brodix

It's also given us Plato's Ideal Forms, epi-cycles, monotheism, various economic and financial bubbles, Big Bang theory, time as fundamental dimension, lotsetc. When you are projecting out and the results start to get weird, it's time to go back and review what you have taken for granted. Sometimes this doesn't happen because the ones with the most credibility are the ones most invested in the situation. In the story of the emperor's new clothes, they don't tell you about all the kids that got smacked by their parents, just when the reality became unavoidable did the crowd really take notice that what they were told was not the way it was. One step back, for every two steps forward.

Notice I'm not saying time isn't linear, just that it isn't a pre-existing dimension, but is essentially an illusion caused by motion, similar to the illusion we have of a seamless view of the world, when our range of perception is fairly narrow. We don't know what we don't know and sometimes our ability to project seems more real then it actually is.

Assume I'm quite thick skinned. If I sound frustrated, it's due to personal time contraints and the stresses incurred. Yes. The observation/event is information. It is created by physical activity and then recedes into the past. Think of a factory; The product moves from start to finish, but the production line faces the other way, consuming raw material and expelling finished product. Its main concern isn't the finished product, but the energy produced, in wages and profits, that allow it to continue forward, consuming and processing material. Your mind is like that factory. The consciousness consumes information and produces conceptual structure called thought, which quickly recedes into the past, to be replaced by the next thought, but all of which the purpose of is to enable the mind to continue forward into the future. It's a philosophic construct if it's in your mind, but you can have the same amount of energy manifested as a cloud of interstellar gas, or as a rock floating in space. Same quantity of energy, different information being recorded. Its form/pattern is the memory of its past. Said rock flies though said cloud of gas. Information/pattern of the gas changes. Old pattern is erased, as new one is produced. Those fortunate enough not to be schizophrenic. The problem with the fact that our brains are linear is that it tends to promote monolithic thought processes, where we don't see the other side of the situation without some effort. In larger political and economic terms, it leads to bubbles, wars and other such examples of mass myopia. Not that this could ever affect the scientific establishment, of course. Of course the advantage of monolithic thinking over mental balancing is immediate political advantage. While the intellectual is analysing the situation, the thug punches him in the nose. Of course, in the long term, this leads to wars, etc, as everyone tries to beat everyone else. That is the narrative unit of time going from beginning to end, as the energy coalesces into the physical body, then bleeds away, going on to other events. This unit starts as future potential, is formed, dissolves, then is past. Meanwhile the lost energy goes on its merry way.

Fred, Obviously it is impossible to fully define the parameters of any debate and so it is always easy to avoid the essence of an argument by picking at the inevitable loose threads. That said, I don't quite see your point. The "event" is created by a physical action. Where, what and when are defined by that action. I'm not saying "time" times events. That, presumably, would be based on the assumption that time is a pre-existing dimension. I'm saying that it is not. Temperature doesn't exist, except as a measure of motion and I'm arguing that the same applies to time. It is effect, not cause. Yes, it is a semantic difficulty, but if time is a consequence of motion, then terms to describe motion would also apply to time. If I was to say that my childhood was a long time ago, the fact is that in the process of living, I've also physically traveled some distance and encountered my share of events along the way. To the extent we are mobile creatures, presumably our future is what lies ahead of us, but in some indian cultures, the past is what is in front of you and the future is behind. That is because their point of reference isn't the observer, but the energy. Such that what you observe ahead of you occurs before you see it, then the energy of this event passes you and goes on to its future. The arrow of time goes from what comes first, to what comes next. Information is the map of reality, not necessarily the territory. Space is considered to be three dimensional, but three dimensions are really just the coordinate system of the point they all cross. The fact is that the same space can be defined by any number of such frames. You might say that the Arabs and the Israelis used different coordinate systems to define the same land. So the reality of space is effectively infinitely dimensional. The problem is that to make sense of it, we need the focal point of that frame to organize it, like a calendar needs a starting date. To define space we reduce it to a plane and a line perpendicular to it. Which coincidentally describes how we stand on the surface of this planet. Not intuitional at all.(haha) Energy and information are not the same. It is natural for stable material to coalesce into the most efficient pattern, but if it is a closed set, it is entropic, so in order to exist, new energy and the information it has recorded must be absorbed. This results in some degree of instability/chaos, because the pattern must continually adapt. If competing patterns contest the same energy, it becomes incumbent that one pattern be neutralized, if not destroyed. So energy and information are definitely not the same thing. Information is top down structure. Energy motivates bottom up process. You eat a chicken and the energy that was that chicken continues into the future, motivating your bodily functions, while the organization and information that was that chicken recedes into the past. Energy records information. It also erases it. God hits that reset button frequently. It's called regeneration. Cleans up the code, but eventually even the platform gets scrapped when it becomes too obsolete.(As for God, absolute is basis, not apex, so the spiritual absolute would be the essence out of which we rise, not an Ideal Form from which we fell. Consciousness is bottom up emergent phenomena. Intellect is the top down ordering of its context.) Identical cause yields identical effect. What watches do is produce a stable, repetitive effect. Memory is the information that is currently recorded.

