Tag: time

A Fourth Dimension: Part 2

crimson

So much has happened in the past month. Events that have had profound impacts on myself and those around me. And yet, I find myself wanting to simply return to the topic I ended on from my last post. So today I am going to continue trying to answer the question from my last post: Do I have a relatively fixed time?

To attempt to answer this question, I feel I need to make clear what I am in the previous dimensions first. To try and elucidate precisely what it means to have a length or a width or a depth. And perhaps even more than that, to try and imagine what would happen if I were to somehow remove one of these dimensions; how might the others react in such a situation?

Recently, in a class I have been taking in physics, we have been discussing what precisely “mass” is. This first needs to be separated from the distinct idea of what “weight” is. My weight is a measure of how much the Earth’s gravity is pulling upon my body. The equation to describe weight is w = mg, where w represents weight, m represents mass, and g represents the acceleration due to gravity. That is to say, mass has a relationship to weight, but mass is not the same as weight. I feel my weight, as I am constantly being pulled toward the ground below me. In fact, the very idea of “below me” is in large part because I have weight; that weight exists in the direction I feel pulled is what I refer to as “below me.”

What was made clear in my class about mass is that mass is the idea of resisting change. To be more specific, the idea of “inertia” was brought up in order to explain mass. So what is “inertia” exactly?

The word “inertia” starts with the word “inert.” The idea is that objects have a sort of preference to remain as they are, to remain inert. This is in fact Newton’s First Law (translated): “Every object perseveres in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, except insofar as it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed thereon.” Stated simpler, Newton is suggesting that objects will remain at a constant speed at all times, unless something causes them to change their speed. An object could be at rest (not moving at all), or it could be moving at a constant speed in some direction, but unless a force acts upon it, it will continue to do so indefinitely.

This is where the idea of acceleration and impulse becomes important. To change an object, one accelerates the object using a force. Applying a force to an object changes its speed. An impulse is simply applying a force over a (usually) brief period of time. With this concept in our minds, inertia is how the object resists the change to its speed. This is why it is harder to change the motion of certain objects than others. Those objects that require more force to change their speed we refer to them as having greater mass.

To sum up, mass is a measure of how much force it takes to change an objects speed. Mass is a measure of the inertia of the object. In simplified terms, mass is the objects resistance to change. And following from this, weight is a measure of this resistance multiplied by the acceleration due to gravity. In other words, weight is the force applied by the Earth to change the object’s speed and propel it toward the Earth.

Another feature that tends to be thought about with mass is that it must occupy some space. Meaning an object of some mass will have some length, width, and depth. These dimensions help me describe how the object is occupying the space, and suggest to me that there is some relationship between mass and the space it occupies. As reluctant as I was in my previous post, it seems I am compelled to start discussing identity now.

What makes me me is what I would refer to as my identity. More generally, the identity of any object is the thing that makes that object that object and not some other object. Or, similarly, what makes an object that object and not the environment that surrounds that object. I am me, but I am somehow separate from the world around me. But at the same time I am clearly also a part of the world around me. But I do not consider myself to be the world around me. Usually, I separate what is me from the world around me. So there seems to be some sort of barrier that separates what is me and what is the world around me.

The dimensions of length, width, and depth are in some way delineating that barrier that separates me from the world around me. So, as it turns out, my identity is bound up significantly in what space I occupy. Thus, if these three dimensions are helping delineate what makes me me, then if I want to talk about a fourth dimension, time, then I should be talking about how time helps delineate what is me from what is the world around me.

When I walk down the street, I notice how there is a small amount of atmosphere that travels with me. Within a few centimeters of my skin, small insects will sometimes get caught up in that small amount of atmosphere around my body. I walk, and those insects are unable to escape and fly away, trapped in that pocket of air. It is annoying having those insects buzzing around my head as I walk. Do I consider that pocket of air me? Do I consider those insects trapped in the pocket of air me? Obviously not. They are outside what I consider me. For me, I clearly want to suggest that the boundary of my skin is the boundary of what is me. The boundary of my skin can easily be measured using length, width, and depth. But what about time?

I keep orbiting the question, trying to imagine in what possible way I am bounded by time. The answer I often come to is that my birth and my death are the bounds of my identity, but that just doesn’t feel correct. Especially when thinking about things like time travel and how it might operate. It seems like the coming into existence and the leaving existence are too far removed from the bounds I want to talk about.

An alternative is to consider this moment in time. The “now” that I have talked about before. I exist here and now, in this moment. My identity could be bound by “now” in a very literal sense. That which exists in the past is no longer bound to my identity and the future that has not yet come to pass is not bound to my identity either. If I use this model to describe my identity, then perhaps I am simply razor thin, spanning a mere moment in history. This sort of interpretation seems consistent with what most people think about when considering time travel, as my perceptual reference of now is all that seems to matter when moving about a timeline.

Thinking back to the film Slaughterhouse-Five, it seems like that is what people have in mind when suggesting it is a film about time travel. The protagonist’s “now” is literally jumping from moment to moment along his personal history. But then it is only his non-material identity that is jumping around, as his body does not travel with him from moment to moment. It seems like a partial or incomplete time travel if this is the case. Hence why my interpretation in my previous post seems the better interpretation. I think I want to say that for time travel, my entire identity needs to travel from one time to another, meaning both my mind and my literal body as well.

Does this all make sense? I am not entirely sold on this theory myself. But it is a start. To suggest my identity is bound up in these four dimensions, length, width, depth, and time, I have to look at myself in a certain way. And, as with the idea of a mass being a resistance to change, whatever is taken to be me is similarly resistant to change without a significant outside force.

A Fourth Dimension

crimson

As my reader may already be aware, I have an interest in time and time travel. Knowing this, one of my friends suggested to me that I should watch the film Slaughterhouse-Five from 1972. Recently, over five years after the suggestion was made, I finally found the time to watch it.

I did not know what to expect. I had been told it was not your typical time travel story. That it approached the idea of time travel very differently. Now, having seen the film, I will argue that the story contains no time travel whatsoever. I would add a tag here warning of spoilers, but I think I am safe in this particular instance, as I’m simply going to describe how the nature of the story works, not delving into particulars.

My whole perspective on this hinges on the idea of dimensions, and in particular of the fourth dimension. Most will likely be familiar with the common and well known first three dimensions, usually referred to as length, width, and depth. That is, any object in three dimensional space will have as part of its features a length, a width, and a depth. These dimensions are described using simple scalar values or quantities of magnitude. As I have stated in the past, as a three dimensional object myself, I have values of about two meters (length) by about three quarters of a meter (width) by about half a meter (depth). What’s more, these dimensions are irregular, as I only occupy a portion of the volume described by a prism of the dimensions I just stated.

What is important in all of this is not the particular values that I state, only that they exist and they are finite. It is possible using various methods and tools for one to measure and record the values that could be later used to describe my length, width, and depth within these three dimensions. And possibly more importantly, over time, these dimensions remain relatively consistent. That is, I have had a length of about two meters for probably the past thirty or forty years now. And while my length might change a little from day to day, it isn’t so much that I cannot be identified.

Which, as I think about it, raises all sorts of questions about identity and defining the boundaries which delineate what is me and what is not me. It is not my intention in this post to delve into such matters in detail, but I do think it is important to acknowledge that however those boundaries might be determined, they will still consist of simple, measurable scalar magnitudes that can be described within these first three dimensions. Any object that exists within this plane of existence ought to be able to be similarly described.

