THE TIME-FLOW FALLACY

[beecee]

8 hours ago, argo said:

If you really think this is unique to time, how about defining length, without any circular references. Perhaps it’s what a ruler measures?Length is a measurement, it is only ever a mathematical construct, the definition and description of time I posted say there is circular references in the mathematical construct but you miss the point entirely that this just proves that the constructed definition of time that flows and can be measured cannot be superimposed over a description for time in the real world like it is.1

Sorry, matey, it is you who has not only missed the point, but also shown a total ignorance of physics in general. Mathematics basically, is the language of physics. If I was arranging to meet with you somewhere/sometime, I may give the co-ordinates of space thus....Planet Earth, 90 degrees South Lat: 0 degrees Long....on 18th July 2019 at 1200hrs. In other words three space coordinates and a time coordinate, all necessary for a successful meet up...all necessary mathematical  dimensional constructs, all describing the reality of space and time.

  

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There is a published description that describes time as existing and flowing here in the real world, it states time is the indefinite progress of existence from the past, through the present to the future. This philosophy that time exists as a fourth dimension and flows are proven false if the circular reference is acknowledged. You’re a sniper Swansont, you don’t give away any of your positions but you do add to the confusion.

Nonsense. I have just shown you how those dimensions are absolutely necessary, and the evidenced accepted fact that neither space or time are absolute, also shows the ignorance and error of what you erroneously are imagining. 

And of course your "sniping" at Swansont would have every irony meter blowing a fuse!  Pot, kettle, black, actually comes to mind.

Quote

You are imagining me having this concern, quote me instead of just making stuff up. Mathematical constructs don’t exist in the real world which was the whole complaint I made about time in physics being used to describe time in the real world, this is a designed trick.

According to the evidence available to anyone that wants to research this subject, it appears it is you making things up. Again, time is not motion. Motion occurs in time...Time is a personal reality...your time is different to mine as is the rate at which it is progressing/flowing/passing or whatever terminology floats your boat. I also asked you previously if a magnetic field is real. You failed to answer, presumably because it would show the ignorance of what you are erroneously claiming.

 

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Exhausting, complicated and difficult, playing tricks and avoiding the issues.

one post at a time

 

Depending how deep you require it be defined. Space is what separates things...it is real. Time stops everything from happening together...it is real. Spacetime is the multi-dimensional framework within which we locate events and describe the relationships between them in terms of spatial coordinates and time. Spacetime is a description of reality that is common for all observers in the universe. Intervals of space and time considered separately are not the same for all observers. And the final nail in your coffin is the fact that GR is described in terms of curvature of spacetime...spacetime that can be warped, curved, twisted, and forming gravitational waves.

Or if you require a more professional outline of time, then as per the previous link by Sean Carroll that I gave you....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVINOl0Ctfk

As he says, the question is actually is time fundamental. 

 

Edited February 4, 2019 by beecee

[argo]

studiot

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Posted Thursday at 09:03 AM (edited)

  On 1/31/2019 at 8:33 AM, argo said:

 THE TIME-FLOW FALLACY

Time is described in physics as “what clocks read”;

 

Could you please give a two line summary of what we are supposed to be discussing?

The issues of fake definitions, the circular nature of the time-flow argument, the focus of the thought experiment or the expansion and energy requirements of the universe.

 

I would agree that clocks do not measure time (directly).

Time Real and Time Constructed are two very different things, TC (directly) measures whatever you want it to because you constructed it, TR is not a measurement at all because it is defined as when something exists. Perhaps everybody needs to ask themselves if the present time is real or an illusion and focus on this issue.  TC or TR please specify people.

They measure seconds (or whatever) and seconds are a unit of several different quantities, just as other quantities such as inches or volts are units of more than one quantity.

You can for instance measure height or height difference or total length or extension in inches.

Or you can measure voltage drop in an electric circuit or electromotive force in volts.

I can measure and label any mathematical construct I want but this is strictly TC, my philosophy  however is that time is a real thing, now exists and the present is not an illusion at all.

