Isn't time a measurement of motion?

[Michael]

If there is no time, then how is there a sequence?

Everything would be happening "at the same time".

It seems as though the sequencing aspect is the part of reality that we experience as the passage of time, particularly as we become capable of predicting the future based on the past, like when and where to throw the spear.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I don't think an untested prediction is part of objective reality in science. Until its tested, its still just hypothetical.

Certainly.

The future only seems real to us (ie: it 'exists') because we can recall past predictions which then happen (or test out) in the present. Without the capacity of memory, we wouldn't be capable of recollecting such predictions, so predictions are a function of the past (or our memory capability).

Time is an intrinsic essential for our mind to do what it does .. ie: to make sense of what it perceives. Without it (or memory) nothing would make sense.

PS: In other words, (and in short), memory and making sense of perceptions are all of what we 'really are'!

Yes. But it seems that what appears to us to be the 'real' world we navigate through is itself a predictive model, and although we try to make sense of sensory perceptions, they are used to update and correct our predictive model of the world. Our senses don't have the resolution and bandwidth nor our brains the real-time processing capacity to continually construct a high-resolution world from sensory information; so we live in a virtual perceptual world.

 

[SelfSim]

... But it seems that what appears to us to be the 'real' world we navigate through is itself a predictive model, and although we try to make sense of sensory perceptions, they are used to update and correct our predictive model of the world. Our senses don't have the resolution and bandwidth nor our brains the real-time processing capacity to continually construct a high-resolution world from sensory information; so we live in a virtual perceptual world.

Hmm .. ah dunno .. my 'world' seems pretty well 'resolved' to me ..
Where a 'predictive (worldview) model' is viewed as being hypothetical (until its tested), there doesn't seem to be much room left for reality there(?)
I'm not sure there's much value in imagining it as being 'virtual' also .. especially when one can't really test for a specifically 'virtual' world(?)

 

[Michael]

Hmm .. ah dunno .. my 'world' seems pretty well 'resolved' to me ..

It may "seem" that way to you, but since you and I and dad all hold radically different beliefs about the universe that we live in, it's just a subjective concept of reality at best case.

 

[SelfSim]

It may "seem" that way to you, but since you and I and dad all hold radically different beliefs about the universe that we live in, it's just a subjective concept of reality at best case.

Welcome back ...
My notions of what I hold as being real in the context of 'universe', I allow to be informed by the scientific process.
Any beliefs I may hold about it, are also distinguished by that process, which then treats them with neutrality.

Dad holds untestable beliefs about the universe.

I have found from past extensive conversations between you and I, that many of your beliefs about the universe usually turn out to be misconceptions of science's various narrations on it.

 

[loveofourlord]

That seems to be a perfectly valid way of looking at it. We experience a flow of time because we accumulate memories of the past but we can only attempt to predict the future.

The difficulty in prediction reflects the increase in entropy towards the future - there are increasingly many ways the future can be different from now. If we assume low entropy in the past (the Past Hypothesis), we can explain our singular record (e.g. memories) of it. Without the Past Hypothesis, statistical mechanics (which is time-reversible) would lead us to expect entropy to increase towards the past as well as the future.

Whether that means time's an 'illusion' seems moot, even if we assume the universe is a 4D eternalist block of spacetime where past, present, and future are equally real. It's real enough from where we sit.

It may be an illusion in that we experience it from a very limited, even misleading, perspective, but that's true of almost everything else in our experience too...

True, the reason it interests me is, I worry that if time doesn't exist, is there a fundemental missunderstanding that we have that gives us a lack of ability to understand something. If we come fromt he pressumtion that time exists outside of a abstract concept, we may be missing what relativity and other things that appear to effect time are.

 

[loveofourlord]

If there is no time, then how is there a sequence?