But then there is this fourth dimension: time. I state it as time specifically, as for some the next dimension might be something else. For example, my partner literally just told me that the fourth dimension is smell, as in if you go to a theater presenting a film in “4D,” they will often be referring to a fourth element that has been added to the experience, and smell is often utilized in this case. In my discussion here, I am specifically interested in talking about time, especially as it relates to the alien race in Slaughterhouse-Five known as the Tralfamadorians.

According to the film, the Tralfamadorians are four dimensional beings, in that they “exist in all times simultaneously, and are thus privy to knowledge of future events.” The issue that occurs to the protagonist of the film is that he is jumping around from time period to time period without any control to stop himself. This is the aspect of the film that I believe people think makes it a film about time travel, as the protagonist is jumping around through time.

However, when the protagonist jumps from time to time, he does not vanish from one period and appear in another. He does not stand in a field in Belgium during World War II and suddenly vanish to appear in a house in the United States in the 1960s. Furthermore, when he goes through his jumps, he is not the same at the end of the jump as he is at the beginning. Specifically, when he is in the field in Belgium, he is a young man, but when he is in the house in the United States, he is an old man. It does not take long, observing these details, to realize that what is happening is not him jumping through time or time travelling, but instead he is perceiving and experiencing different moments or periods of his life.

To be clear, in a chronological sense, his life occurred in a linear fashion as most of us are familiar with. He was born, grew up, went to war, returned home, married, got old, and eventually died. The detail that is confused with travelling through time is that he does not perceive his life in chronological order. Instead, the way the film is presented, the protagonist frame of perception and experience jumps from one part of his life to another, outside of his control.

But even that, I think, is incorrect. As is explained by the Tralfamadorians, they experience all of their lives all at once, instead of a little bit at a time. Instead of experiencing one moment to the next, like travelling on a path or road, the Tralfamadorians experience all moments of their lives simultaneously. And I think, based on their significance to the story, that the protagonist is doing the same. Perhaps due to a traumatic event or due to his encountering the alien species, the protagonist becomes like the Tralfamadorians and has full access to the total sum of all his experiences all at once.

What I think is happening instead is a function of focus. Like the way that I can see quite a bit with my eyes, but that I tend only to focus on a small portion of my field of view in any moment, I think the protagonist is doing the same, though perhaps with less practiced control than I have with my eyes. I have a wide 180 degree sweep to my vision with either of my eyes. That which resides on the periphery of my vision is often referred to as my peripheral vision, and it takes a mere moment’s thought to shift an object in my peripheral vision to the focus of my vision. I can turn my head, or I can simply turn my eyeball itself. And, through practice, I have found I can do neither and still focus on an object in my periphery while still looking straight ahead. It is true that the objects viewed in this last way do not come to me as clearly, but I can still do this, ignoring that which is directly in front of me.

I argue that this is the same thing that the protagonist is doing, though he may not understand it, nor is he practiced in controlling it. The evidence for this, I think, comes from the sorts of events he does experience and when he experiences them. There are a number of scenes where he seems to be straddling two events at the same time. The two events tend to have something strikingly common about them. In one particular case, he is involved in a public speaking event, in both cases struggling to differentiate between himself at a podium as an old man and him supporting his friend speaking to a group of soldiers. He claps in the latter event, which is inappropriate, while many clap in the former event which is appropriate. I think the character is confused, perhaps clapping for the wrong event, but as he is experiencing both events simultaneously, it is hard for him to distinguish.

There are many such scenes in the film, where the protagonist quickly jumps from one part of his life to another in quick succession. Back and forth between the same two events repeatedly for the duration of both events. This seems to me not to be accidental. For him, the emotional relationship between the events draws them together into his focus, like a moving object will draw my eye. In some sense he should be able to control what is happening, and could choose not to focus on a particular event, but if he does not realize that he has such control, of course he will not exercise it.

Finally, the reason I do believe all of this is happening is captured nicely in the brief phrase that is apparently the source of this well known idiom: “so it goes.” Within the context of this film, “so it goes” is not a phrase meant to conjure a dismissive attitude. It is meant as an acknowledgement of how death is simply a part of life. All things are born and live and eventually die, and there is no reason to get too worked up about that. Instead, the Tralfamadorians suggest adopting a more positive outlook, focusing their attention on the more positive moments of their lives. And as they are experiencing all of their lives all at once, this can be taken quite literally.

Just as I can focus the center of my vision on the object that most interests me, adding greater clarify and texture to it while I mostly ignore and dismiss that which happens in the periphery of my vision, the Tralfamadorians can do the same with their perceptual focus, choosing to experience those parts of their lives that are more pleasant and positive, ignoring and dismissing those parts that are boring or negative. It can be debated how healthy it is to ignore the aspects of one’s life that one does not enjoy, but for a species who is experiencing all events all at once, there seems to me to be some logic to this.

Thus, I do not think the film is a film about time travel at all. However, I would agree that it is a film about time and about how time is perceived. For myself, in this existence I presently inhabit, I experience my life as a linear stream of events that follows a chronological sequence. Right now I am typing at my computer this blog, and later I will go to bed to sleep. And then tomorrow I will experience the weekend and do chores. I do not experience all events in my life simultaneously, and I certainly cannot choose to focus on an event from ten years ago, or an event ten years from now either.

It would be interesting if I could do such things. To be able to use information from the future to inform the decisions of the past. To help myself make better choices. To help myself avoid various pitfalls along the way. But that just isn’t how it works for me. At least not so far.

The last thing I want to raise about all of this is something I’ve thought about in the past. I’ve even written about it a little in previous blog posts from years ago. This fourth dimension, time, does not seem like the previous three dimensions. Or perhaps it is, but is not so easily seen. I have a relatively fixed length about me. Do I have a relatively fixed time?

Tenet and Flowing Upstream

crimson

Before I begin, I must warn my reader that I will be discussing specific details of the film Tenet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenet_(film)). Thus, if you have not seen this film yet, you may want to avert your eyes and wait to read this blog post until after you have. Or, if you are like me, you can proceed; but then you will have to deal with the consequences that some aspects of this film will no longer be a pleasant surprise for you.

!!! SPOILER WARNING !!!

Do you feel sufficiently warned yet? Good. Let’s proceed with the post.

Tenet is a time travel movie, sort of. It is a time travel movie, however, it does not deal with time travel in the manner that most will be familiar with. Most stories about time travel have characters that travel instantaneously from one point in time to another point in time. At the beginning of their journey, the character ceases to exist at the particular place and at the particular time they were, and instantaneously come into existence at the new particular place and particular time of their destination. This is something of a hard break typically, where I generally expect a sonic boom as their atoms are removed from one place, causing a vacuum whereby the surrounding air quickly seeps in to fill the voided space. Furthermore, there ought to be something like a sonic boom at the destination as the atoms that were in the place where the character arrives must be pushed out of the way quickly in order to make room for the character to arrive successfully. Ironically, I would expect something similar to this in the cases of teleportation, as is utilized in stories such as Star Trek.

Of course, all of this “sonic boom” business can be alleviated if one suggests that instead of the process only occurring in one direction, it instead occurred in two. That is, the object (or character) that is travelling in time is actually swapping places with a similar object at the destination. The character might move back in time to occupy a space that was previously occupied by a volume of air, and that air may be moved forward in time to occupy the space that the character formerly occupied. A swapping of atoms. While this process would clearly be asymmetric (that is, the mass of the character is clearly much greater than the mass of the air; similarly with the number of atoms), it would at least account for the lack of vacuum found on the beginning side, and the excess of atoms on the destination side. No need for a sonic boom now.

