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Time's Arrow is due to quantum entanglement-https://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140416-times-arrow-traced-to-quantum-source/-In the new story of the arrow of time, it is the loss of information through quantum entanglement, rather than a subjective lack of human knowledge, that drives a cup of coffee into equilibrium with the surrounding room. The room eventually equilibrates with the outside environment, and the environment drifts even more slowly toward equilibrium with the rest of the universe. The giants of 19th century thermodynamics viewed this process as a gradual dispersal of energy that increases the overall entropy, or disorder, of the universe. Today, Lloyd, Popescu and others in their field see the arrow of time differently. In their view, information becomes increasingly diffuse, but it never disappears completely. So, they assert, although entropy increases locally, the overall entropy of the universe stays constant at zero.

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GPJ

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George: Time's Arrow is due to quantum entanglement
> 
> https://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140416-times-arrow-traced-to-quantum-source/&... 
> In the new story of the arrow of time, it is the loss of information through quantum entanglement, rather than a subjective lack of human knowledge, that drives a cup of coffee into equilibrium with the surrounding room. The room eventually equilibrates with the outside environment, and the environment drifts even more slowly toward equilibrium with the rest of the universe. The giants of 19th century thermodynamics viewed this process as a gradual dispersal of energy that increases the overall entropy, or disorder, of the universe. Today, Lloyd, Popescu and others in their field see the arrow of time differently. In their view, information becomes increasingly diffuse, but it never disappears completely. So, they assert, although entropy increases locally, the overall entropy of the universe stays constant at zero.-Wonderful article, George, but as usual in quantum philosophy it makes interesting conjectures and explains little, as this from the aticle shows:-"The backdrop for the steady growth of entanglement throughout the universe is, of course, time itself. The physicists stress that despite great advances in understanding how changes in time occur, they have made no progress in uncovering the nature of time itself or why it seems different (both perceptually and in the equations of quantum mechanics) than the three dimensions of space. Popescu calls this "one of the greatest unknowns in physics.""-To paraphrase Feynman: anyone who tells you he understands quantum theory is lying.

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B meson study shows a quantum preferred direction:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121119094627.htm-
Also:-"The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don't pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass."
 Richard Swenson ... More Than Meets The Eye, Chpt. 12

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DAVID: B meson study shows a quantum preferred direction:
-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121119094627.htm-Also:"The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don't pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass." Richard Swenson ... More Than Meets The Eye, Chpt. 12-
David, I need help with this. I don't understand how "the speed of light" can be reconciled with "time does not pass". Surely you cannot have speed without time, and we all know that whatever we see is past, because it depends precisely on the speed of light. If I look at a star, I will see it as it was x light years ago. Can you please explain, then, how light can be called timeless?

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DAVID: B meson study shows a quantum preferred direction:
> 
> 
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121119094627.htm
> 
> Also:"The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don't pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass." Richard Swenson ... More Than Meets The Eye, Chpt. 12
> 
> 
> dhw: David, I need help with this. I don't understand how "the speed of light" can be reconciled with "time does not pass". Surely you cannot have speed without time, and we all know that whatever we see is past, because it depends precisely on the speed of light. If I look at a star, I will see it as it was x light years ago. Can you please explain, then, how light can be called timeless?-Einstein imagined moving away from a clock at the speed of light. The hands never changed position. Time is stopped. Proven in satellites.

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Einstein imagined moving away from a clock at the speed of light. The hands never changed position. Time is stopped. Proven in satellites.-Again proven has crept into your sentence, David-I would take corroborated, demonstrated, consistent with and no doubt other synonyms. But proven, a no-no by my book/-Regarding time in theory of relativity ... My understanding it [relativity] can be expressed without the dimension of time. Which of course is difficult for someone like me who is firmly stuck in a Euclidean universe that has a Newtonian clock ticking away.

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David: Einstein imagined moving away from a clock at the speed of light. The hands never changed position. Time is stopped. Proven in satellites.
> 
> Romansh: Again proven has crept into your sentence, David
> 
> I would take corroborated, demonstrated, consistent with and no doubt other synonyms. But proven, a no-no by my book/-Not a no-no for me. If time slows down in the satellites proportional to their speed, that is proof enough for me. By your book nothing is proven. You advance conjecture upon conjecture, like a house of cards?

