Einstein and Time (Humans)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Wednesday, February 08, 2012, 00:26 (4671 days ago) @ dhw
edited by unknown, Wednesday, February 08, 2012, 00:46

dhw,-I'm clearly, really, really, really, awful at communicating. I have you going down all the wrong places in the discussion of time.-I say this because you bring up the idea that I'm arguing on a "purely philosophic" level again. -Einstein's argument pertaining to time is based on the theory of relativity... in fact it is a direct consequence of the theory of relativity. This non-existence of time is largely accepted [by cosmologists] but [not well] understood. (Think Feynman.) -You raise a good question, I think, when you ask what I mean about "Time not being a fundamental construct of the universe." -The Greeks, Chinese, and Indians recognized 4 elements: earth, fire, air, and water. But all of their systems also included an entity of time: Time was given as concrete a reality as any element that we now recognize on the periodic table. -So far... so good. -Now... the tricky part comes I think, from the fact that we can observe ourselves grow old. If you remember, in my original discussion about time, one unchallenged assertion I made was this: The future does not exist. The past, since it has already happened, no longer exists. The only moment that truly exists, is "right now." -This is the same truth as expressed by Einstein. Einstein's description of travelling at the speed of light will be like Pam Reynold's experience of NDE.-We already know, that if you get in a plane, everyone's clocks/watches/whatever will drift from Universal Standard Time. -This is clue #1. 
What this means, is that the combination of speed and mass... directly impacts our experience of time. When you're on the plane, it doesn't feel any different. But it is.-When you run the equations, our astronaut traveler who flies away for 5 years at the speed of light... will return to the planet earth aged something like 500k years. (If you want me to be precise I can go look for it...) The point is this: The astronaut has only aged 5 years. The earth aged 500k years. -Where is the "reality of time" in this discussion? [Take a moment to think deeply about the above story here... how can you possibly argue that time is "real" outside of conscious human existence... outside of the observation of phenomena?] -What this means is that for people in a plane, people on the ground, people in a building... all experience time entirely different from each other, depending on height, weight, and the speed they are travelling. It means that fundamentally, time as we measure it slows down to almost nothing the faster you travel. You don't perceive it, but it is irrefutabl[y] true. -Now... it's possible that you might think... "Well, how about quantum phenomenon? There is a disjoint in quantum mechanics and Einsteinian relativity, isn't there? Will quantum mechanics resurrect time?"-The answer to this is also: Quantum mechanics doesn't even consider time. So time doesn't play a role in how we understand the universe at the quantum level, and has no physical reality at the relativistic level. -Clearly... I plainly suck at trying to explain this concept to you, so I will direct you to someone who has apparently written a laymen's book about it:
http://everythingforever.com/einstein.htm-As for the question of the "universe's perspective," when you go through the process of deriving the laws of physics from the equations that describe the "Big Bang," you are taking "The universe's perspective." -I fear though... you will still think I'm arguing not from Science but from philosophy, and if that is the case I shall simply have to regroup, and try yet again at some future date, to communicate my thoughts...-[EDITED]

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"