Time may not be the 4th dimension

[ant]

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/20 ... nsion.html

[johnson1010]

This is an interesting topic.

What are dimensions?

The three ordinary dimensions are used as coordinate numbers. Is that what they are? Well, it’s hard to define what a thing is without comparing it to something else. Dimensions are things which can be measured or which can indicate numbers that can pinpoint something in a coordinate system.

Height, width and depth could be understood as the measure of relationship between things and their distance from one another. Height, width and depth being distinguished as 90* changes in angle in the direction of spin of an electron (between width and depth) and 90* spin perpendicular to the plane of that spins for height.

Time seems to be different than height, width and depth, but it can be used in the same way to indicate “where” something is in the time dimension.

Time is the measure of change in relationship of things. In a VERY simple environment, time is not necessarily a measurement that can only go one direction, past to future. With an environment where there is nothing in the universe except, say, 5 particles, the only thing that can be said about that universe is the relationship of those particles. It may come to pass that those particles would come back to their original relationships, and if that happened there would be no way to distinguish whether that was the first time they were in that shape, or the hundredth, or the millionth, or if they had ever moved from that position.

In that way, time would be reversible. What makes time flow in one direction is the huge number of particles in the universe. If we have those same 5 particles, but also a billion others, there may also come a time when those 5 particles are back to their original relationship, but all the other particles around them could not re-arrange to their original position at the same time, so when we measured that relationship again we could see that it is not the SAME time since everything else is different. This is the forward motion of time. All it is is the measure of change in relationship between particles.

It happens that there aren’t just a billion particles we have to think about, but billions upon billions upon billions just in the things you see in front of your face.

So, the use of space-time is a way to combine height, width, depth and the causal chain of events as a coordinate system. We determine those four coordinates and we understand where and when something was. What makes this extra useful is that it is reference frame independent. Anyone will agree about the space-time coordinates of an event, even when the individual coordinates vary depending on how you travel. It remains a ratio describing the “100%”, despite how individual parts change.

That being said, I’m not sure that time IS a fundamental thing, but is rather more consequential. But so too would physical dimension be a consequential thing, perhaps owing to the Pauli exclusion principle. No two electrons can occupy the same place in space, or the same exact charge. So, things cannot all be right on top of eachother and as a consequence you get dimension. The interaction of those electrons cause things to repel and attract eachother which causes a change in relationship and therefore time.

Are any of these things, therefore, truly fundamental? Or are they all really consequential?

[Interbane]

It seems clear to me that scientists are catching up with the mystics who taught that Time and Space are illusions created by the senses.

They aren't. It's a misperception on your part. The majority of scientists are not mystical and don't subscribe to the beliefs you mentioned. Naming a few does not give you the right to generalize.

[youkrst]

thanks Mr Erickson, that looked like an interesting read so i grabbed it.

here's another little bit from the intro to give others an idea

I N THE MIDST of the growing interest in the relation between science
and religion, it is always useful to return to the pioneering founders
of modern physics and read what they themselves had to say on this
most important topic: Quantum Questions is a compendium of virtually
all of the significant writings from some of the greatest physicists the
world has ever known.
The common tendency, when faced with the truly ultimate issues of
existence, is to assume-or at least hope-that physics and mysticism
would somehow converge on a similar set of answers, that physics
would somehow support or even prove a mystical worldview. This, after
all, has been the message of countless books, from The Tao of Physics
to The Dancing Wu-Li Masters.
That simple conclusion, however, was not believed by any of the great
physicists in this volume. From Einstein to Eddington, from Bohr to
Planck, from Heisenberg to Pauli, they uniformly rejected that conclu-
sion. They rejected the notion that physics proves or even supports mys-
ticism, and yet everyone of them was an avowed mystic!
How can that be? Very simply, they all realized that, at the very least,
physics deals with the world of form, and mysticism deals with the form-
less. Both are important, but they cannot be equated. Physics can be
learned by the study of facts and mathematics, but mysticism can only
be learned by a profound change in consciousness. To confuse these two
is to misunderstand and distort both science and spirituality.
As you will see in the following pages, all of these

cant wait to get into it and see what these fellows have to say.

oh, heres another bit from the book

T HE THEME OF THIS BOOK, if I may briefly summarize the argu-
ment of the physicists presented herein, is that modern physics of-
fers no positive support (let alone proof) for a mystical worldview.
Nevertheless, everyone of the physicists in this volume was a mystic.
They simply believed, to a man, that if modern physics no longer objects
to a religious worldview, it offers no positive support either; properly
speaking, it is indifferent to all that. The very compelling reasons why
these pioneering physicists did not believe that physics and mysticism
shared similar worldviews, and the very compelling reasons that they
nevertheless all became mystics-just that is the dual theme of this an-
thology. If they did not get their mysticism from a study of modern
physics, where did they get it? And why?

[Interbane]

Meanwhile there are thousands who don't believe as you say. Your quotes represent the minority. You're generalizing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

[johnson1010]

And besides which these quotes can be taken out of context.

For instance, we know that Einstein did not believe in god as described by a literal interpretation of the bible, yet he does use the word god several times throughout his life. But that is in the same vein as someone might say "My car won't star. She just won't turn over." They very definitely do not believe that their car is the female of a species of sexually reproducing organisms.

[johnson1010]

It seems clear to me that scientists are catching up with the mystics who taught that Time and Space are illusions created by the senses.

Not true. Space and time as comprehended in our brains are a model we use to negotiate the world.

For instance, it IS an illusion that objects further from you appear to be small, but they are not actually reduced in size. It is a convenient illusion brought on by the geometry of our eyes and the propogation of electromagnetism.