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David: Einstein imagined moving away from a clock at the speed of light. The hands never changed position. Time is stopped. Proven in satellites.
> > 
> > Romansh: Again proven has crept into your sentence, David
> > 
> > I would take corroborated, demonstrated, consistent with and no doubt other synonyms. But proven, a no-no by my book/
> 
> Not a no-no for me. If time slows down in the satellites proportional to their speed, that is proof enough for me. By your book nothing is proven. You advance conjecture upon conjecture, like a house of cards?-Actually that one clock slows with respect to another does not prove relativity and time stopping at the speed of light as proven. It is evidence of corroboration of the theory of relativity.-Our other most corroborated theory ... quantum mechanics, is fundamentally not compatible with relativity.-I look forward to seeing which if not both these two theories gets disproven with time.

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> Romansh: Our other most corroborated theory ... quantum mechanics, is fundamentally not compatible with relativity.
> 
> I look forward to seeing which if not both these two theories gets disproven with time.-
I think you missed our discussions with Ruth Kastner. It seems that quantum phenomena may exist at another level of reality than the one we live in and recognize. As a result she proposes transactional analysis of the passage of quanta into our realm. It explains the spooky action at a distance in our level while in the other level they are closely related and connected. No speed of light problem. I suggest you look back at the discussions. Two levels, two theories, and they may never mix. And both seem to work really well within their areas. Disproven, probably not. Melded into one GUT, doubt it.

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> > Romansh: Our other most corroborated theory ... quantum mechanics, is fundamentally not compatible with relativity.
> > 
> > I look forward to seeing which if not both these two theories gets disproven with time.
> 
> 
> I think you missed our discussions with Ruth Kastner. It seems that quantum phenomena may exist at another level of reality than the one we live in and recognize. As a result she proposes transactional analysis of the passage of quanta into our realm. It explains the spooky action at a distance in our level while in the other level they are closely related and connected. No speed of light problem. I suggest you look back at the discussions. Two levels, two theories, and they may never mix. And both seem to work really well within their areas. Disproven, probably not. Melded into one GUT, doubt it.-What is proposed is far from proof.-Also as objects (matter) travel faster the clocks slow relative to some stationary observer is well demonstrated. As is the fact the object gains mass. -In fact at the speed of light not only does time appear to stop, the object gains infinite mass. So are you suggesting that objects travelling at the speed of light have been proven to have infinite mass?-Both these aspects of relativity are due to the Lorentz transformation going to zero and the mathematical applicability becoming suspect.

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> Romansh: Also as objects (matter) travel faster the clocks slow relative to some stationary observer is well demonstrated. As is the fact the object gains mass. 
> 
> In fact at the speed of light not only does time appear to stop, the object gains infinite mass. So are you suggesting that objects travelling at the speed of light have been proven to have infinite mass?
> 
> Both these aspects of relativity are due to the Lorentz transformation going to zero and the mathematical applicability becoming suspect.-Unfortunately I'm only educated only as far as the science writers explain special relativity. But I also know that the appearance of infinities indicate that the theories are incomplete as Feynman pointed out for quantum mechanics. So I certainly agree, infinite mass, no proof

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Unfortunately I'm only educated only as far as the science writers explain special relativity. But I also know that the appearance of infinities indicate that the theories are incomplete as Feynman pointed out for quantum mechanics. So I certainly agree, infinite mass, no proof-David so when you wrote:
>> Einstein imagined moving away from a clock at the speed of light. The hands never changed position. Time is stopped. Proven in satellites.-This is the same part of the Lorentz's equation but this time the transformation is found in the numerator. -So if we accept that when the transformation goes to zero shows the theory is incomplete, then it is difficult to say Time is stopped. Proven in satellites. as the theory is incomplete.

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Unfortunately I'm only educated only as far as the science writers explain special relativity. But I also know that the appearance of infinities indicate that the theories are incomplete as Feynman pointed out for quantum mechanics. So I certainly agree, infinite mass, no proof
> 
> Romansh: David so when you wrote:
> >> Einstein imagined moving away from a clock at the speed of light. The hands never changed position. Time is stopped. Proven in satellites.
> 
> This is the same part of the Lorentz's equation but this time the transformation is found in the numerator. 
> 
> So if we accept that when the transformation goes to zero shows the theory is incomplete, then it is difficult to say Time is stopped. Proven in satellites. as the theory is incomplete.-Let us say that I am imprecise, but the fact that time slows appropriately to speed implies that at the speed of sound it is likely that time stops or seems to stop. Understanding that is good enough for me.

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> David: Let us say that I am imprecise, but the fact that time slows appropriately to speed implies that at the speed of sound it is likely that time stops or seems to stop. Understanding that is good enough for me.-Oops, speed of light.

