B Theory of time

[Jobar]

I would say that if the flow of time is only apparent and "the way it looks to us conscious observers", then we're actually not traversing anything.

So, how would we do it?

A bloody damn good question, and if I could give an answer backed by evidence I expect I'd be a shoo-in for a Nobel Prize, and my name would be remembered for a very long time.

An alternative to B Theory is that neither the past nor the future have any reality; only now exists.

As Watts expresses it, beginning about 1:35-
[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfIYGaslVnA[/YOUTUBE]

In greater depth-
[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsNyLvzhJJo[/YOUTUBE]
I love the imagery in that one, but do wish they'd cut the volume of the background music a bit...

 

[Speakpigeon]

An alternative to B Theory is that neither the past nor the future have any reality; only now exists.

Well, sure it's an alternative to the B-theory, but more importantly it's first and foremost our default assumption, to all of us, as far as I know.

Of course, this view has its own problems, but at least we're all comfortable with it.

In fact, it's not really an assumption. Rather, it's a basic belief like to take your perceptions to be real physical things. We can't stop ourselves believing that. I certainly can't.

All I can do is give careful thought and consideration to alternatives, and possibly give them some credit.
EB

 

[WAB]

I love the imagery in that one, but do wish they'd cut the volume of the background music a bit...

Youtube is choked with that kind of silliness! Sometimes the music track is so loud you can't hear the narrator.

Everybody wants to be an entertainer, rather than communicate a idea. I find any video wherein the music competes with the narrative, deeply suspect. It's a common feature of conspiracy theory vids.

ETA: Hmm... I went from Senior Member to Veteran Member. Did I get demoted or promoted?

At least I'm not an upstanding member.



[*rimshot*]


By the way, I'm now Rhonda Fleming. Dayum!

 

[Jobar]

An alternative to B Theory is that neither the past nor the future have any reality; only now exists.

Well, sure it's an alternative to the B-theory, but more importantly it's first and foremost our default assumption, to all of us, as far as I know.

Of course, this view has its own problems, but at least we're all comfortable with it.

In fact, it's not really an assumption. Rather, it's a basic belief like to take your perceptions to be real physical things. We can't stop ourselves believing that. I certainly can't.

All I can do is give careful thought and consideration to alternatives, and possibly give them some credit.
EB

Yes. Though we can consider solipsism, and imagine that all the external world is really just an internal mental phenomenon in our own heads, all of us act as if we are existing within an external reality. (Well, probably there are people in mental institutions who are entirely withdrawn into themselves and ignore the world, but obviously they aren't reading this!)

As to Watts' view that Now is all there is- we should consider the similarities between that and B Theory. Isn't Now always extant, and thus itself eviternal? (Hard to speak about these topics, since our languages are time-dependent.) If Now trails the past behind it "like the wake of a ship", then what is the ocean in which the ship moves?

My own, tentative, view is that we exist within infinite diversity, that can be grouped in infinite combinations. (Thus my avatar.) The past we've traced out is determined, but our future is a vast spread of possible interactions, and we have some limited freedom and choice over and among those interactions. And that is true for every existing thing, perhaps even down to the level of individual particles; and perhaps every single one of those possible paths get traversed, as in Many Worlds theory. That would make time an n-dimensional field, rather than a single dimension. But, again, I don't claim to be absolutely certain of this; I'm a pantheist, but cognizant of my own personal lack of omniscience. As that video says, "I am omnipotent insofar as I am the universe; but I am not omnipotent in the role of Alan Watts. Only cunning."

 

[Speakpigeon]

Yes. Though we can consider solipsism, and imagine that all the external world is really just an internal mental phenomenon in our own heads, all of us act as if we are existing within an external reality.

You mean "in our own minds". Solipsist people don't have heads. And there has to be just one of them. Me.

(Well, probably there are people in mental institutions who are entirely withdrawn into themselves and ignore the world, but obviously they aren't reading this!)

Well, I can read that. The nurse let me.

As to Watts' view that Now is all there is- we should consider the similarities between that and B Theory. Isn't Now always extant, and thus itself eviternal? (Hard to speak about these topics, since our languages are time-dependent.) If Now trails the past behind it "like the wake of a ship", then what is the ocean in which the ship moves?

Well, I guess that's the crucial point in our normal sense of time. Time as a set of instants, possibly infinite, and possibly similar to the Reals. And then you have to have nows as extended instants, intervals of time, that we experience in succession. Nows don't have to be actual intervals of time but there has to be a relation.

And I would be open to the B-theory if our normal sense of time can be accommodated within that theory.

