Time Explained

[Edtharan]

What I explained is how motion defines time. By all means challenge this, but find something better to challenge it with than "motion is defined by time". You're just going round and round your axiomatic circle. I really do understand Special Relativity. It's because I understand it that I also understand the implications for time.

According to relativity and experimental evidence, motion does not define time, but it changes the observers relationship between time and space.

[swansont]

in science Axioms aren't proven. In mathematics they can be. That is why science relies on maths. Go talk to a maths lecturer at you local university and ask them if axioms in mathematics can be proven or not. I used to work with the head (retired at the time I knew him) of the physics department from Sydney university. The reason I don't use this fact to add weight to my arguments as it would be the "Argument from Authority" logical fallacy. but while we worked together we did discuss a lot about maths, dimensions, physics, and a lot of other related stuff.

 

Mathematical Axioms can be proven or disproven, Scientific theories can only be disproven.

 

I think you are thinking of the difference between theories and theorems. Axioms or postulates are assumed to be true, and you base a mathematical system off of them. They can be disproven if you have constructed an inconsistent system, but Godel's incompleteness theorem shows that there are true statements that can't be proven in math.

 

But that's the problem. If you have an axiom, you can't disprove it, by itself, so trying to do so is a waste of time. But it is of little scientific value until you construct the model from it, so that you can do actual experiments and test to see if it can be disproven. You just end up going 'round and 'round arguing definitions and semantics.

[Farsight]

Yes the value for C is a constant, but this in no way proves that velocity is more fundamental than time.

 

Ed, if I could prove it I'd be getting phone calls from this mob:

 

http://nobelprize.org/nomination/physics/

 

Actually, it is not just my velocity that determines my time experience. Gravity also determines my time experience...

 

Yep, I've been thinking hard about that. Real hard Ed.

 

If there is a Set C and the components of that Set are Set A and Set B, then C can not be a component of Set A or Set B. It is logically impossible (unless you are talking about recursion, and that would produce infinities...

 

Hah. You get recursion your way. People talk about "the speed of light" even though "speed" alters distance and time and speed is distance over time. And the photon sees those infinities you mentioned.

 

How then can you equate our perception of Time to these other perceptions? These other perceptions have a physical and physiological effect that we can measure in the nervous systems. We haven't been able to do that for Time...

 

I didn't. I've already told you about the big difference between perceiving colour and experiencing time. You perceive colour. You experience heat. You experience time. But you can't travel through heat or time.

[Edtharan]

Hah. You get recursion your way. People talk about "the speed of light" even though "speed" alters distance and time and speed is distance over time. And the photon sees those infinities you mentioned.

How?

 

If we take the assumption that space and time are fundamental and that velocity is the displacement in the 3 spatial dimensions divided by the displacement in time, then there is no recursion.

 

Einstein showed that the faster you travel the more that space and time are rotated into one another. Therefore velocity is not determine Time, but changing the curvature of space-time. Velocity only determines the rotation of space time, not what space or time is.

 

What you are saying equates to placing a bowling ball on a trampoline and saying that the bowling ball determines what the trampoline is made of. Where as what I am saying is that the bowling ball only determines the curvature of the trampoline surface.

 

I didn't. I've already told you about the big difference between perceiving colour and experiencing time. You perceive colour. You experience heat. You experience time. But you can't travel through heat or time.

As I have said, this is a weak analogy because some of the words used have similar meaning (a logical fallacy in it own right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation ).

Talking about "experiencing" time and then talking about "experiencing" heat is just due to the limitations of language, not to any fundamental similarity between them. That is an assumption you have made and not provided any evidence for it. When I have presented evidence against it, you accuse me of strawmanning you or not reading you post.

[Farsight]

If we take the assumption that space and time are fundamental...

You go ahead and assume. That's not how I try to do science.

 

Einstein showed that the faster you travel the more that space and time are rotated into one another...

No, for the umpteenth time the dimensional treatment was Minkowski's idea, and Einstein wasn't happy about it.

 

What you are saying equates to placing a bowling ball on a trampoline and saying that the bowling ball determines what the trampoline is made of.

No it doesn't. Do you actually understand what a straw man argument is? Don't bother answering.

 

As I have said, this is a weak analogy because some of the words used have similar meaning...

No. It's not a weak analogy. because it's not an analogy. It's an introduction to demonstrate something simpler that we take for granted and intrigue the reader to proceed with an open mind. Your inability to listen, or understand, or distinguish words doesn't make it an analogy. The only weakness is yours.

[D H]

No. It's not a weak analogy. because it's not an analogy. It's an introduction to demonstrate something simpler that we take for granted and intrigue the reader to proceed with an open mind.

 

That is exactly what an analogy is.

 

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analogy:

Analogy is either the cognitive process of transferring information from a particular subject (the analogue or source) to another particular subject (the target), or a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process.

[Edtharan]

You go ahead and assume. That's not how I try to do science.

I was doing that as a thought experiment. It is always a good idea to ask "What if?" questions as they can sometimes give understanding to a question.

