Assertion of an "absolute now" from "What is 'spacetime' really"

[Pyrotex]

Originally Posted by Michael Mooney

...#1: Check.
#2: An "aspect" in the sense that motion happens and "time" describes "what elapses" during a given designated event's motion... not "time itself" as such an event. Big difference as I see it!

Okay [he said very carefully], "time" describes "what elapses". Good enough so far. Rather than motion (I'm picky) I would say state transitions. One state transition could be a change of location, which would imply motion. We can coin a new word, "elapsation" to refer to the non-simultaneity of two events. A synonym for elapsation might be "time", but that carries too much "baggage"--causes people to jump to conclusions. Time (elapsation) describes what elapses between two events.

#3: I do not see time as an entity with a location, but posit that "event duration" (in the common vernacular) is what "time" means... how long it takes a given designated movement of an object to "happen."...

I'm not attempting to define time as an entity. I'm using time (in this specific sense) as a "coordinate" on an imaginary scale; again, let's give it a very specific name to avoid ambiguity. What in the vernacular we might call a "point in time", I shall call a "chronocount"; it is merely the count of how many standard units of elapsation ("ticks") have occurred since some arbitrarily chosen event, say, tau-zero, the "first tick". If 100 ticks have occurred since tau-zero, one might say, 100 ticks have passed. If I sneeze at this moment, then later, I can still refer to my sneeze as having happened "at tick 100". I have therefore "located" that event as being "at" a particular chronocount. I have done this NOT by reifing anything, but by establishing a system of counting standard events, inventing a device that does the counting, and arbitrarily defining the first tick as being chronocount zero (tau-zero).
There is nothing up my sleeve, and nothing has been reified.

I shall openly reveal that my strategy is to attempt to build on this system, creating a methodology for [vernacular] "measuring time" and "locating events in time" without having to "call into existence" (reify) any "thing".

#4: Yes, units of time are arbitrary. The distance between two objects obviously at different "locations" is simply the space between them. The "travel" between two locations/objects "takes "time." The distance itself is not "time."

Okay. The elapsation between two events is measured in ticks from our standard tick maker. The elapsation is merely a count of ticks, nothing more.

#5: This is a blatant reification of "time." "Things manifest", and how long that "takes"... whatever the 'snapshot setting' on the time-elapse camera set by the observer... is "time."

Whoa! Easy there. #5 relates to my statement that "time is a manifestation of deeper phenomena". Here is where I refer to post 113 above. The first half dozen statements (ST.) simply state that this perception we have of non-simultaneity comes about because what we are really observing is state transitions in the world around us. We do not observe time. We observe changes of state. In particualar, ST.4 says that any arbitrary collection of objects, particles, whatever, is in exactly ONE state at the boundary between past & future. This boundary ("now") has elapsation = 0 -- no duration.

ST.6 refers to the fact that any transfer of energy or information in the universe cannot occur at infinite speed. It is the transfer of energy/mass/information that triggers state changes. This forbids all state changes from being simultaneous. therefore, some finite subset of all state changes must be "located" at different chronocounts from tau=zero.

So far, I think I have demonstrated clearly that Time-sense #5 does NOT necessitate the reification of time.

#6: I agree but it can be simply stated that it "takes time for things to happen." That does not mean that some "thing.. time" is created as things happen.

I would like to gently point out that this is exactly the difficulty we all have been having by our attempts to use the word "time" in multiple senses to define "time". Simply stating it "takes time for things to happen" begs the question, "which sense of time are you using?" And additionally, your statement loses much of the meaning I intended.
Less simply, but also far less ambiguously, we could say, "Since all events cannot be simultaneous, there must be finite elapsation between them; we can only be aware of the elapsation between any two external events because there is a chain of cause-and-effect "signalling events" (for example, the production of photons which eventually hit our retinas), which terminate in a parallel set of "internal events" (which would be our observations). by use of a tick-maker, we can count the ticks between our observations, and thereby measure the elapsation between the original events, or establish their "location" on our imaginary scale of elapsation.

YES! Obvious, but its implications for "what is time" is amazingly elusive for most folks especially as concerns such reification as "dilated time" and all the "spacetime" fabrication!

Okay. I agree if one is to avoid reification, then one must go to extremes of semantic precision and ambiguity-avoidance. And this is what I'm trying to do.

How are we doing so far, Michael?

[Michael Mooney]

Last question first:

How are we doing so far, Michael?

Not too bad. A lot of haggling over words yet to do for further clarification tho. This must be a short session so I'll just address my first major objection... to the following:
Oopse... must first clarify my meaning for an event... Anything that "takes time" to happen. But everything everywhere continues to happen without interruption. So "elapsed time" is what an observer's stopwatch or a cameraman's "time-lapse photography" "captures. It's an artifact of the observer's designation of "an event.:

So you say:

We can coin a new word, "elapsation" to refer to the non-simultaneity of two events.