My own, tentative, view is that we exist within infinite diversity, that can be grouped in infinite combinations. (Thus my avatar.) The past we've traced out is determined, but our future is a vast spread of possible interactions, and we have some limited freedom and choice over and among those interactions. And that is true for every existing thing, perhaps even down to the level of individual particles; and perhaps every single one of those possible paths get traversed, as in Many Worlds theory. That would make time an n-dimensional field, rather than a single dimension. But, again, I don't claim to be absolutely certain of this; I'm a pantheist, but cognizant of my own personal lack of omniscience. As that video says, "I am omnipotent insofar as I am the universe; but I am not omnipotent in the role of Alan Watts. Only cunning."

I'm OK with any topology for the time dimension. Multi-dimensional, arborescent, fractal, you name it, as long as you can fit our ordinary sense of time within that conceptual framework. Me, I would say the topology is the easy bit. To some extent, it's a question of imagination (and, OK, expertise). I guess you can always select for a really smooth local geometry that fits the requirements.

The difficult bit, as always with qualia, would be to connect how time feels to us with any putative quantitative interpretation.

Or maybe we just assume that how time feels to us is irrelevant.
EB

 

[WAB]

You mean "in our own minds". Solipsist people don't have heads. And there has to be just one of them. Me.



Well, I can read that. The nurse let me.

As to Watts' view that Now is all there is- we should consider the similarities between that and B Theory. Isn't Now always extant, and thus itself eviternal? (Hard to speak about these topics, since our languages are time-dependent.) If Now trails the past behind it "like the wake of a ship", then what is the ocean in which the ship moves?

Well, I guess that's the crucial point in our normal sense of time. Time as a set of instants, possibly infinite, and possibly similar to the Reals. And then you have to have nows as extended instants, intervals of time, that we experience in succession. Nows don't have to be actual intervals of time but there has to be a relation.

And I would be open to the B-theory if our normal sense of time can be accommodated within that theory.

My own, tentative, view is that we exist within infinite diversity, that can be grouped in infinite combinations. (Thus my avatar.) The past we've traced out is determined, but our future is a vast spread of possible interactions, and we have some limited freedom and choice over and among those interactions. And that is true for every existing thing, perhaps even down to the level of individual particles; and perhaps every single one of those possible paths get traversed, as in Many Worlds theory. That would make time an n-dimensional field, rather than a single dimension. But, again, I don't claim to be absolutely certain of this; I'm a pantheist, but cognizant of my own personal lack of omniscience. As that video says, "I am omnipotent insofar as I am the universe; but I am not omnipotent in the role of Alan Watts. Only cunning."

I'm OK with any topology for the time dimension. Multi-dimensional, arborescent, fractal, you name it, as long as you can fit our ordinary sense of time within that conceptual framework. Me, I would say the topology is the easy bit. To some extent, it's a question of imagination (and, OK, expertise). I guess you can always select for a really smooth local geometry that fits the requirements.

The difficult bit, as always with qualia, would be to connect how time feels to us with any putative quantitative interpretation.

Or maybe we just assume that how time feels to us is irrelevant.
EB

All I know is, time didn't make me wonder or fret at all ten billion years ago, or a hundred years ago; it's only now that time eats at me. And I don't suppose I will have a care in the world about what time feels like a billion years from now, or in a hundred. This is the very reason death has nothing to trouble me with! [and there was much rejoicing...] yaaaaaaay

I look forward to learning the art of dying, after all, when my time comes.



Ten thousand bonus points and a sack of wet mice for the one who knows that last reference without resorting to the great Yagooglebing.

 

[steve_bank]

wiploc

If you are going to argue causality then I have nothing to say beyond restating.

1. If you get rid of causality then you open up to a whole lot of other things.

2. The unuverse winked into existence by itself.

3. The universe always was and always will be.

4. God did it without explaining where god came from, and all the religious creation myths.

I go with number four.As an engineer the Laws Of Thermodynamics are tatooed on my chest. Matter and energy can not be created or sestroyed, only form changes. In an ifinite universe energy can never be lost. The universe never runs down. That is the basis of my view. Note the BB Theory does not adress what caused the initial conditions, it does not start at Time Zero of the universe.

Any postulation of a universe with a beginning must then have a cause, if you reject causality then that is not a problem for you.

 

[Underseer]

An alternative to B Theory is that neither the past nor the future have any reality; only now exists.

Well, sure it's an alternative to the B-theory, but more importantly it's first and foremost our default assumption, to all of us, as far as I know.