 

Thought experiments are easily identified as they usually start with either "What if" or "Let us assume".

 

Before any scientist performs and experiment they essentially go through a though experiment to determine what the expected results of the experiment that they are doing will be. This is good science as one rarely performs experiments to see what might happen, they are usually done to either confirm or disprove a theory.

 

This is what I have been attempting to do with you theory. What if it was correct? What would be the expected results?

 

From the information you have given the results disagree with past observations. This is where I got the "Universal Time" from.

 

In your posts, you have maintained that there is a single "Now" that your theory requires. As in your post that said:

 

Yes, our clocks will be marking time at two different rates. But when we collide, we collide NOW. That's the absolute now, the only now, and it has total significance.

 

However take this situation:

 

You are sitting on the surface of the Sun. You use a radio to tell me that "it is a little warm where you are at the moment".

 

Now I am here on Earth and I receive your radio transmission and send back a message saying that it is "not too bad here on Earth".

 

This all up has taken around 16 minutes by your watch.

 

However, according to the photons that were used, it has all occurred instantaneously.

 

So who's time is the "absolute now, the only now, and it has total significance"? Your clock says that it took 16 minutes where as the clocks that would have been on the photon say that it has not taken any time at all?

 

Which one of those "clocks" represents the "absolute now" that has total significance?

 

In fact, according to the photons My transmission of my message occured at the same time as your transmission of your message, but according to our clocks I transmitted my message 8 minutes after you sent yours.

 

If I had also sent a message after you sent your message to me, but before it reached me, then according to the photons, I sent that message before they were sent.

 

All this completely throws out any possibility of there being an absolute time, as you have stated you theory predicts/requires.

 

If we assume an absolute "Now" then what has been observed would make no sense (and your theory says that it couldn't occur). The fact that this has been seen to occur contradicts your theory, so what is wrong, observation or your theory?

[swansont]

Thought experiments are easily identified as they usually start with either "What if" or "Let us assume".

 

Before any scientist performs and experiment they essentially go through a though experiment to determine what the expected results of the experiment that they are doing will be. This is good science as one rarely performs experiments to see what might happen, they are usually done to either confirm or disprove a theory.

 

This is what I have been attempting to do with you theory. What if it was correct? What would be the expected results?

 

 

Which is exactly what I tried to point out before. It can become scientific once you start making predictions, but the original supposition, by itself, is not.

 

For instance, with the concept of "it's always now," and the observation that when two objects collide, they do it now, how would one predict that beforehand? i.e. come up with the equation that allows me to launch one object and have another intercept it, without using a time variable.

 

The burden of furnishing this is upon the proposer.

[Farsight]

Let's look at this "weak analogy" or "false analogy" matter. Let's look at what I said. Excuse me if I insert the omitted word "concept" on line 2.

 

Time is very simple, once you get it. But “getting it” is very very difficult. That’s because your current concept of time is so deeply ingrained. You think of time as a length:

 

Q: How long will it take to get to London?

A: What do you mean long?

 

We form a mental map of the world using our senses and our brains. But the map is not the territory. We use time to think, but we’ve grown so accustomed to thinking the way we do, that we don't think about time any more. We don't see time for what it is.

 

But let’s start with something easier. Let’s start with colour. Follow the link below to conduct an experiment:

 

http://www.echalk.co.uk/amusements/OpticalIllusions/colourPerception/colourPerception.html

 

This demonstrates something important about colour perception. What you thought was yellow is in fact grey. It really is. It isn’t a trick. Tear a small hole in a piece of paper to make your own mask to remove context. Hold it up to one image after the other, and you realise that the effect is genuine. It comes as a shock, but genuine it is. Yellow is grey. What does this tell you? It tells you that colour is perception rather than reality. Imagine a super-evolved alien bat with a large number of ears, like a fly’s eye. This bat would “see” using sound, and if it was sufficiently advanced it would see in colour. This should be a reminder that in the subatomic world there is no such thing as colour. A photon has a wavelength, an electromagnetic oscillation, a motion.

 

Next let’s take a look at heat. Put your hand on the griddle and sizzle, you know heat is real. But we talk about heat exchangers and heat flow as if there’s some magical mysterious fluid in there. And yet we know there isn’t, because junior-level physics tells us that heat is atomic or molecular motion. It’s a “derived effect”, or a macro effect if you prefer. Sure, heat is a real thing. But you know it's motion.

 

Pressure is similar. You can’t measure the pressure of an atom, because pressure isn’t a fundamental property of the sub-atomic world. It’s another ”derived effect”, and the Kinetic Theory of Gases tells us it’s derived from motion.

 

How about Kinetic Energy? A cannonball in space travelling at 1000m/s has Kinetic Energy. Oh sorry. I made a mistake. It isn't the cannonball doing 1000m/s. It's me. So where's the kinetic energy now? Nowhere. Because it's just a mathematical expression of stopping distance. There isn't any. All there is is motion.

 

We’re all familiar with Sound. It’s like light because it’s waves, and like pressure because they’re pressure waves. And when you look beyond this at the molecules that make up the air around us, you see that sound is motion.

