Since I just finished reading several books written around the theme of time, I read with great interest the Science News magazine that we got this week. In it there was an article about a New Zealand college drop-out named Peter Lynds who is postulating there is no such thing as discrete units of time. Time is completely a subjective human experience and has no reality in ... er, reality. Lynds has created quite a stir in the scientific community with a paper entitled, "Time and Classical and Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. Discontinuity."
Here's an excerpt from an interview with Lynds by an organization called Epiphany in C:
Interviewer:I am still trying to wrap my mind around the concept of "time" without a direction or flow. I'm with you on the idea that motion would be impossible if there was such a thing as a static instant - but the "time" that leaves me with (without a flow) is still a bit muddy. Einstein killed off the idea of a universal "now" with his description of time depending on ones speed and relationship to gravity. Now you appear to be killing off one's individual "now" - as a neuronally induced cinematic-like illusion of a progressive present moment (aka consciousness). Where does that leave time as a concept - and our relationship with it, if it does not flow? Can you explain what you mean by "relative order of events"?
Peter Lynds: Hi and a big thanks for your interest in my work...
To try to answer your question, although there mightn't be a flow of time and there's no such thing as an instant or present moment in time in nature (i.e. they're completely subjective), there is interval in time (relative duration as indicated by a watch). If there wasn't duration between events, those events couldn't take place successively and all physical continuity, including motion and the progression of the hands of a clock or its mechanism, wouldn't be possible. As such, I think an assertion of time not existing is a bit strong, and should firstly be made with the acknowledgment of duration.
I think one must also be careful not to confuse the notion of a flowing time with a dimensional representation of time, as they are not the same things. The first is something that would actually have physical existence, while the latter is just the way in which interval in time is represented and modeled. The same applies to spatial point in nature vs. a dimensional representation of space.
In relation to relative order of events, as time doesn't flow or go in any direction, it's the order that a sequence of events take place in that's relevant, not the direction of time itself. The order of a sequence of events can take place in either one order relative to its reverse order, or in the reverse order, relative to the first. Moreover, it only makes sense to say that the order of a sequence of events take place in one order, if one firstly stipulates which direction is to be considered which. For example, the assertion that events are taking place in a forward order, could equally be said to be taking place in backward order, and the reverse said to be forward. The same for up and down, future and past etc.
I don't know about you but he sorta lost me talking about the "flow of time" and the "dimensional representation of time." A graph or a picture would be very helpful here, Mr. Lynds.
And ... I'm posting this before 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning. I could be watching cartoons, you know.
No comments:
Post a Comment