is not done for time, but for human needs; artificial and not natural.
Before civilization the caveman took each day as a new happening like the nature of time. Civilization require more budgeting of time so humans begins to notice cyclic patterns in day and night and time of the year, and position of the planets and stars, needed to be more productive. Science inherited this artificial time tradition.
So the spacetime concept (Minkowski spacetime) says that the measurement of time (not time itself) is a measurement of temporal separation just like the measurement of space is a measurement of spatial separation. Under spacetime, time and space are the same thing and can even share units.
The above description is effectively fusing them together. The two are the same thing.
They do not influence time, but mass is a function of speed, and time is a component of a specification of a speed.
Yes, it influences the rate of change, but per what I said above, time is not a rate of change. An object does not have speed or velocity as a property, but only as a relation to an inertial frame. So the same object in its own inertial frame has normal mass and rate of change of any process. The rate of change is not a real property, and so isn't objectively different than the rate of change for an object of different velocity. SR says that given two objects moving at vastly different velocities, there is no local test that would determine that change is taking place faster or slower for one than for the other. This is a consequence of the principle of relativity which goes back to even before Galileo.
Yeah, but things refer to something that exists (that we can percieve), and not-'things' do not. If you don't make a difference between the two, you are probably lost for this world.
Quoting SophistiCat
We do not travel forward in time, in the sense that is meant in timetravel, that is to some arbitrary point in the future.
We see distances in three dimensions, but we do not see time, we see change. It's not just as "abstract".
If we stick to what we see, and see time (an hour, a second,...) only as a measurement of change, travelling through time doesn't make a whole lot of sense because for travelling backwards in time that would entail that the whole universe changing back to some previous state. Travelling forward in time maybe would be somewhat easier to phantom, in that we could theoretical propel a human being to the speed of light or throw him into a black whole, and he would stop changing while the rest keeps changing at the same rate. But that's not really 'timetravel', but rather something like cryogenic sleep.
As for the arrow of time, it is just like the arrow of space: There is indeed a local test that can be made to determine which direction is 'future' from a given point, so an arrow is defined. On any planet, there is an arrow of space for all three dimensions, with a clear direction for 'down' which can be determined with a plumb line, 'north' which can be determined by looking at the way the stuff in the sky rotates, and 'east' which is the remaining dimension. Out in deep space, these methods don't work, so there is no objective direction that is 'up' for instance. Perhaps away from the most influential gravitational force, which might be something like the great attractor if you're not particularly near any specific galaxy. Time would still have an arrow so long as there is work being done where your point of measurement takes place.
Space is real, so time is real, but things don't 'travel' in spacetime. Take just space: A boat is 100 meters long, so does the boat travel for 100 meters? No, the whole thing just exists for 100 meters, and the point at the bow and the point at the stern are considered different points of the same boat. Likewise, I do not travel through time despite the fact that I exist in 2008. That younger-me is considered to be the same 'me' as the 2018 me, any only because of that designation is it said that I travel through time. Nothing actually 'moved' through spacetime to do that. The 2008 version of me cannot be elsewhere than 2008 any more than the bow of the boat can be at the stern (except the Titanic which attempted that feat).
What is real to me is what can be percieved. I can see 'space', or rather i can see distances and objects in three dimensions. I suppose space is real in that sense. The units we use to measure that, or x,y,z axis in geometry are abractions, these are not real. We invented those.
So then why is time real? I have never seen time.
Also is defining the measurement of time as the measurement of temporal separation not merely a tautaulogy? I don't get it.
What I've been discussing is the title of the thread (spacetime), not just space and yes also time, whatever it is, which is a different model.
Yes The units to measure time are similarly abstractions.
You can measure it, so isn't that perception of it? By your definition, it is real then. I cannot make a physical measurement of an abstract circle, so abstract circles are not real in that sense.
Yes, if you define time as temporal separation. That's what it means to be a definition. Different words for the same thing. You don't have to accept the definition. The flowing time model (with 3D space, no spacetime) would probably word the definition differently, but perhaps now.
In Minkowski Spacetime, space and time are the same thing, so seconds can be measured in meters if you choose. Two points in spacetime have a frame-independent separation, meaning the 'interval' between them is not subject to dilation when considered in different reference frames. This is mostly because a point in spacetime has no velocity since it does not move.
For any two points (events) in spacetime, there exists one or more inertial reference frames in which the separation between the two events is either pure spatial (simultaneous) or pure temporal (in the same place). From a given point of view reference event ('you', 'here', 'now'), the events that are perceivable are all of the kind that are pure temporal sort, meaning there exists a reference frame in which the perceived thing is at the same spatial location as the observation point. None of the pure spatially separated events are perceivable.
That means you can only see time, not space. The moon (spatially separated, but now) cannot be seen, only some past state of it when it was right here in that reference frame described above. If what is real is what is perceived, then the spatially distant moon (now, but not here) is not real, but the temporally separated moon (here, but not now) is the thing that is real.
Anyway, I don't buy into the idealistic definition of reality when discussing spacetime. It isn't an idealistic model.
Not an expert here. My understanding is that time does not have to be a "thing" for matter to confirm to the second law of thermodynamics. Time is simply how we frame these changes in entropy. The 2nd law provides the reason a dropped egg will never reform, which is why backwards time travel is sketchy theory. Rate of speed may slow down the entropy of the moving objects, in relation to the slower moving objects, but entropy is always increasing?
It is far easier to understand the mathematics behind it using the B-series (block universe) of time, but that is just an objective reference framework for spacetime, not a metaphysical assertion of what is real, or a scientific view that makes different predictions than does the A-series which has a present to reference.
I say all this because you ask how the physicists use it. Physicists may also each have a metaphysical opinion on the matter, but this opinion is not grounded on empirical falsifiability.
Yes, Minkowski spacetime is a 4-dimensional structure best described by B-series descriptions, and it is really hard to work with relativity if you have to convert to a different model. Everything is confusing and unintuitive in A-series, but is clean and symmetrical in B-series.
Special relativity is a metaphysical theory. It renders an opinion on the reality of simultaneity.
Your "book" contains a very odd definition of metaphysics. Ontology is metaphysics, and ontology concerns what "is". Simultaneous is a statement about what "is". The special theory of relativity makes statements about the nature of simultaneity, therefore it makes statements about what is, and is clearly a metaphysical theory. Whether it "works", or has in your opinion been empirically proven, (as "empirical theory" is self-contradictory, by the way), is irrelevant.
