Is There A Universal Now?

Discussion in 'Physics & Math' started by Cyperium, Jun 14, 2022.

  1. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    My quote is (was) referring to events happening at the same moment of NOW

    Not referring to sequential events

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  3. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I wonder how a symphony orchestra manages to stay "in time" if they do not share the same NOW?
    Can anyone explain that simple question?
    Does anyone care to argue that proposition?
     
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  5. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    I would class them as a arbitrary collection of NOWs ie something along the lines of a collection of NOWs within a day and a collection of over 360 days NOWs worth making almost a years collection of NOWs between arbitrary markers of each of your birthdays

    Agree ✅

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  7. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    They aren't separated from each other by millions of light years, and are all traveling the same speed with the Earth.

    _
     
  8. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    So there are "local" NOWS, but not "distant" NOWS? At a distance there are only "pasts" and "futures"?

    Do you see the contradiction? What does "occurrence" have to do with "observation" of occurrence?

    Think about that before you answer. There is no simultaneity at all? If not, why not? What prevents simultaneity from happening and I am NOT talking about "observers", I am talking about simultaneity of events, here, there, everywhere.

    How about "spooky action at a distance"?
     
    Last edited: Oct 27, 2022
  9. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    The Fabric of the Cosmos: The Illusion of Time - Part 2 of 4 (transcript, video at bottom)

    EXCERPT: BRIAN GREENE: [...] Common sense would say that you and I and everyone else will agree on what's happening or what exists right now, moment after moment after moment. That is, we will all agree on what lies on a given now slice. But Einstein showed that, strangely, when you take motion into account, this common sense picture of time goes out the window.

    To see what I mean, think of spacetime as a loaf of bread. Einstein realized that, just as there are different ways to cut a loaf of bread into individual slices, there are different ways to cut spacetime into individual "now" slices. That is, because motion affects the passage of time, someone who is moving will have a different conception of what's happening right now, and so they'll cut the loaf into different now slices. Their slices will be at a different angle.

    DAVID KAISER: That person who's moving will, will tilt the knife, will be carving out these slices at a different angle. They won't be parallel to my slices of time.

    BRIAN GREENE: To get a feel for the bizarre effect this can have, imagine an alien, here, in a galaxy 10-billion light years from Earth, and way over there, on Earth, the guy at the gas station. Now, if the two are sitting still, not moving in relation to one other, their clocks tick off time at the same rate, and so they share the same now slices, which cut straight across the loaf. But watch what happens if the alien hops on his bike and rides directly away from Earth.

    Since motion slows the passage time, their clocks will no longer tick off time at the same rate. And if their clocks no longer agree, their now slices will no longer agree either.

    The alien's now slice cuts across the loaf differently. It's angled towards the past. Since the alien is biking at a leisurely pace, his slice is angled to the past by only a miniscule amount. But across such a vast distance, that tiny angle results in a huge difference in time. So what the alien would find on his angled now slice—he considers as happening right now, on Earth—no longer includes our friend at the gas station, or even 40 years earlier when our friend was a baby.

    Amazingly, the alien's now slice has swept back through more than 200 years of Earth history and now includes events we consider part of the distant past, like Beethoven finishing his 5th Symphony: 1804 to 1808.

    DAVID KAISER: Even at a relatively slow speed we can have, actually, tremendous disagreements on our labeling of "now," what happens at the same time, if we're spread out far enough in space.

    BRIAN GREENE: And if that's not strange enough, the direction you move makes a difference, too. Watch what happens when the alien turns around and bikes toward Earth. The alien's new "now slice" is angled to…toward the future, and so it includes events that won't happen on Earth for 200 years: perhaps our friend's great-great-great granddaughter teleporting from Paris to New York.

    Once we know that your now can be what I consider the past, or your now can be what I consider the future, and your now is every bit as valid as my now, then we learn that the past must be real, the future must be real. They could be your now. That means past, present, future…all equally real; they all exist.

    SEAN CARROLL: If you believe the laws of physics, there's just as much reality to the future and the past as there is to the present moment.

    MAX TEGMARK: The past is not gone, and the future isn't non-existent. The past, the future and the present are all existing in exactly the same way.

    BRIAN GREENE: Just as we think of all of space as being "out there," we should think of all of time as being "out there" too. Everything that has ever happened or will happen, it all exists, from Leonardo da Vinci laying the final brushstroke on the Mona Lisa; to the signing of the Declaration of Independence; to your first day of school; to events that, from our perspective, are yet to happen, like the first humans landing on Mars.

    With this bold insight, Einstein shattered one of the most basic concepts of how we experience time. "The distinction between past, present, and future," he once said, "is only an illusion, however persistent."

