Time

[steve_bank]

Entropy is a hidden annoying cricket chirping in your house.

There are many verbal ways to talk about it, in practice it is a number. There is a good book called Chemistry For Dummies that discuses entropy in chemical reactions.

I don't like the words ordered and disordered. Entropy says a bounded system will go to equilibrium with its surroundings.

Your computer gets warm , but that heat can not all be recovered to do useful work in the computer. Turn the computer off and the temp will reach equilibrium with the surroundings. A refrigerator is an entropy reverser.

I believe Shannon was the first to apply entropy to information transfer. In telegraph it was observed that a succession of pulses traveling down the wire would become rounded, indistinguishable, and becoming noise. Information transfer be it drums or the net reduce to thermodynamics. It is inescapable.


Energy has no direction, it is a scaler. Power which is rate of energy usage can be a vector.

 

[Kharakov]

For any given state and for every possible evolution of this state, there must be a mirror evolution where each particle is moving in the opposite direction.

I disagree (with myself too). Parity violation. Yeah, it's only weak, but.

Are the particles also facing the opposite direction? How about more complex chemicals? Do they react according to opposite world physics? What happens to proteins that are backing up towards ribosomes? Does the orientation of the particles determine the generation of consciousness that they apparently react to?


See the Wu experiment, then have some woo:
Not only that, if there is consciousness generated by whatever systems are in place, that extends into spacetime in some weird way and has some effect on particles (maybe all consciousness is a form of spacetime, with little branches being individual consciousni), particles moving backwards is going to have a different effect on the consciousness than them moving "forwards". So we have that as well.

I tend towards observers impact the system type of thinking, and also a "philosophical zombies have no reason to generate qualia they react to". Man this head cold is trippy.... I wonder if I have cerebral meningitis?

 

[lpetrich]

Entropy is information, well, according to Leonard Susskind anyways.

It's not just him. That identification is an important part of statistical mechanics. It's the amount of information needed to go from a large-scale description to a fully-detailed, small-scale description. One has to be careful about its units, but that's a side issue.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I disagree (with myself too). Parity violation. Yeah, it's only weak, but.
Are the particles also facing the opposite direction? How about more complex chemicals? Do they react according to opposite world physics? What happens to proteins that are backing up towards ribosomes? Does the orientation of the particles determine the generation of consciousness that they apparently react to?

Well, I certainly don't have even the barebones knowledge necessary to understand the problem and I also accept it's probably more complicated or complex than merely reversing the direction of travel of fundamental particles, but this was just to give the general idea about mirror evolution.

Now, I guess that we are in either of two possible worlds. Either fundamental properties are strictly compositional and then there's no reason to accept entropy as a necessary outcome.

Or, fundamental properties are not compositional and I guess scientists would need to explain to us how this really works.

If fundamental properties are compositional, then for every actual outcome, there would have to be a potential mirror outcome. And if entropy goes up for one outcome, it would go down for the mirror outcome. The problem, then, would be to explain why we, as human beings, only witness outcomes broadly characterised by an increasing entropy.

And, sure, we can ignore the question as being too philosophical. If there's a nice program on TV, with bother?
EB


Plug: For the poll on the definition of consciousness, thank you to visit https://talkfreethought.org/showthread.php?12402-Definitions-of-Consciousness-The-Poll

 

[Treedbear]

I don't have any evidence. I'm just repeating what I think I understood science is saying. That's science as I know of it. Entropy can decrease locally, but only at the expense of an equal or larger increase in some larger system. Overall, entropy can only remain stable or increase.

Is that not true, you think?!

That's true, but just because entropy and time seem to be increasing together doesn't mean that either one is caused by the other. Actually. that brings up another interesting bias in that we tend to see time as something that accumulates or increases or else diminishes and is used up. So we've built the idea of time as a thing into our system of knowledge.

Really?! Is that so? Is that a scientific result?
Do you know it is or are you just making this up?

I'm not a statistician but that's where I would look for support. It seems self evident enough for now.

I don't know. For any given state and for every possible evolution of this state, there must be a mirror evolution where each particle is moving in the opposite direction.

I don't see how that is necessary or even possible. The reaction particles might have a diversity of trajectories and spins. Look at the tracks generated in cloud chambers.