Of course, this view has its own problems, but at least we're all comfortable with it.

In fact, it's not really an assumption. Rather, it's a basic belief like to take your perceptions to be real physical things. We can't stop ourselves believing that. I certainly can't.

All I can do is give careful thought and consideration to alternatives, and possibly give them some credit.
EB

Default position or not, A-theory was destroyed by evidence over a century ago unless you want to argue that parts of reality exist for some observers, but not others.

https://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/Special_relativity_rel_sim/index.html

If "now," "past," "future" and "simultaneous" are different for different observers, and if the A-theory insists that the past and future don't exist, then the A-theory requires that parts of reality exists or doesn't exist based on who is observing reality. Whether or not you can make sense of "traversal" in B-theory is irrelevant. Reality is not required to make sense of whatever philosophers cook up, philosophers are obligated to make their ideas conform to reality wherever those ideas intersect with reality. Otherwise, your A-theory and B-theory are describing time in another reality rather than ours.

Time and nothingness used to be things that science could not say anything about, so philosophers were free to make up whatever bullshit they liked. Now physics is encroaching on territory that used to be exclusive to philosophy.

If you want to argue that parts of reality exist or don't exist depending on the observer, then fine, but you'll have to give me a reason to think that is actually the case.

 

[steve_bank]

wiploc

If you are going to argue causality then I have nothing to say beyond restating.

1. If you get rid of causality then you open up to a whole lot of other things.

2. The unuverse winked into existence by itself.

3. The universe always was and always will be.

4. God did it without explaining where god came from, and all the religious creation myths.

I go with number four.As an engineer the Laws Of Thermodynamics are tatooed on my chest. Matter and energy can not be created or sestroyed, only form changes. In an ifinite universe energy can never be lost. The universe never runs down. That is the basis of my view. Note the BB Theory does not adress what caused the initial conditions, it does not start at Time Zero of the universe.

Any postulation of a universe with a beginning must then have a cause, if you reject causality then that is not a problem for you.

Adding that in the texts the Laws of Tj\hermodynamics are not stated as true. It is stated that no exception has ever been fpund. Likewise it is not possible to prove causality must always apply. You can ask why radioactive decay must have a cause, you can also belive those points of light in the sky are holes in a sphere as was once thought.


When it comes to causality, you have to weigh what we do know and make a judgement. When it comes to a deity I give it a low subjective priority, but not zero. I can not prove god does not exist. The liklihood of something coming from nothing has a low probabi;lty.

 

[Speakpigeon]

An alternative to B Theory is that neither the past nor the future have any reality; only now exists.

Well, sure it's an alternative to the B-theory, but more importantly it's first and foremost our default assumption, to all of us, as far as I know.

Of course, this view has its own problems, but at least we're all comfortable with it.

In fact, it's not really an assumption. Rather, it's a basic belief like to take your perceptions to be real physical things. We can't stop ourselves believing that. I certainly can't.

All I can do is give careful thought and consideration to alternatives, and possibly give them some credit.
EB

Default position or not, A-theory was destroyed by evidence over a century ago unless you want to argue that parts of reality exist for some observers, but not others.

https://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/Special_relativity_rel_sim/index.html

If "now," "past," "future" and "simultaneous" are different for different observers, and if the A-theory insists that the past and future don't exist, then the A-theory requires that parts of reality exists or doesn't exist based on who is observing reality. Whether or not you can make sense of "traversal" in B-theory is irrelevant. Reality is not required to make sense of whatever philosophers cook up, philosophers are obligated to make their ideas conform to reality wherever those ideas intersect with reality. Otherwise, your A-theory and B-theory are describing time in another reality rather than ours.

Time and nothingness used to be things that science could not say anything about, so philosophers were free to make up whatever bullshit they liked. Now physics is encroaching on territory that used to be exclusive to philosophy.

If you want to argue that parts of reality exist or don't exist depending on the observer, then fine, but you'll have to give me a reason to think that is actually the case.

Please have another look at what it is I actually said in my post. Then explain to me how what I said there could have motivated you should go on a rampage shooting philosophers at close range and me as well by association.

As far as I can tell, you seem to not understand what I said and just assumed from there I must be advocating the A-Theory of time as pitch perfect. So, look more carefully. Are you sure I was talking about the A-Theory of time? Did I mention it at all for instance?

So, when you have the time, maybe you'll have something a bit more relevant and a bit more interesting to say about what it is I actually said.

As for existence, please explain to me what it means that things exist for an observer in a relativistic universe. You clearly have expertise I could rely on to start understand the world.