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Dhw: I don't understand how "the speed of light" can be reconciled with "time does not pass". Surely you cannot have speed without time, and we all know that whatever we see is past, because it depends precisely on the speed of light. If I look at a star, I will see it as it was x light years ago. Can you please explain, then, how light can be called timeless? -DAVID: Einstein imagined moving away from a clock at the speed of light. The hands never changed position. Time is stopped. Proven in satellites.-ROMANSH: Regarding time in theory of relativity ... My understanding it [relativity] can be expressed without the dimension of time. Which of course is difficult for someone like me who is firmly stuck in a Euclidean universe that has a Newtonian clock ticking away.-I sympathize (unusually!) with Romansh, and I hesitate to ask these questions, David, of you and Einstein, but I am here to learn. I did as Einstein told me, but I'm assured by my fellow earthlings that the hands of the clock went on changing position. It's I the observer who thought the hands never moved, because what I observed depended on my position in relation to the object I was observing and the speed at which I was moving. In other words, if I stopped moving, wouldn't I see the hands of the clock changing, though offering a time relative to where I am positioned? Do these experts mean that if there is no observer, there is no time? Surely not. A supernova explosion will take place whether observed or not (and presumably did before life began), which inevitably entails a past leading up to the explosion. Swenson wrote: "I don't pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass." I can see how observers of time can telescope yesterday and today, though I'm not sure about tomorrow. But can you please explain to me how time itself can be telescoped?

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I think Brian Greene suggested (in his Elegant Universe) that everything travels at the speed of light, just that matter travels with a different vector.

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dhw:In other words, if I stopped moving, wouldn't I see the hands of the clock changing, though offering a time relative to where I am positioned? -Of course you would. Einstein's was a thought experiment, nothing really possible, but time slows in proportion to speed.-> dhw: Do these experts mean that if there is no observer, there is no time? Surely not.-Agreed-> dhw: Swenson wrote: "I don't pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass." I can see how observers of time can telescope yesterday and today, though I'm not sure about tomorrow. But can you please explain to me how time itself can be telescoped?- It is back to time stops at the speed of light. At that speed you cannot observe the passage of events, which to me is a definition of time.

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dhw: Do these experts mean that if there is no observer, there is no time? Surely not.-DAVID: Agreed-dhw: Swenson wrote: "I don't pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass." I can see how observers of time can telescope yesterday and today, though I'm not sure about tomorrow. But can you please explain to me how time itself can be telescoped?-DAVID: It is back to time stops at the speed of light. At that speed you cannot observe the passage of events, which to me is a definition of time.-But the fact that you cannot observe the passage of events does not mean that the events don't happen. And so even by your definition of time, it is not time that stops but the observation of time. Otherwise, we are back to saying that if there is no observer, there is no time.

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dhw: But the fact that you cannot observe the passage of events does not mean that the events don't happen. And so even by your definition of time, it is not time that stops but the observation of time. Otherwise, we are back to saying that if there is no observer, there is no time.-To me time is a series of events. If the events happen time passes, just as if a tree falls and no one is there to hear it, the sound still exists. As Romansh points out, the faster one goes, the more the mass and the slower the time, reaching a point of infinite mass and no time, but it is all theory and not observable.

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Time requires a brain. Physical laws do not need or recognize time nor does quantum mechanics. Time requires memories: - http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2016/09/26/the-arrow-of-time-its-all-in-our-head... - Our paper shows that time doesn't just exist out there ticking away from past to future, but rather is an emergent property that depends on the observer's ability to preserve information about experienced events.
 
A new paper just published in Annalen der Physik  which published Albert Einstein's theories of special and general relativity  Dmitry Podolsky, a theoretical physicist now working on aging at Harvard University, and I explain how the arrow of time ? indeed time itself ? is directly related to the nature of the observer (that is, us).
Our paper shows that time doesn't just exist out there ticking away from past to future, but rather is an emergent property that depends on the observer's ability to preserve information about experienced events. - Einstein's collaborator, John Wheeler (who coined the word black hole) argued that time itself emerges due to a decoherence of the wave function describing the universe, which is subject to the laws of quantum gravity. However, our paper shows that the intrinsic properties of quantum gravity and matter alone cannot explain the tremendous effectiveness of the emergence of time and the lack of quantum entanglement in our ordinary, everyday macroscopic world. Instead, it is necessary to include the properties of the observer, and in particular, the way we process and remember information. Our new paper suggests that the emergence of the arrow of time is related to the ability of observers to preserve information about experienced events. - For years physicists have known that Newton's laws, Einstein's equations, and even those of the quantum theory, are all time-symmetrical. Time plays absolutely no role. There is no forward movement of time. So if the laws of physics should work just as well for events going forward or going backward in time, then why do we only experience growing older? All our scientific theories tell us that we should be able to experience the future just like we experience the past.
 
