[time-nuts] Beginner's time reference

GandalfG8 at aol.com GandalfG8 at aol.com
Sun Dec 13 12:45:53 UTC 2009


 
In a message dated 13/12/2009 05:04:53 GMT Standard Time,  
charles_steinmetz at lavabit.com writes:


I  think we all agree that intervals are what we measure.  The 
question  is whether this has any bearing on whether "time is an 
absolute quantity,"  and if so, whether time being or not being an 
"absolute quantity" is  philosophically interesting.  A number of us 
have been trying,  without success, to get you to be more precise 
about what you mean by time  "being [or not being] an absolute 
quantity," and how that might be  important.  As it stands, you have 
not done so, so we are left to  guess what meaning and import this 
phrase has in your view.

The two  possibilities I see are that you mean (i) time has no 
ontological status  -- that is, that it doesn't "really" exist, but is 
merely an imaginary  construct that we impose on the universe; or (ii) 
even if time does have  ontological status, it is not philosophically 
interesting unless it is  "absolute" (whatever that means).

What a number of us have been saying  is that the way we measure time 
is purely conventional (and therefore, I  suppose, "imaginary"), but 
that accepting this says nothing about either  of these two issues -- 
i.e., whether time really exists or whether it is  philosophically 
interesting.

I take no position on the ontological  status of time, but not because 
we measure it "only" in intervals or  because it is not "absolute" 
(whatever that means).  Rather, for me,  it is an issue whether time 
-- as one dimension of spacetime -- can be a  separate ontological 
entity.  In my view, when Einstein, Dirac, Bohr,  Lorentz, 
Schroedinger, and other "founding fathers" of modern physics  spoke or 
wrote regarding the "existence" of time, this is the issue they  were 
addressing.  However, if we accept that spacetime exists,  nothing is 
really riding on whether time is a separate ontological entity  -- it 
has ontological status as a constituent of spacetime.

So, the  remaining question is whether the claim that time is not 
"absolute"  (whatever that means) -- if true -- somehow renders the 
issue of time a  merely semantic matter, or otherwise philosophically 
uninteresting.   I don't see how this could be, but then I cannot 
imagine what you mean by  time not being absolute, other than it can 
"only" be measured by  intervals, and you have not explained what you 
mean in any but the most  vague and circular terms.

If you are able to articulate what it would  be for time to be an 
absolute quantity, and how this would make a  difference with respect 
to its ontological status or philosophical  interest, I'll be happy to 
listen -- but I won't hold my  breath.





-----------------
Whoops, can't even hit the right buttons now, sorry about the earlier empty 
 reply:-)
 
I did agree it becomes a matter of semantics and I obviously wasn't  
explaining my thoughts at all well but I did start out  purely with the intention 
of suggesting that a previous statement claiming  "time just exists" was 
perhaps rather simplistic.
 
However, that's perhaps more a reflection on common use of  language rather 
than to imply that time iteslf is merely a matter of  semantics or that 
it's anywhere near philosophically uninteresting.
 
Whether or not time is, or more correctly can be expressed in terms  of, an 
absolute quantity is certainly of philosophical interest to  me.
Outside of that though I wouldn't be so pretentious as to make claims  of 
it actually having any importance:-)
 
I use "absolute" in the sense that is commonly implied in the term  
"absolute quantity", where an absolute quantity is the measure of the  absolute 
occurence of a variable, as in "so many volts, yards, kilos, etc.
I probably should have explained it better but I think Didier hit it  on 
the head when he commented......
 
"There is at least one thing that you cannot do with time, which you can  do
with pretty much everything else: you cannot go back and recheck  your
measurement. ..."
 
I know one could argue that since time has moved on one can't actually  
measure the "same" voltage or whatever but let's ignore that for now.
 
At one point in this "discussion" it was questioned what units I  measured 
in but the actual units we use are totally irrelevant other than for  day to 
day convenience, it's the existence and measurability of the quantity  
that's the issue.
Perhaps "measurability" will now be called into task as another undefined  
term but hopefully that one's more obvious.
 
If we accept for now that nothing, including time itself, existed before  
the Big-Bang, and yes I know there's suggestions that this might not be the  
case, then it becomes of interest to also consider the implications of that, 
 which of course is hardly anything new.
 
Whether or not one accepts that everything in the universe was initially  
collapsed into a singularity, even if we still haven't observed large parts 
of  that "everything", it would seem that everything physical in that  
universe, including "space", fits my definition of "absolute". No matter  how 
large or small, in one way or another, and in theory at least, it can be  
measured and quantified.
 
The properties of what we call "time", however, are unique  and lie outside 
of that categorisation.
Time as such, unlike everything else, is not a physical entity that would  
have been collapsed into that singularity but can only have come about  as a 
consequence of the ongoing expansion of material out of it that  followed 
the Big-Bang.
I know I've laboured to death the point about measuring time intervals  but 
that's because it's really all we have.
 
When considering whether or not time exists, perhaps we should first  ask 
exactly what we mean when we refer to "time", do events occur "within"  time, 
for example, or is time merely a consequence of events  occuring?
If the latter then does time have any real existence other than as a  
convenience to describe sequentiality, is spacetime really an entity or just a  
mathematical convenience, etc etc?
 
So yes, it is vague and circular, and always with far more  questions than 
answers.
 
Whilst it doesn't in any way change the maths that we use when  considering 
how things vary with "time", we shouldn't lose sight  of the fact that our 
mathematical models are just that and again may not  always exist outside of 
themselves either:-)
 
regards
 
Nigel
GM8PZR
 
 




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