 

 

Did you know that smell is really shape? Nevermind, because you should be getting the drift by now. We are accustomed to thinking about the world in terms of how we experience it, rather than the scientific, empirical, fundamental, underlying things that are there. And nowhere is this more so than with Time...

 

There's no analogies here. What is here are examples of ontological thinking.

[Farsight]

I was doing that as a thought experiment. It is always a good idea to ask "What if?" questions as they can sometimes give understanding to a question. Thought experiments are easily identified as they usually start with either "What if" or "Let us assume".

I'm happy with thought experiments Edtharan. But you're saying "let us assume" and then using your assumptions to try to disprove what I'm saying.

 

Before any scientist performs an experiment they essentially go through a thought experiment to determine what the expected results of the experiment that they are doing will be. This is good science as one rarely performs experiments to see what might happen, they are usually done to either confirm or disprove a theory.

 

Agreed.

 

This is what I have been attempting to do with you theory. What if it was correct? What would be the expected results?

 

Attempting maybe, but IMHO you've been trying to disprove my "theory" using the very axioms the essay challenges, and nothing else.

 

From the information you have given the results disagree with past observations. This is where I got the "Universal Time" from.

 

No they don't. There's no experimental evidence or observations that disagree with the essay.

 

In your posts, you have maintained that there is a single "Now" that your theory requires. As in your post that said: Yes, our clocks will be marking time at two different rates. But when we collide, we collide NOW. That's the absolute now, the only now, and it has total significance. However take this situation: You are sitting on the surface of the Sun. You use a radio to tell me that "it is a little warm where you are at the moment". Now I am here on Earth and I receive your radio transmission and send back a message saying that it is "not too bad here on Earth". This all up has taken around 16 minutes by your watch. However, according to the photons that were used, it has all occurred instantaneously. So who's time is the "absolute now, the only now, and it has total significance"? Your clock says that it took 16 minutes where as the clocks that would have been on the photon say that it has not taken any time at all? Which one of those "clocks" represents the "absolute now" that has total significance? In fact, according to the photons my transmission of my message occured at the same time as your transmission of your message, but according to our clocks I transmitted my message 8 minutes after you sent yours. If I had also sent a message after you sent your message to me, but before it reached me, then according to the photons, I sent that message before they were sent. All this completely throws out any possibility of there being an absolute time, as you have stated your theory predicts/requires. If we assume an absolute "Now" then what has been observed would make no sense (and your theory says that it couldn't occur). The fact that this has been seen to occur contradicts your theory, so what is wrong, observation or your theory?

 

NONE of the clocks record the absolute now. This should be apparent from the colliding clocks example. Regardless of the "passage of time" on my clock, it is always now as far as I am concerned. Regardless of the "passage of time" on your clock, it is always now as far as you are concerned. If we are separated by some large distance, we are unable to share a mutual event that always, for each of us, happens now. There's no contradiction of the essay. And there is no absolute time or universal time either. That's definitely not what I said.

[Farsight]

Which is exactly what I tried to point out before. It can become scientific once you start making predictions' date=' but the original supposition, by itself, is not.

 

For instance, with the concept of "it's always now," and the observation that when two objects collide, they do it now, how would one predict that beforehand? i.e. come up with the equation that allows me to launch one object and have another intercept it, without using a time variable.[/quote']

 

That's unreasonable, swansont. You know the "show me the maths" issue is in proving the axiom, not in the use of t for calculating trajectories.

 

The burden of furnishing this is upon the proposer.

 

Yes it is. But one has to start somewhere. With an idea. And you're being unreasonable again if you expect me to somehow prove that time travel is impossible. Let's not forget that TIME EXPLAINED is an essay under the "Speculations" heading of an internet forum. It isn't some grand authoritative paper. It isn't String Theory either.

[swansont]

That's unreasonable, swansont. You know the "show me the maths" issue is in proving the axiom, not in the use of t for calculating trajectories.

 

That was an example. You might have noticed the "for instance."

 

I couldn't base it on proven mathematical axioms, becuase axioms aren't proven.

 

...

 

I can't prove this with maths because its axiomatic.

 

 

Why are you talking about proving the axiom when you've agreed that they aren't proven? Their consequences are, when you construct a self-consistent model from them. In SR, time is a dimension, a consequence of c being a constant. The former is not the axiom, but the latter is. We test the resulting model, and it works — we can predict phenomena using the results.

 

You want to do away with time? Fine. It's a preamble, though. It's not unreasonable to ask for the implications. It's a necessary step if you desire it to be science.

[Edtharan]

And there is no absolute time or universal time either. That's definitely not what I said.

but you did see the quote below:

 

But when we collide, we collide NOW. That's the absolute now, the only now, and it has total significance.

That is an "absolute now". Your words.

 

Regardless of the "passage of time" on my clock, it is always now as far as I am concerned. Regardless of the "passage of time" on your clock, it is always now as far as you are concerned.

 

but here:

Now is not dependent on the observer.

you said differently.

 

You are contradicting your self.

