Simon Paynton

FYI – This is not debate in the usual sense. I am stress-testing a model of reality in public. I think it has a lot of merit. It is not intuitive because it goes against our evolved sense of time flow. But this is only useful on Earth, locally. Relativity strongly suggests a 4D spacetime structure that looks block-like. I’m trying to break it. I…[Read more]

If they called in the middle of the night I would ask them, “What time do you call this??”  They would probably reply “Relative to what frame?”

Then, after a few introductory nanu nanu’s, I would realize that their framework does not privilege clock labels as they have evolved to think purely in relational or structural terms. I would think to m…[Read more]

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]

“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]

DHS demanding identity details from social networks of users who criticize ICE, Trump, et al.

Short:

@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]

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]

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