Time does not behave like a wave or anything that cycles. Although ancient religious conventions discusses rebirth after death, which is conceptually similar to an energy/wave clock. After midnight it is morning again. Religion may have started this time convention.
Time behaves more like entropy, which explains the association of time wth change. The entropy of the universe has to increase, it does not have to cycle. We should be measuring time with an entropy clock. I explain one such clock in my previous post. Time creates a series of unique states in the universe that is not a wave. The way you bridge the gap between an energy clock and entropy clock is to add a third axis to the energy clock to make it 3-D.
Picture a helix. In some respects a helix acts as a wave, but since it exists in 3-D, it never repeats itself exactly in 3-D, because it also moves along a z-axis that is not cyclic like x and y. Energy clocks look down the z-axis, so the z-axis is not seen. Instead we appear to see a circle that repeats itself. Time needs both the x,y and Z axis so even things that cycle in the short terms are part of larger term change that does not exactly repeat; unique set of variables for each instant in time.
In the dead fish clock; entropy clock, of my former post, each time interval uses a new dead fish, that starts fresh and ends when it stinks. The series of of such fish is the z-axis, with each fish, part of a common cyclic process, that is unique on the z-axis.
Rebirth symbolism in religions, shows the old man being born again as a new baby. However, the future path of this new baby is not the same as the previous cycle. Instead there is a new path, such as in reincarnation, Karma, heaven or Hell. This is 2-D energy/wave moving along a z-axis, with the z-axis conscious to the ancients. They were correct.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, it is just a way of relating two events. SR only says that the ordering of two non-causally related events is frame dependent. That is not a statement of what is. A statement that '7 is greater than 5' is not a metaphysical assertion despite the presence of the word 'is' in there.
Relativistic mass is connected to an energy balance; relativistic kinetic energy, which tells us that all references are not relative, but rather they are absolute at some level. Unlike space and time, Mass is an invariant.
As an example, say I had two rocket ships in the dead of space with a relative velocity V. If we only take into account space-time; distance and time, there is no preferred reference. The same velocity is seen from either ship. If we add mass, such as one ship has mass M and the other side has mass 2M, the energy balance is not the same in both references, even with the same relative velocity. Reference preference will double or half the total energy. The references are made distinct by their relativistic mass and energy balance due to the impact of a common 2-D relative variable, on two different 1-D invariants.
This can be proven by collisions and how the system responds to the recoil. The 2M ship will always punt the 1M ship if it has the velocity. There will always be an absolute hierarchy in the recoil response. Relative reference is an illusion due to using 2-D SR, instead of 3-D SR.
Time has its own illusion in 2-D, compared to 3-D entropy clocks for time. Statistics tries to address the z-axis, as the changes that occur in real or future time, that did not occur on the last cycle of the 2-D clock. Statistics reflects time moving in the 3-D helix, when z is not seen by the clock.
Exactly. There is a "local" test that can be made to determine which direction the arrow of space-time takes. In other words, it's all relative. I could actually be off-planet and still have the directions of space that you speak of. The directions would be relative to me, instead of the planet, with things above my head being up and below my feet being down. In other words, when talking about perspectives, there seems to be directions flowing away from the present perspective in both space and time. But what is spacetime absent any perspectives? Is spacetime a mental construction of a perspective? Does it really exist outside of our perspectives?
You can only measure space and time by comparing it to other shapes that occupy their own space (a ruler) and change (the rotation of the Earth) respectively. It's all relative and non-existent absent some perspective.
Kinetic energy is definitely not absolute. An object has none in the frame in which it is at rest. Mass is completely frame dependent. Rest-mass is not, but you didn't say that. Spacetime on the other hand is invariant. Any event is the same event in any frame.
Quoting wellwisherThis cannot be. If rocket R1 has a velocity V relative to R2, then R2 has velocity -V (not V) relative to R1. Each ship does not observe the same velocity when measuring the other.
All this is ambiguous. Are you saying that one ship has twice the rest-mass of the other? No speed has been specified. For all I know, these ships are moving apart at a walking pace. So I cannot parse your example.
Seems to be some asymmetrical claim concerning momentum and such, but again I cannot parse what exactly you imagine going on. I imagine two billiard balls (with masses 1 and 2) in a collision, doing Newtonian sort of inertial momentum exchange without loss from friction, but perhaps at (unspecified) relativistic speeds. Yes, SR would be wrong if total energy or momentum was different before than after the collision.
Fixed light speed is a local thing, and SR is a local theory and doesn't really apply to reality. Light very much does move at greater or less than c if not local, and that would not be true if spacetime was only a relation. So my feel for what it is needs an update.
Abstractions are obstreperous to delineate. They are products of information assigned by human schematics, but what do they actually entail beyond our phanerons?
I have often been preoccupied by the fanciful notion of a plane or volume of time. While I think it impossible to comprehend such an abstraction, it provides an abundant fecundity for fiction.
Right, and that's clearly a metaphysical statement, just like the opposing claim that there is an absolute ordering of events is a metaphysical statement. Whether the ordering of events is frame dependent or not, is an issue concerning the nature of being, existence, and is therefore an ontological question, thus metaphysical
If these two (physical and metaphysical time) are the same thing and the theory of relativity is really a metaphysical statement as you say, then the theory of relativity (a century old empirical theory that is empirically put to the test every second of every day) is in conflict with your presentist metaphysical stance (a model that I claim makes no empirical predictions). One of them is wrong.
Fortunately, the theory of relativity makes no metaphysical claims, and your presentism is safe.
Your distinction between "physical time" and "metaphysical time", upon which you base your claim that special relativity makes no metaphysical claims, is nonsense. The thing measured, "time" is the very same whether you're a physicist or a metaphysician.
I didn't think it did, but you seem to insist.
I don't know what you're talking about. All I have said is that special relativity is metaphysical. If this is my "metaphysical view of time", then perhaps my interpretation of the special theory of relativity is in direct conflict with your interpretation. But that's the thing with metaphysical theories, the same metaphysical theory is open to different interpretations.
Quoting noAxioms
My theory that special relativity is metaphysical entails which empirical predictions that have been falsified?
On a certain view of time, the present is all that exists. Time is simply the world undergoing change. As such, it would be impossible to construct a wormhole or whatever to jump to a previous or future point in time, since neither exists. I believe this is a version of the A-series notion of time, or presentism. I don't know how that's made consistent with Relativity, but I guess some of the concepts of spacetime in GR are rejected (replaced by presentist concepts), although not the experimental results.
