Philosophy Explorer wrote:We've talked about changes in time and abstract time, but I don't recall any evidence for time moving forward. Telling me that the entropy is decreasing isn't proof either because maybe it is decreasing while time is moving backward.
So what evidence exists that time is moving forward? I would like to know.
PhilX
The idea that time moves forward coupled with the idea that past events are fixed is taken in modernity to exist upon a real line, although at one end the big bang suggests that line to be terminated and at the other (now) another puzzle exists since the future is not well understood. Ignoring the big bang and focusing locally, which is the human perspective and a theoretical observer's perspective, we can state that events are ordered even without a time piece. For instance to intentionally grow a turnip one must plant a turnip seed. That seed will germinate, then root and leaf out, then eventually if it is good soil and good seed it will head a bulbous central root stalk that we know as a turnip. Incidentally when young my turnips are every bit as good as a radish when eaten raw, and easier to grow. Lastly to get more seed one must grow the turnip for two years, at which point it will produce seed pods, which of course enter the ordered event stream after the yellow flowers form.
The cyclic nature of events leads some to claim time to be looped, but I suspect that the loops that form in space should not be confused with time. Some respected physicists make strong statements on the reversibility of time, yet they have only taken the real valued form and inverted it, and it is the real valued form which is the largest fraud of modern thinking. Time is unidirectional, and so the mapping to a bidirectional representation must suffer such conflicted thinking as Michio Kaku is capable of. Einstein imposed a light cone, which collapses the presupposed time dimension in the analysis.
The very word 'dimension' is tied to the real line, so that three dimensional space implies that three real lines will compose it. It happens to be physically provable in our locality to address space this way. It is a long argument that I will spare you some of the details of. Simplest version: draw a grid every inch along the floor from one corner. Select a position in the room to test. Move a plumb bob (a weighted string) to that position and lower it to contact the floor. Mark the position on the floor and the length of the string. These positions have decomposed the three dimensional position into two positions, and the one on the floor can be further decomposed into two positions via the grid on the floor. Realizing that a more refined measurement is required for greater precision (and that those means are available) should satisfy the user that the space in the room can be addressed positionally by three values. As we move the object through the space we see that these values change and that the freedom of the object to travel through the space is crucial to the working of the experiment, for if this freedom did not exist then the experiment would fail.
Now let's consider this physical experiment with time. The freedoms of time are nonexistent. We are trapped in the present moment within the experiment, and attempts to shift an object through time would lead to disappearing objects or doubling of objects, and these are not possible. Claims that time is one dimensional ought to bring time into correspondence with one of the physical dimensions, particularly when the tensor form is in use, which brings about a mathematics with an arbitrary reference frame basis and supports the unification of space and time, based upon the assumptions of the real value.
There is another way to look at the real number. It has two signs: positive and negative. It is possible to generalize these so that we may consider a three-signed number system P3. We may likewise consider a one-signed number system P1. This leaves the real value (P2) as a member of a family of number systems, rather than as the fundamental building block. This family does extend upward to high sign systems P4, P5, and so on. The traditional dimension of these systems is one less than their signature, so as for instance P2 is one dimensional P3 is two dimensional, P5 is four dimensional, and extending this logic down onto P1 we have a zero dimensional unidirectional entity which still can do arithmetic.
These polysigned systems are balanced coordinate systems whereby components in each sign cancel with one another just as they did upon the real line. Their unit vectors are formed by rays emanating from the center of a simplex to its vertices, where the number of vertices is the number of signs.
The one-signed numbers (P1) are zero dimensional and unidirectional and so they satisfy the qualities of time which are treated as conflicts in modernity. Modern mathematics and physics rest upon assumptions established in the 1600's which allowed the naming of a number as 'real'. Complex numbers have been built out of the real value by consideration of the existence of the square root of a negative one. It happens that P3 are equivalent to the complex numbers, but do not require any additional construction. This establishes a strong scent for those who have that sense intact. Welcome to the polysign numbers:
http://bandtech.com/PolySigned/index.html They are young and fresh, and they still need lots more work, yet they are strong enough to stand on their own and to stand up to half a millenium of accumulation. Your belief or disbelief is optional. They are a fine proof of the human condition. I would not think of burning a disbeliever at the stake, but would point out that the influence of mimicry upon a system as supposedly pure as mathematics denies that system's purity. We are caught just about there, and it leaves all of us burdened as assessors of the truth, which happens to be something wee humans aren't actually that good at. The good news is that if a concept as simple as the generalization of sign has been overlooked, then there is hope of finding other fundamentals that have been overlooked.
- By Good_Egg
- By Surabhi Rani
- By Fried Egg