Science Forums 2

[Michael Mooney]

Boof-head,
This thread is on the ontology of spacetime, and often will focus on the component parts, like "What is time, really?"
My last post replied to your statement:

If you want to really consider the 'reality' of time, then ultimately you have to accept that time is "something that evolves" in QM interactions, or something that "started" when the universe did, in relativistic terms.

You claimed the "'reality' of time" as an ultimatum I "have to accept"... that "time is 'something that evolves' as if its ontological status as an entity were already established. Thereby you had already abandon the ontology and asserted your own version the epistemology of "time" as an evolving entity.

So I had requested that ... you "tell me how specifically you disagree" with my:
Post 661 p.67 to Pyrotex.
Post 664 to essay and...
Post 670 to Doctordick (my "time piece" re-bumped several times in this thread.)

Specifically, " please read or re-read my following most recent comments on time from the previous page... and then, if you will, tell me how specifically you disagree."

You refused the request. There might have been "dialogue" but ....

Instead you misunderstood my statement:

Time is how long it takes things to happen, but since everything is always happening (moving) everywhere, the "time-keeper" determines what event in particular he is timing, then clicks his stopwatch, so to speak at his selected "beginning" and "end" of the event upon which he is focused.

...

And replied:

You seem to be saying "time is how long time takes", for someone to click a stopwatch. You're defining it in terms of itself.

I did not say that ""time is how long time takes", for someone to click a stopwatch."

Re-read my above statement for what I actually said. repeat: "Time is how long it takes things to happen"...etc. There are no natural "beginnings and endings" to the perpetual movement of all things in the universe. So specific event duration is a function of the focus (on which events) for whatever particular duration... as determined by the guy with the focus and the stopwatch.
This point went completely over your head.

Me:

Of course,what units of time he uses is arbitrary... usually based on fractions or multiples of our common earth-commensurate cycles, the day or year.

You:

Using arbitrary units of time lets a time-keeper keep arbitrarily accurate time...?

The convention of naming "event duration" requires specific units of duration. In the real world, there are natural cycles, regardless of how we divide them up into fractions (of a day) or multiples of so many years. This obvious point about specifying "how long something takes to happen" was also totally lost on you.
Me:

Beyond such "time keeping" there is no "time" between "the future" (not yet happened) and "the past" (not still happening.) No "time in between".... always, perpetually, ongoing NOW.

You assume that time is some "thing" with specific location when you say:

Local time is specific to a local observer. A local observer has a worldline with a past and future, or there is "no time except now"...?

On cosmic scale, everything is happening now... always... perpetually.
Locally, "atoms" are buzzing with energy with specific frequencies... allowing us to use them as clocks in some cases. Cesium radioactively degades at a specific rate, for instance... until it is subjected to inertial change... etc. So... so many seconds can be counted out by the rate of cesium degradation... variable as above. Time does not speed up or slow down. Time is not a natural event like cesium degradation is. All "time dilation" theorists miss this point, as "time" is already reified in their minds into an actual changeable medium.

Likewise locally, Earth rotates and orbits the sun (Doh!) This is natural "event duration" regardless of how fast or slow our clocks (in different inertial frames) are "ticking." The rate of spin and orbit does not vary with our clocks speeding up and slowing down.

Are you beginning to get a feel for what the "ontology of time" examines? You don't seem to have a clue. "Time" is an entity for you, so the ontological question whether or not it is an entity doesn't even occurr to you.
Me:

Further, where do you think all the matter/energy/plasma in the cosmos came from to "start the universe?"

You:

Matter appeared, when mass did, simple.

It appears that the question did not even register. Matter/Mass/Energy/Plasma... the "stuff" of which cosmos is made... Where did it come from??
Again:

Did it magically appear out of nothingness? Might as well go with religious mythology and believe that "God" pulled the cosmos out of a cosmic Magic Hat!

You:

The Higgs field might just be the Magic Hat you mention.

Do you actually think that dropping the phrase "Higgs field" explains where everything in the universe came from.... as in "someting from nothing?" This is the most elementary level of ontological absurdity. "Ontology 101" starts with the obvious fact that everything in the universe (the real stuff) did not magically appear "out of the Void of Space." It all actually had to always be in existence. None of "it" is created or destroyed. It just constantly changes form.
Seems that this discussion must start in ontological kindergarten and then progress toward more complicated *theories* like the Higgs field.

If that is your a-priori assumption... that the Higgs field is the cosmic "Magic Hat", then we left serious science behind before the ground rules of ontology were even established.
Good grief... and good night!
Michael