Coming from Nothing?

[Speakpigeon]

I agree with the idea that time may be merely the way our brain represents change. If you think of the successive states of the brain, and in particular memories, and arrange these views along a fourth dimension of space, there is no longer a need for a time dimension. I see this view as consistent with what the physical world seems to be. But I can't really reconcile this view with my subjective experience as the sense that I am moving through time so to speak remains undeniable. I guess the point is that the present has a particular quality compared to past moments giving this sense that you are at a particular moment now and will be at "the next one" soon. That may be illusory but I don't think one can beat down that sense of time. Well, at least this would explain why some people fail to understand the very idea of there being no time dimension.
EB

And how do you explain time dilatation?
How do you explain that simultainiousness is relative?

Why would you need to explain anything in a universe without time?

It would be just the way things are laid out across the four-dimensional space, including your own beliefs about how things pan out outside your mind. Whether those beliefs would match up to anything is anyone guess.

It would look a bit like a fractal picture. Only a metaphor this.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

What you are experiencing is similar to your reference with the sun which provides you the undeiaible experience the sun is moving across your reference. I think physicists have to work out how material gets from one quantum moment to the next, how numerical order in space is achieved.

If you don't have time, of something similar, then nothing gets from moment to the next. Oh, wait, you're saying there's this quantum "tic-toc tic-toc". Ok, but then that is just a kind of time. It's still time. You're wasting mine.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

No EB. I'm saying tic toc doesn't hold. What holds is this position before the next position. Things occur regularly in space without the need for time.

If there were time-space there would be an onto relation between this time and space and the next time and space with some elasticity perhaps.

Such isn't the case.

Whatever one chooses as the mechanism for elastic is stretched beyond limits this way for that abnormal relation and that way for this abnormal relation.

If the one to one relation doesn't hold then time and space are separate, not joint.

 

[Speakpigeon]

No EB. I'm saying tic toc doesn't hold.

Ok.

What holds is this position before the next position. Things occur regularly in space without the need for time.

Ok, sounds good so far.

If there were time-space there would be an onto relation between this time and space and the next time and space with some elasticity perhaps.

Such isn't the case.

Well, science didn't prove there's such a relation but that doesn't necessarily mean there's not one. Let's keep things all hypothetical here.

Whatever one chooses as the mechanism for elastic is stretched beyond limits this way for that abnormal relation and that way for this abnormal relation.

Again, that no one has found such a mechanism doesn't necessarily mean there's not one.

If the one to one relation doesn't hold then time and space are separate, not joint.

Or time is way more difficult to understand than our cheap ordinary concept of linear time or even the more awkward one used in Relativity.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

Or time is way more difficult to understand than our cheap ordinary concept of linear time or even the more awkward one used in Relativity.
EB

I'm good with that. More when I finish Julian Barbour's book "The End of Time".

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Or time is way more difficult to understand than our cheap ordinary concept of linear time or even the more awkward one used in Relativity.
EB

Or maybe the universe is moving at light speed everywhere. Thus in a universal sense there is no time present in the universe because the universe is simply infinite and everywhere.

So what we perceive as time and motion is simply non-linearity.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Or time is way more difficult to understand than our cheap ordinary concept of linear time or even the more awkward one used in Relativity.
EB

Or maybe the universe is moving at light speed everywhere. Thus in a universal sense there is no time present in the universe because the universe is simply infinite and everywhere.

It's relative speed that counts so moving at light speed relative to what?

It's one thing to have a smart idea that might be true. But if the whole of the universe moves at the speed of light then relative to each other it makes no difference for all the things in the universe.
So this one doesn't explain anything.

So what we perceive as time and motion is simply non-linearity.

And where does this non-linearity comes from? You said, "so". I don't see any connection.
EB

 

[Malintent]

Or time is way more difficult to understand than our cheap ordinary concept of linear time or even the more awkward one used in Relativity.
EB

Or maybe the universe is moving at light speed everywhere. Thus in a universal sense there is no time present in the universe because the universe is simply infinite and everywhere.

So what we perceive as time and motion is simply non-linearity.

If the universe was expanding at the speed of light, then no information could be exchanged between objects in the universe... light would never make it anywhere. Particles could not interact with each other.

 

[fromderinside]

...unless there were only space then the distance between things need only be greater than that minimum size. Then rate becomes relatively meaningless when order of nows are arranged accordingly and the greatest distance between minimums become the limit of change.

 

[Xyzzy]

What you are experiencing is similar to your reference with the sun which provides you the undeiaible experience the sun is moving across your reference. I think physicists have to work out how material gets from one quantum moment to the next, how numerical order in space is achieved.

