A Time Experiment

[Greg A.]

The purpose with this 'experiment' is in using one prediction or another to see if there are any strengths 'outside' of probability (a now factor) that bind us to a supposed 'future'.

I'm new here and don't know anything much about physics anyhow. And don't believe that Time exists myself. But as there are actual physicists out there who do theorize that Time may be real, then I figure it might be possible to test out those claims in some way if it only can done to a small degree. That is if the future is real (Doc Brown gets it wrong) it might be that we can in some way detect its existence from this the present.

For example: The next transit of Venus is set to happen in near 100 years time, this event calculated from its orbit now and still something that we could do very little to change. Is it then already part of the future based on the near impossibility of any other incident preventing it happening. Is our inability to prevent something in particular occurring evidence of a future (it could be much of what we do is to some degree constrained by future events).

How this question comes up is that I'd made a simple projection some years back, one that has in the last few years turned into a now (dire) prediction, that despite all attempts I cannot make any headway in presenting. Leading me to consider that it is inevitable, a part of the future. This possibly explaining why as a challenge to an outcome that's already in existence there consequenlty not a lot can be done?

Or more easily understood in the instance of the grandson, having found his way back to the past before his father had been born, finding his attempts to kill his (presumably evil) grandfather are continually being frustrated, a result of being part of an existing future outcome himself.

Now, this relies on a time travel scenario, but that said if the future is real then we can for the sake of the argument consider ourselves as being pseudo time travelers?

[studiot]

36 minutes ago, Greg A. said:

if the future is real

Surely this is an oxymoron, planted firmly in the middle of the only question you have asked.

[Greg A.]

1 hour ago, studiot said:

Surely this is an oxymoron, planted firmly in the middle of the only question you have asked.

The question I'm asking (and maybe being lost to my poor word skills) is that if something highly probable such as the next transit of Venus can be considered an actual future event (rather than just a calculation made from now) due to it not being something we (or anything) can change. And if so that might explain the difficulties I have in presenting a prediction I've made in that it too is inevitable, something I consider it as being (and that's before I'd considered these things from a time angle). Put another way at some point probable outcomes may become certainties that's if there is an actual future. 

Edited July 13, 2022 by Greg A.

[Peterkin]

3 hours ago, Greg A. said:

The next transit of Venus is set to happen in near 100 years time, this event calculated from its orbit now and still something that we could do very little to change. Is it then already part of the future based on the near impossibility of any other incident preventing it  happening. Is our inability to prevent something in particular occurring evidence of a future (it could be much of what we do is to some degree constrained by future events).

Our ability or inability to influence events is irrelevant to the question.

"Is it then already part of the future based on the near impossibility of any other incident preventing it  happening."

No, it is a projection based on calculations of what is known. There may be unknown factors already at work, and unknown factors yet to take effect that will change the event and invalidate the prediction. Venus could be knocked out of its orbit by a meteor collision, or explode from within, or be stolen by Davros. The key word there is highlighted. 

1 hour ago, Greg A. said:

if something highly probable such as the next transit of Venus can be considered an actual future event

No. It can be considered highly probable. All of our decisions in life are based on degree of probability of the outcome of the confluence of current evens and our own actions. Sometimes we're underinformed, sometimes misinformed; sometimes we miscalculate, sometimes we miunderunderestimate the unknown unknowns, sometimes we just close our eyes and jump, trusting to luck or a deity to make it all right in the end.

The reason you can't kill your grandfather before your father was born is that your father was born. The good news is, he can't recsind your own or your father's birth, either.

Edited July 13, 2022 by Peterkin

[studiot]

1 hour ago, Greg A. said:

The question I'm asking (and maybe being lost to my poor word skills) is that if something highly probable such as the next transit of Venus can be considered an actual future event (rather than just a calculation made from now) due to it not being something we (or anything) can change. And if so that might explain the difficulties I have in presenting a prediction I've made in that it too is inevitable, something I consider it as being (and that's before I'd considered these things from a time angle). Put another way at some point probable outcomes may become certainties that's if there is an actual future. 

Thank you for your reply.

I understood what you said. I was just pointing out that the use of the present tense of the verb to be instead of the future tense, is self contradictory and would be self contradictory if so used in the future.