 

I'm happy with thought experiments Edtharan. But you're saying "let us assume" and then using your assumptions to try to disprove what I'm saying.

I have use the "What if" argument to attempt to determine what the results would be if your proposition was correct, I than (in a different post) used the "What if" argument to see what the results would be if you were wrong (and how we think of time now was correct).

 

Now the two "What if" thought experiments produced different results, which you confirmed in your posts. But then when I took those conclusions and compared them to what has been observed, the results that were concluded form your proposition did not match what has been observed.

 

The final conclusion to all this was that if the results of what we should observe if your proposition was correct does not match the observed results is that you proposition is incorrect.

 

I treated both sides equally, I did the "What if"/"let us assume" thought experiment with both propositions and determined what would be the effects if one or the other was correct.

 

By saying that I was only doing the "What if" to prove one of the proposition is wrong and means that you are not paying attention to the fact that I did the same thing to your proposition.

[Edtharan]

There's no analogies here. What is here are examples of ontological thinking.

The fact that you compared these situations to time means that you were using them as an analogy.

 

This line in particular:

We are accustomed to thinking about the world in terms of how we experience it, rather than the scientific, empirical, fundamental, underlying things that are there. And nowhere is this more so than with Time...

This says that you were using the colour, temperature, etc as analogies.

 

But as only this line is the only support for the analogy, it is a weak analogy. You offer no other evidence to support the analogies except your opinion.

 

I will admit that if your proposition is true, then they would be good analogies. But this is never established in your entire essay. You only present it as an opinion, never as fact, but then in later posts argue that it is indeed a fact.

 

Attempting maybe, but IMHO you've been trying to disprove my "theory" using the very axioms the essay challenges, and nothing else.

Yes, by working out what would occur if they were correct, and doing the exact same thing with you Axioms in the essay.

 

And you're being unreasonable again if you expect me to somehow prove that time travel is impossible.

But is this not what your essay claimed?

Time Travel is bunk.

 

It isn't some grand authoritative paper.

But you also said:

this is the most important essay you will ever read on a bulletin board. In a while it won't be on a bulletin board. It'll be in magazines. It will be on TV. It will become accepted mainstream science.

 

Let's not forget that TIME EXPLAINED is an essay under the "Speculations" heading of an internet forum.

In a science debate forum at that. It is just speculation, but because this is a science forum, expect science to be applied to your claims and because it is a debate forum, expect people to disagree with you.

 

So far, to any counter claim, you have just stated that it disagrees with your claims. This is not debate.

 

If you make a claim, then you need to back it up with evidence, not analogies and opinion. As I have attempted to do, work out what the conclusions to your propositions would be. This is not guessing, but you have to apply rigorous thinking and logic to it. You keep saying you essay means that certain conclusions would come form it, but then contradict your self and say the opposite would be the result.

 

When you make a claim as to what the results would be if your essay is correct, please show the steps that you took as to why that would be the case. You don't need mathematics, just show the working out.

[Spyman]

It is what Einstein thought.

Farsight, you might want to read the article "Space-Time" by Albert Einstein 1926.

(In the Thirteenth Edition of Encyclopedia Britannica.)

 

Final conclusion by Einstein himself with his own words:

 

space and time are welded together into a uniform four-dimensional continuum

 

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9117889/space-time

[Farsight]

Thanks for the link, Spyman. I can empathise with the "experience" here.

 

I experience the moment "now," or, expressed more accurately, the present sense-experience (Sinnen-Erlebnis) combined with the recollection of (earlier) sense-experiences. That is why the sense-experiences seem to form a series, namely the time-series indicated by "earlier" and "later." The experience-series is thought of as a one-dimensional continuum.

 

I think he tussled with all this on and off throughout his life. This is from page 73 of ABOUT TIME by Paul Davies:

 

Einstein himself wasn't to thrilled with the unified spacetime idea at first, dimissing Minkowski's new four-dimensional geometry as "superfluous" pedantry.

 

Then on page 77 we see:

 

Even Einstein confessed, near the end of his days, that the problem of the now "worried him seriously." In conversation with the philosopher Rudolf Carnap he conceded that there us "something essential about the now", but expressed the belief that, whatever it was, it lay "just outside the realm of science".

 

There's another quote somewhere about how he was unhappy with something when he was formulating General Relativity and wished he'd pursued it. So I think he was unhappy with 4D spacetime, then happy, then unhappy. Something like that.

[Farsight]

Ed, they weren't analogies. Those are things we experience, and they're all derived from motion. Look up ontology.

 

TIME EXPLAINED is an essay, with ideas, and you're trying to dismiss them because I can't prove time travel is bunk? If I could prove it I'd be up for a Nobel Prize. And now you're saying the essay contains axioms? When it challenges the axioms you've been pretending to disprove it with? It contains rigourous thinking and logic. And I haven't seen any rigourous thinking and logic to disprove it. Just pretend-science that says "time is a length ergo your essay is wrong QED", and pretend-science that dismisses it as "metaphysics of little merit".