If you don't have time, of something similar, then nothing gets from moment to the next. Oh, wait, you're saying there's this quantum "tic-toc tic-toc". Ok, but then that is just a kind of time. It's still time. You're wasting mine.
EB

It would be easier to see the four dimensional universe as a rule constrained structure where there are succession of instants in time simultaneously existing. In other words, the illusion of your continuous consciousness and the illusion of the progression in time is merely due to the arrangement of the range of time slices of reality you exist in. The fact that each slice is necessarily connected to the previous through the constraints of physical laws that include 't' means that the you in one slice will "remember" the you in the previous slice, but not the next slice.

For each instant in time, there is another you that is experiencing that moment right now - all the instances of time in your past as well as all of the instances of time in your future. It's pretty difficult to wrap your mind around this idea of all instances in time simultaneously existing, and no one instance being the "current" instance, but there's nothing - beyond the way our brain has been set up to think about time - that really contradicts this particular account.

- - - Updated - - -

Also.. love the way the board describes me as a "New Member" when I joined in 2001.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Or maybe the universe is moving at light speed everywhere. Thus in a universal sense there is no time present in the universe because the universe is simply infinite and everywhere.

It's relative speed that counts so moving at light speed relative to what?

It's one thing to have a smart idea that might be true. But if the whole of the universe moves at the speed of light then relative to each other it makes no difference for all the things in the universe.
So this one doesn't explain anything.

So what we perceive as time and motion is simply non-linearity.

And where does this non-linearity comes from? You said, "so". I don't see any connection.
EB

What I'm trying to say is that something could be "moving at light speed" but not going anywhere, at least not in the classical sense of motion. And there really are no straight lines in nature.

What I keep thinking about is what light "speed" actually is. We're measuring and sensing something, something like the shadow of a phenomenon much more fundamental and revealing. It may have to do with space itself. In the end there may be more than one kind of space or space may be more malleable than we think. Space may be like particles when it comes to explaining light speed and motion.

 

[fromderinside]

If you don't have time, of something similar, then nothing gets from moment to the next. Oh, wait, you're saying there's this quantum "tic-toc tic-toc". Ok, but then that is just a kind of time. It's still time. You're wasting mine.
EB

It would be easier to see the four dimensional universe as a rule constrained structure where there are succession of instants in time simultaneously existing. In other words, the illusion of your continuous consciousness and the illusion of the progression in time is merely due to the arrangement of the range of time slices of reality you exist in. The fact that each slice is necessarily connected to the previous through the constraints of physical laws that include 't' means that the you in one slice will "remember" the you in the previous slice, but not the next slice.

For each instant in time, there is another you that is experiencing that moment right now - all the instances of time in your past as well as all of the instances of time in your future. It's pretty difficult to wrap your mind around this idea of all instances in time simultaneously existing, and no one instance being the "current" instance, but there's nothing - beyond the way our brain has been set up to think about time - that really contradicts this particular account.

- - - Updated - - -

Also.. love the way the board describes me as a "New Member" when I joined in 2001.

While the boards are linked your membership on this particular board is not contiguous with your membership on the ancestor board. Nice item more simply explained by place, place rather than place-time, place-time. You are a member in both places but you are not considered a member contiguously over something called time.

 

[Xyzzy]

It would be easier to see the four dimensional universe as a rule constrained structure where there are succession of instants in time simultaneously existing. In other words, the illusion of your continuous consciousness and the illusion of the progression in time is merely due to the arrangement of the range of time slices of reality you exist in. The fact that each slice is necessarily connected to the previous through the constraints of physical laws that include 't' means that the you in one slice will "remember" the you in the previous slice, but not the next slice.

For each instant in time, there is another you that is experiencing that moment right now - all the instances of time in your past as well as all of the instances of time in your future. It's pretty difficult to wrap your mind around this idea of all instances in time simultaneously existing, and no one instance being the "current" instance, but there's nothing - beyond the way our brain has been set up to think about time - that really contradicts this particular account.

- - - Updated - - -

Also.. love the way the board describes me as a "New Member" when I joined in 2001.

While the boards are linked your membership on this particular board is not contiguous with your membership on the ancestor board. Nice item more simply explained by place, place rather than place-time, place-time. You are a member in both places but you are not considered a member contiguously over something called time.

I think you would be contiguous of the t axis, just that the definition of "you" being an instant in that t would be pretty debatable. You would actually be smeared over the whole t range from your birth to your death.

It's interesting that the laws of the universe don't so much depend on "time" as they do on computation. Its sufficient that subsequent states in the t direction are just dependent on computation from initial prior states, not that there actually is anything like what we assume time to be. Assuming that computation could be instantaneous and that all subsequent states would exist if the initial state existed, there's no need for anything like our notion of time. We wouldn't notice the difference.

It's mind bending to think about.