 

You have introduced probability.

Too many folks misunderstand probability and the fact that probabilities of both one and zero are special and different from all other probability values.

Since you wish to use a probability of 1 consider

A Probability of 1 has three different meanings and it is encumbent on the user to specify which.

1) A probability of 1 states that some A has always happened in the past and  must always happen in the future.

2) A probability of 1 states that the event has always happened in the past and is expected to happen in the future, as we have no better information.

3) A probability of 1 states that whatever has happened in the past our best guess is that it must (will) happen in the future.

 

This should go a long way to answering the interesting 'philosopical problem' you raised.

Edited July 13, 2022 by studiot

[Greg A.]

On 7/13/2022 at 11:49 PM, Peterkin said:

Our ability or inability to influence events is irrelevant to the question.

Quote

 

"Is it then already part of the future based on the near impossibility of any other incident preventing it  happening."

No, it is a projection based on calculations of what is known. There may be unknown factors already at work, and unknown factors yet to take effect that will change the event and invalidate the prediction. Venus could be knocked out of its orbit by a meteor collision, or explode from within, or be stolen by Davros. The key word there is highlighted. 

No. It can be considered highly probable. All of our decisions in life are based on degree of probability of the outcome of the confluence of current events and our own actions. Sometimes we're underinformed, sometimes misinformed; sometimes we miscalculate, sometimes we misunderunderestimate the unknown unknowns, sometimes we just close our eyes and jump, trusting to luck or a deity to make it all right in the end.

The reason you can't kill your grandfather before your father was born is that your father was born. The good news is, he can't recsind your own or your the father's birth, either.

Quote

And if you traveled back in Time to kill your grandfather then all of your efforts would fail for one reason or another. He might for example manage to kill you first in your attempts to eliminate him. If there is a chronological protection factor then its effects possibly can be detected now. Our inability to do certain things a measure of its effect and there as a predictor of a future outcome? 

 

[Greg A.]

On 7/14/2022 at 12:18 AM, studiot said:

Thank you for your reply.

I understood what you said. I was just pointing out that the use of the present tense of the verb to be instead of the future tense, is self contradictory and would be self contradictory if so used in the future.

 

You have introduced probability.

Too many folks misunderstand probability and the fact that probabilities of both one and zero are special and different from all other probability values.

Since you wish to use a probability of 1 consider

A Probability of 1 has three different meanings and it is encumbent on the user to specify which.

1) A probability of 1 states that some A has always happened in the past and  must always happen in the future.

2) A probability of 1 states that the event has always happened in the past and is expected to happen in the future, as we have no better information.

3) A probability of 1 states that whatever has happened in the past our best guess is that it must (will) happen in the future.

 

This should go a long way to answering the interesting 'philosopical problem' you raised.

Quote

Thanks for clarifying that (I'm no good with subtleties though). And it now looks like there is a real difference between a prediction and the probability of something happening. if the Block Time model is the right one, then it will be that the future is having an effect on the past even if only in that those outcomes set further into the future determine some of the things we do today.  That is a lot of what we do only effects things now, and then less so tomorrow. And this may even allow a God effect in that good (positive paths) contribute to a positive (heavenly) future, and bad (negative paths) point to a bad (hellish) future. If so things don't look all that good. For example nuclear weapons are something of a concern now, but their existence increase the chances of their use over time.  

The hole in the ozone layer was a scientific prediction we failed to avert. Global warming is another. The point being that nothing we could do had any real effect on something predicted. It's as though 'now' events had set the rules for the past in the form of momentum . And there are no hypothetical alternate outcomes to consider with these because there is only the one eventuation (ignoring Many Worlds theory), the one that has occurred. 

We don't know the future so I'm still stuck with doing what I can to prevent what will most probably be a catastrophic outcome leading from a simple projection I'd made sometime back, one that now has turned into an outright prediction. I'm not getting anywhere with it because of what I believe is the chronological protection issue as alluded to above. 

 

Quote

 

 

 

Edited July 15, 2022 by Greg A.

[studiot]

Thank you for your reply.