I dwell on this issue for a reason; in Tenet, instead of instantaneous travel, the travelers are simply shifting direction of flow. That is, while under normal circumstances an object will flow “forward” in time, other objects (that the story refers to as “inverted” objects) are flowing “backward.” This is presented simply through the reversal of the film reel. That is, the film scene is played in reverse. It is a trick of the medium, and nothing terribly new or innovative. If most objects in our universe are sliding through time in one direction, what if other objects in our universe happened to be sliding in the opposite direction? It would raise big questions regarding what it means for an object (or person) to age. Instead of a rock wearing down over time through erosion, that same rock, if inverted, would somehow be slowly gaining size and mass through the ages from the very same process. It is an incredibly compelling question to ask.

If that isn’t enough to confuse the audience, there is one more thing to consider. As not all objects are sliding through time in the same direction, what happens when two objects conflict? That is, if one object is sliding forward and another backward, what if they both intend to occupy the same space at the same time, through their respective journey’s through time? The film has an answer to this, sort of. It is suggested that “the world” is sliding in the forward direction, hence why we are all familiar with the forward flow of time (one might suggest that is why we consider it the “forward” direction as well). Objects that are sliding in the opposite direction than the world are “swimming upstream,” that is, they are fighting against the “normal” flow of time against the bulk of the objects they will encounter. If all this is true, then one would expect that the forward sliding objects would overtake the backward sliding objects.

Unfortunately, this isn’t really good enough. You see, if most objects are moving with the world, flowing through time in the forward direction, then that will include all the air and other atoms that we may often take for granted. The film does touch on some of these less often considered objects by emphasizing that inverted people need to breath inverted air, but the reason given has to do with the permeability of the lungs’ membranes to absorb air that is flowing through time in the “wrong” direction. In order for the lungs to operate correctly, they must absorb air that is flowing through time in the same direction. This is touching on the idea that those objects sliding through time in the opposite direction will not behave as expected.

There is further discussion on this point as the film suggests that inverted fire is incredibly cold, instead of being incredibly hot. That the wind that would normally be at your face will instead be at your back. That friction itself will “feel weird,” especially when trying to drive an inverted car. It seems that the nature of the universe itself is operating in the opposite way we might expect while we are inverted. It would require me to spend a lot of time on each individual characteristic to discuss what makes the most sense in this circumstance, so I will leave this exercise to the reader to pursue, if they so desire. For now, I will focus on one aspect, which I’ve already been alluding to: the occupation of space.

I return to the question of objects moving through time in opposite directions. To help with this, I will talk about objects that are moving in opposite directions in space, but in the same direction in time. This is a situation that I have a lot of experience with. Anyone who has taken a high school level physics class should be familiar with the many experiments with billiard balls bouncing off each other. If one ball is moving while the other is stationary, and if they hit each other at just the right angle, the energy from the moving ball is transferred to the stationary ball completely. That is, the moving ball becomes stationary, while the stationary ball starts moving. In essence, the balls swap their motions and energies. The ball that was moving gives its energy and motion to the other ball, while the stationary ball gives its lack of motion and energy to the formerly moving ball.

Taking this example further, if both balls are moving in opposite directions, and assuming they collide with each other just right, they will again swap their respective energies and motions. It is worth noting here that the transfer is not complete in any of these cases, as there is a loss due to friction and heat and other generally ignored effects. So the two balls will bounce and then move away from each other at roughly the same speeds as we might expect. This is how objects moving in opposite directions in space, but the same direction in time, behave.

Now for a much more controversial analysis. Let us consider objects moving in the opposite directions in space and the opposite directions in time. If the two objects are moving at the same rate, both in space and in time, then we would expect them not to ever touch. That is, as they are moving in opposite directions, both in space and in time, then they are in fact moving in the same direction at the same rate relative to a single observer, in whatever direction the observer happens to be travelling through time. This example is not terribly helpful to the answering of my initial question, but helps me orient myself. I have to keep in mind that objects sliding through time in the opposite direction are in fact moving in the opposite direction than I might initially expect.

So then, the example I need to consider is of two objects moving in the SAME direction in space but opposite directions in time. These two objects are now on a collision course due to how they end up operating through their flow through time. And once again, we are struck with how they will resolve such a collision. The first, simple possibility is that the two objects are in fact the same object, simply viewed in two very different ways. If that were the case, then there would not be a collision, as the object is itself the same, and can certainly occupy the same space as itself at the same time, regardless of the direction of the flow of time. If this were the case, then problem solved. However, the issue at hand is that the two objects are not identical with each other.

Our situation, put simply, is the fluid of our world (the air in our atmosphere) flowing in the forward direction of time (as it is with and part of the world), colliding with the solid inverted objects of the film, which include the characters themselves. The characters, quite literally, are fighting against the current in order simply to occupy the space that the air has already claimed. As the movie demonstrates to us, the characters succeed in occupying the space, and thus the air must have failed in that battle. The air was either pushed out of the way, or is annihilated. Of course, in the wake of the inverted characters’ movement, there is no sonic boom, and so air must also be generated on the other side if the air that loses the former battle is annihilated. It would seem that the air has likely behaved in the fashion we might normally expect, assuming it was encountering an object that was flowing through time in the same direction as we are used to. The air, was pushed out of the way, flowing through time in its usual forward direction, but redirected through space around the inverted object. At least, this is what the film tells us.

Ultimately, the problem the audience has in the entire story, is how to understand the boundary between the normal objects and the inverted objects. When normal objects make contact with normal objects, everything behaves as we expect. And when inverted objects make contact with inverted objects, again, we understand what must happen. However, when normal and inverted objects make contact, it is not entirely clear what to expect. An inverted fire draws the heat energy out of the surrounding normal objects, while radiating energy upon the surrounding inverted objects. Inverted wind is simply air moving in the opposite direction, thus you feel it at your back if it might normally be in your face, assuming you are normally oriented and not inverted yourself. This point about wind is possibly the most telling.

Perhaps the intent is that the inertia of objects remains the same, regardless of the flow of time of the object. That is, air is air, whether it is normal or inverted. My solid body pushes air out of the way, whether the air is flowing in the same direction through time as I am, or whether the air is flowing through time in the opposite direction. In both cases, the air is displaced by myself. Of course, solid objects colliding with other solid objects becomes a bit more complicated again. When the protagonist ends up fighting his inverted self, the precise manner in which each blow is landed seems counter intuitive. The inverted fighter is not throwing punches, but is instead catching them, healing injuries that they seem to have no intention of creating. This might be true of the inverted protagonist, not actually wanting to cause harm to himself, but what about the characters in the battlefield during the film’s climax?

Tenet is a very interesting story. It raises a lot of questions regarding how time might operate by pressing our current flow of forward moving time against several objects moving through time in the opposite direction. This, of course, is where the great apocalyptic event that is foreshadowed at the beginning takes its shape from. However, if one takes all these things seriously, the story reveals its end at its beginning. After all, there is a world beyond when the final battle takes place, therefore the mission to prevent the apocalypse will definitely succeed. If it had failed, then there would be none of the future events that take place throughout most of the movie.

Finally, there is one other rather significant detail that is revealed in the story that does not seem to weigh on many people’s minds: free will. According to this story, it does not exist. At least not the sort of free will that many would have you believe makes humans unpredictable. Everything in the film that will happen, has already happened. Events are tied together in a complicated Möbius strip. The world is purely and completely deterministic. And if our world really is that way, then either Stephen Hawking is correct, and there is no time travel, or time travelers in the future are simply not interested in what we consider to be one of the most brilliant minds of our time.