Everything would be happening "at the same time".

at the same time, still has the flaw of there being time. thats the flaw, there is the ever present now, where energy and matter move around within the current moment. Back to the, if I throw you a ball and you catch it, the matter of the ball has changed locations in the present, not moved from the past in my hand, to the future in your hand. you only think there is still a time when it was in my hand, because you remember the previous state of the ever prsent now as having been there. There is nothing to go back too because there was no past in the way we think of time.

 

[loveofourlord]

again though :> These are just random mad musings of someone that was bored, came to me when I was pondering the question matter and energy and where they came from and such, made me think, if there was only the ever present then there couldn't be a place where they didn't exist in some form.

 

[Michael]

Welcome back ...

Thanks.

My notions of what I hold as being real in the context of 'universe', I allow to be informed by the scientific process.
Any beliefs I may hold about it, are also distinguished by that process, which then treats them with neutrality.

Dark Energy Gets Weirder: Mysterious Force May Vary Over Time

Maybe, maybe not. This is now the second time in two decades that the big bang model has incorrectly predicted the outcome of various observational tests related to the belief that redshift is related to expansion. I'd say that it's time to revisit that whole assumption about the real cause of redshift rather than continue to posit a concept that violates the conservation laws of energy. It was bad enough that dark energy had to remain constant over multiple exponential increases in volume. Apparently it would have to *increase* in density over multiple exponential increases in volume to support an expansion interpretation of redshift at higher redshifts. Will you reconsider your assumption that redshift is related to expansion or will you just continue to go down the same energy conservation defying rabbit hole?

Dad holds untestable beliefs about the universe.

I think you'd have to define the concept of a 'test' and what happens when a belief system like dark matter fails various tests over and over and over again. What then?

I have found from past extensive conversations between you and I, that many of your beliefs about the universe usually turn out to be misconceptions of science's various narrations on it.

Even that would be a subjective opinion on your part however. My beliefs tend to be testable in real laboratory experiments, whereas not so much in terms of the core beliefs of you and dad. Your concept of a test typically doesn't contain any control mechanisms and I'm not convinced you're willing to change your beliefs based upon the negative outcome of such tests.

Chen for instance has demonstrated in a real lab experiment that plasma redshift is a "real" (in the lab) cause of photon redshift. He even demonstrated a measurable correlation between the number of free electrons in the plasma and the amount or redshift he observed.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0030402608000089
Sci-Hub | Investigation of the mechanism of spectral emission and redshifts of atomic line in laser-induced plasmas. Optik - International Journal for Light and Electron Optics, 120(10), 473–478 | 10.1016/j.ijleo.2007.12.004

How would I go about testing your belief that "space expansion" is a cause of photon redshift anymore than I might test dad's belief in different laws of physics applying to different eras of time?

Both concepts seem equally "unfalsifiable" IMO. Neither concept can be tested or verified in a real lab experiment.

 

[SelfSim]

Good grief! ... Straight back into the tired old 'rut' again ... (as expected).

 

[Michael]

Good grief! ... Straight back into the tired old 'rut' again ... (as expected).

As I said, I just don't see how your beliefs about the universe are any more or less "testable" than dad's beliefs. It's six of one, a half dozen of the other from my empirical perspective. Even your concept of a "test" seems rather subjective.

The concept of time however does seem to be at core of the problem in both cases. That makes the OP of this thread all that more interesting.

 

[Michael]

True, the reason it interests me is, I worry that if time doesn't exist, is there a fundemental missunderstanding that we have that gives us a lack of ability to understand something. If we come fromt he pressumtion that time exists outside of a abstract concept, we may be missing what relativity and other things that appear to effect time are.

That's an interesting question since GR theory posits that time isn't a universal constant as originally presumed.

 

[SelfSim]

As I said, I just don't see how your beliefs about the universe are any more or less "testable" than dad's beliefs.

I know ... as I said .. you hold many misconceptions ...

 

[Michael]

I know ... as I said .. you hold many misconceptions ...

And that too is just a subjective perception.