HG Wells The Time Machine could not be written under a presentist view of time. A machine can't be traveling from the future to kill Sarah Conner or her son, and there is no parallel timeline/universe for Donnie Darko to save his family from the end of the world (or whatever he was doing).
It's easy to make it consistent with relativity theory, though it has its costs. One could simply define a foliation of spacetime as being the preferred one, or argue that one of the many foliations out there is the objective one. Empirically the worldview would be equivalent to both SR and GR so it would be like an alternative interpretation ala the interpretations of QM. The problem? There are too many foliations to choose from and we have no way of determining which one is correct without arbitrarily saying so, but this is not an insurmountable problem if one's motivations are strong enough. However, speaking of time travel, such a move would certainly not work if we are talking about spacetimes with time travel, like in Godelian Spacetimes with closed-timelike curves.
Quoting Marchesk
Haven't read the Time Machine, but I do believe that there can be some forms of time travel that are consistent with presentism. If we were to take time travel as a process of reversing the universe's history while the time traveller stays within a bubble for instance, in a manner similar to rewinding a cassette tape, then everything stays within a single 3D universe and we can visit 1850 and kill our ancestors without problem.
I guess, if there was a mechanism for rewinding* the universe. One could be invented for a story. Surely there must be some stories out there with this. I can only recall stories about visiting existent future or past points in time, or parallel timelines. The ones involving the same timeline often allow changes from the past to ripple forward to the present (or future) somehow. Star Trek time travel was portrayed that way.
* Actually, Thanos and Dr. Strange did the rewinding events thing in the Marvel movies. It was on a local scale, though. But that would support presentism in those stories, except I think the comics have the other forms of time travel as well.
Anyway, the point of these time travel stories is that we can make a meaningful distinction between the different notions of time, and if physics/technology allowed us to, we could time travel in a similar fashion, depending on which view of time is true.
As you don't seem to understand, let me explain why the special theory of relativity is metaphysical. Einstein took the existing theory of relativity, which was a metaphysical theory concerning motions, and adapted it to be applicable to the motion of light. The classical theory of relativity stated that all motions are relative, and this is a metaphysical principle which denies the possibility of absolute rest. In Einstein's day, there was a problem in applying this principle to the motion of light. Classical relativity theory did not appear to hold in relation to the motion of light. According to classical relativity theory, the speed of light relative to various objects moving in relation to each other would have to be variable according to the various different motions of the objects. So, Einstein proposed that the classical theory of relativity be adapted such that the speed of light be understood as constant relative to the various moving objects. This is "the special theory of relativity".
So, the classical theory of relativity, which was a metaphysical theory excluding the possibility of absolute rest, was seen to be incompatible with the motion of light. Instead of rejecting relativity as wrong, which is what the observations of the relations between the motions of light, and physical bodies did, it proved classical relativity to be wrong, Einstein proposed adapting relativity theory to allow that the speed of light remains constant relative to moving bodies. Prior to classical relativity, absolute rest, was the metaphysical principle employed. Classical relativity was proven wrong by the motion of light. Instead of returning to absolute rest as the metaphysical principle, it was replaced with the speed of light, as the assumed constant. Since these are each different fundamental ontological assumptions, absolute rest, and the constancy of the speed of light, which are taken for granted, depending on which one assumes, each is a metaphysical principle.
I think I object to 'be understood as'. SR was born of empirical evidence of constant local speed measurement, not an adjustment of understanding about it. The theory was a reaction to that evidence that did not fit current models. All of SR follows from constant light speed.
The principle says the laws are the same in any frame, and thus no test can be devised to determine absolute rest. It never asserted the impossibility of it. There are always exceptions. Speed of sound in a particular medium is relativistic, but only locally. I can talk to the person ahead of me in a supersonic jet, but I cannot hear the aircraft behind us. Sound has a medium, and light was initially supposed to have one. SR threw that out, and GR sort of brought it back.
Well, relative to stationary bodies. Light does not travel at c relative to a body that is moving in a given frame.
I disagree that there is any ontology asserted one way or another by any theories. Constant light speed is an observation, not an assumption, and GR shows that speed of something is undefined if not local, so light has speed different than c when not local, and depending on how speed is defined. Those definitions might indeed be metaphysics, but GR doesn't depend on them.
You asserted that metaphysical time is the same as physical time. The latter is that which is measured by clocks, but since clocks in relative motion do not measure the same value, they are not measuring metaphysical time (the actual age of the universe, a concept denied by spacetime metaphysical model). There is no device that can measure that. Best one can do is assume an objective foliation as perhaps suggested by GR and use that, but one still cannot express the unitless rate of it. If the universe suddenly aged at half the pace it did before, nothing physical could detect that change. That's why metaphysical time and physical time are not the same.
It is exactly this "constant local speed measurement" which makes SR a ,metaphysical assumption rather than empirically proven. It has only been empirically proven In "local speed" which is a very small portion of all possible speeds, yet it is claimed as a constant for all speeds.
Quoting noAxioms
The human capacity for observations of this is very limited. A large percentage of the various existing situations are not directly observable by a human being, and that light speed remains constant in these situations, is an assumption which is not empirically proven.
Quoting noAxioms
I don't see how you draw this conclusion. The "actual age of the universe" does not equate to "metaphysical time". Metaphysical time is the passing of time as we experience it, and this is what clocks measure. If clocks in relative motion do not measure time in the same way, then I suggest that people in relative motion do not experience time in the same way. So there is no difference between metaphysical time and physical time. The claimed "actual age of the universe" is calculated from principles and models. If the models are wrong, then so is the "actual age of the universe".
Quoting noAxioms
This is meaningless nonsense. The "aging of the universe", as I described, is calculated from principles and models. It's nonsense to suggest that the universe could age at a pace different than that represented by the models, unless you are proposing that the models are wrong. Then it's not the case that nothing physical could represent that change, it is simply the case that the models don't properly represent that change. This is not due to the change itself being undetectable, it is due to a lacking in the capacities of the human beings, to understand and model the physical universe.
Relativistic mass is rarely discussed in the same breath as space-time, even though it is 1/3 of Special Relativity. The result is a 2-D illusion called relative reference and/or no preferred reference.
The way to demonstrate this is to have two references, each with a different mass; M and 2M, with a relative velocity V. If reference was relative and neither reference is preferred, and each references assumes the other has all the motion, than each will predict a different total system kinetic energy; 1/2MV2, and a different system momentum MV. One reference will be twice the energy of the other. Both cannot be true at the same time and maintain energy conservation. One of the relative references is creating or taking away energy.