Fun Stuff

crimson

This past week I have spent a fair bit of time on “research” into my topic. By “research,” I am referring to viewing a lot of related material on YouTube and in fiction. More specifically, I watched the recent film “Tenet,” while also reading and reviewing material to help me better understand the film. I want to discuss the film in detail, but I think I will save that for the next blog post. In this one, I would like to share some of the material that I enjoy that helps me to understand the topics I write so much about.

In this post, I am going to share with you some of my favorite YouTube channels. The content creators of these channels do, what I consider to be, fairly good research into the topics they discuss. But more importantly, these creators raise very important questions and get me thinking about ideas I might not previously had thought about. The first on this list must be CGP Grey. His channel can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/greymatter/about

I admit I do not know a lot about the person behind this channel personally, but clearly by the sorts of topics he chooses, and by the way he tackles those topics, he is the sort of individual I tend to gravitate towards. My favorite video of all time, both on YouTube and probably on the Internet as a whole is his video entitled “The Trouble with Transporters” (https://youtu.be/nQHBAdShgYI). He begins by discussing the fictional technology of teleporters from the Star Trek series of stories, but that discussion quickly leads into very profound questions regarding the mind, the soul, and consciousness itself. Ultimately, it is his possible conclusion at the end of the video that best describes my belief regarding how consciousness might actually work. Of all the videos I try to encourage people to watch, this is always at the top of my list.

Also by CGP Grey is a video entitled “You Are Two” (https://youtu.be/wfYbgdo8e-8), where he discusses the discoveries made during the now very controversial, and even unethical, split brain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain) experiments from the 1950s and 1960s. I would emphasize here that what is considered ethically appropriate is a bit of a moving target, so those who performed these experiments were (during their time) not necessarily doing anything wrong; they were in many cases simply trying to help their patients live better lives. However, in the present day, in the part of the world where I live, it is considered very unethical to perform experiments upon humans, let alone human brains. Unfortunately, this sort of limitation presents key problems for the sort of research I might like to perform, as (it is my belief that) only through the experimentation on human beings can we ever truly hope to understand how something like consciousness actually works. This video is often the second video I encourage people to view.

CGP Grey has presented on many interesting topics, including some more recent videos about tumble weeds (much more interesting than you might think), but there is another creator that I need to shift to now: Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell (https://www.youtube.com/c/inanutshell/about). Ironically, they too created a video related directly to CGP Grey’s split brain video, entitled “What Are You?” (https://youtu.be/JQVmkDUkZT4), where they continue the discussion. This video is definitely worth watching, especially if you watched CGP Grey’s part of the discussion. However, Kurzgesagt’s library of videos dwarf’s CGP Grey’s. I suspect this is because Kurzgesagt may have a much larger team of people working on these videos.

The first Kurzgesagt video I usually recommend to people is their video entitled “Optimistic Nihilism” (https://youtu.be/MBRqu0YOH14), probably because it expresses the world view that I happen to hold. Specifically, the video is presenting the idea that there is no inherent meaning or value in the world, and so we (as conscious entities) are responsible for creating meaning and value in this world; that this responsibility is something to rejoice about. I would argue that the title of the video is a bit misleading, as nihilism is the viewpoint that there is no meaning or value, period, whether intrinsic or otherwise. For a nihilist, I cannot assign meaning, because my attempting to do so fails at the outset. There simply is no meaning in anything, period. The video might better be entitled “Optimistic Existentialism,” as the Existentialists probably more closely presented a viewpoint consistent with the ideas the video is proposing. For an Existentialist, such as Simone de Beauvoir (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_de_Beauvoir), what makes humans unique in the world is their ability to generate meaning and value in a world that would otherwise be void these things; that the world has no intrinsic meaning, and our freedom (or free will) is precisely what makes the generation of meaning and value possible. For Beauvoir, this idea leads into ethics, suggesting that how humans ought to behave is in such a manner as to support the freedom of those around themselves, allowing for everyone an opportunity at meaning and value generation. This, I admit, is my interpretation of Beauvoir’s ideas, especially from her work “The Ethics of Ambiguity” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ethics_of_Ambiguity).

Other videos by Kurzgesagt, that I consider noteworthy, include: “The Origin of Consciousness – How Unaware Things Became Aware” (https://youtu.be/H6u0VBqNBQ8), a discussion on consciousness itself; “Emergence – How Stupid Things Become Smart Together” (https://youtu.be/16W7c0mb-rE), a discussion on how consciousness might possibly come about; and “What Happens If We Throw an Elephant From a Skyscraper? Life & Size 1” (https://youtu.be/f7KSfjv4Oq0), the first part of a series that gives serious thought to the significance of the size of things (what I have often referred to as “scope”). These videos are the sort I enjoy, but Kurzgesagt does plenty of videos about virtually anything, including Universal Basic Income (https://youtu.be/kl39KHS07Xc), ants (https://youtu.be/cqECNYmM23A), and even Dyson Spheres (https://youtu.be/pP44EPBMb8A).

I have to admit, aside from the rather deep topics these channels choose to discuss, I am also smitten with their animation styles. As one who is frequently minimalist in nature, their generally simplistic animations (I believe) really allow for their discussions to shine through without being impeded by fancy special effects in order to attempt to convey the sometimes challenging ideas. This leads me to the latest channel that I have recently discovered that I will now share with you: minutephysics (https://www.youtube.com/user/minutephysics/about).

Honestly, it is strange to me not to have stumbled upon minutephysics sooner, as they have created videos about many of the things I’ve been discussing in this blog for a while. For example, my lengthy discussion regarding how time is an inconsistent measure, synchronized to the irregular idea of a day is presented much more succinctly in just over three minutes in his video entitled “Why Some Days Aren’t 24 Hours” (https://youtu.be/Vxz6nNqpDCk). I’ve only just discovered this channel, but I expect there are plenty more interesting videos for me to watch, and I will view them in the coming days, weeks, months, etc.

The first video that I watched by minutephysics was “Solution to the Grandfather Paradox” (https://youtu.be/XayNKY944lY), which is an honest to god solution to a paradox. (Actually, as he suggests, it is a proof suggesting that the Grandfather Paradox is not a paradox at all, as there is a reasonable solution to the problem, so long as you have some familiarity with Quantum Superposition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_superposition). While I expect some might want to dispute this claim, I find his solution both elegant and thought provoking. Essentially, he is thinking outside the box, using quantum physics in order to try and resolve issues that may otherwise be considered unresolvable. In truth, until we are able to time travel, in order to test out such theories, this is all speculative at best. However, this is clearly an excellent attempt at resolving a very complicated problem, without simply throwing one’s arms into the air and giving up. Another interesting solution to another paradox is “Complete Solution To The Twins Paradox” (https://youtu.be/0iJZ_QGMLD0), where he suggests the answer lies in understanding the rotation of time.

It is in this last video that we come full circle. Toward the end of the video, he briefly discusses the relativistic effects behind flying a plane around the Earth, moving in the direction of rotation, while carrying an atomic clock. This, is clearly a reference to the Hafele–Keating experiment from 1971 that I discussed in my previous two posts. Realizing this, I simply had to continue investigating this YouTube channel, and why I am presently sharing this all with you today. Put simply, I am clearly not the only person who has had these thoughts that I have, and people much smarter than I am have been considering these questions for a very long time. I am not alone.