Fred, Haggling sounds fine by me. Obviously I don't claim to know every aspect of Relativity and Quantum theory, but I find this basic idea provides insight into other aspects of reality. That said, I realize few people are going to take what I have to say seriously and so don't get too worked up about it. Frankly you sound more considerate of my attempts to understand reality then most. Openly questioning the fundamentals does get peoples backs up quite quickly.

I think time is a consequence of motion, rather then the basis for it. Consider; If two atoms collide, it creates an event in time. While the atoms proceed through this event and on to others, the event goes the other way. First it is in the future, then in the past. This relationship prevails at every level of complexity. The rotation of the earth, relative to the radiation of the sun, goes from past events to future ones, while the units of time/days go from being in the future to being in the past. To the hands of the clock, the face goes counterclockwise. So which is the real direction? If time is a fundamental dimension, then physical reality proceeds along it, from past events to future ones. On the other hand, if time is a consequence of motion, then physical reality is simply energy in space and the events created go from being in the future to being in the past. Just as the sun appears to go from east to west, when the reality is the earth rotates west to east. Since energy is just moving around, previous information is constantly being recycled by and giving structure to the present, as the energy by which it is recorded continues on its path. Rather then the straight line of a dimension, time is a loop, where the new is being woven out of strands pulled from the past. The polite reaction has been that this idea may make superficial sense, but physics is not intuitive. I would say that it is the notion of time as a line that is intuitive. It was Edgar Allen Poe who first proposed space and time as one and while there has been much complex math developed to support time as dimension, complexity isn't evidence of proof. Remember epicycles? We spent over a millennium trying to make that work. Time as consequence of motion means it has more in common with temperature, as a description of motion, then space, which certainly is not intuitive. The physical reality of energy goes from past events to future ones, while the information it is recording goes from being in the future to being in the past. One of the many anomalies of modern physics is that quantum uncertainty seemingly leads to multiple realities, but if it is information going from future to past, then it is the wave of future potential collapsing into the order of the past.

The past doesn't exist either, except as whatever record remains in the present. Your next birthday is presumably in the future and many more, hopefully. But eventually, they will all be in the past. We don't know what the future holds, but there will be a future, of some sort. If it is something to move thru, then the future does exist. Possibly you mean it is a thread being drawn out by the events of the present? Motion is relative. "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." I'm just pointing out what that means for time. To the hands of the clock, the face goes counterclockwise. From our point of perspective the sun moves from east to west, as the earth rotates west to east. Because these arrows of time go in opposite directions, they cancel each other out, otherwise, if there was only one direction of time, it would imply a medium, ie. something to move thru, but then that medium would be an absolute and there would be no reaction, so the future would be determined and existent. Question; Is time the series of events, or is it our perception of them? It would seem to be two sides of the same coin. The existance of energy is a state/information. Information doesn't exist, if it's not manifest. Entropy implies a closed set. Even the Big Bang as closed set is faced with the question of dark energy. Regularly enough to qualify as a fact. As both absolute (ie. equilibrium state) and infinite, it is basis. Of course Big Bang theory assumes space itself was created in the singularity, but if that is so, then why doesn't the speed of light increase as space expands? I did say that it's impossible to have energy without information. Yes, it has been traveling and the original events which sent it on its way no longer exist, any more then its future potential physically exists. Always good to bat ideas around and find where the arguments are weak. You did somewhat cherry pick my observations, though. Actually I tend to follow politics more closely. This is just the result of trying to establish some logical basis for this circus we live in.