 

Please don't mix up your responses along with something quoted from another.
I really thought you had simply posted a quote but not responded to it.
This is due to the way the ace modern programmers have written the latest updates to the site.
I only found out by accidnet that in order to actually see your reply I have to click on the expand button.
I must say screwed up quote functions are even worse on some other scientific websites that really should do better.

 

I would like to say that I consider 'time travel' not only impossible but actually a meaningless concept.

Consider your really simple example of grandpatricide.

As I see it the physical phenomenon we call time has certain properties more akin to a fully bound book than to a ring binder of notes.
This property preserves causality by the use of the mathematical order relation.
I say mathematical order because this is different from 'order' as in the opposite of disorderly from drunk and disorderly in common usage.

In a bound book, the order of the pages is preserved by the binding.
In a ring binder you can take out the pages and shuffle them like a pack of cards into any order.
The ring binder situation is what people commonly mean when they say 'time travel'.
Taking out a page and replacing it in a different order or even somewhere else.

Now take your life. That forms an interval in time with a partial ordering pertaining to just that interval.
Like say a complete chapter in a bound book.
What you are suggesting is equivalent to say moving page 53 to after page 108, leavinga gap in chapter 3 and inserting a non sequential page in chapter 8.

I will leave you to ponder this and observe this more strict mathematical approach also applies to probability.
For probabilities that are neither zero nor one there is another form of probability theory called bayesian probability which is attracting greater interest and success these days.
We can look further into that if you wish.
 

 

 

 

 

 

[Greg A.]

3 hours ago, studiot said:

Thank you for your reply.

 

Please don't mix up your responses along with something quoted from another.
I really thought you had simply posted a quote but not responded to it.
This is due to the way the ace modern programmers have written the latest updates to the site.
I only found out by accidnet that in order to actually see your reply I have to click on the expand button.
I must say screwed up quote functions are even worse on some other scientific websites that really should do better.

Sorry. I hope I've got it right this time.

3 hours ago, studiot said:

 

I would like to say that I consider 'time travel' not only impossible but actually a meaningless concept.

 

I consider time travel impossible because for one thing there would be no medium to travel through. That is Time does not exist. 

 

3 hours ago, studiot said:

Consider your really simple example of grandpatricide.

As I see it the physical phenomenon we call time has certain properties more akin to a fully bound book than to a ring binder of notes.
This property preserves causality by the use of the mathematical order relation.
I say mathematical order because this is different from 'order' as in the opposite of disorderly from drunk and disorderly in common usage.

In a bound book, the order of the pages is preserved by the binding.
In a ring binder you can take out the pages and shuffle them like a pack of cards into any order.
The ring binder situation is what people commonly mean when they say 'time travel'.
Taking out a page and replacing it in a different order or even somewhere else.

Now take your life. That forms an interval in time with a partial ordering pertaining to just that interval.
Like say a complete chapter in a bound book.
What you are suggesting is equivalent to say moving page 53 to after page 108, leavinga gap in chapter 3 and inserting a non sequential page in chapter 8.

The bound book and ring binder are good analogies of what would be the conventional view of time and time travel. But as there appears to be no actual evidence supporting this convention, we need to think again. Time is really motion, our day of birth is a position on a 2 dimensional plane. We can go 'back' to that point for example and because of change we see only what is left of that event. There is no time aspect involved however. If there were it would violate the laws of physics as some of the molecules and atoms that were are a part of us as babies are still with us now, which would require them to be in two places at once that's if we were to see ourselves being born. Instead we have grown up and moved on going around to what now are the remnants of our birth. Time is an illusion, one thing does not occur before or after anything else, as these are concepts, along with the present, that relate to Time.

An example:

You are in a room, there is a clock upon the wall. You walk from that room into another and notice that the time piece in the second room is showing 10 seconds faster. You walk back and the first clock is now showing 20 seconds has elapsed. But the reality is that by returning to the first room you have in effect returned in time. That's simply because you are back from where you left. The clocks measure nothing when the parameters are the confines of the two rooms. But you might argue that you have aged 20 seconds and your body is part of the rooms and consequently you have gone forward in time. But then what would happen if you were to take a de-aging capsule first? You would then need to argue you've traveled back in time, that's when neither directions are possible.