And no hard feelings, you know.
EB

________________

EDIT And have a look at my previous post here, it might help you understand what you didn't. Look particularly for when I expand on the A-theory of time:

As to Watts' view that Now is all there is- we should consider the similarities between that and B Theory. Isn't Now always extant, and thus itself eviternal? (Hard to speak about these topics, since our languages are time-dependent.) If Now trails the past behind it "like the wake of a ship", then what is the ocean in which the ship moves?

Well, I guess that's the crucial point in our normal sense of time. Time as a set of instants, possibly infinite, and possibly similar to the Reals. And then you have to have nows as extended instants, intervals of time, that we experience in succession. Nows don't have to be actual intervals of time but there has to be a relation.

And I would be open to the B-theory if our normal sense of time can be accommodated within that theory.

My own, tentative, view is that we exist within infinite diversity, that can be grouped in infinite combinations. (Thus my avatar.) The past we've traced out is determined, but our future is a vast spread of possible interactions, and we have some limited freedom and choice over and among those interactions. And that is true for every existing thing, perhaps even down to the level of individual particles; and perhaps every single one of those possible paths get traversed, as in Many Worlds theory. That would make time an n-dimensional field, rather than a single dimension. But, again, I don't claim to be absolutely certain of this; I'm a pantheist, but cognizant of my own personal lack of omniscience. As that video says, "I am omnipotent insofar as I am the universe; but I am not omnipotent in the role of Alan Watts. Only cunning."

I'm OK with any topology for the time dimension. Multi-dimensional, arborescent, fractal, you name it, as long as you can fit our ordinary sense of time within that conceptual framework. Me, I would say the topology is the easy bit. To some extent, it's a question of imagination (and, OK, expertise). I guess you can always select for a really smooth local geometry that fits the requirements.

The difficult bit, as always with qualia, would be to connect how time feels to us with any putative quantitative interpretation.

Or maybe we just assume that how time feels to us is irrelevant.
EB

 

[skepticalbip]

.........snip.........

I'm OK with any topology for the time dimension. Multi-dimensional, arborescent, fractal, you name it, as long as you can fit our ordinary sense of time within that conceptual framework. Me, I would say the topology is the easy bit. To some extent, it's a question of imagination (and, OK, expertise). I guess you can always select for a really smooth local geometry that fits the requirements.

The difficult bit, as always with qualia, would be to connect how time feels to us with any putative quantitative interpretation.

Or maybe we just assume that how time feels to us is irrelevant.
EB

That may be a very valid assumption. How reality "feels to us" has historically proven to be an extremely poor guide. It certainly "feels" like the Earth isn't moving. If someone observes the sky it feels that it is all the heavenly bodies that are moving around us. For many, it feels as though humanity is the focus or purpose of the universe.

 

[steve_bank]

The subjective experience of the passage of time is important to us humans. It spawns poetry and music.

 

[WAB]

With that I certainly agree.

 

[WAB]

.........snip.........

I'm OK with any topology for the time dimension. Multi-dimensional, arborescent, fractal, you name it, as long as you can fit our ordinary sense of time within that conceptual framework. Me, I would say the topology is the easy bit. To some extent, it's a question of imagination (and, OK, expertise). I guess you can always select for a really smooth local geometry that fits the requirements.

The difficult bit, as always with qualia, would be to connect how time feels to us with any putative quantitative interpretation.

Or maybe we just assume that how time feels to us is irrelevant.
EB

That may be a very valid assumption. How reality "feels to us" has historically proven to be an extremely poor guide. It certainly "feels" like the Earth isn't moving. If someone observes the sky it feels that it is all the heavenly bodies that are moving around us. For many, it feels as though humanity is the focus or purpose of the universe.

Well, perhaps for humans, humans are the focus and purpose of the universe. Thought of as wholly objectively as possible, even the very idea of that being true seems absurd to me.

As absurd as an eternal universe which has been described as 14.8 billions years old.

 

[Speakpigeon]

.........snip.........

I'm OK with any topology for the time dimension. Multi-dimensional, arborescent, fractal, you name it, as long as you can fit our ordinary sense of time within that conceptual framework. Me, I would say the topology is the easy bit. To some extent, it's a question of imagination (and, OK, expertise). I guess you can always select for a really smooth local geometry that fits the requirements.

The difficult bit, as always with qualia, would be to connect how time feels to us with any putative quantitative interpretation.

