A clock from nothing
Greetings all
This is a post on an idea I've had for awhile as to how time could exist before the big bang. Now the nearest that I can imagine to a state of pure nothingness is a state of pure homogeneity, in other words
a sort of blank canvass that infinite in scope and size. The question is how can change exist in such a state without violating the homogeneous state. Well a homogeneous state can change color and still be homogeneous.If the homogeneous state can change color then it is possible to create a clock even though there is no geometry or matter. If the homogeneous state fluctuated between black and white for example then you could create a clock based purely on that even though there are technically no moving parts and no geometry. It would be a clock that would exist where there was as near to nothing as one could speculate. Furthermore if you had three colors that it fluctuated between then you could create a binary language with nothing more than color as your alphabet so to speak. With a language you can perform computation of some form and so on. This means you could potentially compute the universe before it appeared via nothing more than a homogeneous state that existed prior to it and so on.
This is a post on an idea I've had for awhile as to how time could exist before the big bang. Now the nearest that I can imagine to a state of pure nothingness is a state of pure homogeneity, in other words
a sort of blank canvass that infinite in scope and size. The question is how can change exist in such a state without violating the homogeneous state. Well a homogeneous state can change color and still be homogeneous.If the homogeneous state can change color then it is possible to create a clock even though there is no geometry or matter. If the homogeneous state fluctuated between black and white for example then you could create a clock based purely on that even though there are technically no moving parts and no geometry. It would be a clock that would exist where there was as near to nothing as one could speculate. Furthermore if you had three colors that it fluctuated between then you could create a binary language with nothing more than color as your alphabet so to speak. With a language you can perform computation of some form and so on. This means you could potentially compute the universe before it appeared via nothing more than a homogeneous state that existed prior to it and so on.
Comments (73)
Although frankly aionic ducks are just alot cooler as a speculative cosmogony.
Assuming that there was no change and no movement before the big bang proves that time was immesurable. But it does not prove that time did not exist.
"What was the time five minutes before the big bang? It was five minutes to big bang." Just because nobody could measure it, because there was nobody to measure it, and nothing to meausre it with, and nothing to measure it by, time still existed very happily, so to speak.
obviously there were changes that precipitated the creation. Creation does not just spontaneously happen; it is done when one is prompted to do it.
So there was something that prompted god to create the world when he did, as he had had an INFINITE time of the past when he never even budged.
But if something nudged god to create the world, then something existed, that was not stagnant.
What was that thing?
It is only once we have become God that will we understand God
That's a far cry from "nothing," especially when you add some sort of periodic state change, as you do further on. And it isn't anything that any cosmological theories postulate or even speculate. As a purely fictional scenario though, sure, this (with a periodic state change of some kind) would constitute a physical clock. But it wouldn't be time out of "nothing" - it would be time out of a structure that is just complex enough to support something like time.
When something changes color there are moving parts. Colors are produced by different wavelengths of light. Visible light is above Infrared and below Ultra Violet.
No. Anti-mass is not mass-less. A positron exists as much as a electron. Light and Anti-light have the same properties merely their frequencies differ half a wavelength. Time and anti-time have the same frequency but have a half wavelength shift in relation to each other. As water waves which cancel each other out. One was a sinus and the other as co-sinus as they meet.
There is no arrow of time in physics. So yes it goes both ways. If you can add minus 3 to 3 giving you zero you can go from zero to 3 and minus 3. How to keep 3 and minus 3 from joining up again is the problem.
1. There must have been a first event within time. The first event causes the 2nd and so on. If there was no first event, there is no second event, no third and therefore by induction, the universe does not exist.
2. What caused the first event? There cannot be an empty stretch of infinite time before the first event else there is nothing to cause the first event.
3. The first event must therefore be caused / be co-incidental with the start of time. There is no other possibility.
Time is measured by the movement of objects or particles. If no particles or ligh waves are moving then there is no time.
If the series of dominos is eternal, it has no first member (if it had a first member, it would have a start, so not be eternal). If it has no first member then there is nothing to cause the rest of the dominos to topple, so an eternal series of toppling dominos is a logical impossibility.