The twin paradox tries to disguise this by using twins. Twins have the same mass, therefore kinetic energy and momentum will be the same for both references. This is how the system was gamed. If you use different masses, the energy conservation problem appears when you assume relative references and no preferred reference.
We can easily measure energy and we can see red/blue shifts in energy with standard tools. However, we can't measure mass or relativistic mass, directly. We have to infer rest mass from changes in energy; GR, with energy a relationship in distance and time, but not in mass.
Consider the classic example of someone on a train looking out the window at someone standing at the train station. They see each other moving with a relative velocity V. They both see relativistic changes in distance and time. If the mass of the train and the mass of the train station are not the same, and we know how much energy; diesel fuel, was used to achieve this system motion, then you can infer who has to be moving and who has to be stationary. It is no longer relative but an absolute hierarchy appears.
Dark energy and dark matter can be explain as an artifact of the relative reference illusion. If we assume no preferred reference, in a system with different masses in each reference, and if we assume the wrong reference as the baseline for observation, this can add or take away energy from the universe. The violation of energy conservation will eventually appear as anomalies, with something needing to be added to close the energy balance.
A person on a train, looking out the window will appear to see the landscape moving at velocity V, If they assume they are stationary; train is stopped. It looks this way to the eyes but they just added energy to the universe, since the landscape what more mass. However, other observations will not support this, so they may need to add invisible negative energy to close the energy balance. Using 2 out 3 variables in SR is metaphysics.
Interesting thought.
What does it mean actually, to travel backwards in time?
I think our sense of time is stuck to space, as we commonly understand it.
Our conception of time standing still or stopping is when all physical change ceases - like when we pause a movie. Am I wrong?
If I'm correct then traveling backwards in time would mean to revert all phsyical change to a state that once occured.
If so, then I can easily travel backwards in time. Take a room as an example. On Sunday all objects in it are at a particular position. As the days pass the objects get moved to different locations and we ''move'' through time. On Saturday I put all objects back to their original positions, as they were on Sunday. Now, I can't distinguish the room on Sunday from the room on Saturday. For all practical purposes, as far as the room is concerned, Sunday = Saturday. Have I traveled back in time? Or is our notion of time in error?
What do you think?
Your post seems to attempt to throw doubt on SR, like it does indeed threaten your position. Interesting that you feel the need to attack it when you say it is a metaphysical theory.
Again an attack, and dragging 'human' into it. You think light speed is different for humans than for other things?
Thing is, if time did not flow at all, we'd experience it exactly the same way. So what we are experiencing is not the metaphysical flow rate. You experience physical time, the same thing clocks measure. Your interpretation of that as flow is indeed a metaphysical interpretation, but relativity theory renders no opinion on which interpretation is correct. You seem to think otherwise as you seem to feel the need to cast it into doubt in your above posts, like there is empirical evidence against your view.
They both measure/experience physical time, and in the same way. Principle of relativity says you can't notice the dilation, but you would if you were experiencing a century of flow in only 10 years of high absolute speed travel. Indeed, nobody has tested this. It assumes that experience is a physical process, and you suggest it is a metaphysical process, that humans are metaphysically different than the rest of matter. Even your presentism doesn't assert this, but you seem to feel the need to add this to it. Yes, SR then would be a threat to your position.
I'm not talking about the age of the universe from a point of view. I'm talking about the objective age of it, which doesn't exist except in some metaphysical views, my own not included.
Your problem is that you understand only one metaphysical interpretation and process all my comments with only that interpretation in mind, so you can't separate the parts that are different between the various metaphysical views. Einstein's work is compatible with both of them, and is thus not disproving one view or the other, but you don't see that because you don't see which parts are metaphysical differences. This would be easy if you understood the alternate view like Minkowski spacetime, the very concept that is the subject of this forum topic. That is a metaphysical view, and one that renders the relativity equations so much simpler, but relativity also works in a 3D model (at a massive expense of complexity) so doesn't assert those metaphyiscs. If it did, then yes, you are correct to attack relativity because it would indeed disprove your position. This is why I said that you have been empirically falsified when you said physical time is the same as metaphysical time.
There is no suggested energy conservation in the hypothetical experiment. We have a rocket blasting energy and momentum all over the place. Are you attempting to deny the twin experiment? It is hard to tell, but you say 'how the system was gamed' like the description is faulty in some way.
Relativistic mass is a relational concept, not a property. Rest-mass is a property and can be directly measured. Not sure what you consider 'mass' to be if different from both rest mass and relativistic mass.
No. This is just wrong. Mass comes not into play with the concepts being illustrated with this example. "Bigger-thing is the stationary one". Relativity does not support that.
They did not add kinetic energy to the universe. It was always there. The landscape/universe was always moving at V in that frame.
To be clear, both the 3D and 4D interpretation use the same mathematical equations, so one approach mathematically isn't any more or less complex than the other. In other words, physicists will calculate the same results in the same way regardless of their metaphysical views. This is why they are empirically equivalent to one another, since the only difference lies in the interpretation and not in the equations themselves.
The equations are the equations. Whether they describe a 4D or 3D world is what is up to interpretation.
Quoting noAxioms
Of course, if one assumes a preferred order of events, then every other order that people find in other reference frames will be considered false. But to my mind there is no difference in the scientific approach for someone who has different interpretations of relativity, which is what you seemed to have stated earlier. Like with QM, the equations remain the same regardless of your metaphysical views and the maths aren't any different.
Quoting noAxioms
The train thought experiments are a demonstration of the relativity of simultaneity, describing a situation where two or more observers have differing views on the ordering of events. The presentist version of this situation would certainly describe it differently, as it will take one or more of these observers as being incorrect in their assessments.
That's right. The equations are scientific ones that describe what will be observed. The reality of the universe as 4D or 3D is a metaphysical difference with no empirical implications, so the equations describing empirical expectations need not change depending on your metaphysical view. The equations are not metaphysical.
It is an interesting exercise to do just that. Assume that the train is the thing stationary, which helps one see past the bias that the platform is always the stationary thing. The platform observer detects the two events at once and is equidistant from the marks left by the events. Why is he wrong in concluding simultaneity?
With the exception of the absolute frame measurements. Other than that, the rest will be distorted due to a certain degree and will have to be adjusted, but they will all find the speed of light to be constant.
Quoting noAxioms
Cause he is operating from the incorrect frame of reference. Assuming that the absolute rest frame is the correct one, then the events are actually ordered according to the train observer. The speed of light being measured the same in all frames would lead the platform observer to deduce the wrong set of simultaneous events.