The answer is that we observers have memory and can only remember events which we have observed in the past. Quantum mechanical trajectories future to past are associated with erasing of memory, since any process which decreases entropy (decline in order) leads to the decrease of entanglement between our memory and observed events.  In other words, if we do experience the future (which we might), we are not able to store the memories about such processes. You can't go back in time without this information being erased from your brain.  By contrast, if you experience the future by using the usual route past > present > future, you accumulate memories and entropy grows. - Thus, a brainless observer  that is, an observer without the ability to store observed events  does not experience time or a world in which we age. 
Aging truly, is all in your head. - Comment: We have observed before, time as it appears to us is a series of memories. It takes a brain. The whole article contains a review of quantum theories which seem to defy time, i.e., being in two differing states at the same time.

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DAVID: Time requires a brain. Physical laws do not need or recognize time nor does quantum mechanics. Time requires memories: - http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2016/09/26/the-arrow-of-time-its-all-in-our-head... - QUOTE: Our paper shows that time doesn't just exist out there ticking away from past to future, but rather is an emergent property that depends on the observer's ability to preserve information about experienced events. - As a naïve non-physicist may I suggest that CONSCIOUSNESS of time depends on there being a conscious observer. That does not mean time does not exist independently of the observer. (See below) - QUOTE: All our scientific theories tell us that we should be able to experience the future just like we experience the past. - For this naïve non-physicist, all our human experiences tell us that the future has not yet arrived and so we cannot experience it. Maybe there is something missing from our scientific theories. (See below) - QUOTE: The answer is that we observers have memory and can only remember events which we have observed in the past. - Yes indeed. As a naïve non-physicist, I think I know by experience and observation that I would not be here if I hadn't been born as a baby, and nobody would have been born if the universe hadn't existed, and so there would appear to be a process of cause and effect which depends on a sequence of before and after. If things appear to be different in the quantum world, this does not in any way alter the fact - verified by zillions of personal experiences, observations and scientific experiments - that x happens as a result of a preceding y: e.g. if I step out in front of a bus and get hit, I will also get hurt. Cause and effect. Before and after. A sequence of past and present, with the future yet to come. That is what I understand by time's arrow. And I sincerely believe (apparently an unscientific act of faith on my part, but there you are, I am a naïve non-physicist) that the sequence of cause and effect, before and after, has existed, exists now, and will go on existing even without my being there to observe it and regardless of what happens or is thought to happen in the quantum world.

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DAVID: Time requires a brain. Physical laws do not need or recognize time nor does quantum mechanics. Time requires memories:
> 
> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2016/09/26/the-arrow-of-time-its-all-in-our-head... 
> QUOTE: Our paper shows that time doesn't just exist out there ticking away from past to future, but rather is an emergent property that depends on the observer's ability to preserve information about experienced events.
> 
> dhw: As a naïve non-physicist may I suggest that CONSCIOUSNESS of time depends on there being a conscious observer. That does not mean time does not exist independently of the observer. (See below)
> 
> QUOTE: All our scientific theories tell us that we should be able to experience the future just like we experience the past.
> 
> dhw: For this naïve non-physicist, all our human experiences tell us that the future has not yet arrived and so we cannot experience it. Maybe there is something missing from our scientific theories. (See below)
> 
> QUOTE: The answer is that we observers have memory and can only remember events which we have observed in the past.
> 
> dhw: Yes indeed. As a naïve non-physicist, I think I know by experience and observation that I would not be here if I hadn't been born as a baby, and nobody would have been born if the universe hadn't existed, and so there would appear to be a process of cause and effect which depends on a sequence of before and after. If things appear to be different in the quantum world, this does not in any way alter the fact - verified by zillions of personal experiences, observations and scientific experiments - that x happens as a result of a preceding y: e.g. if I step out in front of a bus and get hit, I will also get hurt. Cause and effect. Before and after. A sequence of past and present, with the future yet to come. That is what I understand by time's arrow. And I sincerely believe (apparently an unscientific act of faith on my part, but there you are, I am a naïve non-physicist) that the sequence of cause and effect, before and after, has existed, exists now, and will go on existing even without my being there to observe it and regardless of what happens or is thought to happen in the quantum world.-I'm with you. Some physicists try to deny cause and effect because their formulas can be timeless. Still delayed choice quantum experiments where the present choice changes the past result is confusing.