In the beginning there was the expansion of space. Not the movement of particles because they had not yet been formed.
[i]‘The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another, for nothing can be in motion except it is in potentiality to that towards which it is in motion; whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is in act. For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it. Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot; but it is simultaneously potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.’
- Thomas Aquinas, Question 2, Article 3, Summa Theologica[/i]
Whatever made the Universe we may call God. There you go. In 1 sentence I have explained everything you need to know.
The moving part is the expansion of Space. It pulls apart the wavelengths of light, causing them to change color from ultraviolet to infrared.
Aquinas rejected that Muslim argument and side to an extent with Aristotle
I think he gave a specific reason why he thought the world was not eternal - I have highlighted it above in the quote I gave from the first way - infinite regresses are just not logically possible. Many philosophers down the years have agreed with Aquinas, for example, Leibniz:
’Suppose the book of the elements of geometry to have been eternal, one copy having been written down from an earlier one. It is evident that even though a reason can be given for the present book out, we should never come to a full reason. What is true of the books is also true of the states of the world. If you suppose the world eternal, you will suppose nothing but a succession of states and will not find in any of them a sufficient reason.’ - Leibniz, Theodicy
Your getting bogged down in projecting what we currently understand to a situation that would predate the laws that we currently experience. The situation that I proposed is a universe where the only degree of freedom is an instant and total color change. What other parameters. that would be neccessary to produce this I do not know but there would be no moving parts in a homogeneous state. There would be no things to move. For example if I handed you a blank piece of paper and said whats on that paper you would say nothing. If I draw a line or a boundary then there is something because that breaks the homogeny. All I'm pointing out is a theoretical way that you could produce a clock from a homogeneous state.under a certain set of circumstances
waves and particles are essentially one and the same. Your probably a arm chair quarterback.
You can't have waves without time and frequency. Frequency is a function of time
https://philpapers.org/archive/COHTMB.pdf
Perhaps you mean that Aquinas contradicted himself by holding beliefs in both of:
- the impossibility of an infinite regression
- that God is infinite
If so, I would agree - infinity is impossible so God cannot be infinite. The bible says God is infinite - without any justification - and Aquinas ties himself in a logical knot trying to justify that claim. Aquinas’s justification for God being infinite is given as:
1. Matter is made finite by form. Form is made finite by matter.
2. Matter is first potential to many forms, but when it receives a form it is made finite by that form.
3. Form is common to many, but when it is received by a particular matter it is then made finite.
4. Infinite matter, before it is made finite by form, is imperfect because matter without form is formless matter.
5. Form is contracted, and not made perfect, by matter. Form is infinite when not contracted by matter and thus has the nature of something perfect.
6. Being is the most formal of all things.
7. God is a divine being not received in anything, but is his own subsistent being. Therefore, God is infinite and perfect.
On [1] matter cannot exist without form so it is not made finite by form, it is finite period.
On [4] no justification for the existence of infinite formless matter is given
On [5] an infinite form is only possible in mathematics, not in reality
On [7] infinity is by definition unmeasurable, but any being can always measure itself - it is basic self awareness, so 'being' and 'infinite' are incompatible.
Can you please quote me to make it easier for me to understand your objections?
only time will tell. I doubt you are correct. Why wouldn't that light escape the area that had the homogenous state. When light is released into a vaccuum it will probably head out of the original space quite possibly perpetually.
Quoting ovdtogt
What is anti time? I thought time could only be measured by the movement of particles. Even particles move in the opposite direction, time is still only measured by the movement of particles. Since the speed of light is constant or so they say, this makes time relative. (special relativity)
Might it be then the movement of anti-matter?
Again whether the change in color is by light or the flying dutchman is not important. The conditions I'm talking about are not the same as the conditions we live in. One might ask where light comes from in the first place. What causes the colour might have nothing to do with light. We are talking about speculative conditions before the big bang
perhaps
the difference between blue and purple is frequency. Your eye balls a radar system that can decipher frequencies. How would light not escape the system if it is surrounded by a vaccuum?