As an amateur philosopher, I've tried making sense of reality and so this idea comes from a very basic set of priorities, but is devised to explain the spectrum of human experience, not just mathematical models, or scientific disciplines. It has drawn the gamut of responses. Given this is a science forum, this is the extended version; Points, lines and planes supposedly have a zero dimension. Well, 1x0=0. What they really have is a virtual dimension, not zero dimension. While a point can presumably be dimensionless, it is still a specific point of reference. The real zero for geometry would be empty space. It is the potential for any point, not a specific one. Also, three dimensions are the coordinate system of the point these lines cross, not space itself. Any number of coordinate systems, starting from any point, can be used to define the same space. You might say the Israelis and the Arabs use different coordinate systems to define the same land. Time has two directions. The observer goes from past events to future events. On the other hand, these events go from being in the future to being in the past. To the hands of the clock, the face is going counterclockwise. The three dimensional frame of reference is not moving along an additional dimension. This subjective coordinate system is interacting with other such frames. To quote Newton, "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." If we were to build a clock-like device to characterize non-linear motion, say of molecules in water, or people in a crowd, it would have many hands, going in both directions and the cumulative action would cancel out in a general equilibrium. With the concept of time, most of these hands are combined into the face, with a few going in one direction as coordinates for the reference point. Time is a linear measure and consequence of motion, not the basis for it. The unit of time goes from beginning to end, but the process of time is going toward the beginning of the next, leaving the old. The hour on the clock starts in the future and the hand passes from its beginning to its end and then moves on to the next, leaving the previous hour in the past. Days go from dawn to dusk, as the sun moves from east to west, but it is the earth that is rotating west to east and the sunlight is moving through the time zones. Consider a factory. The product moves from start to finish, but the production line is facing the other way, consuming raw material and expelling finished product. This relationship of the process and the unit is one of perspective. A unit at one level is a process at another and vice versa. What matters to the process isn't so much the end product, as it is the energy produced, in wages and profits, calories burned, etc, that propels the process forward, consuming more material. Our individual lives are units of time going from birth to death, while the process of living goes on to the next generation, shedding the old like dead skin. The reason time seems like a series of instants is because most motion is effectively at the speed of light and our mind is a process of consuming information and creating conceptual units, called thoughts, otherwise everything would be a blur. Reality consists of energy recording information. As the amount of energy remains the same, old information is erased as new is recorded. Objective reality is the energy. Time is a function of the subjective information, as past and future do not physically exist because the energy to manifest them is currently tied up in the present. To the photon, there is no time. It contains no record of its past and only has physical direction. It is energy that exists as now. It doesn't exist in the past, or in the future. The concept of time only starts to arise when you attempt to record what these particles do and where they have been. Time cannot be reversed, but it exists as a function of the information being recorded, not of the energy doing the recording. History is the record, not a dimension. Time is not so much a projection out from the present event, as it is a coming together of factors to define what is present. The past being those influences which define current order and the future is determined by the energy to motivate that order. Evolution is when order is an open set and absorbs fresh energy, defining it and adapting to it, so that the future is a continuation of the past. Revolution is when order is a closed set, so the energy accumulates elsewhere and the future becomes a reaction to the past. While the past informs us, it also recedes at a rapid rate. One definition of the arrow of time is that of decreasing usable energy and increasing entropy in a closed system. Keep in mind that a "closed system" is a unit and these processes are the aging of this unit. This relationship of the unit and the process is the basic model that the field of Complexity Theory(http://www.santafe.edu) has examined in great detail, with top down ordering in a bottom up chaotic environment. Such as the corporate unit in the context of capitalism. It is the individual and the ecosystem. The reason the bottom up context is logically chaotic is that its parameters cannot be defined, or it would become a unit in the next level of context. Even though we have come to understand there is no preferred frame of reference, when we define space as a three dimensional coordinate system, with a linear graph of motion as a fourth dimension, we are using the perspective of the generic point as the basis for explaining reality, but a more objective description requires understanding how many such points interact. How should we go about considering objective reality, when the very concept of perspective implies a point of reference? Our fundamental process of thought is inherently reductionistic and linear, so how do we reconcile it with a reality that is neither? Temperature is how we conceive of non-linear motion. It is a statistical measure that begins to lose meaning at the molecular level, as individual molecules are moving along particular trajectories and at specific velocities. At the human level, government statistics are a form of temperature reading of economic activity. To the individual, motion is experienced as the linear procession of events, thus our assumption that time is the basis of motion, but to the larger group there is no preferred frame of reference. It is the concept of temperature, the level of activity and energy, that describes non-linear motion. As politics is the process of organizing and refereeing competing perspectives, it has more in common with the mass motion of temperature then the linear motion of time. While particular movements have their own historical perspective, consideration of the past and concern for the future don't resonate across a fractured and fractious political landscape.