 

So far, to any counter claim, you have just stated that it disagrees with your claims. This is not debate. If you make a claim, then you need to back it up with evidence, not analogies and opinion. As I have attempted to do, work out what the conclusions to your propositions would be. This is not guessing, but you have to apply rigorous thinking and logic to it. You keep saying you essay means that certain conclusions would come form it, but then contradict your self and say the opposite would be the result.

 

This is downright dishonest Ed. I explain at great length. You ignore the explanation like you ignore the whole point of the essay. Just as you ignore the evidence. Time is not a length. You cannot move through it. It is always now. The evidence is staring you in the face. And don't pretend that I contradict myself. I don't.

 

Show me your best bit of "rigourous thinking and logic" to disprove the essay Ed, and I'll explain again why you're wrong. Home in on one particular point so I can nail it down to your acknowledged satisfaction. Do not move off that point until we have resolved it.

[swansont]

And I haven't seen any rigourous thinking and logic to disprove it. Just pretend-science that says "time is a length ergo your essay is wrong QED", and pretend-science that dismisses it as "metaphysics of little merit".

 

You've quoted "metaphysics of little merit" several times. Who, besides you, has used that phrase in this thread?

 

For someone who wants to be taken seriously and proclaims to not be a crackpot, you are doing a poor job of differentiating your behavior. Proclaiming your work to be Nobel-worthy (if you could only prove it) is but the latest example. Prove it already. Do something scientific with it.

[Edtharan]

Ed, they weren't analogies. Those are things we experience, and they're all derived from motion.

But then you compared them to time. That is you used those experiences as analogous to (in some way like) Time. Therefore they were analogies.

 

If you are using them to "aid our understanding" of your points then they must have some relevance to your point (ie that they are experience and time is experience) there fore they are an analogy.

 

According to all definitions of the word "Analogy" they are analogies.

 

TIME EXPLAINED is an essay, with ideas, and you're trying to dismiss them because I can't prove time travel is bunk? If I could prove it I'd be up for a Nobel Prize. And now you're saying the essay contains axioms?

Well from what did you base your ideas on? These are the axioms in your essay. You present initial "ideas" that the rest of your essay is based on. These are the axioms.

 

You have axioms in your essay.

 

It contains rigourous thinking and logic.

no matter how rigorous you logic, if you start form incorrect assumptions/axioms/ideas/etc about reality then you will end up with conclusions that do not conform to reality.

 

And I haven't seen any rigourous thinking and logic to disprove it.

I'm sorry, are you calling established mathematical concepts not rigorous logic? I have shown that using the mathematical definition of a dimension that time is a dimension. I have also shown that you claim/idea/axiom that Time is dependant on velocity is wrong (through mathematics). I have also demonstrated that conclusions drawn from your ideas/axioms/claims produce results, and confirmed by you as being correct (in one place you stated that you essay meant that there was an absolute frame of reference - that there is an absolute "now"), that do not agree with known and observed reality.

 

Just pretend-science that says "time is a length ergo your essay is wrong QED"

Yes, as I stated above (several times now), that I did use the :time is length" preposition/axiom/idea/concept as a starting place, but then I explored what would happen if this was true. I didn't just state "ergo your essay is wrong QED". I explored what it would mean if it was correct.

 

I also did this for your claims/idea/concepts/prepositions/axioms that you presented in your essay/theory/post and reached conclusions that you even corrected me on (so I can only take it that those conclusions are your conclusions) and compared these also to reality.

 

Your conclusions were found not to have the same result as observed reality. The only conclusion from this is "ergo your essay is wrong QED". If conclusions drawn from your essay and confirmed by you do not match up with observed reality, then no matter how accurate or rigorous your logic, you must have made some error. If the logic is perfect, then you must have started from incorrect assumptions/axiom/ideas.

 

This is downright dishonest Ed. I explain at great length. You ignore the explanation like you ignore the whole point of the essay. Just as you ignore the evidence. Time is not a length. You cannot move through it. It is always now. The evidence is staring you in the face. And don't pretend that I contradict myself. I don't.

Sorry? Pretend? I used the exact words that you typed and they contradicted each other. I can't pretend anything there. You contradicted your self several times. They are your words, not mine or anybody else's.

 

Not only that they were key aspects of your essay/post/explanations.

 

I haven't ignored your explanations, but you do seem to have ignored mine.

 

You dismiss evidence that I have presented that originates in observations of the universe. This is where I am coming from. It doesn't matter how good your logic or how aesthetically pleasing your concepts/ideas, if they are different from observed reality or produce results that are different from observed reality, then they are wrong.

 

Show me your best bit of "rigourous thinking and logic" to disprove the essay Ed

Ok I'll repeat it here again:

 

It doesn't matter how good your logic or how aesthetically pleasing your concepts/ideas, if they are different from observed reality or produce results that are different from observed reality, then they are wrong.

 

You essay and the results that one can conclude from it (and even concluded by you) differ from observed reality. Therefore your essay is wrong.

 

There is no fault with that logic. No dishonesty. I am not ignoring you explanations (I am using them). I am not "pretending" anything.

