AgnosticWeb.com - Einstein and Time: Effect on Earth's core

Einstein and Time: Effect on Earth's core (reply)

David Turell — Thu, 26 May 2016 21:38:10 +0000

It has been calculated that the Earth's core is 2.5 years younger than the surface due to time dilatation, as predicted by Feynman.-http://phys.org/news/2016-05-earth-core-younger-thought.html-"A trio of researchers in Denmark has calculated the relative ages of the surface of the Earth versus its core and has found that the core is 2.5 years younger than the crust.-***-"During one of his famous lectures at Caltech in the 1960's, Richard Feynman remarked that due to time dilation, the Earth's core is actually younger than its crust—a difference he suggested that was likely a "day or two." Since that time, physicists have accepted both the notion that the core is younger than the surface, and the amount of time given by Feynman, without checking the math.-"General relativity suggests that really big objects, like planets and stars, actually warp the fabric of spacetime, which results in a gravitational pull capable of slowing down time. Thus, an object closer to Earth's center would feel a stronger pull—a clock set near the core would run slower than one placed at the surface, which means that the material that makes up the core is actually younger than the material that makes up the crust. This seems counterintuitive to our sense of reason. Such oddities have long been taken for granted in physics, as has the degree of time difference offered by Feynman during his lecture. In this new effort, the research trio ran the math to discover the actual number involved. They found that over the course of our planet's 4.5 billion year history, the pull of gravity causes the core to be approximately 2.5 years younger than the crust—ignoring geological processes, of course."-Comment: The universe is as weird as ever.

Einstein and Time (reply)

dhw — Tue, 03 May 2016 15:37:25 +0000

DAVID: Another essay which points out that time is a series of 'nows' and death is the last now for that person:-https://aeon.co/opinions/there-is-no-death-only-a-series-of-eternal-nows?utm_source=Aeo...-QUOTE: "And if death and time are illusions, so too is the continuity in the connection of nows. Where, then, do we find ourselves?" -Quote: "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.'"-I think it was Romansh some time ago who drew a nice distinction between illusion and delusion. The former = not what it seems; the latter = plain wrong. In both cases, though, you can only make the judgement if you actually know the reality. Shame, then, on Einstein for claiming that physicists “know” that the distinction between past, present and future is an illusion. The most they can possibly claim is that they believe it's an illusion. Personally, I do not believe that death and time are illusions, and the fact that time is a sequence of nows does not invalidate the sequence of cause and effect, which I see as depending on a continuity of before-now-after, or past-present-future. Back to our epistemology thread: we cannot know the objective truth; the nearest we can get is an intersubjective consensus on what is real. If time as past-present-future is real to me and some of my buddies and not to Einstein and some of his buddies, he has his belief and I have mine. That's as far as we can go.

Einstein and Time (reply)

David Turell — Mon, 02 May 2016 14:18:43 +0000

Another essay which points out that time is a series of 'nows' and death is the last now for that person:-https://aeon.co/opinions/there-is-no-death-only-a-series-of-eternal-nows?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=7590d0ab15-Daily_Newsletter_02_May_20165_2_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-7590d0ab15-68942561-"If you try to get your hands on time,' said the physicist Julian Barbour, ‘it's always slipping through your fingers. People are sure that it's there but they can't get hold of it. Now my feeling is that they can't get hold of it because it isn't there at all.'-"He and many other physicists see each individual moment as a whole, complete and existing in its own right. 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.'-"Indeed, Einstein's colleague, 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.-***-" 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.-"Of course, as you're reading this, you're experiencing a ‘now'. But consider: from your great-grandmother's perspective, your nows exist in her future and her great-grandmother's nows exist in her past. The words ‘past' and ‘future' are just ideas relative to each individual observer.-***-"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? -***-"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: In pure physics time is an arrow in both directions. God doesn't exist, but if He does, physics' conclusions are wrong.

Einstein and Time: The \"reality\" of math (reply)

David Turell — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:10:25 +0000

David, > > I guess I don't really see how you're getting from A to B here... could you enlighten me?-See the two following posts.