Theres the question as to whether the past or the future really do exist. If the universe were a solid 4D timeless object as above it would - but we don't know that to be true. Even though we have memories of the past and we infer the future we only have direct experience of the reality of the present instant.

I think this is where notions of free will start to intersect concrete rules of time. The future, regardless of whether it is a timeless 4D object or a something that just is created on the fly each new instant as the previous present is annihilated, is directly dependent on the state of this current instant. That means that if there's something that could be called "you" here and now, the next instant is entirely dependent what that "you' is right at this instant, and not the previous instant, or any other time in the past. And what's more, all of the instants are dependent on each successive "you" of each previous instant. There is no skipping succession of instants to go directly to some imaginary future pre-determined destination. The you of each subsequent instant has to be computed from the you of the previous instant one at a time, in rigorous succession one by one, each one entirely the result of the decisions, predispositions and experiences of the prior version of you in the previous slices of time.

Since this chain is unbroken, there's really no chance for there to be any other "will" than your own at any given current instant.

 

[fromderinside]

While the boards are linked your membership on this particular board is not contiguous with your membership on the ancestor board. Nice item more simply explained by place, place rather than place-time, place-time. You are a member in both places but you are not considered a member contiguously over something called time.

I think you would be contiguous of the t axis, just that the definition of "you" being an instant in that t would be pretty debatable. You would actually be smeared over the whole t range from your birth to your death.

It's interesting that the laws of the universe don't so much depend on "time" as they do on computation. Its sufficient that subsequent states in the t direction are just dependent on computation from initial prior states, not that there actually is anything like what we assume time to be. Assuming that computation could be instantaneous and that all subsequent states would exist if the initial state existed, there's no need for anything like our notion of time. We wouldn't notice the difference.

It's mind bending to think about.

Theres the question as to whether the past or the future really do exist. If the universe were a solid 4D timeless object as above it would - but we don't know that to be true. Even though we have memories of the past and we infer the future we only have direct experience of the reality of the present instant.

I think this is where notions of free will start to intersect concrete rules of time. The future, regardless of whether it is a timeless 4D object or a something that just is created on the fly each new instant as the previous present is annihilated, is directly dependent on the state of this current instant. That means that if there's something that could be called "you" here and now, the next instant is entirely dependent what that "you' is right at this instant, and not the previous instant, or any other time in the past. And what's more, all of the instants are dependent on each successive "you" of each previous instant. There is no skipping succession of instants to go directly to some imaginary future pre-determined destination. The you of each subsequent instant has to be computed from the you of the previous instant one at a time, in rigorous succession one by one, each one entirely the result of the decisions, predispositions and experiences of the prior version of you in the previous slices of time.

Since this chain is unbroken, there's really no chance for there to be any other "will" than your own at any given current instant.

Continuity, unbroken, time bubbles, present instants. all inferred from what we observe, not real, just inferred. Remove continuity between spaces and one has remaining distances or volumes with with which to work. Rather than tying things together with a model that confounds time with space why not just a model of space which can account for relativity and QM. Already there would be a path to combining the two since what makes QM tough for our macro matter theory is time.

Or put another way why inflate? Why not just take what is given and work with it. If order in space requires there to be energy degradation then paths are defined one way, if energy remains constant paths are different from the first model, and if energy is gained yet a third model appears. It seems pretty obvious we are measuring a space where energy is lost with change in location and that observations are impacted by inherent energy within individual spaces.

If this is true for matter then it should be true for matter at all levels of observation. I see no reason to assert statistics to explain decay for instance.

As for free will I see no reason for the construct. Physical law tells us that nothing is created nor destroyed so there is no reason to presume emergence when things are combined or intersected.

 

[Xyzzy]

Continuity, unbroken, time bubbles, present instants. all inferred from what we observe, not real, just inferred. Remove continuity between spaces and one has remaining distances or volumes with with which to work. Rather than tying things together with a model that confounds time with space why not just a model of space which can account for relativity and QM. Already there would be a path to combining the two since what makes QM tough for our macro matter theory is time.

i'm not sure our current descriptions of physical law make any assumptions about continuity or the nature of time. The notion that time works equally well run "backwards" or "forwards" when applied to the equations of physics has always been a bit of an unanswered question. That entropy gives times arrow a direction (at least from our perspective), is a side effect of how the physical laws describe macroscopic effects like the building of memories in neurons. Were the laws of physics different, such effects would not be possible and we maybe would not remember the past but the future (don't know quite how that would work but it would be interesting).

Or put another way why inflate? Why not just take what is given and work with it. If order in space requires there to be energy degradation then paths are defined one way, if energy remains constant paths are different from the first model, and if energy is gained yet a third model appears. It seems pretty obvious we are measuring a space where energy is lost with change in location and that observations are impacted by inherent energy within individual spaces.

