Gregg R Thomas

Yes, indeed our timekeeping systems must correspond to real physical behaviour. Otherwise, they would be useless. Sundials, mechanical clocks, atomic clocks, radioactive decay all work because the universe contains stable and repeatable processes. But what they only do is to track regular physical change.

But moving from “clocks correspond to p…[Read more]

I think that Carrie Prejean Boller and Candace Owens have a secret deal going…

I can’t think of a reply or a witty retort.  I can only hear the words “Diet of Worms” (sic) echoing in my head and I am visualizing a sleuth of bears chanting “I’m a Bear and Bears love to embrace Catholics”  as they wander into the forest.

I am not claiming that by treating time as non-fundamental explains daily life better. It doesn’t need to. We have evolved to quantify change as time passing. Cause and effect, before and later, and of course aging. This timekeeping ledger system of quantifying change serves us well.

But the problem arises from within physics itself. General R…[Read more]

Yes, I see it this way.  But what connects my subjective experience to my “now”?

Yes Simon, your subjective experience of “now” is real. I am not denying that. But the mistake is when interpret that experience as a objective property of the Universe. The experience of “time flow” and therefore the experience of a “now” is real but the interpre…[Read more]

I’m still waiting for the killer app that comes from the notion that time is not fundamental. If there isn’t one, then this is all just parlor entertainment, not science.

That’s a fair challenge.  Physics doesn’t need a “killer app” before a concept is scientific. It needs explanatory power, consistency, and testable consequences. Back in 1905…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Do you see “now” as a real moving present sweeping along the line or a a point of access within a fixed structure.

I understand it to mean “now” is local to you. But that doesn’t mean it moves. It just means your current brain state only has access to one region of your worldline. “Now” is real as perspective b…

[Read more]

“Now is where I am now, in my timeline.”

Great…that is compatible with relativity. There is a subtle distinction to be made. Do you think “now” is a physical feature of reality….or is it a local perspective feature made by an observer within reality?

Yes, “now” is always local to an observer. You are local to “here” in your “now”. That is how…[Read more]

TheEncogitationer wrote:
In all fairness, any prediction could be considered true if the prognosticator talks nebulously enough, moves the goalposts, and, above all, talks a lot. Astrologers, psychics, and self-proclaimed “prophets” do it all the time.

They could, and they do, but this was different.  She went around telling people their futu…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
“Now” is not a universal property spread across space. The universe doesn’t care where the time zone line is drawn. Only humans do. Our segmentation of our experience of time flow is just a convention. The feeling that clock time reflects a moving reality is mistaken.

OK, true, the clock isn’t evidence of anyth…[Read more]

@Strega – next “time” someone says that, you should reply that “A clock is not a time detector; it is a controlled physical process used to compare spacetime intervals”. That you get you a free lunch 🙂

@Reg reminds me of a bloke I had lunch with, who claimed he could tell me the exact time any place anywhere, so I asked him what time it was on the moon.  It seemed to perturb him.

When I sit still, time still moves, as is evidenced by the clock.

Simon, a clock does not measure the movement of Time. It records regular internal changes occurring in a physical (clockwork) system.  Your mind sees the second hand moving and you infer time is flowing. But is not.  Ticking clocks do not indicate time moving. If a clock battery d…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
So yes, we do experience a “present” but not “now”. Experience is a perspective from one region of spacetime, not evidence that reality contains a moving “now”. A camera records one frame at a time, but the film does not move through the camera — the whole reel exists.

I don’t know what it proves.  I’m not saying it…[Read more]

Yep…I knew you would remember it. Nice One!!

Hahaha Reg brilliant memories

Ain’t nobody got Time for this…….

@Simon – Yes, but you only experience that dot moving through time. It’s “now”.

Let’s roll it back a little. Let’s try to separate “experience” from “physics”.

Yes, We experience a present. That does not mean reality contains a moving present or a “now” that is moving towards a future. This is our experience of what feels like the “flow of tim…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
In spacetime, an object is not a 3D thing that moves. It is a 4D curve or a “worldline”. From my birth to my death, I am not “an entity” or dot moving through time. I am an extended 4D structure. Think of a thread woven though spacetime. (Or as I called myself previously – I am an ontic worm).

Yes, but you only expe…[Read more]