 

Your essay produces results that do not match with observed reality. Therefore, you are wrong.

[Farsight]

You've quoted "metaphysics of little merit" several times. Who, besides you, has used that phrase in this thread? For someone who wants to be taken seriously and proclaims to not be a crackpot, you are doing a poor job of differentiating your behavior. Proclaiming your work to be Nobel-worthy (if you could only prove it) is but the latest example. Prove it already. Do something scientific with it.

 

Nobody has used that phrase in this thread, but see your post #24.

 

More insiduous digs I see, proclaims and poor job and yes, out comes the crackpot. You can't tackle the argument, so you attack me instead. And in the same breath you lecture me about being scientific. Hmmn.

[Farsight]

But then you compared them to time. That is you used those experiences as analogous to (in some way like) Time. Therefore they were analogies.

 

No, colour perception and heat etc are not analogies of time! You want to label them as analogies so you can then say they're weak/false analogies, and all you're doing is showing that you're clutching at a straw man argument.

 

Well from what did you base your ideas on? These are the axioms in your essay. You present initial "ideas" that the rest of your essay is based on. These are the axioms.

 

The essay is all about challenging the "time is a length" axiom. To defend this axiom you're accusing me of holding axioms. What axioms? Are you going to say my challenge to your axiom is an axiom and is therefore disqualified?

 

No matter how rigorous you logic, if you start from incorrect assumptions/axioms/ideas/etc about reality then you will end up with conclusions that do not conform to reality.

 

More of the same. All you've got disprove the essay is your axiomatic concept of time which the essay challenges.

 

I'm sorry, are you calling established mathematical concepts not rigorous logic? I have shown that using the mathematical definition of a dimension that time is a dimension.

 

This is yet more of the same proof by axiom. If you've proven what you think you've proven, you've also proven that temperature is a dimension.

 

I have also shown that you claim/idea/axiom that Time is dependant on velocity is wrong (through mathematics). I have also demonstrated that conclusions drawn from your ideas/axioms/claims produce results, and confirmed by you as being correct (in one place you stated that you essay meant that there was an absolute frame of reference - that there is an absolute "now"), that do not agree with known and observed reality.

 

No you haven't. If you think you have, use this as the point I referred to in my previous post. Let's home in on that point and debate it until we're both satisfied.

 

Yes, as I stated above (several times now), that I did use the :time is length" preposition/axiom/idea/concept as a starting place, but then I explored what would happen if this was true. I didn't just state "ergo your essay is wrong QED". I explored what it would mean if it was correct. I also did this for your claims/idea/concepts/prepositions/axioms that you presented in your essay/theory/post and reached conclusions that you even corrected me on...

 

The rest of your post is a claim that you've used careful reason and logic to prove that TIME EXPLAINED is false. No way have you done this. And instead of repeating your proof or a vital element of it, you repeat your assertation of proof. Come on Ed, repeat your most telling point, let's focus in on it and nail it.

[swansont]

Nobody has used that phrase in this thread, but see your post #24.

 

More insiduous digs I see, proclaims and poor job and yes, out comes the crackpot. You can't tackle the argument, so you attack me instead. And in the same breath you lecture me about being scientific. Hmmn.

 

"little merit" and "little scientific merit" have starkly different meanings. The former indicates it's worthless (which I never stated), and the latter indicates a lack of suitibility for science (which I did).

 

Once again, behavior you should be avoiding if you wish to avoid being viewed as a crackpot. Someone calls for evidence that supports the claim, an example of the implications of the idea, and it is viewed as a personal attack, and that becomes the focus of the posts, rather than the topic at hand.

 

What predictive power does "it's always now" have? It seems a tautological statement to me.

[Edtharan]

The rest of your post is a claim that you've used careful reason and logic to prove that TIME EXPLAINED is false. No way have you done this. And instead of repeating your proof or a vital element of it, you repeat your assertation of proof. Come on Ed, repeat your most telling point, let's focus in on it and nail it.

Ok here is my proof:

 

That's the absolute now, the only now, and it has total significance.

So by this you are saying that there is an absolute "Now. Am I correct in this interpretation? If I am incorrect in this interpretation of your statement then let me know. I have presented this several times and you have ignored it time and again.

 

So if I have understood you correctly, then you have put forward the idea of an absolute "Now". This is an absolute frame of reference as one can just use "Now" as a reference point and no matter what motion you are in then there has to be a "Now" that everyone will agree is "Now".

 

So we have established that, from your own words, that your essay advocates that there is a universal frame of reference, the "Absolute Now".

 

However, experiments have been done that disprove the existence of an absolute frame of reference, so here you essay differs from what has been observed.

 

At no pint in this entire debate have you even addressed this question which came up on page 1 of this thread and started the whole colliding clocks discussion.

 

So as it stands, your essay has been shown to disagree with reality. Please address this and let me know how you can reconcile an "Absolute Now" with the observations that there is no "Absolute Now".

 

Now for another point:

In your essay you make the claim that Time is not a dimension. However Time passes all the mathematical criteria for being a dimensions.