 

Similarly with time you can measure time difference or elapsed time or lifetime in seconds, but never time itself. 

For some reason we (well some of us) bother to make the distinction, but not for time.

It would seem you are pointing out how some of us are conflating TC & TR, and you describe time itself as though it was real. Thank you for addressing one of the issues Studiot.

Perhaps this is a source of much confusion. 

If not all.

I would have thought that at least some Physicists would define time as the reciprocal of frequency, as this is connected to the use in clocks.

Frequency is a rate, so you’re saying TC and rate are common, but clocks measure change at only one rate not at different rates or frequencies; it wouldn’t be a clock if it ran at different rates. These are all comparisons in TC anyway. What happened to making a distinction between TC and TR?

Edited Thursday at 09:12 AM by studiot

One post at a time, i hope you all appreciate the considered answers.

[Strange]

2 hours ago, argo said:

the circular nature of the time-flow argument

You are the only person making this argument. 

2 hours ago, argo said:

or the expansion and energy requirements of the universe

How is that connected to the definition of time?

2 hours ago, argo said:

One post at a time, i hope you all appreciate the considered answers.

You are just repeating the same errors

[Mordred]

3 hours ago, argo said:

 

 THE TIME-FLOW FALLACY

Time is described in physics as “what clocks read”;

 

 

This is what I specifically will address, in the first descriptive "time flow fallacy" time as flowing is never a physics descriptive. Physics is a mathematical language. The truth is a true physicist will choose a descriptive of one of scalar and vector quantities in numereous symmetric relations. In time relations those vector or scalar changes will have a given rate. All forms of change will have a change in rate.

 The change doesn't always follow vector quantities although we can apply such under a change in math treatment. Just change the graph coordinates...However I personally after 35 years of studying physics have never come across a single VALID theory under physics which does not involve validating a given theory without those symmetries described above given in explicit detail. (scalar, vector quantities and ratios of change between them).

 Now time enters the picture of the Rate of change in the above quantities . One of the best and straight forward definitions of time is the rate of change or duration however if the duration is infinite or beyond measurement then one cannot describe a give interval.

 The flow of time is a substitute descriptive to a rate of change in a given vector directional symmetry. this is often under group associated with a change in sign - or +. However lets be clear its a way to describe mathematical ratios of change of a vector to a public that never wants the math lmao.

This isn't what the math describes, it is how we describe the math the math itself is what is important as it provides the tools to test and predict, not the descriptive's that this thread is hung up upon. For example a flowing body of matter will have other directional vector components of force. So the term of flow isn't appropriate as a flow has force like terms that are not inherent in simply a directional vector under graph.

Treat time as simply  a quantity (property) we Quantify, and qualify as the rate of change in either a vector or scalar value that describes a rate of change the vector descriptive's simply utilizes the directional  component of a given quantities change, dependant upon the examination.

A very common misconception is thinking all vectors represent motion. This causes far too much confusion, when the truth is its a vector under graph treatment. the terminology : Flow implies a directional component hence describable under math as a vector.

Edited February 6, 2019 by Mordred

[swansont]

6 hours ago, argo said:

 Could you please give a two line summary of what we are supposed to be discussing?

The issues of fake definitions, the circular nature of the time-flow argument, the focus of the thought experiment or the expansion and energy requirements of the universe.

 

You've been asked to clarify this. repeating is not clarifying.

You have not presented a "fake definition"

The issue of circular definitions is universal

Time-flow is a description, not a definition, nor is it physics.

 

6 hours ago, argo said:

I would agree that clocks do not measure time (directly).

Time Real and Time Constructed are two very different things, TC (directly) measures whatever you want it to because you constructed it, TR is not a measurement at all because it is defined as when something exists. Perhaps everybody needs to ask themselves if the present time is real or an illusion and focus on this issue.  TC or TR please specify people.

These are concepts you have just introduced, and you have not adequately explained them.

 

6 hours ago, argo said:

 It would seem you are pointing out how some of us are conflating TC & TR, and you describe time itself as though it was real. Thank you for addressing one of the issues Studiot.

That hardly seems likely, since you just introduced these terms.