The results of these various discoveries has led me to the realization that in order to coherently speak on the topic of time, I will require much, much more education. In fact, I honestly believe that if I am to have any hope of answering my initial question, I will need to enter into the field of quantum physics proper. Coupling my understanding of philosophy and computers with quantum physics just might make it possible to really answer these sorts of questions. On the other hand, I may simply find a more creative solution to a paradoxical problem, but I’d be okay with that too.

In my next blog post, I plan to discuss the film Tenet in more detail. I will consider what the film is suggesting about time and space, and show how the film suggests there is no such a thing as freedom at all. And, as I will reiterate in that post, there will be spoilers for those who have not yet seen the film.

Admitting my Weakness

crimson

Before I begin, I need to address an issue with my blog. I’ve essentially turned off comments to my posts. It is not because I don’t take criticism well. It is due to the ongoing frustrations I have been having regarding unsolicited bulk messages. It really does astonish me the sorts of bots people program in order to perpetrate various agendas. Actually, I really should not be surprised at all, seeing as given the opportunity and incentive, I too might be inclined to write similar bots. That all said, in order to combat this issue, my audience will no longer be able to comment directly to my posts. So I am offering an alternative.

I will let my audience know that they can reach me if they send an Email message to an address that is constructed by taking the name I used for these posts (also known as the “author”), and combining it with the domain of this blog (this does NOT include the “www.” portion, simply the “crimsoncyb.org” portion), placing the “at” symbol in the appropriate location to form a well formed Email address. Confused? I apologize, but I’m not going to make it any clearer, lest another bot will be able to form the address successfully.

Thus, having successfully generated the appropriate address, you may feel free to send me an Email message and comment all you want. Actually, there is the added bonus that you can simply communicate with me in any manner you like, beyond simply commenting on a post. I will be at your disposal, in a sense. If you like. It is up to you. I don’t receive a lot of actual feedback on this site, so I figure this is safe. Now, on with the blog.

In my last post, I indicated I would read about the Hafele–Keating experiment from 1971 in order to try and elucidate anything about time in itself. Unfortunately, after reading through the information (at least briefly), I realized that in order to properly address the experiment and its results would require me to first earn a degree in relativistic physics. I have merely a lay understanding of Einstein’s theories, and so I am less than qualified to really critique what is going on and how accurate the results may or may not be. And I refuse to simply refer vaguely to the argument that “because science” is the answer.

Instead, I will very briefly review what I do know happened in this experiment, and comment to the implications of the results. Very briefly, atomic clocks were placed on a couple of aircraft. Those aircraft were flown at a specific known altitude above the Earth’s surface in opposite directions, one flying in the direction the Earth is rotating, and the other against the direction of rotation. A third atomic clock is left on the surface of the Earth, as a reference. The clocks are synchronized at the beginning of the experiment. At the end of the experiment, the times are compared. It is found that the times on these three atomic clocks differ by amounts that (within a margin of error) suggest a confirmation with Einstein’s Theories of Relativity, or to be more accurate, with the theory of general relativity as combined with the theory of special relativity. I leave it up to the reader to pursue their own education into these rather heady topics if they so desire.

In layman’s terms, the idea is that the plane flying in the direction that the Earth is rotating is moving faster than an object that is “stationary” on the Earth’s surface (because that “stationary” object is moving the same speed as the Earth is rotating, because it is stuck to the surface). The other plane, flying in the opposite direction is moving more slowly than an object that is “stationary” on the Earth’s surface. The significance (according to Einstein) is that those objects that are moving more quickly will experience a slowing down of time, as compared to the slower moving object. That is, if we stand as an outside observer, and suggest that our experience of time is some sort of absolute reference, then we will find that the faster an object is moving, the less time it will experience as compared to us. For example, if I am “stationary” and you are moving at a very high speed (perhaps because you are travelling to another star), where I might experience ten years of time passing for me, you might only experience one year of time passing for you. Even in layman’s terms, this is still pretty heady stuff.

Einstein suggested that as one approached the speed of light, their experience of time would slow to virtual stopping. Essentially, if one could actually achieve the speed of light, time for that person would stop altogether. Hence why he considered it a barrier to the speed of objects. Furthermore, there was another element of this theory that suggested that objects also gained in mass as they approached the speed of light, achieving an infinite mass at the speed of light. Physics would suggest that this also causes problems as the energy required to accelerate an object is directly proportional to that objects mass. Thus, if the object keeps getting more massive, the amount of required energy also increases. Essentially, one would need an infinite amount of energy to accelerate an infinite mass, which itself is an absurd sort of enterprise. Ironically, Kurzgesagt just posted a video talking about detonating a nuclear weapon on the surface of the moon, and it is for the reasons I’ve just described that such an endeavor would not (significantly) alter the trajectory of the moon; in short, the moon is just too big, even at a mere fraction of the mass of the Earth, which is in turn a mere fraction of the mass of the Sun, etc. In other words, it is very difficult to move very large objects, and very fast moving objects become very large objects.

So let us return now to the question of what this all tells us about time. If I simply assume that the experiment was a confirmation of Einstein’s theories, and time dilation is a real thing, does that help me establish (or refute) the existence of time as a thing in itself? Does time need to exist for these sorts of effects to take place, or can the theories of relativity exist and time still not exist as a thing in itself? Thinking about this, and I might suggest that there still need not be time in itself in this case. Consider the following ridiculous experiment performed by many people all the time: watching a pot of water boil.

As is often the case, people will suggest that if you watch a pot of water boil, it will seem as though it is taking forever. Of course, if those same people instead distract themselves with some other activity, the time it seems to take to boil seems much less. This is all well and good, but the seeming passage of time is not the same as the “actual” passage of time. At least, that is what anyone reading this is probably thinking already. After all, when I work hard at my job, and the end of the day arrives unexpectedly, eight actual hours still passed. But how do I know this is the case?

As I have been repeating through all my posts, time is simply a descriptive idea to help us determine what came before and what came after. Those things that come long after are simply long after because there are more events that I can count between that event and the now. Thus, in the case of the pot of water boiling or the time flying at work, it is a function of how many events I counted between the event that came before (the beginning of watching the water boil, or when I started my shift at work), and the now. The more events I counted, the longer the time has passed. When I distract myself from watching the water boil, and then return at the moment it takes place, I have not counted so many events. I was distracted. Similarly with working my job. On the other hand, when I watch the water, I am also particularly aware that “time is passing” as I compare my expectation of the future event against the second hand of my watch, or other reference events. In other words, I’m counting.

This is why time still does not need to exist as a thing in itself. Every time I am comparing every event to every other event, I am using the count of other events to provide a reference to the change in “time” between the events of interest. The more events in-between that I can count, the more of a difference I will have discovered. The less in-between events I can count, the less of a difference I uncover. To put this more succinctly, the problem is the clock itself, as an event generating object.

What is a clock? It is an object that generates reference events we can use to count. Clocks are expected to be reliable and regular. The second hand on an analog clock moves with regularity, sweeping the face fully in one minute exactly. On that same analog clock, the minute hand sweeps fully around each hour, and the hour hand sweeps fully each half day. Oh, wait, I hear you say. What about a digital clock? Even simpler. The display, if it shows the seconds, will change each second. If the display does not have seconds, then it will change each minute. Of course, you might have one of those digital clocks where the colon (“:”) between the hours and minutes flashes; then your display changes each second, but the resultant count is not presented so easily. In such a case, you would need to do the counting yourself.