If you place a drop of food dye in a glass of water what are the chances that it will eventually all come together again in a different location?

Sure, it's what happens. We all know that. The question is how does QM explain that if it does.
EB

I don't know. But I wasn't the one who suggested that time is causally effected by entropy. The point I made is that both time as well as entropy are the result of probabilities. Statistical probabilities.

I never suggested anything like "time is causally effected by entropy". That idea seems idiotic to me.

For the rest, maybe somebody else knows the answer.

Thanks anyway.
EB

Yes, I'm afraid the entropy of the discussion is increasing. Thanks though.

 

[Treedbear]

Maybe time is what results from the quantum nature of reality. That is, because reality operates non-deterministically at the quantum level there is a wide range of adjacent possibilities into which the future can progress. Perhaps infinite ways. While there is only one course of events that will retrace the past. Although the physical laws are supposed to operate just as well in either direction it becomes essentially impossible for this to happen due to the improbability. Any particular path into the future is just as improbable. The illusion is that it's as inevitable or as set in stone as the past has become. If it wasn't for the indeterminism of quantum dynamics the past and future would be equally probable. Which might be equivalent to non-existence or just chaos. So time isn't what keeps everything from happening at once. It's what allows anything to happen at all.

I would assume there are as many possibilities where entropy would go down as there are where entropy would go up. So, I don't see why one direction of evolution of entropy should be privileged by quantum physics. There is only one possibility to retrace the past exactly but there are any number of possibilities for an alternative past. The past and future are equally probable.

So the question is, why do we never go there?
EB

There, you bring entropy into my discussion on time. I'm not describing entropy when I suggest that time progresses as the result of the vast number of adjacent possibilities. I'm saying the past represents only one out of a vast number of possibilities and so is an unlikely path. Entropy can naturally decrease locally for a while. But at larger scales the entropy also increases, and that is also due to probability. But I think probably not on the quantum scale.

I have a problem with the idea of an alternative past. (I mean, other than in debates about free will and "the ability to have done otherwise".) If time could move backwards into the past any deviation from what originally occurred would not be the past. What would it be? By default I suppose it must be the future. Yes?

 

[Speakpigeon]

We have a sense of time. None of us needs to have invented any quirky concept in that respect. Our sense of time is part of what we are, especially when we're hungry or tired, or when we're expecting something to happen.

And I certainly think there's a link between our sense of time, and our sense that time is moving forward, and also couldn't possibly move backward, and entropy, even though entropy can decrease locally.

And then QM seems to say there's no such thing as time, at least nothing like we think of it.

But, Ok, maybe we can't move beyond this.

I'll wait.
EB

 

[Treedbear]

We have a sense of time. None of us needs to have invented any quirky concept in that respect. Our sense of time is part of what we are, especially when we're hungry or tired, or when we're expecting something to happen.

And I certainly think there's a link between our sense of time, and our sense that time is moving forward, and also couldn't possibly move backward, and entropy, even though entropy can decrease locally.

And then QM seems to say there's no such thing as time, at least nothing like we think of it.

But, Ok, maybe we can't move beyond this.

I'll wait.
EB

From the accounts I've heard the experience of the rate time corresponds directly with how much attention is being paid. Really exciting or scary situations cause us to remember more details of an event. So it's more of a reflection of what has happened, rather than an experience while it's happening.

 

[fromderinside]

Getting older. 'Sometimes thing seems to be a bit of a blur. Other times seconds become hours. Forget attention, remember adrenaline.

Oh wait. That wold make this social science. never mind.

 

[Speakpigeon]

We have a sense of time. None of us needs to have invented any quirky concept in that respect. Our sense of time is part of what we are, especially when we're hungry or tired, or when we're expecting something to happen.

And I certainly think there's a link between our sense of time, and our sense that time is moving forward, and also couldn't possibly move backward, and entropy, even though entropy can decrease locally.

And then QM seems to say there's no such thing as time, at least nothing like we think of it.

But, Ok, maybe we can't move beyond this.

I'll wait.
EB

From the accounts I've heard the experience of the rate time corresponds directly with how much attention is being paid. Really exciting or scary situations cause us to remember more details of an event. So it's more of a reflection of what has happened, rather than an experience while it's happening.