 

Also Einstein showed in Relativity that Time and Space can be twisted (warped). Observations of certain astronomical phenomena confirm this (eg: pulsars and their magnetic fields).

 

So we have a dispute between claims: Namely that you think that Time is not a dimension and the current view that Time is a dimension.

 

The only way to resolve this is through observations. If the conclusions drawn from either premise/idea differs form the other, we can look for phenomena that would demonstrate this one way or the other. The observations of Pulsars show that Space is rotated in a 4th dimension and that the effect of this rotation match up with Time being that 4th dimension.

 

I am not just spouting axioms here, these axioms are backed up by observation and experimentation. Neither of which you have presented for your own ideas. This is the point that I keep making and you keep ignoring. I am not just using "Axioms", but have repeatedly shown that through observations they have been confirmed.

 

So observations (not axioms) have shown that the 2 major claims made by your essay do not match the real world. It is on this that I base my arguments, not the axioms, but the evidence from observations.

 

And the final point:

If as you claim in your essay that Velocity determines time, then there must be some mathematical function that allows us to compute Time starting from Velocity (V)

 

Or in more mathematical terms:

T=f(V)

(note: f means some function)

 

As we know the formula for Velocity, we can put that in the equations (and please note you have not provided any framework that demonstrates that the formula for Velocity is any different that this one. If you have that then please post it as it is essential to making any sensible conclusions from your essay)

 

The formula for Velocity is:

V=D/T

where D= the displacement in distance and T= the displacement in time (at this point we do not even have to assume that Time is a dimension, just a scalar measurement as this is what the displacement in time is).

 

So putting in the formula for Velocity we get

T=f(D/T)

 

or

 

T= f(D)/f(T)

 

But now we have T on both sides of the equation. However on one side functions are being applied and then we are dividing another number by T. There are only certain cases where both sides of the equation will produce an equal result, for all other situations, this formula fails to produce any sensible result.

 

I constructed this formula from the information in your essay and the clarifications that you posted. therefore if you have given incorrect or incomplete information, then that would be your fault (not mine or anyone else's) or demonstrates that you have not given proper thought (ie an error in the logic or initial premises) to the conclusions that can be drawn from your essay.

 

No, colour perception and heat etc are not analogies of time! You want to label them as analogies so you can then say they're weak/false analogies, and all you're doing is showing that you're clutching at a straw man argument.

No I am not straw manning you, I am just saying that if you want your argument to hold more weight, then this kind of "preamble" is pointless. If you are using these phenomena as examples to help people understand your essay, then you would be much better off if you used examples that actually had some relevance to the points in your essay.

 

If they do have relevance, then they are by dictionary definition analogies. If, as you claim, they are not analogies, then you are stating that they have no relevance to the points in your essay and therefore do not aid in peoples understanding and only add to confusions about them.

 

No you haven't. If you think you have, use this as the point I referred to in my previous post. Let's home in on that point and debate it until we're both satisfied.

I have repeatedly shown that my claims are backed up by observation, a fact that you have repeatedly ignored (and then had the audacity to make the same claims about me with no evidence for them - ad homin).

 

This is yet more of the same proof by axiom. If you've proven what you think you've proven, you've also proven that temperature is a dimension.

This is a straw man. At no point did I say that temperature is a dimension, if fact I even showed mathematically why it couldn't be one, and yet you ignore that and post that I am making such claims in order to disprove me (a classic straw man if ever there was one).

 

Temperature is a scalar, not a dimension. It is you who are making the assertion that Temperature and Time are the same things, not me.

 

1. a similarity between like features of two things' date=' on which a comparison may be based: the analogy between the heart and a pump.

2. similarity or comparability: I see no analogy between your problem and mine.

3. Biology. an analogous relationship.

4. Linguistics.

a. the process by which words or phrases are created or re-formed according to existing patterns in the language, as when shoon was re-formed as shoes, when -ize is added to nouns like winter to form verbs, or when a child says foots for feet.

b. a form resulting from such a process.

5. Logic. a form of reasoning in which one thing is inferred to be similar to another thing in a certain respect, on the basis of the known similarity between the things in other respects.[/quote']

[Farsight]

Yes, I reiterate that there is an absolute now. But it's not a reference frame. A reference frame is something you've introduced, and it relies on your current concept of time as a length. You're looking at your clock and saying its 5:08pm and thinking your now is different to my now because my clock says 5:09pm. But we collide now for both of us, it's the same now, the absolute now. That's the reality of it.

 

I've said repeatedly that time is a dimension in that it is a measure. But we have no freedom of movement in time like we do in space. Therefore it is not a Dimension like those of space. Time is not a length. You can't travel through it. That's reality too.

 

The formula you're looking for is probably [math] sqrt{(1-v^2/c^2)} [/math], but this moderates time experience, and it is late.

 

Re analogies, have you looked up ontology yet?

 

Your posts are so long that it's easy to miss points. I don't do it deliberately. Tell me the post where you proved whatever you thought you proved about temperature and dimensions, and I'll get back to you tomorrow.