I don't follow you.

If this is true for matter then it should be true for matter at all levels of observation. I see no reason to assert statistics to explain decay for instance.

As for free will I see no reason for the construct. Physical law tells us that nothing is created nor destroyed so there is no reason to presume emergence when things are combined or intersected.

Emergence is a pretty well supported phenomena of large scale physical systems. Rivers are emergent phenomena of atoms of water reacting to gravity, for example.

Pretty difficult for us to not think about emergence and reason about the universe without emergence as an automatic and intuitive notion. After all, we don't call planets and stars "large quantities of atoms that seem to be in close proximity to each other due to gravity".

Brains are emergent phenomena that are the result of the processes of evolution. Minds, volition, homeostasis and control and our kind of fuzzy notion of "free will" are emergent phenomena of the evolution of brains.

 

[fromderinside]

Emergence is a pretty well supported phenomena of large scale physical systems. Rivers are emergent phenomena of atoms of water reacting to gravity, for example.

Pretty difficult for us to not think about emergence and reason about the universe without emergence as an automatic and intuitive notion. After all, we don't call planets and stars "large quantities of atoms that seem to be in close proximity to each other due to gravity".

Brains are emergent phenomena that are the result of the processes of evolution. Minds, volition, homeostasis and control and our kind of fuzzy notion of "free will" are emergent phenomena of the evolution of brains.

Emergence: As an observation of aggregation or magnification or convenience I agree. As physics I don't agree.

Brains are emergent structures not phenomena. Mind would be emergent if the mind were material, a structure or physical process, but it is only an aggregate and convenience.

I believe evidence shows that without certain factors such as number of beings brains tend to become degenerate. Look at what happened to those humans who migrated from Australia to Tasmania. At the very least they lost cultural memory.

Show me the law where something greater is created in a material transaction, or, a closed system doesn't trend to randomness. IOW give me a law of emergence.

I believe the only relatively new law is things trend toward most effective use of available energy. That is used to explaining such as self organizing molecules, the basis for a biological evolutionary physical substrate, and the existence of atoms and molecules and stars and galaxies. In fact with this last principle stability and 'new' levels of organization are explained removing the 'need' for such as emergence.

Remove time and macro and micro physics can be similarly explained. Entropy would define physical arrow and remove need for future memory or knowledge. Could save us a bunch of dimensions an all that hand waving about a single combined time-space dimension.

Wouldn't you be satisfied with place or size defining processes like a thing going from here to there? Wouldn't it be more satisfactory knowing that this then that suffices to explain radioactive decay?

 

[Speakpigeon]

What do you mean “come from”? The words imply events in history, which is time.

If there were no time and yet the universe existed anyway, it would not have “come” at all, it’d just be what it is.

Yeah good point

Yeah very good point.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Emergence is a pretty well supported phenomena of large scale physical systems. Rivers are emergent phenomena of atoms of water reacting to gravity, for example.

Pretty difficult for us to not think about emergence and reason about the universe without emergence as an automatic and intuitive notion. After all, we don't call planets and stars "large quantities of atoms that seem to be in close proximity to each other due to gravity".

You have a very confused notion of emergence.

Emergence can be dismissed as an illusion. Our brain entertains percepts as a very simplified representation of the world as individual things, say, rivers, trees, people, societies, stars, pretty much everything in fact. We understand why that is, i.e. the need to simplify. Then science comes along and tell us that water is H2O and consequently that rivers are in fact myriads of H2O molecules. We can accept that. But, that doesn't affect our percept when we look at a river. So, we now have a percept of the river, which is a simplified representation of the river, not even necessarily truthful, and we have what science says a river is, essentially. But that doesn't make our percept an emerging property of the actual river. Our percept of the river is located inside our brain, somehow, not in the river. It has nothing to do with the river and all to do with the way our brain works.

Beyond that, a collection of H2O molecules, say in a river, will behave according to their properties and location in space relative to each other and other things. There are sometimes continuous regimes that gives us the impression that it's the same river even though the molecules present yesterday have long gone away. But there again it's only our brain that chooses to portray the river as the same thing as the river we looked at yesterday. So, again a pure illusion. No emergence, ever. It's all a fixture of your imagination. The concept is emerging from your own imagination.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

Am I witnessing an emerging agreement between us?

Looks real. Feels real. Naw. Its probably just an illusion.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I can essentially agree with the first sentence in your response to Xyzzy. The rest seemed out of left field except perhaps the false assertion that brains are emergent structures. It is enough that there should be a unified reality out there. Emergence as an explanatory concept is redundant. We do have impressions of emergence but we have all sorts of impressions and they're not necessarilly truthful.
EB