Despite this being an illusion, it is still representative of an empirical fact and we can use this illusion to successfully navigate the real world. For instance, a car which is percieved to be rapidly growing in size can be interpreted as rapidly approaching. Those who struggle with the difference between the reality and their model of that reality can stay put and wonder if they choose, and those of us who do not struggle with such ideas can step aside to live another day.

This description of our minds creating a model of the world could be accurately described as an illusion, but with so many clarifications as to remove the meaning of the word "illusion", and it certainly doesn't hold fast with mystic assertions of mind being the only real thing and everything else being some projection of thought.

[Interbane]

We don't know that those who see God, Intelligence and Design are in the minority hence I rebuff your charge of generalising.

You admit your guilt. If you don't know the statistics, how can you make a claim? Scientists are catching up with mystics? Based on what? That is generalizing, Mr. Erickson.

My statement was based on surveys. There are many.

[Sebastian Michael]

Time is the measure of change in relationship of things. In a VERY simple environment, time is not necessarily a measurement that can only go one direction, past to future. With an environment where there is nothing in the universe except, say, 5 particles, the only thing that can be said about that universe is the relationship of those particles. It may come to pass that those particles would come back to their original relationships, and if that happened there would be no way to distinguish whether that was the first time they were in that shape, or the hundredth, or the millionth, or if they had ever moved from that position.

In that way, time would be reversible. What makes time flow in one direction is the huge number of particles in the universe. If we have those same 5 particles, but also a billion others, there may also come a time when those 5 particles are back to their original relationship, but all the other particles around them could not re-arrange to their original position at the same time, so when we measured that relationship again we could see that it is not the SAME time since everything else is different. This is the forward motion of time. All it is is the measure of change in relationship between particles.

It happens that there aren’t just a billion particles we have to think about, but billions upon billions upon billions just in the things you see in front of your face.

I like the idea of a 'model' universe that consists of only 5 particles and in which, therefore, one instance of the universe being in a particular state would be indistinguishable from another instance of the same universe being in an identical state, and in which, as a result, time could be said to be either non-existent or irrelevant or unmeasurable. But does that not presuppose two additional assumptions: 1) that this universe in its own spatial dimensions remains static, in other words it doesn't expand or contract and 2) that it is not subject to entropy? (The two, I understand, being quite possibly related.)

I'm no scientist so these are not rhetorical questions; rather, I'm intrigued to know whether my extremely slight grasp of the question is enough to make an accurate observation or whether what I've just contributed here is the most ardent nonsense...

[johnson1010]

Hello, Sebastion!

Sebastion:
I like the idea of a 'model' universe that consists of only 5 particles and in which, therefore, one instance of the universe being in a particular state would be indistinguishable from another instance of the same universe being in an identical state, and in which, as a result, time could be said to be either non-existent or irrelevant or unmeasurable. But does that not presuppose two additional assumptions: 1) that this universe in its own spatial dimensions remains static, in other words it doesn't expand or contract and 2) that it is not subject to entropy? (The two, I understand, being quite possibly related.)

The spatial dimension was not meant to change in my example, or at least i didn't bother to think about it at the time. If space were expanding in that example and carrying the particles away from eachother, you could use that as a measure of time so long as they drift apart, but when they begin to contract (if they contract) you are back to being unable to determine which "time" it is that they've been in that position.

In our own universe matter is held together gravitationally, and doesn't spread, or expand at the same rate as is observed between galaxies, at least that's what all my favorite science advocates have led me to believe. So ultimately when all the other galaxies are receding from us faster than the speed of light our galaxy will remain intact and "within driving distance" of earth because of the pull of gravity. While all the rest of the evidence of other galaxies will have red-shifted into invisibility, our matter will stay close by.

Perhaps it could be imagined in my model experiment that the 5 particles are also held within some minimum distance of eachother, like the push/pull of electromagnetism, so that even as the universe expands around them, they remain within some tolerance of eachother.

As for entropy, this model is designed to be at maximum entropy, more or less. There are only 5 particles and they are already seperate and randomized from eachother. The expanding universe and the possibility of particles being further seperate from eachother could add entropy, but i had imagined them as being more or less constrained in distance from eachother. That, i suppose, is just a limit of my model.

Where the aditional billion particles are added in the extra complexity i spoke of was the entropy needed to tell the difference between one instance in time and another.

Entropy, for those who don't know, is a measure of order. A house is an example of an ordered, or low entropy set of objects. think of all the parts and particles that make up the house. Think of the zillions of ways they could be arranged, if you say, tossed the whole thing into the air and let it fall a hundred times. A rubble pile is an example of a disordered, or high entropy set of objects.

For each of the hundred times the house was dropped it would fall into a rubble pile. Each individual rubble pile is unique and in it's own way as unlikely as a miracle, considering the zillions of different arrangements a rubble pile could be composed of. But landing in the shape of a house is just not going to happen because as amazing and unlikely any PARTICULAR rubble pile is, ANY rubble pile is far far far more likely than any kind of house.

I like to think of "houses" as being endothermic. They require energy resources be put into them, they require order be applied to them. Rubble piles are exothermic. You don't have to do anything to a house to find, one day, it has turned into a rubble pile. The energy and resources have "left" the house. It has fallen from one of only a few million possible designs that equal "house" and into one of the billions and billions and billions of possible configurations for "rubble pile"

Think of just this simple set of axioms, and you will be surprised how much you can explain.

The universe tends toward stability. High energy usually means instability.

Just from that, if you think about it for a while, you can explain what's happening when the sun shines, when you see the color in an object, when logs burn, and how rocks crumble.

I'm not a scientist either. Just an enthusiastic fan. Good question!