[Edtharan]

Yes, I reiterate that there is an absolute now. But it's not a reference frame. A reference frame is something you've introduced, and it relies on your current concept of time as a length. You're looking at your clock and saying its 5:08pm and thinking your now is different to my now because my clock says 5:09pm. But we collide now for both of us, it's the same now, the absolute now. That's the reality of it.

I was not talking about reference frames as the time on a clock. A reference frame is covered under relativity. If you are moving, that is one type of reference from. If you are stationary, then that is another. If you are accelerating, that is a third type.

 

So under these 3 conditions Stationary, Accelerating and Moving, we need to apply you notion of and "Absolute Now" and see what it produces.

 

We know from experiment that in an accelerating frame of reference it reduces the length in the direction of motion. But from a stationary frame of reference, this does not occur.

 

So two observers, one accelerating and one stationary will observe two different distance. They will disagree over how far one has to travel.

 

With an "Absolute Now" the two observers must agree over the time it takes to traverse the distance (this applies even if you treat time as a dimension or not - but only if there is an absolute now). So the observers disagree over the velocity of the traveller.

 

If we were using a rocket, then we should be able to calculate the amount of fuel needed to reach the velocity and so measure it. but, the different observers have observed different velocities and so would calculate different fuel usage.

 

This is a problem as Observer 1 will say the rocket has used X fuel and observer 2 will say that the rocket has used Y fuel, but the two numbers will not agree.

 

This kind of result makes no sense. On one hand we have a single rocket that has a single value for the amount of fuel it's used, but we have two observers, seeing the rocket use different amounts of fuel.

 

I am sorry, but reality is not like that.

 

If we abandon the notion of an absolute time, then we can let time also be distorted by the acceleration. So that although they disagree over the distance travelled, they will also disagree over the time taken. This works out that the time distortion exactly matches the what is needed by the spatial distortions to balance the observers assessment of the fuel use and no paradox is generated.

 

I've said repeatedly that time is a dimension in that it is a measure. But we have no freedom of movement in time like we do in space. Therefore it is not a Dimension like those of space. Time is not a length. You can't travel through it. That's reality too.

As I have said, just because you don;t have the freedom to move in a dimension does not mean it does not exist.

 

After crossing the event horizon of a black hole, you have no freedom to move in the vertical. Does this mean that the vertical dimension doesn't exist?

 

Your reasoning on this is not that clear. Why does lack of freedom necessitate the non existence of a dimension?

 

The formula you're looking for is probably sqrt{(1-v^2/c^2)}, but this moderates time experience, and it is late.

 

I take it that V and C are Velocity and the speed of light respectively.

 

If they are then both V and C are both dependant on time.

that is

V=D/T (where D is Distance and T is Time)

and

C= 300,000km/s (km is a distance and s is a period of time)

 

I do not see how this proves your point?

 

The equation if you look at the units involved are (D/T)/(D/T). Which cancels each other. So we are left with a number without any units. This means that is not distance nor time. So this can't be calculating time as you have just cancelled it out of the equation. Time can not be on the left hand side of the equation and therefore you are not calculating Time.

 

Re analogies, have you looked up ontology yet?

1. <philosophy> A systematic account of Existence.

Yes.

 

Your posts are so long that it's easy to miss points. I don't do it deliberately. Tell me the post where you proved whatever you thought you proved about temperature and dimensions, and I'll get back to you tomorrow.

Yes, now that I look back I didn't "explain" it, mainly because I was trying to keep that post short - but it is not easy to do when explaining these kinds of things) and you original post was approximately as long as mine (and yet you accuse me of not reading it thoroughly).

 

But, Ok here:

Scalars, when multiplied or divided with a vector only change the magnitude of the vector.

 

If you multiply or divide a distance by Time, you change the vector, not just increase its magnitude. Therefore Time is not a scalar.

Because, when you need to do calculations using Time, mathematically the result is that of a dimension.

 

Take the value C (the speed of light). It is a vector. It is also a velocity.

 

This velocity is expressed as a displacement in distance (300,000km) over a period of time (1 second).

 

or

 

If you move 300,000km in any of the spatial planes (or combination) and you took 1 second to do it, you end up with a new vector in 4 dimensions.

 

If we treat time as a scalar, then all we can do is shorten or lengthen the distance. This would apply to any velocity.

 

Distance of 10m. Say I was to travel this in 10 seconds. This means that it should be 10m/10s or 1m. As we have assumed time is a scalar (according to you it is not a dimension so must therefore be a scalar), then it can't effect the units of the vector (it only effects the magnitude) so we don;t include it.

 

This means that 10m divided by 10 seconds = 1m. This does not make any sense.

 

Only by using Time as a Dimension can we do any useful calculations with it.

 

Physical objects (namely through gravity) have been shown to distort the spatial dimensions and that the only way we can make sense (ie avoid paradoxes) is if Time is also distorted by these situations. So we know that real physical objects also have an effect on time in the same way that they do on space.

 

How does your notion of Time not being as real as space solve this conundrum when it is effected by real objects the same way that space is?