Like I said, my beliefs about photons and time work in the lab. The same isn't true of dad's beliefs or yours. A different state past is just as untestable in a controlled experiment as "space expansion" as a presumed cause of redshift. It's literally six of one, a half dozen of the other.

 

[SelfSim]

And that too is just a subjective perception.

Nope .. Its objective fact .. you cannot make that claim because of your misconceptions.

Like I said, my beliefs about photons and time work in the lab.

Your beliefs are still beliefs .. regardless of labs .. because of your misconceptions.

The same isn't true of dad's beliefs or yours. A different state past is just as untestable in a controlled experiment as "space expansion" as a presumed cause of redshift. It's literally six of one, a half dozen of the other.

Nope ...and that's because of your misconceived 'controls'.

 

[Michael]

Nope .. Its objective fact .. you cannot make that claim because of your misconceptions.

Your beliefs are still beliefs .. regardless of labs .. because of your misconceptions.
Nope ...and that's because of your misconceived 'controls'.

No, it's because you and dad simply cannot provide control mechanisms related to your claims, which is why it's not really possible to 'test' your core assumptions. You can't demonstrate nor test your cause/effect claims anymore than dad can. His "different state past" claim is empirically no different than your "space expansion" claim. They are simply affirming the consequent fallacies in the final analysis.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Where a 'predictive (worldview) model' is viewed as being hypothetical (until its tested), there doesn't seem to be much room left for reality there(?)

I think the point is that we don't take it as hypothetical, we take it as real - and when it's tested against our senses, it (our perceptual reality) can change. That's when we notice the discrepancy - and sometimes have to apologise, "Sorry, I thought you were someone else".

I'm not sure there's much value in imagining it as being 'virtual' also .. especially when one can't really test for a specifically 'virtual' world(?)

Seems to me that a predictive model of reality that we experience as real is a virtual world experience.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

True, the reason it interests me is, I worry that if time doesn't exist, is there a fundemental missunderstanding that we have that gives us a lack of ability to understand something. If we come fromt he pressumtion that time exists outside of a abstract concept, we may be missing what relativity and other things that appear to effect time are.

I think it's worth remembering that these are all models, and they're useful in different scenarios. We don't know the true nature of the universe, and although our models of it work extremely well, they're not congruent with each other, and they have their limits. General Relativity treats time as a fundamental part of a malleable spacetime manifold; in quantum mechanics, it appears not to be fundamental but emergent from entanglement; and in statistical mechanics, the flow of time is a result of the Past Hypothesis, a very low entropy big bang. We know that GR is not correct, it fails in some situations, and it seems likely that it's a geometric interpretation of a limit of some more extensive quantum theory.

So it seems sensible not to commit to any one model or interpretation, but to use whichever model is most appropriate to the context, being aware that there may be other ways of interpreting it.

 

[loveofourlord]

I think it's worth remembering that these are all models, and they're useful in different scenarios. We don't know the true nature of the universe, and although our models of it work extremely well, they're not congruent with each other, and they have their limits. General Relativity treats time as a fundamental part of a malleable spacetime manifold; in quantum mechanics, it appears not to be fundamental but emergent from entanglement; and in statistical mechanics, the flow of time is a result of the Past Hypothesis, a very low entropy big bang. We know that GR is not correct, it fails in some situations, and it seems likely that it's a geometric interpretation of a limit of some more extensive quantum theory.

So it seems sensible not to commit to any one model or interpretation, but to use whichever model is most appropriate to the context, being aware that there may be other ways of interpreting it.

True, of course it's possible they don't all mesh because there isn't time or something like that so they are missreading what happens.

Like going back to my analogy of the objective ruler, for someone near a gravity well, it takes them longer to traverse the objective ruler then someone away from it, creating the appearance of time slowing down.

 

[durangodawood]

.....because you remember the previous state of the ever prsent now as having been there.....

"the previous state of the ever present now..."

What precisely does "previous" mean in this context?