I thought about it, and light speed is constant only in an absolute sense. Of course light speed is constant, just as is sound in a stationary medium. But if you are moving at 1/2c, delta real light speed in one direction is .5c, and it is 1.5c in the other. The subjective moving observer will not notice that since he's perhaps measuring round trip, not one direction.. So he puts a mirror 300000 km away (they have these), and it takes 0.666 real seconds one way and 2 seconds the other way, which is 2.66 seconds round trip. But his clock runs slow and the mirror appears to be 346000 km away, so it says 2.3 seconds have elapsed and hides the fact that light in one direction moved slower than the other way.
I probably screwed up the maths somewhere, but it was my shot at it. This is what I mean by more complicated to do it in 3D. In 4D, it is just 2.3 seconds for a 692000 round-trip with everything being stationary in its frame.
Interestingly, the first light speed measurements were done in one direction by putting a clock very far away and then syncing a local clock to our image of it as its light arrives here at (unknown at the time) lightspeed. Now you move that distant clock even further away and notice the amount that it gets out of sync. You move it closer again and it appears to catch back up. In this way, light speed was measured by dividing the increase in separation distance by the amount of time the two clocks appeared to get out of sync. No compensation for relativistic implications (all unknown at the time) of accelerating clocks, but good enough for the precision they were after.
I bring this up because it would again be an interesting exercise to express that one-way measurement in absolute terms.
SR doesn't threaten ,my position at all. I don't know why you keep saying such things. It's just another metaphysical principle which ought to be doubted like any other, and that's why I throw doubt at it, like I do any other metaphysical claim. I'm a metaphysician, and that's my business, to analyze metaphysical theories looking for strengths and weaknesses.
Quoting noAxioms
It was you who claimed "empirically proven", so you are the one dragging "human" into it. What I am saying is that "empirical observations" are human observations. To say that SR has been "empirically proven" in a situation where a human being couldn't possibly observe, is simply false. So to say that it has been empirically proven that the speed of light is still constant at .98c, is simply false.
Quoting noAxioms
I don't see how this makes any sense to you. You are saying that if time wasn't passing, we would still experience time in the exact same way that we do. Are you serious?
Quoting noAxioms
The only "view" I am proposing is that SR is metaphysical. It is your claim that it is not metaphysical, and that's what I am casting doubt on, this claim of yours.
Quoting noAxioms
None of this makes any sense to me at all. What you say I claim is not what I've claimed at all.
Quoting noAxioms
What are you talking about, as "objective age" of the universe? How can there be such a thing? "Age" is a function of the principles used to measure. There cannot be an objective age of the universe, that's nonsense, the "age" is dependent on the standard of measurement.
I never said anything about 'the age of the universe", these are your terms. And now when I interpret your terms you say that's not what you're talking about, and you try to assign this "objective age" to me. You're so confused it's starting to confuse me.
Quoting noAxioms
I have to say, that you've already assigned about three different metaphysical views to me already, presentism, absolute rest, and "objective age of the universe", none of which I hold, and now you claim I only understand one metaphysical interpretation. I really think that you are metaphysically lost.
Quoting noAxioms
I am not "attacking" relativity. I am describing it as what it is, metaphysics. It is you who is attacking my description, as if this description is somehow a threat to you. Why?
I was operating from SR at that point. In GR we don't have inertial frames, but there can be a preferred foliation, which serves the same function with respect to this conversation as an absolute frame that describes the correct order of events in the universe's history.
Quoting noAxioms
The differences you describe appear to be purely conceptual. Under the 3D view, time dilation and length contraction is a real effect on moving objects whereas in the 4D view it arises from moving through space-time. The results and the mathematical work used to get them are the same in both cases for both observers however, which again restates my point that it is not the equations that are different (so one cannot be more complicated than the other) but the metaphysical framework with which we interpret them.
Quoting noAxioms
Hmm, you have a reference for this? The best example that comes to mind is Galileo's proposed experiment which involved lanterns but not clocks.
Let me expand on this to make my point. We start with these two references; train and landscape. I place a person in each reference. Before the experiment begins, I place each person in a seal container so they can't see or feel what I am about to do.
I use 1000 gallons of diesel fuel to propel the train. This fuel defines our two reference system energy balance. Lastly, I let each person out of their sealed container and tell each to do an energy balance from the POV of their relative reference.
The person who thinks the landscape is in relative motion will assume more energy was added than was in reality. It will take more than 1000 gallons of diesel fuel to move that mountain. He will add imaginary energy due to assuming reference is relative and no reference is preferred. The experiment was designed on an absolute hierarchy, since only the train gets the energy. The other is an illusion.
The way this is normally done; in space, is we don't have an energy balance up front. We are not able to compare references to see who is closer, like in my experiment. This makes anything one says seem to appear valid. It is a magic trick, due to using space-time or distance and time, but not including relativistic mass as a way to do an energy balance on the fly.
Dark energy can't be seen in the lab, but it is needed for the universal energy balance. It is very possible that dark energy is a relative reference illusion, fix, needed to close the energy balance. The need to add dark energy would suggest that our earth reference original underestimated the energy of the universe using relative references. One explanation is earth is at higher energy in the hierarchy of the universe. However, we had assumed we are stationary and/or going slower. We may have higher relativistic mass than expected.
In the twin experiment, only the twin who was given motion, based on rocket fuel, shows permanent time dilation; ages slower. His change is connected to the energy balance slanted in his favor. Relative reference does not allow both to age at the same rate, even if both see the same relative velocity. Relativistic mass is what leverages time, just as rest mass does in GR.
Yes, the differences are metaphysical, and the equations are not, so there is no need to perform them the difficult way like that unless you are computing metaphysical values for things like which point on Pluto is the center of the side that is objectively facing us right now, and even this is not computable without an unverifiable assumption that comoving foliation is the same foliation as 'the present'. The only evidence of that is that there seems to be only two choices available: That one or anything else.
That lantern thing was an early attempt, but yielded no results. They might have measured sound speed with such a setup, but the distances were too small for the limited precision of the timing methods.
The clock was the moons of Jupiter or Saturn, and the distance to that varied mostly from Earth moving back and forth every half year. You could see the eclipses down to almost the second, so it made a pretty good clock. Observations on the increased delay of those eclipses vs. distance yielded the first reasonably accurate light speed measurements. The difference could be over 15 minutes, well within the precision of the clocks of the day.
To be unaware of this view (or for that matter, the name of the view that you do hold) seems pretty inexcusable for someone who makes metaphysical interpretations (they're not theories) their business. Look up Eternalism. Spacetime is an eternalist model if you take it as metaphysical, which you seem to.