What do you mean by real? That it materially exists? Or that it not an illusion?

I don't think anybody is arguing that time is a substance. But if you think it's not real, then try crossing the street. You and a truck traveling at 100 kph do not want to be at the same spatial and temporal coordinates. You will discover, painfully, that time is very real. 

 

 

On 1/30/2019 at 6:03 PM, studiot said:

 I would have thought that at least some Physicists would define time as the reciprocal of frequency, as this is connected to the use in clocks.

Not reciprocal — that's the period. Time is the phase. You integrate frequency to get the time.

[studiot]

I have started a thread about Newton and circularity in Philosophy ,as promised.

On 2/1/2019 at 1:57 PM, Strange said:

he second law defines force in terms of (undefined) mass. Or mass in terms of (undefined) force. (as long as we assume, in both cases, that acceleration has previously been defined.) As force is a fairly intuitive concept ("how hard you push") it may be easiest to consider this as defining inertial mass (resistance to being moved).

The third law doesn't define anything new, as far as I can see.

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Eise

On 2/1/2019 at 12:51 PM, studiot said:

N3 Defines Mass.

I have no idea why Newton's 3^rd law would define mass.

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swansont

On 2/1/2019 at 12:51 PM, studiot said:

 N3 Defines Mass.

It does? 

3 hours ago, swansont said:

Not reciprocal — that's the period. Time is the phase. You integrate frequency to get the time.

Thank you for the correction.

Edited February 6, 2019 by studiot

[beecee]

15 hours ago, argo said:

One post at a time, i hope you all appreciate the considered answers.

I don't see any "considered answers", just repeating yourself with no considerations of the points made against whatever it is you are trying to claim.

While debating the concept of time is more philosophical then anything else, with varied expert opinions as to its nature, some facts do emerge that imo show time is certainly real. There is no universal now as Newton once thought. Your now is different to my now...your apparent rate of flow of time is different to mine. Experiments show this and rely on this everyday. Motion and rates of change occur in time. If everything stopped moving, if the universe stopped expanding, and any change ceased to be, time itself would not stop.The BB was the evolution of time and space, "as we know them". Time itself, at least imo, is infinite, while certain scales like before the BB, are not measurable by our current concept of time. Perhaps our definitions of space, time, as well as nothing, need redefining. At least that is the way that I see things. Like I said, there are many expert considered philosophical questions re time. My considered opinion is, it just is. 

[argo]

Mordred

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Posted Thursday at 09:12 AM (edited)

  On 1/31/2019 at 9:03 AM, studiot said:

 Similarly with time you can measure time difference or elapsed time or lifetime in seconds, but never time itself.

*

That's really the kicker we can only measure the rate of change and compare different rates of change. One can literally throw away the word time which is just a convenient label and simply describe the rate of change in any process. Another common misconception is thinking time controls rate of change. Time isn't a force or substance that can directly influence anything. 

Clocks run at one rate, we measure movement against the clocks rate. A rock falls at 10 m/s, a feather falls at 1 m/s; we compare the rate of change in position which is simply movement, we are not comparing the rate of time here. You could throw away the suggestion that TC measures a rate of change by any other name except movement and I would agree. The SI Unit of a second is an exact amount of movement that takes place and is arbitrarily labeled as time but we are simply comparing movement against movement nothing more.

The mathematical construct we label as time, TC, compares different rates of MOVEMENT in the real world, but Mordred you never even mention the word movement once, that’s the kicker. One can literally throw away the word time which is just a convenient label and simply describe the rate of change in any process as movement. This qualifier makes it totally correct.

Another common misconception you imagine others have is time controls movement, I think TR is when something exists nothing more, it has nothing to do with movement so if you meant me you can imagine what you like, please don’t make stuff up.

I have given a full and explicit description of a time particle for you to criticize but you completely ignore this, instead you philosophize that time in the real world, TR, doesn’t actually exist but all you have ever talked about here is TC, the mathematical construct called time.

If TR doesn’t exist then now doesn’t exist and the present time is an illusion, the good news is that if you are not arguing for TR you are also not arguing for the time-flow that facilitates all movement nonsense.