"Elapsation" will do for time expired for the duration of an event as above. But your "non-simultenaity" above already has a problem, relative to how I just defined an "event." Say Earth makes one revolution (the event) during the same "elapsation" as Pluto travels so many micro-seconds of a degree in its orbital path. Earths day is happening simultaneously with Pluto's progress in its orbit... far apart as they are.
Are we still on the same page?
No problem with making up "chronocounts" as ticks of a clock. Seconds, as precise fractions of an Earth revolution are fine too, and then we would all know what one was in the world we share!

But to my objection... to your:

ST.6 refers to the fact that any transfer of energy or information in the universe cannot occur at infinite speed. It is the transfer of energy/mass/information that triggers state changes. This forbids all state changes from being simultaneous. therefore, some finite subset of all state changes must be "located" at different chronocounts from tau=zero.

Of course no information can travel at infinite speed. But gravity, for instance, traveling at lightspeed is still a steady pull among all masses everywhere. There is no lag time in sun's pull on the planets. It is steady as sunlight itself, tho it takes however long to reach each planet.
Yet now is now for all things happening everywhere. No "forbidding of all state changes from being simultaneous." What is happening now everywhere **is** simultaneous!

And your

therefore, some finite subset of all state changes must be "located" at different chronocounts from tau=zero

seems to fall right back into assuming different "nows" happen in different locations. Information travel between different locations is the lightspeed thing. No argument. A "chronocount" does not have a "location." This second... oopse, it's gone... was the same second on Mars.
Gotta go. It has been fun.
Michael

[modest]

Originally Posted by Pyrotex

ST.6 refers to the fact that any transfer of energy or information in the universe cannot occur at infinite speed. It is the transfer of energy/mass/information that triggers state changes. This forbids all state changes from being simultaneous. therefore, some finite subset of all state changes must be "located" at different chronocounts from tau=zero.

Originally Posted by Michael Mooney

Of course no information can travel at infinite speed.

Apparently you can add the isotropy of space to the above (agreed upon) principle and derive the Lorentz transformations.

The usual treatment (e.g., Einstein's original work) is based on the invariance of the speed of light. However, this is not necessarily the starting point: indeed (as is exposed, for example, in the second volume of the Course in Theoretical Physics by Landau and Lifshitz), what is really at stake is the locality of interactions: one supposes that the influence that one particle, say, exerts on another can not be transmitted instantaneously. Hence, there exists a theoretical maximal speed of information transmission which must be invariant, and it turns out that this speed coincides with the speed of light in vacuum...

In a 1964 paper,[15] Erik Christopher Zeeman showed that the causality preserving property, a condition that is weaker in a mathematical sense than the invariance of the speed of light, is enough to assure that the coordinate transformations are the Lorentz transformations.

Lorentz transformation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I wonder if that is where the conversation is heading.... I wonder how a person could ensure that two chronocounters were keeping the same cronocounts... I can't wait to see. I'll shut up and follow along eagerly

~modest

[watcher]

The universe exists in a universal Now. Now is everywhere. There is only one Now.

So I have just made the argument that "for the universe as a whole, there is one, perpetual, ongoing NOW."

When I say "that only leaves now" I mean that NOW is perpetually "the present" and that neither "the present" or "time" are entities. That is, there is no "instant" of time between what is not yet happening (anywhere)..."the future" and what has already happened (everywhere)..."the past." It is not just semantics. It is time/now ontology at the most fundamental level

okay Micheal i have surmised your thoughts on the absolute now

1. there is only one now
2. this now is perpetual and ongoing now
3. now is perpetually present
4. this present is timeless, no instant of time between changes of states. ( from what is about to happen to what has happened )

i think the problem with the use of word now is semantics. now implies something static but with your definitions, with words like perpetual, on-going implies a dynamic now. even the dictionary defines now as " momentary present."

words like perpetual, momentary and ongoing are best describe by the word flux imho than the word now.

so to paraphrase your quote : The universe exists in a universal Now. Now is everywhere. There is only one Now.

ill say the universe exists in a flux. flux is everywhere and there is only flux.
iow, if there is anything absolute in this universe it is change. change is absolute.

an absolute frame of reference means to remove all frame of reference.
without a frame of reference, i don't think we can expressed it is equations. physics need a frame of reference to work with.

Earths day is happening simultaneously with Pluto's progress in its orbit... far apart as they are.

yes that's the way to go. to investigate what happens in a happening.

[Boerseun]

Okay...

Bear with me for a minute...

Consider a line. A line consist of points on a 1 dimensional surface. There can be nothing outside the single dimension x in which this line exist. In other words, if you were part of that line's universe, you won't see a line. You'd only see the one point intersecting the spot where you are. You can't look down the "length" of the line to ascertain it actually being a line. You will only see the point where you intersect the line. So a line is a line only when viewed from outside its universe, one dimension up. When the observer exist in a two dimensional universe, he can identify lines existing one dimension down for what they are.

Same with a two-dimensional system. A square, for instance, can exist in two dimensions. But an observer in that same universe, won't see the square for what it is. A 2D observer in that universe will only see the one end of the square. For all he knows, the square might as well be a line. In order to see 2-dimensional objects, the observer must exist in a third dimension.

And, once again, the same goes for a three dimensional universe. Any object existing in a three-dimensional universe must be viewed from a four-dimensional vantage point in order to see it for what it is.

