Science Forums 2

[AnssiH]

Just a quick post before I head to sleep...

What I tried to point out earlier was that your arguments have quite a bit to do with however each one happens to define words like "time" or "motion" or "real".

Electromagnetic wave exists in so far that you want to define certain behaviour that way. I.e. identify some "pattern" as the doings of a "wave"; you suppose certain identity to a "wave" allowing you to see certain predictable behaviour on reality (~define reality in terms of waves). What is going on ontologically, a different matter altogether. (Just food for thought; Can you suppose there is any ontological validity to the idea of "identity" of anything at all?)

You know, when you say "time must be a fundamental part of the universe", you don't really communicate anything about the ontological nature of time. I have to assume that the essence of your argument was that "things" are in "motion" or "changing", and that it could not be so if there was no "time"(?)

I don't believe whoever questions the "reality of time" is questioning whether things are "changing" in their perception and whether that perception has something to do with actual reality. The question has to do with the ontological nature of that "change" that we perceive, and especially with the ontological validity of certain facets of some definition of "time".

For exampple, in our everyday definition we tend to look at "time" as something that just flows onwards at the "speed" we perceive it to. Which is of course undefendable idea if you also define perception as being caused by some defined "natural processes". According to that worldview, we could not even detect it if "time" were to jump forward or backward here and there, like a broken record player.

When all is said and done, we can define "time" (or "change" or "motion") in many different but selfcoherent ways. How you see "time" has to do with how it and many things associated with it are defined in your worldview.

It doesn't really matter that much how you happen to define it as long as it works as an explanation for reality, and whatever your everyday idea of it is, it's bound to have some ontologically undefendable facets to it anyway. Reality is not really all that much affected by however you want to see "time". You are pretty much just arguing over semantics.

Btw, considering the ontological side of what we call "space" will lead to exactly similar complications. First getting over all the different ways to define space, and then realizing all aspects of its definitions have something to do with how all sorts of associated components are defined in our worldviews.

Anyhow, as long as you are thinking about the reality behind your comprehension of "time", things get considerably more interesting if you think about how simultaneity has been defined in special relativity. In fact it would be plain wrong to ignore that issue with a thread like this.

I tried to bring that up earlier because the validity of relativity implies many rather different ontologies on time than would otherwise be seen reasonable at all. It would be healthy to see how these different ontologies are also self-coherent sets of definitions by themselves. And it would be interesting to hear how different people here see "relativity of simultaneity" existing in reality.

-Anssi