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Since the universe started in a perfect state and then entropy caused disorder, time is related to that process:-http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a23140/why-time-goes-forward/-"Why does time go forward and not backwards? This might seem like a simple question, but it's actually really complicated. Physicist Sean Carroll explains in a new video for Minute Physics.-"Most of the laws of physics, like gravity and quantum mechanics, are symmetric with respect to time. That means that it doesn't matter whether time moves forward or backwards. If time ran in reverse, all the laws of physics would work the same.
That is, all the laws except one. The Second Law of Thermodynamics does imply a direction. The Second Law states that over time, everything moves from an ordered state to a disordered state. It's the only physical law that can't go backwards.-"The Second Law is the reason why you can mix stuff but you can't unmix it, like coffee and cream. Unmixed, they're in an ordered state. Mixed together they are disordered. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that no matter how hard you try, you can't unmix the coffee and get the cream back out.-"The Second Law of Thermodynamics is the reason you can't go back to the past. The universe, like an unmixed cup of coffee, started in an extremely ordered state. Over time, the universe mixed together and became less ordered, like what happens when you stir the coffee. Going back in time is unmixing; it can't be done. The universe can't be 'unmixed'.-"What this means, ultimately, is that time only exists because the Big Bang created a universe that started out ordered. If the universe was disordered from the beginning, there would be nothing left to mix and time would not exist. This also means that someday in the far distant future, once everything in the universe gets mixed for good, time will disappear completely."-Comment: A non-mental explanation. Check out the video explanation:-https://youtu.be/_X7hxlJTkis

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QUOTES: The Second Law of Thermodynamics does imply a direction. The Second Law states that over time, everything moves from an ordered state to a disordered state. It's the only physical law that can't go backwards.-The universe, like an unmixed cup of coffee, started in an extremely ordered state. Over time, the universe mixed together and became less ordered, like what happens when you stir the coffee. Going back in time is unmixing; it can't be done. The universe can't be 'unmixed'.-"What this means, ultimately, is that time only exists because the Big Bang created a universe that started out ordered. If the universe was disordered from the beginning, there would be nothing left to mix and time would not exist. This also means that someday in the far distant future, once everything in the universe gets mixed for good, time will disappear completely."-I think most of us would agree that our own solar system is in such good order that it allows life, which itself demands an astonishingly ordered system. Does Sean Carroll honestly believe that our ordered solar system and life itself were present at the moment of the Big Bang (if it happened)? The order of our solar system and of life itself is the result of mixed ingredients, and the fact that we can't reverse the order of events that have happened is irrelevant. As far as this naïve non-physicist is concerned, the history of the universe appears to show an ongoing sequence of disorder - order - disorder. Yes, all order moves to a disordered state, but order appears to have arisen out of disorder (e.g. disordered individual components without life are combined into an order that gives life). This means that there is a continuous process of cause and effect, of before and after, in which case the only way time will disappear is if the universe itself disappears and there is absolutely nothing left.

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> dhw: I think most of us would agree that our own solar system is in such good order that it allows life, which itself demands an astonishingly ordered system. Does Sean Carroll honestly believe that our ordered solar system and life itself were present at the moment of the Big Bang (if it happened)? The order of our solar system and of life itself is the result of mixed ingredients, and the fact that we can't reverse the order of events that have happened is irrelevant. As far as this naïve non-physicist is concerned, the history of the universe appears to show an ongoing sequence of disorder - order - disorder. Yes, all order moves to a disordered state, but order appears to have arisen out of disorder (e.g. disordered individual components without life are combined into an order that gives life). This means that there is a continuous process of cause and effect, of before and after, in which case the only way time will disappear is if the universe itself disappears and there is absolutely nothing left.-The 2nd Law is quite specific that in a isolated closed system energy dissipates. In an open system like the Earth and the Sun, the Earth continuously receives new energy and can develop more organization and complexity.-Sean Carroll is using the Big Bang energy plasma as pure and perfectly ordered to start with as the universe evolves. His statements are correct.