    But if every moment in time already exists, then how do we explain the very real feeling that time, like this river, seems to endlessly rush forward?

    Well, maybe we've been deceived, and time does not flow. Perhaps the river of time is more like a frozen river.


    The Fabric of the Cosmos 2 of 4 The Illusion of Time
     
    Last edited: Oct 27, 2022
  10. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Remember though the time you are claiming goes out the window is not FUNDIMENTIAL TIME but the arbitrary synchronised system which allows the agreed upon system an easy way to plan activities

    And NOW should not be treated as in a moving frame but as stationary

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  11. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    In my stationary frame of reference there is a past a now and a future. In the past you wrote this nonsense reply, I am now reading it and in the future you are going to write a ridiculous reply to this. All this is happening in my stationary reference frame.
     
  12. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    I'm not claiming anything. Just as with conspiracy theorist devotees refusing to take COVID vaccine, if anyone has a beef, take it up with Anthony Fauci Brian Greene and company.

    _
     
  13. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    I see. You have redefined common terms such as time, and argue that based on your new definitions (that you have not shared) that certain thing are true or false. Well that is all very disingenuous and silly.
     
  14. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    That is all very clever from a subjective perspective.

    Objectively the loaf of bread is heated by an oven set at 350 degrees, for 20 minutes. At that time the entire loaf is done in the same moment of NOW. No need to heat one end longer than the other end. The entire loaf is a singular object subject to a single all-encompassing (inside the oven) time frame. And so it is with the Universe. It has a single now, just like that loaf of bread baking for a singular simultaneously shared time frame.

    The interaction of individual particles are relative. If I slice one end of the loaf, the other end remains unaffected. But it is the loaf that changes in toto.

    "Wholeness and the Implicate Order" (Bohm)
     
    Last edited: Oct 27, 2022
  15. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, it's just a metaphor they're using for the public. But complaints about how the statue of Lady Justice insufficiently represents the actual court system does nothing to whittle the complexities of the latter, and why it takes _X_ position or renders _X_ judgement as a result of that. Hope of striking a noticeable blow requires actually having a technical background in the area of expertise.

    As someone who doesn't always agree with the Establishment myself, I'm often not going to waste my time trying to deter those who want to throw eggs or tomatoes at some portion of authority. I even gave up arguing with creationists ages ago for any extended period, because it was simply futile. The set of cognitive filters that we each acquire as individuals can be (depending) selectively blind to either receiving or interpreting information as another party intends.

    _
     
    Last edited: Oct 27, 2022
  16. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Since you have already decided my reply I will cease writing now so make a judgement on what I have put up to now
     
  17. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Tell me what you want shared

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  18. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    But that is not a response to my argument.
    But I am not throwing eggs, I am making a cogent argument and it is in no way intended to subvert authority.

    My complaint is that science is always discussed from a subjective relative POV. I have no quarrel with that at all.
    But I also believe there are some Universal Constants, that are not subject to relativity.

    My argument is that time itself is non-existent and is only a simultaneous side-effect and emergent property of an unfolding reality. ("Explicate Order", Bohm) and (CDT, Causal Dynamical Triangulation, Loll et al)

    The unfolding of universal space itself into a timeless, dimensionless, permittive condition of nothingness, is causal to the emergence of time as a measurable quality of duration. The Universe as a single entity with an uninterrupted chronology of existence must objectively have a single measurable Universal age (time of duration). That single world-volume is NOW + 4.7 billion years (a subjective quantity) old.
    I don't see how that can be parsed into the relative nature of a loaf of bread that comes out of the oven 20 minutes old.
    If energy is truly conserved (established science), then;
    And that can only mean that the age of total internal energy (in any form), since the beginning of this universal system, has a single chronological accumulation of common NOWS, even as that common duration has a near infinite number of subsets of energy world-lines of varying durations relative to each other .

    I don't think that qualifies as throwing tomatoes and eggs. And I am still waiting for an "objective" argument that does not involve "observers" that subjectively experience individual slices of time relative to their frame of observation.
     
    Last edited: Oct 28, 2022
  19. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Notice that, in your example, if B sends some information about event 1 to A, then A becomes aware of it some time after it happened at B. Similarly, if A sends information about event 2 to B, then B becomes aware of it some time after it happened at A.

    You haven't actually addressed the question of whether A and B receive their respective bits of information about events 1 and 2 at the same time or not. Whether they do or don't will actually depend on their motion relative to one another, for starters.

    It is possible that they might actually disagree about whether event 1 or event 2 happened first, depending on the particular circumstances.
     
