Time.

Space.

Change.

Can one exist without another?

Time... an idea so fundamental to our existence, yet so alien to conception.

Behold... as John Muradeli - the alien, Michael Mendrin - Mr. Mathopedia, and Brian Charlesworth - Dr. Philosophy debate it out in a ravaging intellectual flame war.

Key arguments:

$\huge John$ $\huge Muradeli$ -

Time is money. Money runs the world. You live in the world.

Thus, by proof by contradiction, if Time is not real, Money is not real, the World is not real, and You are not real. But if you want to believe that you're not real, go ahead. :)

$\huge Michael$ $\huge Mendrin$ -

All right, my "argument" about time is that quite a number of theoretical physicists today see time as an emergent property, and there are even some experiments which are said to prove this. Have a look at this:

Time From Quantum Entanglement

Quantum Experiment

This should give one an idea of actual experimentation being done on this, it's already moved beyond mere speculation. In other words, get on with the program already.

Time is a complex subject, and I think one should be careful about making sweeping statements about it, such as "time precedes existence", or "change cannot happen without time", because when one does that, it wouldn't be any different from making sweeping statements about geometry, such as "parallel lines never meet", and "it is not possible to re-arrange the contents of one solid sphere and produce two solid spheres identical to the original from it". Always be prepared for surprises which seems contrary to intution, because they can often lead to very interesting and rich new fields.

$\huge Brian$ $\huge Charlesworth \huge$

('Twilight Zone' music playing in the background ....)

"Imagine, if you will, a world without time"..... or at least a mathematical model of the universe that does not employ the variable of time. This is not the stuff of science fiction, but rather the result of the Wheeler-DeWitt Equation. I've only been recently introduced to this revelation by the Time Lord himself, @Michael Mendrin , in the midst of a conversational thread embedded in this post. In this thread, Michael notes that, although the variable of time can be very useful in dealing with "practical" questions in physics, it is not in fact necessary. Many theoretical physicists are of the mind that such primary (yet nebulous) concepts as time, space and mass are in fact "emergent properties" of a more fundamental formulation of nature than we currently are aware of. And herein lies the rub ....

Is time merely a convenient illusion, the result of our psychologically-driven need for a cause and effect paradigm? Or is it indeed an essential and unavoidable element of a reality that we can we only glimpse as a wispy shadow out of the corner of our collective vision? (Yeah.... a bit melodramatic, but I'm trying to set the stage here for a dynamic discussion.) If time is a an illusion, then does this imply that we inhabit a temporally "static" universe, in which all times are equally real, (or unreal)? Would time travel then be possible, at least in theory? What is the relationship between time and memory/information; would one exist without the other? So many questions, so little ......

ssss ssss

Let's do this.

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Comments

!!!NOTE:!!!

This note is under construction!

John M. - 6 years, 8 months ago

u r a funny bone . Muradeli rocks!!

Soumo Mukherjee - 6 years, 8 months ago

You wasted no time to start on time, didn't you?

Michael Mendrin - 6 years, 8 months ago

Brian Charlesworth - 6 years, 8 months ago

Time isn't an "illusion", it's simply a different way of looking at the same thing. In mathematics, we learn pretty early about the idea of coordinate transforms, i.e., e.g. going from cartesian to spherical coordinates, and a bit later on, we learn how to transform from a Hamiltonian formulation to a Lagrangian one, and vice versa. We learn about projective geometry an duality. We learn about how Heisenberg matrix mechanics is really the exact same thing as Schrodiner's wave mechanics, even though on a first read, we'd never guess that, being that they seem so different conceptually. But in fact, we see this over and over again in all of physics---even in string theory we learn about how physicist Witten managed to show that 5 different 10D string theory models are "really" just different facets of a 11D M-theory.

We simply HAVE a lot of different ways of looking at the same thing, and they can all be mathematically equivalent.

Hence, a lot of useful physics make use of time as a concept, and just because there's an esoteric way of doing physics without time doesn't mean that, therefore, time is an illusion. It's simply doing things in a more convenient way for us. We have a choice whether to use it or not.

First off, apologies for my dramatic opeening presentation; I was just feeding off of the tone that John was setting before "getting with the program". That said, in talking about time as a "concept" and time as an "emergent property", are we referring to the same thing? The former seems like just a convenient variable to work with, while the latter seems to be an actual entity, for lack of a more precise term. Also, if "time travel" is already a feature of quantum mechanics, does that not blur the lines as to what we mean by the "present", at least in the domain of quantum information?