And that is where time comes in.

And time-space is merely the marriage of the physical three-dimensional universe with the measuring of the passage of events which gives observers an elevated position from which to observe the three lower dimensions for what they are.

And because each and every observer lives in an exclusive frame of reference, each and every observer literally being at the center of his or her unique and exclusive 4D universe, there is not and cannot be a universal experience of time, or "now".

[watcher]

not unless you are a 4d observer in a 4d space + 1d time
you can see the front and the back of your pc at once without taking the time to go around,
a 3d observer normally would, to do the same.

[AnssiH]

Originally Posted by Doctordick

I understand that but I have faced so many years of derision for my ideas that I was kind of put off by the fact people were publishing the same kind of thing totally refused to me. I guess the whole thing is over and my work will never be recognized. I suppose it is really unimportant anyway, particularly at my age. I was surprised that I turned out to be reference #11 in that list of links you gave. I note that the site referenced in that link no longer exists; however, there happens to be an archive copy (which appears to be complete) at

Relativity/Quantum Mechanics

I understand that can be quite frustrating... :P

But on the other hand, there are people reading these forums, trying to follow what you are saying, and seems like it is little by little starting to dawn on people that your presentation could indeed be valid, since they are starting to understand the perspective where this is coming from. And since you've developed it all the way to GR, perhaps you could consider re-writing a comprehensive version from the fundamental equation to schrödinger to SR and to GR.

I think it's important thought that the exact perspective is understood properly from the get go, otherwise no one will have any chance of understanding the essential point that this is a derivation from epistemological necessities, and not just an arbitrary re-write of modern physics. I really think it is significant as an explanation for why the universe seems so elegant (and on the other hand, so eluding)

If I can be of any help with any of that, I'd be glad to assist.

In case anyone is interested, I still have a copy of all the files originally on “home.jam.com/dicksfiles” and would appreciate them being available on site somewhere if possible.

At the very least we can place them to my web space at my ISP, and perhaps think of a better place soon.

And Anssi, have you ever read my original web site? It seems to me it was still available when we first started talking. Let me know if you want a copy.

Not entirely (not everything you had online), but I did skim it little bit. I think I would understand a lot more of it now, after learning some math concepts. Certainly could use a copy.

-Anssi

[lawcat]

Originally Posted by AnssiH

I understand that can be quite frustrating... :P

But on the other hand, there are people reading these forums, trying to follow what you are saying, and seems like it is little by little starting to dawn on people that your presentation could indeed be valid, since they are starting to understand the perspective where this is coming from. And since you've developed it all the way to GR, perhaps you could consider re-writing a comprehensive version from the fundamental equation to schrödinger to SR and to GR.

I agree. I would love to see it developed from the original ds, through conservation of energy, to Schrodinger-like equation--and then, as such, be able to compare its effect on SR and GR and Newtonian mechanics, in accoradance with underlying parameters. The logic behind DDs equation is enticing, if not completely valid, but the math seems incomplete.

[maddog]

Originally Posted by Michael Mooney

A consideration from a philosophical perspective as pertaining to science:
That the universe *as a whole* transcends local "frames of reference" and as such *for the universe* now is simply the ongoing present. (Future not yet present... past not still present.... That only leaves NOW... see?... *for the universe as a whole* if anyone can "wrap his/her mind around it."

In this sense, time is not a thing but the *concept* of "event duration" as in "elapsed time" for whatever specified event to happen as "designated" by the observer's arbitrary "beginning and ending of the observed event".) What relativity is really good at is comparing this relative perspective with that one and taking into account "signal delay" and different velocities creating different relative frames of reference in information propagation from one location to another, given the speed limit of light.

We *All* know that earth doesn't "see" light from the sun for 8.3 minutes, but now *is* now both there and here.... and everywhere.

Anyone "get it" yet?

I "get what you are positing". I also realized you do Not "get it". A *Now* has inherently
a locality to it. As in Now, Where ? Here, or there. Or Now out there....
Your version is of *Now* is of Global Nature and therefore can NOT be, that is unless
you profess to be God.

Your call.

maddog

[Michael Mooney]

Originally Posted by maddog

I "get what you are positing". I also realized you do Not "get it". A *Now* has inherently
a locality to it. As in Now, Where ? Here, or there. Or Now out there....
Your version is of *Now* is of Global Nature and therefore can NOT be, that is unless
you profess to be God.

Your call.

maddog

When you say "A 'Now'," you have already unconsciously reified "it" as "something", and, of course all "things" have locations.
The present is not a thing. Like "the present tense"... is... what is happening now and that is regardless of location, i.e., "for the universe as a whole."
Now means present tense as distinct from past and future tense. Not a thing with a location.

I'll repeat:
My comments in reply to Pyrotex above have clearly addressed this issue, along with my assertion that for the universe as a whole the present is now everywhere, perpetually.

This phrase, "for the universe as a whole" was a perspective proposed as beyond the usual relativity frames of reference, often stated as "for observer A... yada yada... as compared with "for observer B... yada yada."

I am not happy with the apparent necessity to keep repeating conversations I've had with others which you either missed or didn't "get."

Michael