I think I may have misinterpreted what Studiot meant before, I’m still not 100% sure.

 

 

Edited Thursday at 09:14 AM by Mordred

one post at a time

studiot

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Posted Thursday at 09:14 AM (edited)

  On 1/31/2019 at 9:12 AM, Mordred said:

That's really the kicker we can only measure the rate of change. One can literally throw away the word time which is just a convenient label and simply describe the rate of change in any process.

*

 

Then surely time fits the description of a dimension, since it then a label for a coordinate axis.

I am just not sure if you are arguing for or against TR, this seems to be saying time is an actual dimension but just a label for coordinates.

From your last post:

 Similarly with time you can measure time difference or elapsed time or lifetime in seconds, but never time itself. 

For some reason we (well some of us) bother to make the distinction, but not for time.

I think, in retrospect, you were arguing TR does not exist and time itself is an illusion.

Time is a confusing subject, like Mordred you can argue time does not exist at all in reality or you can argue a time dimension does actually exists in reality but there are two choices here.

Either:

The dimension covers the whole universe at one time.

Or

The dimension covers a single point at different times.

There are no other choices so in TR you must decide based on the evidence, the first choice is that time facilitates all movement which is the contradictory time-flow idea being superimposed from a mathematical construct. The second choice is a time particle idea that as far as I can see fits the evidence without any contradictions at all.

 

 

Edited Thursday at 09:16 AM by studiot

one post at a time

[Mordred]

No need to include the word movement when that term is representable with a vector. 

1 hour ago, argo said:

 

The mathematical construct we label as time, TC, compares different rates of MOVEMENT in the real world, but Mordred you never even mention the word movement once, that’s the kicker. One can literally throw away the word time which is just a convenient label and simply describe the rate of change in any process as movement. This qualifier makes it totally correct.

Another common misconception you imagine others have is time controls movement, I think TR is when something exists nothing more, it has nothing to do with movement so if you meant me you can imagine what you like, please don’t make stuff up.

 

I don't make things up, that appears to be your arena considering your now mentioning a time particle lmao....particle half life rates do not require movement how do you account for that as it is definitely change occurring under an interval of time. the qualifier you mentioned only describes certain changes (positional) however not all change requires a change in position. 

1 hour ago, argo said:

 

There are no other choices so in TR you must decide based on the evidence, the first choice is that time facilitates all movement which is the contradictory time-flow idea being superimposed from a mathematical construct. The second choice is a time particle idea that as far as I can see fits the evidence without any contradictions at all.

 

Why would you believe you require a time particle to describe change ? Not all change requires a force to exert that change. The problem is that your trying to make up a substance to give time a materialistic quality. Your going to need far far greater evidence than anything posted in this thread for that. That is your hang-up along with the whole time flowing which is yet another descriptive of some substance like medium.

 Physics does not describe time in these terms. 

I still have yet to see anything you've stated to convince me or anyone else your ideas are correct. Is this all the support you have for your conjectures ?

Edited February 7, 2019 by Mordred

[swansont]

7 hours ago, argo said:

 The SI Unit of a second is an exact amount of movement that takes place and is arbitrarily labeled as time but we are simply comparing movement against movement nothing more.

The SI second is not based on comparing movement

7 hours ago, argo said:

The mathematical construct we label as time, TC, compares different rates of MOVEMENT in the real world, but Mordred you never even mention the word movement once, that’s the kicker. 

Atomic clocks don't work this way, and they are how we currently measure time. 

Radioactive decay doesn't work this way, and we use that to measure certain classes of time intervals.

7 hours ago, argo said:

I have given a full and explicit description of a time particle for you to criticize but you completely ignore this, instead you philosophize that time in the real world, TR, doesn’t actually exist but all you have ever talked about here is TC, the mathematical construct called time.

The only person talking about TC and TR here is you. Don't expect others to adopt your nomenclature. 