"Time travel" is already a feature of quantum mechanics, i.e., quantum information flows to and from both the past and the future. That's what quantum field theory is all about. Too bad we can't quite travel like quantum information.

Hm, guyz, too wordy. I'll gotta rephrase this, later.

But yeah Michael's on point with time being contrary to intuition. I've read Paul Davies's About Time, where he discusses some abnormal properties of time, including the Theory of Relativity implications of it. So, it really boils down to Mr. Mendrin's all-time quote: "Before you solve a problem, first figure out what the problem is..." - wait a minute, that's not it. I think he changed question to problem. Bah... bad timing. Anyway, replace that with QUESTION. So what this will really spin off to will be us arguing not whether time is real, not real, necessary, or unnecessary, but what time really is. And this on this subject have been written great volumes of books by great philosophical minds, and yet not even the synthesis of all those writings explain the true essence of time.

So, yeah... It was a bad idea for me to start this note. It's pointless.

Currently I'm reading Roger Penrose's The Road to Reality. It's a truly great book (even though I only read the prelude). I'd ESPECIALLY suggest to Mr. Mendrin. Dunno about anyone else, but you need to be substantially intelligent to understand this book.

(oh and I didn't get time to read Brian's argument, I got too much @*!% going on! and probably won't. I'll just be looking for that terse rephrase of ya'll's arguments. Then, probably in a month, I'll come in and CRUSH ALL OF YOUR ARGUMENTS!!! MWHAHAHAHA!!)

I have Roger Penrose's book, The Road to Reality It's a great read, and it's buried in my pile of books somewhere. Really, I need to find a place for a good bookshelf and pull these books together.

Let me paraphrase my own quote, "Before you start an argument, first figure out what the argument is' I believe the original question here as posted is, "Can we have either time or change without the other?" That is a very good question to ask, and far from a trivial one. When you have more time, or if anyone else jumps in, we can continue with this thread.

Yes, starting this note seemed like a good idea at the time, but I'm not sure where we would go from here. I obviously need to do some reading, and you, John, with 7 AP classes, have a lot of reading to do on matters other than time. @Michael Mendrin is clearly up to speed as to where the forefront of research is on the subject, so until I know enough to ask substantive questions I would just be wasting his time.

Anyway, by way of the previous conversation I've been introduced to the Wheeler-Dewitt equation and the notion that time may not have an independent existence but may "just" be an emergent property, (emerging from what I'm still not entirely clear), so it's not a total loss. This is an "argument" with no end, I suspect, so until later... Cheers!

Time ! It's the only thing that a human can never have in sufficience. This moment

Pranjal Prashant - 6 years, 6 months ago

Pretentiousness.

The prefix "pseudo-".

John Muradeli.

Jake Lai - 5 years, 11 months ago

Um... what? Are you saying I'm pretentious or "pseudo" or ...

John M. - 5 years, 11 months ago

"Pseudo-John-Muradeli" is such an interesting concept. It means, "Something that appears to be or behaves like John Muradeli". Will the real John Muradeli please strand up? Usually, in science fiction stories, when a human has been cloned, as in the movie, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", the pseudo human distinctly has diminished color and personality. I have to wonder what the real John Muradeli is like if his clone is putting out stuff like this.

Michael Mendrin - 5 years, 11 months ago

Nope.

He's an alien.

I figured that long time ago.

I win. No more comments.

Soumo Mukherjee - 5 years, 11 months ago

@Soumo Mukherjee – Hey Mr. Obvious. I think we all figured out after I've stated knowledge to $|x|<0$ . Besides, OverLordGoldDragon's Messageboard is no human's messageboard ;)

@John M. – This note was created just after I joined Brilliant :)

As the saying goes..."it takes one alien to recognize another"

If I'd see my clone I'll murder it. Immediately.

Math	Appears as
Remember to wrap math in `\(` ... `\)` or `\[` ... `\]` to ensure proper formatting.
`2 \times 3`	$2 \times 3$
`2^{34}`	$2^{34}$
`a_{i-1}`	$a_{i-1}$
`\frac{2}{3}`	$\frac{2}{3}$
`\sqrt{2}`	$\sqrt{2}$
`\sum_{i=1}^3`	$\sum_{i=1}^3$
`\sin \theta`	$\sin \theta$
`\boxed{123}`	$\boxed{123}$