Ok, first let me respond to your first post David, (sorry for the delay, I have not been on Kirupa much lately)
*Originally posted by david *
**So tell us Gogli, what do you have in your arguement arsinal that blows linar time away? **
First of all, when I said that I had things that could blow Russian Beer’s thing outta the water, you must realize that I was referring to simple theoretical arguments that could be proposed to provide an alternative to his theory. Basically, he has no physical proof of his, and anything I could come up with in reply also has no physical proof, or else we would have no reason to debate this because we would all know Truth, one way or the other. So you see that I was not referring to concrete evidence, but merely alternative possibilites. That said, I can provide for you some more substantial things then simple speculation on my theory.
First, before I go any further, I would like to challenge you, or Phil, or any kirupan for that matter to unarguably prove that time does indeed exist.
OK. Now. Onto some fun stuff. Lets assume that time is linear because everyone thinks that. In this linear state of time, everything moves in a forward progression past >>> present >>> future. However, if you really think about it, at any given moment, past, present and future are interwoven. Take this moment. Just sit there and consiously recognize a moment. The past, the present and the future are all occuring at that moment. Therefore… nonlinear time.
Now you may say that that stinks, because it is mere speculation, and no substantial evidence. So let’s move onto a little more scientific example. Life is pretty much govorned by the laws of mechanics, which are completely time reversable. If you were to take a ball and roll it along a surface, the laws that allow it to roll along that surface would be reversable in a “rewind” and still work. Now, take a look at all the successful equations of physics; Newtons laws, Einsteins relativity, the Scroedinger equation, Maxwells equations. These are completely symetrical in time. If you reverse their direction, and replace t with -t (the coordinate that represents time) they all are equally as effective. This shows that the past and future are relatively equal. Now, this can all imply that time is linear, but the important part is proving that the past and future are indeed equal. If we move onto some thermydynamics, this begins to take on a new light.
Take a cup of coffee. It cools forward, in the direction of the future, and gets hotter in the reverse, into the past. However, the behavior of heat is, unlike mechanics, unreversable in time. This characterizes the second law of thermodynamics that states “Energy spontaneously tends to flow only from being concentrated in one place to becoming diffused and spread out.” No matter how you try, there is no way to scientifically prove that the movement of energy is reversable, in fact, you always come back to the point that it is not. Which esentially means that the fact that the coffee can cool at all is astounding. Because, according to the laws of mechanics, each of the particles’ movements would be reversible in time. This shows a striking contradiction in two well knows sciences that we have PROVEN to be true. Now, this also shows that time must not be reversible, and must only move in one direction either linear or nonliner, but one direction all the same. If we combine the two results from the ball test and the coffee test we see that the past and the future are both identical, and also that time must only move forward and not backwards. Therefore, the only way this is possible is if the past and the future were overlayed, as opposed to adjacent. Which may or may not originate form the present which is the “starting point”. Let me show you a diagram.
OK, now in the diagram, time is represented as linear, since we are starting from that as the “commonly accepted belief”. As you see in the first, that is our typical perception of time. But in the second, it depicts a new element of the layout that we just proved to be very possible, and even likely. Now. If time is indeed composed of this “overlapping” structure, then the questions arise as to the importance of the center point, where exactly IS that point, how it is measured, and whatnot. If that point is in fact one miniscule point that the present exists in, comparable in size to the theoretical point used in geometry, then we realize that the point is really infinitely small, because the basic definition of a point is “An undefined term. It is the basic unit of geometry. It has no size, it is infinitely small, and has only location.” And we MUST compare the point of the present to a geometrical point, otherwise, it would also begin to encompass the past and the future. So this brings us to the speculation again on how large that point is, that fleeting moment that is infinitely smaller then any consious awareness. Now lets look at the spot where the past and the future flow from the point of the present. They must be exactly adjacent to eachother. Now, look at the geometrical definition of a line. “An undefined term. It is a straight arrangement of points. There are infinitely many points in a line. A line has infinite length but no thickness and it extends forever in two directions.” So if the past and future are a line extending from the present, there must be one single point that is adjacent to the present where the line begins. I also must mention the fact that a LINE which MUST be infinite, is absolutely NOT infinite in the second figure in the diagram. Which really, would completely debunk the idea of linearity in time if this situation were reality. Or at the least, show that past/future, which appears to be a line, is not, in fact, a line.
Back to the two points of present and the beginning of the past/future line. Here is a “zoomed in” representation fo what we are speaking of.
First, the space that exists between the two points is non-existant, I only put it there to illustrate something, which I will describe in a bit. Now if you take these two points, they are infinitely close to eachother, and do NOT stretch into eternity, for then, you would have to have more points inbetween them. So those two points do NOT display linearity. So we have two points, side by side, and infinitely close to one another. Here is why I put this space in. To show you WHY they are infintely close… You can put them as close to eachother as you want visually, but then, as you zoom in, you would have to again reposition them to make them closer. So anyways, The whole of time, past, present, and future, now exist in these two points. (We can chose to disregard any other past/future points that follow the initial point because they are not relevant. The reason they are not relevant is simple. Time can be seen existing in two points, so why add more? Even if they are truely there, they do not help in any way to make time more linear, for as we discovered earlier, the past/future line is not a line.)
So if we have now seen that the whole of time is displayed in merely two points, we also can see the whole POINT (yes, pun intended) of this essay; TIME IS NOT LINEAR. Because two points, two SINGLE points, can NOT make a line. ONLY the successive network of an infinite amount of points can do that.
Now of course, this explanation can probably not be difinitively proven, for if it could we would not be in this debate right now. But it sure as heck offers some plausible arguments for the existence of nonlinear time, arguments that have their root in core prinicples of physics. And if we were to say that these principles are irrelevant, then we would be denying the whole of modern science as we understand it. Which then, in rights, would completely annhilate our rights to even begin to claim knowledge of it. :beam:
So then I read it and am like… thats not right! heh [/edit]