7 hours ago, argo said:

If TR doesn’t exist then now doesn’t exist and the present time is an illusion, the good news is that if you are not arguing for TR you are also not arguing for the time-flow that facilitates all movement nonsense.

Nobody is arguing for time-flow, or that time facilitates all movement. 

 

[studiot]

8 hours ago, argo said:

Time is a confusing subject, like Mordred you can argue time does not exist at all in reality or you can argue a time dimension does actually exists in reality but there are two choices here.

Either:

The dimension covers the whole universe at one time.

Or

The dimension covers a single point at different times.

There are no other choices so in TR you must decide based on the evidence, the first choice is that time facilitates all movement which is the contradictory time-flow idea being superimposed from a mathematical construct. The second choice is a time particle idea that as far as I can see fits the evidence without any contradictions at all.

 

Have you considered there might be other possibilities than your either or ?

The whole definition of a dimension in a coordinate system is that any given coordinate axis exists for each an every other coordinate axis value.

For instance would you say the the negative y axis does not exist for the function y = x², just because there are no y values for any x value?

 

As regards time particles, if you have introduced them in this thread, I have not noticed it.

The nearest thing we have to time particles would be Planck Time.

I do not know if you have read the other material I posted, but here is a bit more that might help you here.

Note that they cans till be measured in seconds and that we have no direct evidence that these form quantum units.

 

 

 

[Mordred]

10 hours ago, argo said:

 The second choice is a time particle idea that as far as I can see fits the evidence without any contradictions at all.

 

This is where he mentions the time particle idea however as you stated there is no time particle in mainstream physics

Edited February 7, 2019 by Mordred

[Strange]

10 hours ago, argo said:

the first choice is that time facilitates all movement which is the contradictory time-flow idea being superimposed from a mathematical construct

You are the only person proposing this "time flow" idea. The fact that you find it contradictory suggest you should stop promoting it.

[StringJunky]

1 hour ago, Strange said:

You are the only person proposing this "time flow" idea. The fact that you find it contradictory suggest you should stop promoting it.

He's set up a strawman thread.

[swansont]

8 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

He's set up a strawman thread.

Is that a mathematical construct strawman (CS), or a real strawman (RS)? 

Straw-man-flow is a myth.

[StringJunky]

12 minutes ago, swansont said:

Is that a mathematical construct strawman (CS), or a real strawman (RS)? 

Straw-man-flow is a myth.

 It is based on an incorrect supposition, isn't it? The thread can't go anywhere useful.

[Mordred]

well here is one question I know would be impossible to answer. Lets for a second assume a time particle exists.

How can a time particle have a mean lifetime? How would it have a velocity ? How can it possibly have a rate of reactions with other particles ?

Sounds like contradictions to me lmao

15 hours ago, argo said:

The second choice is a time particle idea that as far as I can see fits the evidence without any contradictions at all. 

How can a time particle have any property that requires a time parameter to describe ?

Anyways the idea of time flow or a time particle would only lead to further questions that most likely can never be adequately answered. It doesn't take much imagination to come up with those questions. With time flow one can ask how much pressure does this time flow cause, or what determines the direction of the flow ? What is the rate of flow ? What determines its flow rate ? Obviously I can go on and on with numerous questions. Suffice it to say there are numerous properties that are involved with the term flow (flow describes a mean vector/direction) that isn't inherent in a uniform scalar (magnitude only) distribution.

side note How can one define the vector length of a flowing time field under graph ? I'd like to see the OP answer that lmao

 

Edited February 7, 2019 by Mordred

[beecee]

14 hours ago, argo said:

There are no other choices so in TR you must decide based on the evidence, the first choice is that time facilitates all movement which is the contradictory time-flow idea being superimposed from a mathematical construct. The second choice is a time particle idea that as far as I can see fits the evidence without any contradictions at all.

More fabricated conclusions and non physics terminology. Time does not facilitate any movement....movement/change occurs in time. Secondly while time can be seen logically as real, it most certainly is not a physical entity.

 

 

[Mordred]

Careful here, rate of change is a physical property of a state. The term physical does not only mean materialistic or corpuscular.