Yes that is true from our perspective I agree with you on that however all I'm asking you to do is to not keep on projecting how our reality works onto a hypothetical universe which intuiitvely should be much more simple than this one. The point is that if conditions before the big bang were homogeneous and there was some sort of constraint that made this a condition then the only degree of freedom that I can think of which can occur in that state is a change in color of the background. What the homogeneous state is is not something I can say at the moment, questions as to whether its a vacuum or space are not important really in the context of what I'm saying
You said it: time is measured by the movement of objects. But time is not generated by the movement of objects. Therefore if no movement occurs, time can still exist.
Much like distance is measured with a distance-meter, such as with a ruler or a yardstick, but if no yardsticks existed, distances would still exist.
You basically put the horse behind the cart.
If that were the case, time would stand still in a perfect vacuum . The vacuum would disappear into the past.
oh ok now i see what you are saying. I've heard that prior to the big bang particles were line up similar to the way a magnet has some of its particles lined up for lack of a better example.
if nothing whatsoever moves then there is no passage of time. Special Relativtiy backs this up. Time is measured completely by the movement of particles and/or objects. If nothing moves it may seem like an "eternity" but in fact no time has passed. "Time is relative".
Photons are made up of particles.
Time isn't a substance but can only be observed by the movement of particles. If nothing moves then it might possibly seem like lots of time is passing (your brain has moving particles) but in fact no time at all is passing.
Ofcourse particles are moving inside your brain so time is passing but since the speed of light never exceeds C this plays into the fact that "time is relative". I could give you my explanation of special relativity but you are probably better off looking elsewhere on this forum for an explanation of special relativity.
My explanation is in short the X vector + the Y vector + the Z vector of any given particle can never exceed C (the speed of light).
For example if X approaches C, Y and Z will approach 0
A clock under these conditions would be drastically effected in its ability to tell time
To understand this you at the very least must understand Vectors and also to some extent Newtonian (somewhat archaic) physics.
I like your idea. It’s sad to see all these knee-jerk reactions whenever someone puts forth an original idea that goes against the beliefs of materialism.
Well I’m on board for the idea of the clock, but I would say that the idea that the universe could be completely computed from a color-based language is problematic, because for instance how do you compute a feeling?
why would the vacuum disapear into the past. The way we view the past is a product of the particle positions in our brain. The past can only be the present (time travel) when all people have there brains shifted to view the past a certain way (particle positions). The past as viewed by us is an illusion that is altered by the particle positions in our brains. If someone operated on your brain your view of the past would change. Time is nothing more than an iteration of events and can only be interpreted by a flawed brain. Time is not a substance but nothing more than a concept.
Are you familiar with special relativity?
You could only make a clock by referring to such fluctuations, if the fluctuations were temporally consistent. But your premises provide nothing to cause such consistency..
Eternal: without beginning and end.
That should qualify as ‘infinite’ or without limit.
Neither Aquinas nor any other human has any concepts to understand eternal or infinite.
Try explaining television to your dog, and you may get the idea.
Time seems to be more than just a concept of the human imagination - it is something concrete and real (see SR/GR) - and something concrete without a beginning (or end) is an impossibility. See for example the argument here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/360708
Quoting sandman
The fact that it is impossible to imagine actual infinity is not IMO indicative that it is beyond comprehension, merely indicative that it is an illogical/impossible concept. For example, other things I struggle to comprehend are talking trees and square circles - but they are not beyond comprehension - they are just impossible ideas. Actual infinity is unconstructible, unmeasurable, unfathomable and leads to logical paradoxes (which are a form of Reductio ad absurdum). That is enough evidence for me that it cannot exist.
Quoting Devans99
The north pole of the Riemann sphere. So there. :cool:
:rofl:
1. If you want to make a clock then there must be something that changes
2. If there's something that changes then there's something
Ergo
3. If there's something then it can't be nothing
That's the short version of my thoughts.