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A new book proposes that since space time is always expanding it is always making new time and since we live in spacetime, 'now' is at the edge of expansion:-https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160921121234.htm-"Space is not the only thing expanding, Muller says; spacetime is expanding. And we are surfing the crest of that wave, what we call "now."-"'Every moment, the universe gets a little bigger, and there is a little more time, and it is this leading edge of time that we refer to as now," he writes. "The future does not yet exist  it is being created. Now is at the boundary, the shock front, the new time that is coming from nothing, the leading edge of time."-"Because the future doesn't yet exist, we can't travel into the future, he asserts. He argues, too, that going back in time is equally improbable, since to reverse time you would have to decrease, at least locally, the amount of space in the universe.-***-"a paper posted online June 25 that explains the theory in more detail -- using mathematics -- and proposes a way to test it using LIGO, an experiment that detects gravitational waves created by merging black holes.-"If Muller and Maguire are right, then when two black holes merge and create new space, they should also create new time, which would delay the gravitational wave signal LIGO observes from Earth.-"'The coalescing of two black holes creates millions of cubic miles of new space, which means a one-time creation of new time," Muller said.-***-"The dominant idea today for the direction of time came from Arthur Eddington, who helped validate Einstein's general theory of relativity. Eddington put forward the idea that time flows in the direction of increasing disorder in the universe, or entropy. Because the Second Law of Thermodynamics asserts that entropy can never decrease, time always increases.-"Entropy and time
 
"This idea has been the go-to explanation since. Even Stephen Hawking, in his book A Brief History of Time, doesn't address the issue of the flow of time, other than to say that it's "self-evident" that increasing time comes from increasing entropy.
Muller argues, however, that it is not self-evident: it is just wrong. Life and everything we do on Earth, whether building houses or making teacups, involves decreasing the local entropy, even though the total entropy of the universe increases. "We are constantly discarding excess entropy like garbage, throwing it off to infinity in the form of heat radiation," Muller says. "The entropy of the universe does indeed go up, but the local entropy, the entropy of the Earth and life and civilization, is constantly decreasing." (my bold)-"'During my first big experiment, the measurement of the cosmic microwave radiation, I realized there is 10 million times more entropy in that radiation than there is in all of the mass of the universe, and it's not changing with time. Yet time is progressing," he said. "The idea that the arrow of time is set by entropy does not make any predictions, it is simply a statement of a correlation. And to claim it is causation makes no sense.'"-Comment: Note my bold about entropy. Good explanation. This theory says Sean Carroll is wrong.

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dhw: As far as this naïve non-physicist is concerned, the history of the universe appears to show an ongoing sequence of disorder - order - disorder. Yes, all order moves to a disordered state, but order appears to have arisen out of disorder (e.g. disordered individual components without life are combined into an order that gives life). This means that there is a continuous process of cause and effect, of before and after, in which case the only way time will disappear is if the universe itself disappears and there is absolutely nothing left.-DAVID: The 2nd Law is quite specific that in a isolated closed system energy dissipates. In an open system like the Earth and the Sun, the Earth continuously receives new energy and can develop more organization and complexity.
Sean Carroll is using the Big Bang energy plasma as pure and perfectly ordered to start with as the universe evolves. His statements are correct. -Here again are the statements (my bold):
QUOTES: The Second Law of Thermodynamics does imply a direction. The Second Law states that over time, everything moves from an ordered state to a disordered state. It's the only physical law that can't go backwards.-The universe, like an unmixed cup of coffee, started in an extremely ordered state. Over time, the universe mixed together and became less ordered, like what happens when you stir the coffee. Going back in time is unmixing; it can't be done. The universe can't be 'unmixed'.-"What this means, ultimately, is that time only exists because the Big Bang created a universe that started out ordered. If the universe was disordered from the beginning, there would be nothing left to mix and time would not exist. This also means that someday in the far distant future, once everything in the universe gets mixed for good, time will disappear completely."-Before we go any further, may I impose on your patience and ask you please to explain the following to me:-1)	what did the universe mix together? 
2)	Why does mixing leads to disorder, although mixing the ingredients of life leads to order before it moves into disorder?
3)	Similarly, if EVERYTHING moves from an ordered state to a disordered state, why did our system develop MORE organization instead of less? I'm not asking how - I'm challenging the statements which you say are correct.
4)	to take the opposite scenario, if the universe started out in disorder and then settled into order (which in turn became disorderly, since all matter disintegrates), why would this mean that the sequence of cause and effect, of before and after - which is time's arrow - would not exist?-xxxx-I've just read your new entry on this subject, saying that Carroll is wrong, and scientifically making some of the points I have tried to make myself. But since you were defending Carroll, I'd still appreciate your own answers to my questions.