As I said, the kinetic energy observed (of everything except the train) was always the same from that post-acceleration inertial reference frame (IRF). An accelerated person is the thing that changed, and the thing that gained or lost kinetic energy in one IRF or another. The fuel represents entropy. It could be done with a hill without change of entropy.
No. He detects the acceleration and knows it is himself that is now in a different IRF, one where the landscape was always moving. You can make him not know that (by sleeping say), but that just forces him to forget a knowable objective fact: that he is the thing that accelerated. There is no symmetry going on here.
Well, momentum was transferred to the landscape per Newton's third law, in proportion to their relative masses. Momentum is conserved whether fuel or a hill is used to get things up to speed.
The part below is relevant to relativity, unlike the part above:
Due to acceleration, not due to motion (which is frame dependent, not absolute), and not due to fuel consumption, which can be avoided if different means are used like springs and trampolines and such. A frictionless clock pendulum ages slower than a stationary one, all without fuel consumption, and does so because it accelerates more than the non-swinging pendulum. To be precise, it is the moment of acceleration (acceleration times leverage distance) that determines the magnitude of the dilation. Two things can both accelerate equally but age differently if the moment is different.
Eternalism does not deny that the human subject experiences the passing of time. It just does not provide an explanation for this experience. It appears like the human subject's experience of the passing of time is unimportant to the eternalist.
Why is it inexcusable for me not to name the view of time that I hold? It is the capacity to understand and to describe time which matters, not the name.
Natural physics explains this, not metaphysics. Biological creatures naturally interpret their experience as the passage of time, else they'd not be fit. The rational part might realize otherwise (as Einstein did).
So yes, I am serious. The interpretation is a metaphysical difference only, and has no implications for empirical experience. The experience in both views must be the same.
Yes, and the above post makes me question that capacity. I'm not telling you that your interpretation is wrong, but you seem to think the alternate interpretation (if it were the case) would result in a different experience, and that points to a lack of capacity to understand, and to distinguish physics from metaphysics.
References are not relative, unless you ignore the conservation of energy. In SR, conservation of energy is where relativistic mass comes in. However, relativistic mass is not as easy to measure, compared to time and distance. As such, relativistic mass is often left out and/or lumped into space-time. The result is an illusion.
The train and diesel fuel example above, was not about sensing motion or acceleration. Rather it was about viewing two study state references after all the acceleration is done. Both parties go into the final references, blind to any energy balance. This allows both references can apply the relative reference assumption in good conscience.
However, since a third party knows the energy conservation answer before the two references tell us what their reference appears to say, we have a way to prove if their assumptions are true or an illusion. If we did not know how much fuel was used such that the energy balance was left open ended, then the illusion would work.
The train and landscape may not be a good example, since rational common sense would say the landscape can't move, unless the entire earth was moved, which is unlikely due to the energy needed. So we could do this with two trains or two rockets, to avoid second guessing, what you appear to see, in terms of the relative reference assumption.
When we look at the universe , we do not have an accurate energy balance. The idea of no preferred reference or center of the universe tells us that. We know the Conservation of energy applies, but we don't have a hard starting number. The illusion will work, if nobody is able to impose a hard energy balance.
I not saying SR is not real, only that relative reference is an illusion that can be seen through it we include energy conservation.
In the case of gravity, the extra time for acceleration comes from gravity which comes from mass. Mass has a connection to the second time. Relativistic mass also has a connection to the second time that impacts space-time. Dark matter might be relativistic mass.
One difference between mass and relativistic mass is mass can generate pressure, whereas relativistic mass does not generate pressure, or else a space ship would implode at extreme velocity and change material phases. The only impact is on space-time.
OK, I think I understand what you are arguing now. You are saying that some metaphysicians such as presentists, claim that human beings experience the passing of time. Others. like eternalists claim that what human beings experience and call "the passing of time" , is not really the passing of time, it's something different.
Further, you have already claimed that there is something called "the passing of time", which physicists measure with clocks.
So your argument appears to be that what metaphysicians refer to as "the passing of time" is something completely different from what physicists refer to as "the passing of time". The former refers to the human experience, and the latter refers to the activities of an inanimate clock.
My opinion, is that this distinction you make is unwarranted. I think that what a metaphysician refers to as "the passing of time" is the exact same thing as what the physicist refers to as "the passing of time". The two, the metaphysician, and the physicist, just utilize different measurement techniques, one the human experience, the other a physical clock. This is very clear from the fact that human beings synchronize their experience with the clock, in our day to day life. That the physicist employs a more accurate measurement technique than the metaphysician is irrelevant to the fact that the two are measuring the very same thing.
Therefore, your claim that "physical time" is different from "metaphysical time", is completely ungrounded. The two are just different ways that human beings relate to the very same thing, the passing of time. One is how we measure it within ourselves, as experience, the other how we measure it with clocks. Furthermore, that claim of yours, that these two are fundamentally different, is itself a metaphysical claim. And, since it is evident that there are multiple ways to measure the same thing, different parameters, different properties, etc., the decisions concerning the best way to measure a thing, and the relevance of different ways of measuring the same thing, are metaphysical decisions. These are decisions concerning good and bad, correct and incorrect. So I argue that whether or not the physicist's way of measuring time is the best way for a particular application, is a metaphysical decision. Therefore when Einstein stipulated that this is the way that physicists ought to measure time, this was a metaphysical decision.
A rock (as a sole existent) in a frame where it is stationary has zero total momentum, where in a different frame where it is moving, the same rock has nonzero momentum. Conservation of momentum is within one frame and does not mean that energy or momentum is the same in different frames. You seem to think otherwise. All this is Newtonian mechanics.
However, since a third party knows the energy conservation answer before the two references tell us what their reference appears to say, we have a way to prove if their assumptions are true or an illusion.[/quote]Wrong. The total energy was always different in the different frames. It changed in neither, since it is conserved.
Fuel consumption does not change total energy. It just changes form from chemical energy to kinetic energy and heat. Total energy is conserved in both frames, but was never the same in either frame.
It doesn't take energy to move or even accelerate. It takes force. The Earth happens to move quite a bit with significant acceleration, all without expenditure of energy. The velocity of Earth is entirely dependent on the frame in which it is considered. Its acceleration is not frame dependent, and is about .06% of the acceleration of a dropped rock here on Earth.
We actually have a starting number for energy, which is zero. Gravitaional potential energy is negative, and it seems to exactly cancel out the positive energy. Total momentum also seems to be zero from any viewpoint or frame, which is unintuitive, but it follows from the universe being infinite, to which any finite adjustment for frame is meaningless.