 

3 hours ago, studiot said:

I will leave you to ponder this and observe this more strict mathematical approach also applies to probability.
For probabilities that are neither zero nor one there is another form of probability theory called bayesian probability which is attracting greater interest and success these days.
We can look further into that if you wish.

You are better educated than me and no doubt have a higher IQ. But then knowledge is not either of these things. I've been thinking about this issue for (dare I say it) a long time. And this experiment is itself at odds with what I believe to be the facts. But, it's being carried out because I'm being thwarted it appears by what are chronological protection factors (which should not exist) that's in my attempts to prevent a catastrophe that I predict (the probabilities are high) will happen.  

Edited July 15, 2022 by Greg A.

[studiot]

21 minutes ago, Greg A. said:

Sorry. I hope I've got it right this time.

Yes thank you that works a whole heap better.

🙂

 

24 minutes ago, Greg A. said:

 

I consider time travel impossible because for one thing there would be no medium to travel through. That is Time does not exist. 

 

This appears to me to be a strange point to make since your whole thread presupposes that time does 'exist'.

Time is certainly a very slippery concept to grapple with and mostly does involve change of something.

But time and change are not the same thing and sometimes (pun noted) a lack of change over time is important and sometimes there is a change, but the timescale is indeterminate or independent of time.

Most of our knowledge and deductions about what is 'real' and what it means to 'exist' stem from comparisons of observations. We also make extensive use of observations to validate our knowledge and deductions and to make further predictions or evaluations.

 

37 minutes ago, Greg A. said:

But then what would happen if you were to take a de-aging capsule first? You would then need to argue you've traveled back in time, that's when neither directions are possible.

As far as I know there is no such thing as a de-aging capsule.

 

39 minutes ago, Greg A. said:

You are better educated than me and no doubt have a higher IQ. But then knowledge is not either of these things. I've been thinking about this issue for (dare I say it) a long time. And this experiment is itself at odds with what I believe to be the facts. But, it's being carried out because I'm being thwarted it appears by what are chronological protection factors (which should not exist) that's in my attempts to prevent a catastrophe that I predict (the probabilities are high) will happen.  

Whilst I like to think I have an adequate IQ, I have no interest in comparing or contesting such.

If you wish to have more detailed discussion of your predictions, you need to offer a more detailed description to work from. Surely that is the purpose of this thread  -   or am I mistaken ?

[Phi for All]

4 hours ago, Greg A. said:

I consider time travel impossible because for one thing there would be no medium to travel through. That is Time does not exist. 

Forget about time travel for a moment. Are you saying time itself doesn't exist because it has no medium to travel through? Doesn't a spacetime continuum account for that? How does light travel without a medium?

[swansont]

Is there a model out there that says that time propagates, so that it might require a medium?

How does length propagate? What medium does it travel through?

[Greg A.]

15 hours ago, studiot said:

Yes thank you that works a whole heap better.

🙂

 

 

This appears to me to be a strange point to make since your whole thread presupposes that time does 'exist'.

It's strange to me too. There is theory however that allows for a past, present and future to exist and if it is so we are in the past relative to a future, with what happens in that future needing to influence what can be done now. My inability to make any headway in presenting my prediction could be evidence of it already having happened. I've started off at this forum by not revealing what the prediction is as a way of prolonging what must be just an indulgence on my part it appears. 

15 hours ago, studiot said:

Time is certainly a very slippery concept to grapple with and mostly does involve change of something.

But time and change are not the same thing and sometimes (pun noted) a lack of change over time is important and sometimes there is a change, but the timescale is indeterminate or independent of time.

Most of our knowledge and deductions about what is 'real' and what it means to 'exist' stem from comparisons of observations. We also make extensive use of observations to validate our knowledge and deductions and to make further predictions or evaluations.

 

As far as I know there is no such thing as a de-aging capsule.

 

Whilst I like to think I have an adequate IQ, I have no interest in comparing or contesting such.

If we go from one room to another we have gone forward in time, but if we return we are at our starting point and have gone back in time is the easiest way of understanding that 'Time' does not exist. Things can't all happen at  once because 'once' would be evoking the concept of time. There is only motion it appears. We could live forever because one day as a rotation of the earth is much the same as any other and because 'forever' relates to time and therefore is an obstacle that does not exist. 

