Can we see it?

[Spyman]

I think I answered this above, unless I misunderstand you.

I think you missunderstod the question or at least you failed to explain it. I would at best describe your answer as "bad wording" and at worst as contradicting your earlier arguments.

 

This is how Iggy answered:

Information, like an object, does not 'move' through time.

In spacetime it doesn't 'move' from one time slice to the next. It simply exists in both.

To have information move from one instant of time to another would indeed require another dimension of time as 'movement' is, by definition, change in location over change in time.

This are good and straight forward answers, there is no information or objects moving between the slices of time, in this view of a static 4D universe and that is how I did interpret both your arguments about the dimensions.

 

 

Information "moving" would be just the same as objects "moving." In other words, information would also consist of 4D world lines, though more abstract ones. So information would "flow from the past to the present" in the sense that the world lines connect the two points.

I don't understand the trouble here, your claim is: "You have a 4D object. To change it, you need a fifth dimension in which it can change." and without your fifth dimension there is no movement and that also means that there is no flow of whatever.

 

Either you have movement through time or you don't have movement through time and I think you are the one arguing that there is no movement through time.

 

In your static 4D universe there would not be any movements, so information would NOT be moving.

 

Information would be embedded in the world lines, but there would not be any more "flow" of information between the slices of time than there would be a "flow" of matter moving towards the future. The world lines themselves would also be "sliced" in the time dimesion.

 

Maybe I misinterpret the English language here, but my dictionary says that "flow" is "To move or run smoothly with unbroken continuity, as in the manner characteristic of a fluid." and with that meaning of the word "flow" there is nothing, not matter, not energy and not information either, moving or progressing through time from one slice to another in the 4D world you and Iggy are proposing.

 

 

Causality could be described as the shape a system of world lines in the future direction being dependent on its shape in the past direction.

Without information describing the shape of a system moving from the past to the future, I don't think you can explain causality that way. But I did not ask about causality so it's somewhat irrelevant to the discussion at hand, unless you are trying to build up an argument I don't understand yet.

 

Time slices are not "disconnected" any more or less than they are in spatial dimensions.

I don't understand what or why you are arguing here, but I agree that it doesn't matter in which dimension you slice up a static 4D universe, there can not be any connections between the slices anyhow.

 

Without something connecting the slices they are indeed disconnected.

 

Information flows in worldlines, also.

No, in a static 4D universe there is no flowing as I understand the meaning of the word "flow".

 

Information are restricted to the same rules as matter and/or energy.

 

Slices do not so much "relay" information between them as they are already connected.

No, without something connecting them they are totally separated, they are ordered in a certain way and lies next to each other but there is no connection between them.

 

What do you think the "connection" between the slices consists of?

Edited May 5, 2010 by Spyman
Spelling

[Sisyphus]

I say "moving" with deliberate scare quotes. There is motion: change in spatial coordinates with respect to time coordinate. Just like you can have a change in X coordinate with respect to Y coordinate in a static curve.

 

Since the idea of 4D objects in a 4D coordinate system has already been established, I'd rather not have to worry about minor language issues. When I say "motion" or "change" I just mean one variable is not constant with respect to another variable. A mathematical description. Ok? When I say "flow" I just mean the worldline is continuous between the two points: they are related, and connected by the world line.

 

Now that said, I don't know what you mean by "disconnected." Are opposite faces of a 3D cube not connected? Of course they are.

 

I bring up causality just as an example of connection. What we call causality is the way changes in the universe are governed with respect to changes in the T coordinate. Much like the equation Y=X^2 describes how Y changes with respect to X.

Edited May 5, 2010 by Sisyphus

[Spyman]

Since the idea of 4D objects in a 4D coordinate system has already been established

Are opposite faces of a 3D cube not connected? Of course they are.

How is the opposite faces of a 3D cube connected in only a 3D coordinate system?

 

The communication and the discussion clearly fails on several levels...

[Sisyphus]

Because they're part of the same object? What kind of connection are you looking for?

[Iggy]

No, without something connecting them they are totally separated, they are ordered in a certain way and lies next to each other but there is no connection between them.

 

What do you think the "connection" between the slices consists of?

 

The difference between one slice of time and another is time. Asking what connects slices of time or what it consists of is making time into a physical thing, something tangible, which I don't think is useful.

 

One could say that the laws of physics describe the difference in slices of time. If you knew everything about one slice of time then you could probably describe the next slice completely.

[michel123456]

We have lost the tree in the forest.

[Spyman]

Because they're part of the same object? What kind of connection are you looking for?

Frankly, I don't see any point in continuing the discussion with you, our communication has failed and I am not interested in playing silly word games.

 

 

The difference between one slice of time and another is time. Asking what connects slices of time or what it consists of is making time into a physical thing, something tangible, which I don't think is useful.

 

One could say that the laws of physics describe the difference in slices of time. If you knew everything about one slice of time then you could probably describe the next slice completely.

The slices are different and they are separated in time, I am certainly not proposing or asking if time is a physical tangible thing streached between slices and holding them together.

 

I was not asking about causality, or how physics are trying to model the differences from one slice to the other.

 

 

You are not able to understand my argument nr.3 in post #182 and I seem to lack the ability to explain it properly.

 

We are probably better off accepting that we have different views of the world.

 

 

We have lost the tree in the forest.

Yes, and you were correct - the thread has derailed into a fruitless discussion.