Physical time is the concept time used in physics. Physics as an empirical science doesn't make metaphysical claims, but only makes models that have predictive value. The predictions pertain to the empircal world, but models themselves do not necessarily.
How we use clocks and agree upon time, also don't necessarily make metaphysical claims about time. It's just a convention that has pragmatic value if you will. Let's call that conventional time.
We do not experience time as such, we experience change or motion. Anything that makes definate claims about time goes beyond that and is metaphysics, because it cannot be veryfied or falsified by physical phenonoma. That is metaphysical time.
Any concept, in the sense that it is "a concept" is metaphysical. Do you not agree? Unless you subscribe to Platonic realism, in which concepts are eternally existing independent things, every concept is based in, and derived from metaphysical principles. But even Platonic realism is a metaphysical stance so the nature of "a concept", is still metaphysical.
Quoting ChatteringMonkey
I agree with this, but physics, as an empirical science utilizes metaphysical principles, just like any other science does. The nature of "space", the nature of "time", and the nature of "spacetime" are such metaphysical principles. What space is, what time is, and the relationship between these, what spacetime is, is not itself empirical science. These are metaphysical principles. What space is, and what time is, and the relation between them, has not been empirically observed. So I agree, it is as you say, "science doesn't make metaphysical claims", but physicists use metaphysical claims in their activities, such as the assumptions about the relationship between space and time. These assumptions are utilized in the model building.
Quoting ChatteringMonkey
Unless it is completely random, any convention is based in metaphysical claims. Conventions concerning time are clearly not random, therefore they are based in metaphysical claims.
Quoting ChatteringMonkey
I think you are confusing "experience" with "observation". We observe change and motion. "Experience" refers to facts, knowledge, which we abstract from the observations. Time is such an abstraction, so it is classed with "experience".
Quoting ChatteringMonkey
Quite right ChatteringMonkey, and this is exactly why physics utilizes metaphysical claims about time. Physics utilizes claims about space and time which go beyond direct observation of space and time. How could one even directly observe space and time? We observe the activities of physical things. We make metaphysical claims about space and time (these are things which have not been directly observed so the claims are metaphysical). When we abstract principles concerning the nature of space and time from these observations of activities of physical things, we make metaphysical claims. These metaphysical principles are utilized by physicists.
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That was your claim. Mine was that clocks measure physical time (duration), and they do so accurately. Furthermore, I assume (cannot prove) that human experience is a physical (natural) process that measures time similar to clocks, so what we experience is physical time, not metaphysical time.
Yes, I've noticed this.
Agree that they're measuring the very same thing, but none of it is metaphysical. The interpretational difference (flow or not flow, 4D spacetime or 3D state that changes at some unitless rate) is undetectable, and the rate of that flow (if it exists) is undetectable since experience would be the same if the rate was halved, tripled, or there was no rate.
I think we are talking past each other. Sure, metaphysical time is an interpretation of empirical physical time. In that sense, they are the same thing. But experience and empirical tests are all the same thing, and none of that makes any difference to the various valid interpretations. If you think the 4D model would result in a different experience, then you don't understand it or the interpretation is invalid. If the universe changes in time, the rate of that change is inexpressible, let alone measurable. If the rate changed, no device or experience would detect that. That flow or the rate of it is nonexistent in eternalism, but is the thing that I refer to as metaphysical time.
That means there is no metaphysical time in eternalism. The phrase is simply a reference to an ontological addition made by a different view. Time is pure physical under eternalism, and is essentially a 4th dimension of a single structure that has no present state.
An eternalist would say time is real if the structure is real. Time has the same ontology as space.
A presentist would say time is real because there is a real current state of space.
Asking both if time is real results in them talking past each other, and I think we're doing that.
No i don't agree that concepts or abstractions are metaphysical, if we only use them because they have utility, and don't believe they literally exist. And I think that platonic realism is a prime example of metaphysics because there the concept are seen as real.
And i don't think that concepts in physics are metaphysical for the same reason, because they don't pretend to make claims about what is real. They only really care, or are supposed to anyway, about models having predictive value. The models are just equations, and like a map, they are not the world itself.
OK, so it is exactly as I argued, there is absolutely no difference between what you call "physical time" and what you call "metaphysical time". What human beings experience as the passing of time, and what physicists measure as duration are each, both the exact same thing, under different names. You choose to call this "physical time". But, that these are both the same is a metaphysical principle, so it is really "metaphysical time", and you are improperly calling it "physical time".
Quoting noAxioms
This is where I think the root of your mistake lies. Duration is not a physical thing. Therefore if there is something which is measured as duration and it is called "time", time is not physical and so it must be metaphysical.
Quoting noAxioms
I don't think it's the case that we're talking past each other. I am insisting that "time" is a metaphysical subject, and you are insisting that "time" is a physical subject, and we are both giving the reasons for our respective beliefs.
What confuses me though, is that you allow that there is both a "metaphysical time" and a "physical time". For the sake of argument, let's suppose that both physics and metaphysics may each study, in its own way, the subject of time. This does not mean that there are two distinct subjects, metaphysical time and physical time, it simply means that there are two distinct ways of studying the same subject, time.
Quoting noAxioms
I don't see how you can say this. Eternalism is itself a metaphysical view of time, so you cannot say that there is no metaphysical time in eternalism, that doesn't make sense. It seems like what you are arguing is that time is really a physical subject, and there is no such thing as "metaphysical time", i.e. time as a metaphysical subject. You are arguing that any metaphysician who thinks that time is a metaphysical subject is actually wrong, because real time is a physical subject and there is no such thing as time as a metaphysical subject.
But I think that you are actually wrong. Time is not a physical thing, we cannot observe it with our senses. We observe change and motion and abstract the concepts of time and space, so time and space are not physical things at all, they are metaphysical. So I think that time is really only a metaphysical subject, having no empirically observable existence, and there is no such thing as "physical time".
Quoting ChatteringMonkey
But even if you assume that concepts are not "real" in the sense of Platonic realism, this is still a metaphysical assumption. So no matter how you approach the existence of concepts and abstractions, this is a subject of metaphysics. Whether you affirm or deny that concepts "literally exist" you are taking a metaphysical stance.