In the end, the problem is the same. It is the clock itself that is generating events for you to count. And those same clocks are performing their event generation by counting other, much more frequent events, such as the oscillations of a quartz crystal, or the changing of energy levels of an electron. Events upon events upon events. Counting upon counting upon counting. Time never has to be a thing in itself. All we need to know is that something came before and something came after (and occasionally, something happened instantaneously with another event).

What this tells us about the atomic clocks on the planes is that after the experiment concluded, the atomic clock on the plane moving with the rotation of the Earth counted less events, and the clock on the plane going in the opposite direction counted more events. That is all that can be concluded in such an experiment. Why such things happened may possibly be predicted and calculated using relativistic mathematics, however, time still need not be a thing in itself for the results to occur.

It seems even such an article is of no help to me in answering my question. It is entirely possible that I will be unable to answer my question. Time, if it is a thing in itself, may simply be beyond my reach. I will ponder more on this, and see what I can come up with in my next post.

Back to Time

crimsonLeave a comment

Before I get to my topic today, I would like to refer back to my previous post. It has been a week since that post, and I continue to receive unsolicited comments from various sources that are clearly not related to the posts they are purported to be about. Despite my continuing to delete those comments upon moderation, more comments keep being sent. Thus, as per my last argument, I have proved that those sources are not human. And thus, if you are such a source, and if you insist you are human, I challenge you to prove it.

That said, it is about time I return to my discussion on time. Recently, I attended a small discussion group regarding the possibility of time travel. As often happens in these discussions, no firm answers were suggested. It was simply a discussion of the puzzles associated with a limited set of particular views of time travel. For example, the infamous Grandfather Paradox. For those not familiar, this is the problem of whether it would be possible for an individual to go back in time to kill their own grandfather, specifically before their grandfather is able to set events into motion that would result in the killers origination. That is, if I kill my grandfather before he procreates to generate my father, then how could I have been born in order to go back to kill my grandfather? It is a very puzzling puzzle, and as no one has (to my knowledge) performed any sort of time travel, we do not know how this sort of puzzle could be resolved. In fact, some believe that the existence of such a paradox precludes time travel altogether. Some others believe that this paradox is not an issue because if one tried to kill their grandfather in this way, the universe would simply prevent the event’s occurrence through “ordinary, everyday reasons.”

It is my firm belief that all this discussion is poorly grounded. Before we could possibly consider time travel (in reality), we would first need to know what time itself is, in order for us to somehow traverse it. It is all fine and good to discuss a fictional fantasy, calling it a hypothetical situation, with a goal to practice logical structures and follow them through to seemingly reasonable conclusions. However, an argument with false premises tells us nothing about its conclusion. If I suggest that “Socrates is a man,” and that “all men are mortal,” I cannot suggest that “Socrates is mortal,” if I cannot first establish that “all men are mortal.” It seems reasonable to conclude such an argument at the present time, as many men I have known have demonstrated their mortality by dying. But there are also many men in existence presently who are still very much alive. How can I be certain that they will all one day die? With technology and medicine as they are presently, it has even been suggested that there may be men in our present generation who will be able to escape that finality. Only time will tell.

This leads me directly to the heart of the issue, as I see it: time. As I had begun discussing near when I had started this blog, time may be merely a literary and descriptive thing, helping us to delineate in what order events took place. In many fantastical works of fiction, time may also be used as a plot device in order to bring about something in the story being told. But none of this tells us anything about what time might be in itself. To traverse time, we first need to have something to traverse.

During my last discussion of time, I had established that the use of time to describe sequences of events is itself incredibly problematic. For you (assuming you are a human living on Earth), time has a foundation based upon events related back to the rotation of the Earth about its axis. In fact, time for you will be more accurately based upon the counting of various events you consider to be “sufficiently regular and reliable.” You likely either will be referring to a count of how many times the sun has been at the highest point in the sky, or you will be referring to a count of how many oscillations of a quartz crystal have occurred within your favorite timepiece. Actually, in our modern age of computers, you will probably be trusting the time presented on your favorite technical gadget, be it your personal computer or smart phone, both of which will be synchronizing their time information through a chain of servers that ultimately refer to an atomic clock located somewhere secure, and that atomic clock will be counting the change in energy levels of an electron in some subatomic particle. In the end, some sort of recurring event that is considered to be reliable and regular is being counted, and the result of that count is translated into the everyday description of time we are using. And because you and I are both living on Earth, and because on some level you and I have agreed to this structure, you and I will be able to agree as to what time it is.

This is all well and good, but it says nothing about time itself. It doesn’t even say anything about conscious beings who have not agreed to our structure of counting events. Try talking to a young child about time, and see what sort of responses you get. A young child that has not yet learned about this agreed upon standard of counting will not understand in the least about the passage of time. Tell that child that you will give them their meal in 10 minutes, and they will come back to you in much less time. Or if they ask how much time will it take for Christmas to arrive, your response of 2 weeks will be meaningless to them. They must learn this agreed upon standard. They must be taught how to read the clocks and other signs in order to understand that we are just counting events. How many sleeps until Christmas day arrives?

Once again, as with my previous post about time, we have still not learned anything about time in itself. I may even have alluded to answering this question. However, in truth, I doubt I will be able to. You see, I do not believe it exists at all. There is no time in itself to speak of. For me, there is only now. All that is in the past is simply memories. All that is in the future is simply possibilities. I do not exist in the future nor in the past. I exist in the now. Everything that occurs is occurring now.

If the past is just my memories, then they are subject to change with the reliability of my mind in remembering. How reliable is my mind? Science suggests it is not very reliable at all. I find this is likely to be true. I cannot tell you what I ate a week ago. I could look up evidence, or ask my partner, or some other reference, but then I am relying upon testimony of an alternative source. They can tell me that I ate pizza a week ago, and I might agree that I did indeed eat pizza, but then I am simply deferring to their judgement or memory of the event. I do not remember the event myself, which is why I have had to ask. I trust my partner, and so I believe that is the correct information. And I will continue to live my life based on that information. However, what I ate a week ago is actually shrouded in mystery. In fact, it is entirely possible that I did not eat anything a week ago. Perhaps I did not even exist a week ago.

Similarly with the future. The future is simply possibilities and hopes. I can try to predict what I think may occur in the future, but until the future becomes the now, I will never know. Tomorrow never arrives, it is simply transformed into today. Sometimes I may be correct about events that occur, but other times I am incorrect. It is a gamble every time. And as is suggested in the gamblers fallacy, there is no guarantee of an outcome. Even a minuscule possibility can occur, just as something considered almost certain may not occur. People do win the lottery jackpot occasionally. I can, and will, continue to live my life following those probabilities, but that doesn’t make them guarantees. The sun has risen in the sky for every day I have existed, so I expect it will continue to rise each day in the future. It will be a very dark day when that expectation is dashed.

I continue to be talking in circles; dancing around the question I have asked. None of these things are discussing time in itself. It seems like there is nothing to talk about. Or perhaps it is simply beyond my capability to speak of it. Perhaps I do not have the words to describe it. But I admit that I do not know what I would be describing either. It is not simply a case of having an idea in my mind and lacking the language to describe that idea. In this case, I don’t even have an idea to begin with. Is there something out there that I can consider that anchors all the events that occur? Where occurrences are imprinted like footsteps in dirt. The best I can do is consider time (if it even exists) as a sort of ground. Like a thread that I walk along. More like a thread that I slide along, regardless of my desires. Because I am always sliding, and I am unable to stop. The passage of time continues unimpeded for me, though I cannot say whether it speeds up or slows down. After all, I can only ever refer back to the counting I have been doing.