I think there's a difference between our sense of time and our experience of the real world, or what we think of as our experience of the real world, and therefore of our experience of the rate of change in it.

And, of course, our sense of time may well be wrong, in particular if time itself doesn't even exist to begin with.

Still, that wasn't the issue. The question was about the possible explanation of our sense of time in terms of entropy.
EB

 

[Jon Osterman]

In my opinion, entropy is a red herring in the discussion of the direction of time. Entropy is just a measure of disorder in a system, but this disorder is quantified as (the log of) the number of possible micro-states that would give the macrostate you observe. So if you take a very ordered system, and let it evolve in time, then the number of possible configurations opens up making entropy increase.

But the law of physics are (almost) time reversal invariant. So if I set up an ordered state at time t=0 and this time asked what states in the past could have led to this, I open up the possible configurations allowing for disordered states again. Apparently entopy is "increasing" as we go back. In other words, entropy increases as we more away from the boundary coniditon we have set. It only appears to always increase in our physical systems because we tend to set the boundary condition up at the earlier time and explore later times (i.e. we set up an experiment and watch it play out). In other words, the increase of entropy is a consequence of our own arrow of time, not a cause.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I wasn't trying to argue or even suggest that entropy was somehow ontologically fundamental.

Rather, as macroscopic agents, we observe entropy going up and that this may be the basis of our sense of time (though not necessarily of time itself if there is such a thing at all).
EB

 

[steve_bank]

time flies, time stands still, time marches on are all subjective metaphors.

Change is what we observe and time quantifies change.

From a science view the question is then can the universe go in reverse, not if time has a direction.

 

[fast]

time flies, time stands still, time marches on are all subjective metaphors.

Change is what we observe and time quantifies change.

From a science view the question is then can the universe go in reverse, not if time has a direction.

A person waters his lawn with a hose and sprayer nozzle. How would the water go back in the nozzle? No pressure to cause the force needed.

 

[steve_bank]

time flies, time stands still, time marches on are all subjective metaphors.

Change is what we observe and time quantifies change.

From a science view the question is then can the universe go in reverse, not if time has a direction.

A person waters his lawn with a hose and sprayer nozzle. How would the water go back in the nozzle? No pressure to cause the force needed.

HeeHee


The water evaporates. forms clouds. rains on reservoir, flows through the water system, and out the nozzle...

The rain cycle is an entropy reverser powered by the sun
.

 

[Speakpigeon]

time flies, time stands still, time marches on are all subjective metaphors.

Change is what we observe and time quantifies change.

From a science view the question is then can the universe go in reverse, not if time has a direction.

A person waters his lawn with a hose and sprayer nozzle. How would the water go back in the nozzle? No pressure to cause the force needed.

HeeHee


The water evaporates. forms clouds. rains on reservoir, flows through the water system, and out the nozzle...

The rain cycle is an entropy reverser powered by the sun
.

No even that because I won't ever be the same water, which, I have to guess, was what fast meant.

Energy can be used to lower entropy but only locally so it's not an overall "reverser" of entropy.
EB

 

[steve_bank]

A person waters his lawn with a hose and sprayer nozzle. How would the water go back in the nozzle? No pressure to cause the force needed.

HeeHee


The water evaporates. forms clouds. rains on reservoir, flows through the water system, and out the nozzle...

The rain cycle is an entropy reverser powered by the sun
.

No even that because I won't ever be the same water, which, I have to guess, was what fast meant.

Energy can be used to lower entropy but only locally so it's not an overall "reverser" of entropy.
EB

As I said before, thermodynamics applies to a system with a boundary. Expand the boundary without limit and the principles break and you end up in cosmolohy/

If the universe is finite, then potentially it reaches equilibriun and no processes are possible. The so called thermal dearg. A finite universe requires a starting point. How would a finite universe get wound up in the first place.

My view is an infinite universe. Matter and energy change over time, but entropy does not apply in an infinite universe. Energy can never be lost.

I think per the laws of thermo you can never get all the water back through the nozzle to the molecule. Like getting all the water out of a sponge by wringing it. A nozzle is a system in which work is done on the water.