Quoting ChatteringMonkey
Perhaps, a well-disciplined physicist will never claim that the concepts utilized in physics make any claims about what is real, and respect that only metaphysics does this. That is actually the point I am making, that we must turn to metaphysics for claims about what is real But most people do think that the concepts used in physics make claims about what is real. So for instance, when No Axioms talks about the physicist's concept of time, and the measuring of duration, I think that No Axioms believes that "duration", as that which is measured, is something real. Otherwise "duration" and "time" refer only to something metaphysical, and this would undermine No Axiom's argument.
Having given the above opening, I posit that 'space-time' is incomplete in the way we represent it. For it to fully equate to our 3-D model of LIFE, a third parameter must be included. I insist it should be 'space-time-form'. Thus you have, "TIME - a representation of transiency/change (rate); SPACE - a representation of awareness/presence (range); and FORM - a representation of force/structure (quality and quantity)."
[Quality and quantity should be understood in analogy to how mass and volume interact to give density. There is a particular quality to every quantity, and vice-versa, so that every part of LIFE is balanced against these two parameters to determine an inherent condition which these two factors represent.]
I hear arguments about time-travel and often wonder why people don't realize how ridiculous they sound. (Perhaps I sound just as ridiculous to them when I refute it!) Anyway, there is a particular theory that I instinctively deny even without recourse to any viable experiments in its support. That is:
"According to relativity, nothing can travel faster than light. If we therefore sent a spaceship to our nearest neighboring star, Alpha Centauri, which is about four light-years away, it would take at least eight years before we could expect the travelers to return and tell us what they had found. If the expedition were to the center of our galaxy, it would be at least a hundred thousand years before it came back. The theory of relativity does allow one consolation. This is the so-called twins paradox mentioned in Chapter 2. Because there is no unique standard of time, but rather observers each have their own time as measured by clocks that they carry with them, it is possible for the journey to seem to be much shorter for the space travelers than for those who remain on earth. But there would not be much joy in returning from a space voyage a few years older to find that everyone you had left behind was dead and gone thousands of years ago. So in order to have any human interest in their stories, science fiction writers had to suppose that we would one day discover how to travel faster than light. What most of these authors don’t seem to have realized is that if you can travel faster than light, the theory of relativity implies you can also travel back in time, as the following limerick says:
There was a young lady of Wight
Who traveled much faster than light.
She departed one day,
In a relative way,
And arrived on the previous night
The point is that the theory of relativity says that there is no unique measure of time that all observers will agree on. Rather, each observer has his or her own measure of time. If it is possible for a rocket traveling below the speed of light to get from event A (say, the final of the 100-meter race of the Olympic Games in 2020) to event B (say, the opening of the 100,004th meeting of the Congress of Alpha Centauri), then all observers will agree that event A happened before event B according to their times. Suppose, however, that the spaceship would have to travel faster than light to carry the news of the race to the Congress. Then observers moving at different speeds can disagree about whether event A occurred before B or vice versa. According to the time of an observer who is at rest with respect to the earth, it may be that the Congress opened after the race. Thus this observer would think that a spaceship could get from A to B in time if only it could ignore the speed-of-light speed limit.
However, to an observer at Alpha Centauri moving away from the earth at nearly the speed of light, it would appear that event B, the opening of the Congress, would occur before event A, the 100-meter race. The theory of relativity says that the laws of physics appear the same to observers moving at different speeds. This has been well tested by experiment and is likely to remain a feature even if we find a more advanced theory to replace relativity. Thus the moving observer would say that if faster-than-light travel is possible, it should be possible to get from event B, the opening of the Congress, to event A, the 100-meter race. If one went slightly faster, one could even get back before the race and place a bet on it in the sure knowledge that one would win."
- A Brief History in Time by Stephen Hawking (Chapter 10).
[The above statement does not represent Stephen Hawking's theory of time-travel, rather, it is one of the more popular notions which he has discussed in the book.]
Firstly, time is not linear. It is a kind of a vector with a shifting magnitude and a variable direction (my own theory). Secondly, there is no theory of relativity which states that, 'nothing is faster than light'. Thirdly, even in Einstein's time, it was known that some light had greater frequencies than others and that the spectrum as they had discovered thus far was still quite incomplete and therefore white light could not be used as a standard of measure. Also, electrons could not be used as a standard of measure because they had begun to realize that they may not be the smallest/simplest organization of LIFE. Fourthly, we know that, any particle, whatever its characteristics, must take time while moving from point A to B which are separated by a certain distance. No matter how fast the movement, there will always be a delay as it traverses the space between the points A and B unless the particle lies over both points and therefore does not move. Therefore the idea that time could run backwards is absolutely absurd.
Lastly, I must reiterate that without understanding the 'Form' factor, those who theorize on time-travel would only be whistling dixie. There is a reason why every form, every body, every system/organization, has its unique inherent qualities. To begin assumptions where spacecrafts and people move at the speeds of light or beyond is in great disregard to the quality of the bodies involved. Even at the low speeds of boats (sometimes canoes), cars, planes, etc, there are people who get affected => sea-sick, car-sick, jet-lag. Why then would they jump to the conclusion that a huge metal chamber or the human system can suffer such torture as being propelled at the speed of light. Not unless they believe once the people were dead then their ghosts will whizz off against the spin of the clock (like in some 'ghost of christmas past' movie).
And for those who think that space-time could be folded or bent, think again. Even if space-time acted as a homogenous material, would it not have properties inherent to itself and its functionality? Then they would also need to be known and manipulated.
Thus, when philosophy hits the reality gong, sci-fi must go bye-bye (I'm still a big trekkie).
To this whole process, I remark that passionate as philosophers may be, they should attempt to keep a tight reign on their fancies else they lead themselves astray, or worse, a horde of fanatics!
THERE IS NO TIME-TRAVEL as we have been led to believe.
* I cannot refute the black-hole or worm-hole theories because I do not know what they (the black/worm-holes) are. However, from what I know about life, creation in six business days is more likely than time-travel.
How do we know that time has an effect on phenomena? Does it make things change, or is it merely a measure of change, that is the question.
Sorry for that, it wasn't the best way to express that point. What I meant was, "...they are things (factors) in terms of their relation to phenomena."
I hope that makes it clearer.
Quoting ChatteringMonkey
In the absolute sense, time (or any relative factor) does not affect phenomena, rather, phenomena manifest the condition called time. However, even as a relative aspect, it expresses an actual relationship. For example, length, like time, is a measure of something. Because the something is real, its measure must also be real, though relative (limited to that particular relationship only). When two realities interact, e.g., two people, everything about them interact including the conditions they manifest. I think in this way a consequence also becomes a causative aspect. It's like a chain reaction where the first cause is accompanied by the first consequence which then becomes a cause to the next, and so on.