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> dhw: I've just read your new entry on this subject, saying that Carroll is wrong, and scientifically making some of the points I have tried to make myself. But since you were defending Carroll, I'd still appreciate your own answers to my questions.-My point was that Carroll is using the concept of entropy correctly. I found this contradictory article which says entropy should not be used to define time. Time cannot be defined by physics and its formulas which can go it either direction with time and be correct. The concept of open and closed systems is what is correct for the 2nd Law. It was established over 100 years ago re' steam engines. Carroll is Delete repeated word correct Delete repeated word the universe is running down Delete repeated word its own destruction. If you wish read both articles to see the differences.

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dhw: I've just read your new entry on this subject, saying that Carroll is wrong, and scientifically making some of the points I have tried to make myself. But since you were defending Carroll, I'd still appreciate your own answers to my questions.

DAVID: My point was that Carroll is using the concept of entropy correctly. I found this contradictory article which says entropy should not be used to define time. Time cannot be defined by physics and its formulas which can go it either direction with time and be correct. The concept of open and closed systems is what is correct for the 2nd Law. It was established over 100 years ago re' steam engines. Carroll is Delete repeated word correct Delete repeated word the universe is running down Delete repeated word its own destruction. If you wish read both articles to see the differences.-Something went wrong at the end of your post, but the basis seems clear to me. Obviously entropy does not explain how order comes out of disorder, so entropy is not the whole story, and if cause and effect are used as criteria for time's arrow, one cannot say that time would not exist if the universe hadn't been in perfect order to start with.

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> dhw: Something went wrong at the end of your post, but the basis seems clear to me. Obviously entropy does not explain how order comes out of disorder, so entropy is not the whole story, and if cause and effect are used as criteria for time's arrow, one cannot say that time would not exist if the universe hadn't been in perfect order to start with. - My writing program acts up at times. Sorry. Basically the universe is running down to end one day, entropy in action.

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dhw: Something went wrong at the end of your post, but the basis seems clear to me. Obviously entropy does not explain how order comes out of disorder, so entropy is not the whole story, and if cause and effect are used as criteria for time's arrow, one cannot say that time would not exist if the universe hadn't been in perfect order to start with. - DAVID: My writing program acts up at times. Sorry. Basically the universe is running down to end one day, entropy in action. - Hardly a startling new discovery. What was considerably more surprising was Carroll's claim that time would not exist if the universe had not been in perfect order to start with, and that over time the universe mixed together and became less ordered, even though over time the mixture resulted in the astonishing order that has resulted in life. I'm pleased to see I'm not alone in questioning his reasoning.

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> dhw: Hardly a startling new discovery. What was considerably more surprising was Carroll's claim that time would not exist if the universe had not been in perfect order to start with, and that over time the universe mixed together and became less ordered, even though over time the mixture resulted in the astonishing order that has resulted in life. I'm pleased to see I'm not alone in questioning his reasoning. - Entropy basically has to do with energy loss, but has been twisted into the issue of order and disorder. The input of energy from the sun into the Earth allowed the development of complexity and life.

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Time certainly is a series of instants. In view of quantum theory with delayed choice experimental results how to interpret this? No death!

https://aeon.co/ideas/there-is-no-death-only-a-series-of-eternal-nows?utm_source=Aeon+N...

"...our theory of the universe, called biocentrism, in which life and consciousness create the reality around them, has no space for death at all. To fully understand this, we need to go back to Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, one of the pillars of modern physics. An important consequence of his work is that the past, present and future are not absolutes, demolishing the idea of time as inviolable.

***

" We live in a succession of ‘Nows’. ‘We have the strong impression that [things] are there in definite positions relative to each other,’ says Barbour. ‘[But] there are Nows, nothing more, nothing less.’

***

"John Wheeler (who popularised the word ‘black hole’) also postulated that time is not a fundamental aspect of reality. In 2007, his ‘delayed-choice’ experiment showed that you could retroactively influence the past by altering a particle of light, called a photon, in the present. As light passed a fork in the experimental apparatus, it had to decide whether to behave like particles or waves. Later on (after the light had already passed the fork),a scientist could turn a switch on or off. What the scientist did at that moment retroactively determined what the particle actually did at the fork in the past.

"These and other experiments increasingly show that the flow of time is illusory. But how can we make sense of a world where time doesn’t exist? And what does it tell us about death?