Or maybe we just assume that how time feels to us is irrelevant.
EB

That may be a very valid assumption. How reality "feels to us" has historically proven to be an extremely poor guide. It certainly "feels" like the Earth isn't moving. If someone observes the sky it feels that it is all the heavenly bodies that are moving around us. For many, it feels as though humanity is the focus or purpose of the universe.

Come on, lad, you could try a little bit harder!! You really think I'm not aware of the fact that people's belief that the Earth wasn't moving was proved wrong by science?!

So, read again. The key concept here is "relevant", not "truth". I said "irrelevant", not "wrong". See?

Perhaps you should consider whether the focus of your posts lately isn't, well, wrong.
EB

 

[Wiploc]

You really think I'm not aware of the fact that people's belief that the Earth wasn't moving was proved wrong by science?!

You can't be "aware" of something that isn't true.

Motion is relative. Einstein taught us that the motionlessness of the earth is optional, not "wrong."

 

[Jobar]

.........snip.........

I'm OK with any topology for the time dimension. Multi-dimensional, arborescent, fractal, you name it, as long as you can fit our ordinary sense of time within that conceptual framework. Me, I would say the topology is the easy bit. To some extent, it's a question of imagination (and, OK, expertise). I guess you can always select for a really smooth local geometry that fits the requirements.

The difficult bit, as always with qualia, would be to connect how time feels to us with any putative quantitative interpretation.

Or maybe we just assume that how time feels to us is irrelevant.
EB

That may be a very valid assumption. How reality "feels to us" has historically proven to be an extremely poor guide. It certainly "feels" like the Earth isn't moving. If someone observes the sky it feels that it is all the heavenly bodies that are moving around us. For many, it feels as though humanity is the focus or purpose of the universe.

Well, perhaps for humans, humans are the focus and purpose of the universe. Thought of as wholly objectively as possible, even the very idea of that being true seems absurd to me.

As absurd as an eternal universe which has been described as 14.8 billions years old.

I usually try to refer to 'reality' or 'the multiverse' when I am talking about that which may be infinite, and 'the observable universe' when I mean the part of reality we can see, that appears to begin at the Big Bang. But you're right that the terms aren't always used clearly.

 

[Speakpigeon]

You really think I'm not aware of the fact that people's belief that the Earth wasn't moving was proved wrong by science?!

You can't be "aware" of something that isn't true.

Motion is relative. Einstein taught us that the motionlessness of the earth is optional, not "wrong."

Ah, excellent! I had thought about this very point but decided I didn't want to go into the subtleties of the observers' differing points of views in relativistic frames of reference with somebody who seemed unable or at the very least unwilling to really read the posts on which he comments.

Now that we've cleared this point, let me tell you that the first line in your comment is inappropriate; Well, in fact, clearly inappropriate.

So, can you read my post again and try and explain to me why your comment is indeed inappropriate? It's not terribly difficult, I can assure you. Look at the specific words you use in your post and those I used in my post. It's, well, pretty damn obvious.
EB

 

[skepticalbip]

You really think I'm not aware of the fact that people's belief that the Earth wasn't moving was proved wrong by science?!

You can't be "aware" of something that isn't true.

Motion is relative. Einstein taught us that the motionlessness of the earth is optional, not "wrong."

You are pushing Einstein much, much further than relativity. Yes, motion is relative in the sense that, if you have two objects in space moving apart or toward each other, either can be assumed as a reference in which case the other will be seen as moving. In effect everything in the universe is moving with respect to everything else. In fact, motion of an object can not be described except relative to something else.

However, if you push this idea to the point of assuming an observer's position on Earth is a universal inertial reference frame then you need to invent a hell of a lot of new physics (not relativity) to explain observations. You now need a new force to explain a star a hundred LY away moving much faster than the speed of light (628 c actually) in its daily orbit around the earth (maybe very swift angels shoving that sucker). Coreolous effects would also need another new force (or angels) to explain. There are many other observed effects that would need the invention of new forces (or a hell of a lot of very busy angels) to explain if an observer's position on Earth is assumed as a universal inertial reference frame which is how it feels and what the geocentric universe model assumed.

The theory of relativity does not allow for such internal violations.

 

[steve_bank]

You really think I'm not aware of the fact that people's belief that the Earth wasn't moving was proved wrong by science?!

You can't be "aware" of something that isn't true.

Motion is relative. Einstein taught us that the motionlessness of the earth is optional, not "wrong."

The Earth centric view was wrong, it was framed by the notion of absolute motion. I'd state it it a little differently. Motion is relative to a frame of reference. What AE showed was that for us there can be no absolute reference frame, or set of coordinates.