[studiot]

Personally I have no axe to grind, one way or the other about the use of flow in connection with time, although I can see the potential difficulties since some other flows are measured in terms of time.

But we use flownets in complex and other forms of analysis.

Some of these, eg electrostatic fields (note the word static), or shear flow in structural engineering have no connection to time at all.

Yet others eg geological water flows under a dam are definitely time dependent.

But this simply reinforces the connection to time as a coordinate axis and we should work in terms of this to get it right.

Talking of coordinate axes, I meant to put into my last post to Argo the following

One point in time over all space or one point in space over all time.

This 'split' is characteristic of wave motion where you can do exactly that.

Either sit at one point and watch the waves go by in time

Or

Observe the phase of the waves at every point in space at one particular instant.

 

Edited February 7, 2019 by studiot

[argo]

Mordred

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Posted Thursday at 09:18 AM

  On 1/31/2019 at 9:14 AM, studiot said:

 Then surely time fits the description a dimension, since it then a label for a coordinate axis.

*

correct an under mathematics a dimension is any independent variable. All coordinate axis are independent in that you can change any coordinate value without affecting other coordinate values.

Sure time as a mathematical construct ,TC, can be an imaginary temporal dimension that is independent of the three REAL spatial dimensions. (I assume you philosophize the spatial dimensions actually exist)

You say (under mathematics) supporting your philosophy  that time as a dimension in reality, TR, does not actually exist; just look how confusing it is when we fail to make this distinction?

Wiki: Time

Time is the indefinite continued progress of existence and events that occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.

Anyone reading this will not make the distinctions between TR and TC, and will most likely assume time actually flows in reality which is the one of the main issues I have.

It is of little consequence if you make the distinction or not if this published description is out there failing to.

[Mordred]

Why would they make distinctions between TC and TR when this is your terminology ? 

How would you test the difference ? Your the only one that believes there is a difference so provide a feasible test to prove your theory. While your at  it provide a test for time flow....

Your the only poster who feels that what we measure in terms of time as a rate of change is different than some mysterious and hidden time ie in your terms TR.

Now I am going to confuse you a bit, (probably more than a bit) physics does recognize Observer effects upon how we measure time. So we do have an established distinction relating to different observers under General relativity and Special relativity. those two distinctions is proper time and coordinate time. However both have specific mathematical properties to distinguish one from the other. Proper time is time shown by a hypothetical clock that follows the world line between two events. This involves a specific inertial reference frame (in essence a Euclidean frame, oft described as the at rest frame) this is a distinction from the SR treatment in that the Observer is always set as the at rest frame where each event can be an observer or event depending on arbitrary choice.

This however is not what you are describing in your model so the onus is yours to properly define each under some testable basis.

Coordinate time is a mathematical construct it can never be measured it can only be calculated from the Lorentz transformation rules as it describes the relationship between Einstein clock synchronization and proper time so it is strictly a mathematical (ONLY) object. The kicker of GR is that proper time varies from one locale to the next or as a property of velocity (study SR for details)

however to save you some effort here is a good write up on the two

http://web.mit.edu/edbert/Alexandria/notes1.pdf

 

Edited February 8, 2019 by Mordred

[StringJunky]

6 hours ago, beecee said:

 it most certainly is not a physical entity.

If it''s measurable, it's physical (but it''s not a substance). Length is physical but not a substance. 

Edited February 8, 2019 by StringJunky

[Mordred]

28 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

If it''s measurable, it's physical (but it''s not a substance). Length is physical but not a substance. 

I once had a lengthy argument on another forum in a thread on Unruh radiation with regards to the physicality of horizons. Its a common misconception to equate physical to materials or substances.

[StringJunky]

7 minutes ago, Mordred said:

I once had a lengthy argument on another forum in a thread on Unruh radiation with regards to the physicality of horizons. Its a common misconception to equate physical to materials or substances.

Yeah, I gradually realised when I imagined zoning in microscopically into some solid object and realised you end up with nothing but fields, which are not substantial. The notion of material is a macroscopic idea, I think, where collective fields repel each other and create the idea of 'solid'.