"Biocentrism sheds some light. Werner Heisenberg, the eminent Nobel physicist who pioneered quantum mechanics, once said: ‘Contemporary science, today more than at any previous time, has been forced by nature herself to pose again the question of the possibility of comprehending reality by mental processes.’ It turns out that everything we see and experience is a whirl of information occurring in our head. We are not just objects embedded in some external matrix ticking away ‘out there’. Rather, space and time are the tools our mind uses to put it all together.

***

"So what happened to your great-grandmother after she died? To start with – since time doesn’t exist – there is no ‘after death’, except the death of her physical body in your now. Since everything is just nows, there is no absolute space/time matrix for her energy to dissipate – it’s simply impossible for her to have ‘gone’ anywhere.
(my bold)
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"Any causal history leading up to the ‘now’ being experienced can be thought of as the ‘past’, and any events that follow occur in the ‘future’; these parallel nows are said to be in superposition. Likewise, the before-death state, including your current life with its memories, goes back into superposition, into the part of the record that represents just information.

"In short, death does not actually exist. Instead, at death, we reach the imagined border of ourselves, the wooded boundary where, in the old fairy tale, the fox and the hare say goodnight to each other. And if death and time are illusions, so too is the continuity in the connection of nows. Where, then, do we find ourselves? On rungs that can be shuffled and reshuffled anywhere, ‘like those’, as Ralph Waldo Emerson put it in 1842, ‘that Hermes won with dice, of the Moon, that Osiris might be born.’

"Einstein knew this. In 1955, when his lifelong friend Michele Besso died, he wrote: ‘Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.’"

Comment: this quantum theory of what happens after hour body dies addresses the issue of the information in your consciousness. For me it goes back to the universal consciousness which is in a quantum state as the basis of the universe.

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DAVID: Time certainly is a series of instants. In view of quantum theory with delayed choice experimental results how to interpret this? No death!

https://aeon.co/ideas/there-is-no-death-only-a-series-of-eternal-nows?utm_source=Aeon+N...

QUOTE: "...our theory of the universe, called biocentrism, in which life and consciousness create the reality around them, has no space for death at all. To fully understand this, we need to go back to Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, one of the pillars of modern physics. An important consequence of his work is that the past, present and future are not absolutes, demolishing the idea of time as inviolable."

QUOTE: "So what happened to your great-grandmother after she died? To start with – since time doesn’t exist – there is no ‘after death’, except the death of her physical body in your now. Since everything is just nows, there is no absolute space/time matrix for her energy to dissipate – it’s simply impossible for her to have ‘gone’ anywhere."

So what happened to cause and effect? What happened to memory? There is no ‘after death’ does not mean there is no death. And if the death of the physical body is real, so is the birth of the physical body and the growth and ageing of the physical body, and so is every event that happens in the “now”. So what does all of this actually tell us? I’ll tell you what it tells me. My theory of the universe is not biocentric, and I do not believe my life and consciousness create the reality around me. I believe the sun, the moon, the stars exist independently of my life and consciousness, and my perception of them, no matter how subjective it may be, is not my creation of them. Whether the energy of my great-grandmother continues to exist or not is absolutely meaningless to me unless someone tells me whether by “energy” they mean my great-grandmother’s individual identity. If the death of her physical body means the death of her identity, then as far as I am concerned, she has ‘gone’. I agree that time is a series of nows, but that does not in any way “demolish” the process of physical birth-life-death, or any other “reality” that follows the pattern of cause and effect. And cause and effect means that each now is an after that follows a before. That is the sequence I call “time”.

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dhw: So what happened to cause and effect? What happened to memory? There is no ‘after death’ does not mean there is no death. And if the death of the physical body is real, so is the birth of the physical body and the growth and ageing of the physical body, and so is every event that happens in the “now”. So what does all of this actually tell us? I’ll tell you what it tells me. My theory of the universe is not biocentric, and I do not believe my life and consciousness create the reality around me. I believe the sun, the moon, the stars exist independently of my life and consciousness, and my perception of them, no matter how subjective it may be, is not my creation of them. Whether the energy of my great-grandmother continues to exist or not is absolutely meaningless to me unless someone tells me whether by “energy” they mean my great-grandmother’s individual identity. If the death of her physical body means the death of her identity, then as far as I am concerned, she has ‘gone’. I agree that time is a series of nows, but that does not in any way “demolish” the process of physical birth-life-death, or any other “reality” that follows the pattern of cause and effect. And cause and effect means that each now is an after that follows a before. That is the sequence I call “time”.

I cannot disagree with your analysis. The problem he presents is a different interpretation of our reality and quantum reality in that he is viewing a living body as a vessel for consciousness, which can still exist after the body has died. That much fits my beliefs.

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