  20. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, but both receive the information at the same later NOW as the other, some same time after each simultaneous event, no?

    The simultaneity of their NOW remains synchronized regardless of the distance the information travels between them. If there was sufficient information, the exact time of the original simultaneous event for A and B could be extrapolated from the received data and the actual past simultaneity of two distantly separated events could be proved.

    That is not the question and we end up back at subjective relative observation.
    No, not if sufficient information was contained in the transmitted data.
    The time of subjective relative observation is irrelevant. It's the time of objective origination that counts.

    By what standard are we judging the age of the entire universe? Or are we just judging the age of some part of the universe? What part of the universe would actually be 13.7 billion years old ? The edge of the universal world-volume? Is my world-line within that 13.7 world-volume? Is my NOW in the past or in the future? Is my NOW a false NOW?
     
    Last edited: Oct 28, 2022
  21. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Correction in post #435 4.7 billion years should read 13.7 billion years.
     
  22. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Taking this section of your post to reply

    What you have described is not a stationary frame of reference

    You have described
    • My beginning to write during one NOW, a past NOW, which as I continued to write, my writing passed though many past NOWs
    • Your reading of my reply, began in one NOW, continued though many NOWs until you had completed reading my reply
    • I am sure you can work out how this (your terminology) you are going to write a ridiculous reply to this occurs
    The above describes blocks of sequential NOWs

    A stationary NOW framework would look like this

    You have a sheet like structure like this

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    The sheet is one Planck length unit thick
    (roughly equal to 1.6 x 10-35 m or about 10-20 times the size of a proton.)
    Google - Planck length

    Remember this is just a description to help a visualisation

    This sheet is a singular NOW. Each side of the sheet is perfectly smooth

    All the events occurring within this NOW are occuring between the two surfaces of the sheet

    This NOW is set as a stationary framework. IF IF IF any of the events associated with this stationary framework had a part of past still attached to it (or a bit of future somehow managed to attach itself) the affected surfaces of the NOW would not be perfectly smooth

    The cause would be a NOW event still having either a bit of past or future information attached to it

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    NOW with what appears to be a bit of FUTURE attached

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    Not going to happen

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    Last edited: Oct 28, 2022
  23. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    But otherwise, I personally don't see the point in entertaining a global now to begin with unless one does indeed adhere to your "unfolding reality" conception, or one is a basic presentist who believes the universe is constantly replacing itself with a different state (they don't co-exist), or one is a buff of Julian Barbour's work[1], etc. That should probably include GBU believers, also, except that option seems to endanger its existing past as being superfluous, should its advocates contend that only the organisms abiding in the edge of the additive process are conscious (in terms of experiencing change and everything else). IOW, it thereby might as well be presentism, or slide back into it.

    This sets aside the solipsistic-like impression of most individuals (parties of this thread exempted from the possibility of facilitating such) apparently selecting their own brain-dependent, subjective and varying mental experience of "this moment" as their "objective or mind-independent Now". Which is a milliseconds in duration elephant (and again, irregular in its measurement by scientists who examine such psychological features).

    A legit, objective now would have to accommodate changes at the subatomic level, to the extent of being a yoctosecond in duration, if not a Planck-time unit. (And physicists in the past usually dissed the idea of reifying the latter, deeming it simply being the limit of meaningful measurement for disciplinary work and theories.)

    Returning to that "giant" duration of the brain's mental representation of a Now or its cognitive registration of change... The issue becomes all the more inconsistent when considering that the experience obviously can't "fit" into the infinitesimal duration of a yoctosecond or Planck-time unit. It would have to extend over or through multiple co-existing [objective] Nows or a chunk-sequence of "faster" electrochemical changes in the applicable neural structures, thus nuking the very conception of presentism, which only accepts a single, ephemeral state of the universe existing (which it labels "present", "now", etc).

    The above said, however, if someone preferentially wants to be a presentist, Barbour-ite, "unfolding reality advocate", or alternatively engage in the oddity of believing "something" in the rival eternalism conception is objectively "flowing" through the block-universe in a distinctly incremental, Now-istic way... Then all the power to them in their crusader cause. Presentism, at least, is after all the norm/view of the bulk population (though it's probably an implicit belief for most people, rather than an explicit or verbally expressed one).

    - - - footnote - - -

    [1] Even Barbour has all the possible Nows or "configurations states of the universe" in his conception co-existing in an onto-mathematical landscape he calls "Platonia". They just compete in some quantum statistical fashion for which one is most likely to be the next Now that is concretely realized.

    _
     
    Last edited: Oct 28, 2022

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