If time is like a thread, and if I am sliding along that thread, then to travel in time would simply be to alter the movement along the thread. To slow, stop, or even reverse the sliding. It is my hope that this is what the recent movie Tenet is about. I have yet to watch this film, so I cannot confirm this as yet. However, even if I could do such a thing, how would it affect the world around me as I did slow, stop, or even reverse the sliding? Einstein suggested that if I travel through space quickly enough, I would slow the passage of time for myself, while the world around me would continue unimpeded. That I would age more slowly. Is this true? It has been suggested to me that experiments have been conducted with astronauts on just this idea. Unfortunately, the first article I found seems to side-step this question. The second article discusses the sending of an atomic clock into orbit, but seems to dismiss the time dilation issue.

This is the article I think we need to discuss: the Hafele–Keating experiment from 1971. I will take some time to read this article and discuss it in my next post.

Time Pieces

crimsonLeave a comment

Time, at least on the larger scale, is typically “measured” in days and years, using the rotation of the Earth and the orbit of the Earth around the Sun respectively as reference. When the Earth completes “one full rotation,” a day is said to have occurred. Similarly, when the Earth completes “one full orbit” around the Sun, a year is said to have occurred. However, on the smaller scale, a different reference is typically used.

The “most accurate measure” of time is kept by atomic clocks. An atomic clock is a device that counts very brief changes in atomic and subatomic particles. That is, in modern atomic clocks, when an electron changes energy levels it emits an electromagnetic pulse that the clock can detect; the atomic clock counts these pulses and determines that a specific amount of time has passed upon detecting the specified number of pulses. Putting this another way, through scientific inquiry it has been determined that electrons will change energy levels in certain elements (at very specific temperatures and other conditions) at certain specific intervals, thus the atomic clock, upon counting an appropriate number of these changes, can report that a specific amount of time has passed.

I admit that even this brief description of how an atomic clock works is over-simplified, but the basic structure of counting events is still present in the process of “measuring” time. If I assume that the event in question is sufficiently regular and reliable, then I can simply count the events to determine how much time has passed in a particular situation. Atomic clocks are considered to be very, very accurate—given that the conditions under which the atomic clock operates are kept as constant and unchanging as possible—when compared to other sorts of time keeping devices, such as wristwatches which often use a quartz crystal and count the oscillations of the crystal’s natural vibrations.

It is not strictly important to understand the very particular nature of physics and the universe to follow what I am suggesting here. Each situation of time measurement is essentially the same: find a naturally occurring event, one that is considered to be reliable and regular, and then count those events in order to determine an accurate accounting of time. Whether one uses the rotation of the Earth, or the vibration of atoms, in theory the end result should be the same. Variance should generally only occur if the reference I select is less reliable or less regular for some reason. It is generally considered the case that the vibration of atoms is much more reliable and regular than the rotation of the Earth, and thus those time measuring devices that use a reference of the vibration of atoms are considered more accurate and precise than those that rely upon the rotation of the Earth. And thus, if there is a difference between the time measured on different devices, the one that is considered more accurate should be used to correct the one that is less accurate. And this is where the idea of leap years and leap seconds enter into the discussion.

As I had suggested in my previous post, the rotation of the Earth about its axis, and the orbital period of the Earth about the Sun, are not consistent. How do I know this? Because when I use other methods of measuring time, I find that the time it took for the Earth to rotate, or the Earth to complete an orbit around the Sun, is different from one count to the next. If the last orbit of the Earth around the Sun occurred within 365.24221 days (according to a particular atomic clock), and the current orbit occurred within 365.24220 days (according to the same particular atomic clock), and then another measure from another previous orbit occurred within 365.24219 days, then I would suggest that either the orbital period is changing with each orbit, or the event that the atomic clock is using to measure time with is not as regular or reliable as I might think. Or it is also possible that both methods have error to them, and that neither event I am using as a reference is entirely reliable and regular. The general consensus by the international community of humans on this planet suggests I take the atomic clock as most accurate. If you want to learn more about this, I’d suggest starting here.

At this point, many of my friends and family will suggest I am being far too pedantic. That it is not so important to worry about such minor differences between everything. It doesn’t affect most people’s day-to-day lives whether one time measuring device is more or less accurate than another, so long as we can all agree to one standard. And, for the most part, they are correct. The standard that virtually all human beings agree to is that from the point in time the Sun is at its highest point in the sky, to the point in time when the Sun is again at the highest point in the sky is exactly one day. Most people are not interested in the measure provided by the atomic clock, even if science will tell us that its information is far more accurate. Furthermore, when the time comes to synchronize our clocks, it is the atomic clock that will be adjusted to conform its measure of time to the rotation of the Earth by adding or subtracting seconds to its value. These are leap seconds.

In a similar move, the orbit of the Earth around the Sun does not occur in a time frame that coincides nicely with the rotation of the Earth. That is, in the time it takes for one complete orbit of the Earth around the Sun, the Earth will rotate approximately 365 1/4 times. And again, when it is time to synchronize our devices, it is the year that is adjusted to conform with the day, hence why I get one extra day added to the year every four years, except every hundred years. These are leap days.

Thus, the agreed upon measure of time is actually the day, which in turn is measured by observing the rotation of the Earth about its axis. Furthermore, the day is not a complete rotation of the Earth about its axis, but something slightly more than a complete rotation, as the measure is made by observing when the Sun is at the highest point in the sky until it is again at the highest point in the sky. All other devices and measures are adjusted in accordance to this standard. Why this may seem unimportant to most people is that most people exist and spend the entirety of their lives on the Earth, where making such observations are so easy as to be unremarkable. However, if any humans were to leave the Earth, to perhaps colonize Mars, or to explore beyond our solar system, it becomes a great challenge to figure out what time it is.

Having now established how time is measured and maintained for humans upon the Earth, it is time now to take this discussion in another direction. I have some idea of how time is accounted for. I can say that it is Sunday, May 31, 2020 at about 2:41 pm, and I can feel quite confident that if you are a human being living upon the Earth, you will understand what I mean and when I mean. But this still doesn’t really answer any questions regarding what time might be in itself. In fact, the best I can say at this moment is that time, for humans on the Earth, is simply a count of various agreed upon reliable, regular events. So what is time in itself?

A Sequence of Events

crimsonLeave a comment

The past. The present. The future. These are all terms used to help describe time. They are relative references; relative to the now. The past occurs before the now; the present occurs simultaneously with the now; the future occurs after the now. But what is the now?

Now is a term I use to describe the temporal location when I am. It is hard to describe exactly, except to say that I am always in the now. As soon as I remember something, that something is already in the past, having occurred before the now. The future often includes those events I want to eventually occur in the now. When I consider my conscious self—what I often referred to as “I”—that conscious self always exists in the now. I cannot exist consciously in the past or in the future. Remembering the past is not existing in the past, just as expectation of the future is not existing in the future. My conscious self is always existing in the now. My conscious self is a reference point I can use; a reference to the now.

Thinking in this way, I quickly notice that time is always relative to me, specifically to my conscious self. Every event occurs either before, simultaneously with, or after the now. Can I quantify these terms any further, that is, can I suggest that there is a long before and a shortly before? Saying long before seems to suggest a quantifiably large value of time, just as shortly before seems to suggest a quantifiably small value of time. However, as I will demonstrate, really all that is occurring is a larger or smaller number of other events between the now and the event that occurred either long before or shortly before.