I'm not here to compete logically with anyone as I know I will loose. But when it comes to knowledge of a particular topic I'm still in there with a chance. 

 

15 hours ago, studiot said:

If you wish to have more detailed discussion of your predictions, you need to offer a more detailed description to work from. Surely that is the purpose of this thread  -   or am I mistaken ?

As a pseudo time traveler I'm being frustrated by my inability to prevent an outcome that has already come about? Presenting anything wont change that then (no more than the warning of global warming changed anything). 

The Swiss Cheese Model is where a series of holes in the layers of safety in place align leading to a disaster, not an accurate analogy but in some ways similar to this situation.

As a strategy I can say that the prediction, an event set to take place in 100 years time, is the result of a process, one that is specific in this instance (otherwise a sub process), that started several decades back and is now approaching a critical point expected within 8 months from which recovery will be impossible. 

A successful time experiment will be if all crucial arguments put forward as part of the prediction remain unrefuted?  

[Bufofrog]

32 minutes ago, Greg A. said:

If we go from one room to another we have gone forward in time, but if we return we are at our starting point and have gone back in time is the easiest way of understanding that 'Time' does not exist.

I have never had that experience.  If I return to a room I left earlier I will still move forward in time.

I guess when you are talking about 'Time' it is something different than when I talk about time.

On 7/13/2022 at 6:38 AM, Greg A. said:

How this question comes up is that I'd made a simple projection some years back, one that has in the last few years turned into a now (dire) prediction, that despite all attempts I cannot make any headway in presenting. Leading me to consider that it is inevitable, a part of the future.

It sounds like you believe the future is set and cannot be changed sort of like in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five, is that correct?

[Peterkin]

Time is a fluid. The reason you can't travel in it is that the past has frozen solid, impenetrable; the future is random vapour; no footing or traction: only the present is liquid enough to move around in in.

[zapatos]

3 hours ago, Greg A. said:

If we go from one room to another we have gone forward in time, but if we return we are at our starting point and have gone back in time

Clearly you are confusing the concepts of time and space. When you return to the starting point you have gone back in SPACE.

Moving from room to room is not necessary for you to move forward in time. Sitting in a comfy chair immobile is also an example of moving forward in time.

On 7/13/2022 at 5:38 AM, Greg A. said:

And don't believe that Time exists

When your boss asks you to show up at 8:00am for work, do you manage to do so? If you wish to watch America's Got Talent on the television at 9:00pm, can you do so?

I don't mean to make light of your beliefs, but how can you doubt time while simultaneously using it every day?

I believe you are over thinking the concept of time. It is a measurement, just as length, width and height are measurements.

[Phi for All]

6 hours ago, Greg A. said:

I'm not here to compete logically with anyone as I know I will loose. But when it comes to knowledge of a particular topic I'm still in there with a chance. 

It's not a matter of logic or competition at all. If we're talking about the latest greatest explanation for time, then it's seen as a dimension, a temporal dimension where length, width, and height are spatial dimensions. The four of those are a continuum that allow us to describe various phenomena in terms of their location in the universe. The predictive power and elegance of modeling the universe this way is immense, and allows us to successfully land vessels on other bodies in the solar system, which is like hitting a bullseye on a moving dartboard while you yourself are running full tilt. 

[Greg A.]

On 7/16/2022 at 4:34 AM, Phi for All said:

Forget about time travel for a moment. Are you saying time itself doesn't exist because it has no medium to travel through? Doesn't a spacetime continuum account for that? How does light travel without a medium?

Time would be a medium everything needs to travels through. But if we were in space looking at the earth turning we would realize there is no such thing as time. It's the things we see around us changing that give the illusion of time. If we see a vehicle approaching us from a distance, we see it 'now', that's regardless of how close it comes to us. We can't see it coming out of the factory where it was made because it is in front of us now. But as we could see the factory and the vehicle, the time aspect is a one of many changed positions. Light gets by without an ether because it is self sustaining. Spacetime still deals with things now but calculating their motion through space. But I dont' know all that much about this stuff. I think time is not real because we don't see any evidence of it. 