Consider how we determine time. While I write this post, it is Sunday, May 24, 2020 at about 10:48 am. This is a very specific reference I am making, though I could be even more specific had I chosen. But what precisely does it mean? Sunday is a description of the “day of the week,” often considered the first day of a seven day sequence of days. The selection of the “first day” of a sequence of seven days is fairly arbitrary. May is the month, made up of thirty-one days, and is also considered approximately one twelfth of a year. The 24 is a reference to the twenty-fourth day of the month being considered. The 2020 is the year, counted from an arbitrary point in the past. The two terms that need further explanation are day and year, as both seem to tell us a great deal about the particularity of the values in this description.

So what is a day? It is suggested by most that a day is one full revolution of the Earth about its axis (given that the Earth’s axis is tilted approximately 23.5 degrees, though that value changes over time). If we assume this is the case, then when the Earth rotates a full 360 degrees, a day has occurred. It is suggested that a year is one full orbit of the Earth around the Sun. If we assume this is the case, then when the Earth completes a full orbit of 360 degrees around the Sun, a year has occurred. However, in both cases, the rotation and orbit of the Earth are inconsistent. That is, the rotational speed of the Earth fluctuates as does the speed at which the Earth orbits the Sun. Furthermore, the Earth’s orbit is not entirely consistent either, straying from the path it takes slightly upon each circuit. These variances can be accounted for by the influences of other celestial bodies. The Earth is not alone in the void of the cosmos.

While those variances are generally quite small, to be imperceptible and likely negligible, if I am to determine an accurate account of time, those variances need to be considered. Furthermore, there is reason for me to believe that these values are themselves suspect. Consider the motion of the Earth around the Sun. When the Earth completes one full rotation, it is no longer in the same position it was in at the beginning of its rotation. Both rotation and orbit occur simultaneously. I will use the following diagram to emphasize my point:

When the Earth rotates about its axis, it moves along a trajectory around the Sun. If at one position (A), the direction the Earth faces relative to the Sun is with the arrow pointed at the Sun, at another position (B), the arrow will be pointed perpendicular to the Sun. That is, in each new position the Earth is in after completing a full 360 degree rotation about its axis, the Sun will appear at a different spot in the sky, if I am an observer standing on the Earth (assuming I remain stationary relative to the Earth).

This description of a day does not seem consistent with other ways of describing a day. For example, I have often heard a day described as the time it takes for the Sun to reach the highest point in the sky from when it last was at the highest point in the sky. Following from this description, if I suggest that the Earth will complete approximately 365 full rotations about its axis when it completes approximately one full orbit around the Sun, then a day is actually closer to a 361 degree rotation about its axis, or slightly more than a full rotation.

It is not important here for me to determine with perfect measured accuracy precisely how much of a rotation of the Earth constitutes a day, nor how many days there are in a year. What is important to notice is that all of these time determinations are all relative to events. In particular, not only are they concerned with what comes before, simultaneously, and after, but they are also concerned with counting relatively regular events, such as the number of times the Earth rotates on its axis, or the number of times the Earth completes an orbit around the Sun. The year 2020 is suggesting that since a particular prescribed event had occurred in the past, the Earth had completed 2020 orbits around the Sun. The date of May 24 suggests that since a particular prescribed event had occurred in the past, the Earth had completed 145 approximately full rotations about its axis. In order for me to understand what these descriptions mean, I need to know the particular prescribed events. I need to know that the reference for the year is relative to the occurrence of when Jesus had been born according to the Christians. I need to know that the reference for the day is relative to the arbitrarily decided upon event that is considered the beginning position of the orbit of the Earth around the Sun.

The description of 10:48 am can be described similarly, though instead of counting full occurrences of the Earth’s rotation about its axis, I will need to approximate the fractions of a rotation. For example, to say 10 am is to say that the Earth had completed 5/12 of a full rotation since the particular prescribed event of when the Earth was last facing away from the Sun (relative to my position on the Earth, based on time zone, etc). There are 24 hours in a day, so an hour is one 24th of a rotation. There are 60 minutes in an hour, so a minute is one 1440th of a rotation. There are 60 seconds in a minute, so a second is one 86400th of a rotation.

Therefore, when described in this way, time is simply a description of what is before, simultaneous, and after. In order to introduce some sort of quantifiable measure into the description, a count of regularly occurring events is added to the description. For example, long before will include a larger count of event occurrences than shortly before. This is one manner in which time is often described, however, it is not the only manner. As I’m sure you may already be aware, time on the smaller scale (minutes, seconds, etc) are not usually described by fractions of days, but by counting a different reference event. That will be the subject of my next post.

It’s About Time

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There are plenty of things to talk about, and I will get to many of them eventually. However, I will begin with the topic that I end up talking the most about: time. The more I read and study and discuss, the more I tend to think that it does not exist. At least, not in itself. That is, time is a concept I use to describe something, so it does exist as a way for me to describe that something. But as a thing in itself, like a book or a table, perhaps not. Or even as an intangible thing, like gravity or magnetism, again I am not convinced.

This is an incredibly controversial position to hold. But if one thinks about it, perhaps it is not as controversial as one might think. After all, no one has “seen the effects of time,” at least not directly. When one suggests they do, what they really are suggesting is that they see erosion, or they see wear-and-tear, or they see old age. They do not see time, nor do they see the “effects of time.” They see the effects of erosion or wear-and-tear or old age. Time is a literary tool used to capture the plethora of effects we want to describe, so time is a way for me to describe something. But I am still not talking about time itself.

So what is time exactly? Or, when I want to talk about time itself, what am I trying to talk about? I think when time is used, it is used in various ways, which further confuses what it might be. Sometimes, time is intended to be a position on a long thread, similar to the idea of a location in space. In this way, one might be able to “travel” from one position to another, able to affect things related to that position. Thinking about time in this way, I think, is most common, and influences many science fiction stories and discussions. However, like locations in space, to “travel” from one position to another, I first need to occupy a portion of time, like I occupy a portion of space.

In the case of locations in space, I describe my manner of occupation in terms of length, and width, and depth. I am an irregular object, about two meters in length, perhaps three quarters of a meter in width, and maybe a half a meter in depth, though I do not fully occupy all of these dimensions. In similar fashion, I occupy a portion of time. I might call this dimension duration. That is, I occupy a portion of time that is the duration of my existence. Presently, I exist, and so now is a part of my duration. Many years ago, I began to exist, and so my duration would have began at that time. When I cease to exist, that will be the end of my duration. I will occupy about 80 years of time, though until I cease to exist, I won’t know for certain. This assumes that my existence began when I was born, and ends when I die; if my existence goes beyond, like if there happens to be life after death, then perhaps I will occupy much more time than I think.

This occupation of time could make travelling to another position tricky. When one thinks about “time travel” one usually assumes that their present self is all that they are, and so travelling to other positions in time seems mostly unproblematic. However, if I occupy a significant portion of time, how then might I change positions successfully? Does my “past self” need to travel back 10 years when my “present self” travels back 10 years? If I dismiss that I occupy time, as is often the case, then it leads to various paradoxes where I exist multiple times in the same position in time. Again, many science fiction stories have fun exploring what precisely might happen given these circumstances.

It seems like I’ve created a big mess already, and I’ve barely scratched the surface. If time is like a thread, and if I occupy a portion of that thread, then it seems to bring with it a lot of complications. Is time a bit like an empty space along a path that I take? In my next post, I will put many of these crazy ideas to the side while I try to get a better handle on what time is by considering how time is used in the literary sense.