Youtube.txt

[swansont]

2 minutes ago, Greg A. said:

Time would be a medium everything needs to travels through.

I will ask again what model requires this. What is the evidence that this is the case?

[Greg A.]

On 7/16/2022 at 9:28 AM, swansont said:

Is there a model out there that says that time propagates, so that it might require a medium?

How does length propagate? What medium does it travel through?

Something moving has motion that is separate from its velocity and if moving very fast some of that motion needs to be subtracted if it is not to exceed the speed of light. The medium would be velocity and is that is what dilates time (the apparent rate of motion) in the relative sense. Length is spatial and is unaffected by velocity?

[swansont]

Just now, Greg A. said:

Something moving has motion that is separate from its velocity

The velocity describes the motion. In standard physics these are not separate things.

Just now, Greg A. said:

and if moving very fast some of that motion needs to be subtracted if it is not to exceed the speed of light. The medium would be velocity and is that is what dilates time (the apparent rate of motion) in the relative sense.

What are the equations that would let us test this? And show how velocity is a "medium"

 

Just now, Greg A. said:

Length is spatial and is unaffected by velocity?

And yet we have length contraction, which tells us that length is relative to the observer, which means it depends on velocity.

[studiot]

28 minutes ago, Greg A. said:

I think time is not real because we don't see any evidence of it. 

Who is this we ?

I see lots of evidence everywhere I look, as I believe do most folks.

In fact I find it difficult (though not impossible) to find evidence of phenomena that don't require time.

You yourself, have offered plenty of evidence in this thread and then dismissed it as 'an illusion'.

Perhaps you are just an illusion, after all I have never seen you.

[Greg A.]

On 7/16/2022 at 10:28 PM, Bufofrog said:

I have never had that experience.  If I return to a room I left earlier I will still move forward in time.

I guess when you are talking about 'Time' it is something different than when I talk about time.

It sounds like you believe the future is set and cannot be changed sort of like in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five, is that correct?

Our motion correlates with the movement of the clock's hands but that anything transpires is only due to our senses. If the two rooms were on a spaceship in deep space and we were getting anti-aging treatment (we are on a very long journey) then the clock's time would be meaningless as a reference to earth's rotation.

It looks like there is no future, but if there is then it would effect us as we would need to comply with the particular outcomes. But as everything we do would need to be consistent with those outcomes we can maybe only 'detect' the future as a measure of difficulty in changing the probability of something occurring. It would be very difficult to change the orbit of Venus so can we conclude it's transit across the face of the sun in 97 years is true. Another example would be if London Bridge is still standing in 100 years time then it can not fall down tomorrow or for that matter any time in the preceding interval. 

[studiot]

6 minutes ago, Greg A. said:

Another example would be if London Bridge is still standing in 100 years time then it can not fall down tomorrow or for that matter any time in the preceding interval. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge_(Lake_Havasu_City)

Unless they rebuilt it.

Funny that you should choose this example, of all the possibilities.

 

 

But swansont and I have pointed out more fundamental problems with your proposition, to which we would be grateful for answers.

[dimreepr]

35 minutes ago, Greg A. said:

Our motion correlates with the movement of the clock's hands but that anything transpires is only due to our senses. If the two rooms were on a spaceship in deep space and we were getting anti-aging treatment (we are on a very long journey) then the clock's time would be meaningless as a reference to earth's rotation.

It looks like there is no future, but if there is then it would effect us as we would need to comply with the particular outcomes. But as everything we do would need to be consistent with those outcomes we can maybe only 'detect' the future as a measure of difficulty in changing the probability of something occurring. It would be very difficult to change the orbit of Venus so can we conclude it's transit across the face of the sun in 97 years is true. Another example would be if London Bridge is still standing in 100 years time then it can not fall down tomorrow or for that matter any time in the preceding interval. 

You seem very confused about what actually exists and when; all you can know, with any degree of certainty, is what's happening now, to you; for instance, if you're alive in 97 year's, you can confirm the transit of Venus (unless it gets hit by a Tesla and, in 96 year's, it crashed into the sun)...