Einstein and Time: The \"reality\" of math (reply)

xeno6696 — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:37:11 +0000

David,-I guess I don't really see how you're getting from A to B here... could you enlighten me?

Einstein and Time: The \"reality\" of math (reply)

David Turell — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 15:24:25 +0000

MATT: If God is part of the universe, then God IS the universe. If God is separate from the universe, then God is not part of the universe. These are the only two possible distinctions. > > DAVID: I agree that God is the universe, as you interpret it. > > I am struggling with the logic of this. With regard to Matt's statement, if God is part of the universe, then there must be parts of the universe that are not God. Therefore God is NOT the universe. With regard to David's statement, if God IS the universe as Matt interprets it, God could not have created the universe. I was always under the impression, David, that you thought God HAD created the universe. > > There is a third possibility, however, which reconciles the two ideas and which I think is actually David's concept. If God exists, he IS the universe in the sense that he is the primal energy that has always existed and that consciously transforms itself into the matter which we call the universe. Atheists believe that the primal energy is not conscious, and that is the difference between theists and atheists.-I've produced the last post by dhw completely. I am not a logician with strict worry about every nuance. I don't care if Matt uses the word 'part'. dhw is correct in his paragraph as to my concept. And I have it at the end of the post he is commenting on:- "It fits my idea that the universe is really mind and consciousness. I don't believe that inorganic material can become alive and invent consciousness, unless consciousness already exists." That mind of course is God, who must be the first cause. It is nice that dhw has delved so deeply into my thinking that he must explain me to me! As I have always stated I know what I believe even if it doesn't sound logical to others. I'm with Alban in La Cage, 'I am what I am". I do appreciate dhw's efforts, don't be mistaken about that, and perhaps he is interpreting me for others on the website. I am only a simple former physician following my nose in my own diagnostic way!

Einstein and Time: The \"reality\" of math (reply)

dhw — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 08:26:52 +0000

MATT: If God is part of the universe, then God IS the universe. If God is separate from the universe, then God is not part of the universe. These are the only two possible distinctions.-DAVID: I agree that God is the universe, as you interpret it.-I am struggling with the logic of this. With regard to Matt's statement, if God is part of the universe, then there must be parts of the universe that are not God. Therefore God is NOT the universe. With regard to David's statement, if God IS the universe as Matt interprets it, God could not have created the universe. I was always under the impression, David, that you thought God HAD created the universe.-There is a third possibility, however, which reconciles the two ideas and which I think is actually David's concept. If God exists, he IS the universe in the sense that he is the primal energy that has always existed and that consciously transforms itself into the matter which we call the universe. Atheists believe that the primal energy is not conscious, and that is the difference between theists and atheists.

Einstein and Time: The \"reality\" of math (reply)

David Turell — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 06:43:29 +0000

> It goes back to the basic discussion we had regarding panentheism/pantheism and the universe. Existence/nonexistence. > > If God is part of the universe, then God IS the universe. If God is separate from the universe, than God is not part of the universe. These are the only two possible distinctions. -I agree that God is the universe, as you interpret it. > > It really comes down to, do you take the western notion of a completely transcendent God (Abrahamic) or the all-inclusive God is "in everything." -Yes, God is everything, the way you state it. > > As for the reality of math, you need to go back to an ancient post I had. You're conflating Physics with Mathematics. > > Mathematics is language only. Mathematics, is ultimately "made up." We use it to describe the world in physics. As I've asked before, should we be surprised that the most precise language ever invented can precisely describe the world? -I'm not surprised. But I understand that math is conceptual, to be found. The concepts always exist and we discover them because we have consciousness can can conceptualize. > > If you push deep enough into the structure of mathematics, you will ultimately ascertain that the foundation or bedrock of mathematics itself is based on tautologies... Not on observation. As a computer scientist I have to be intimately aware of the "nature of numbers." The superstructure of mathematics is ultimately based on pure, raw logic. The corollary of this is that if math has a "real" and "independent" existence, then a mathematical "theory of everything" isn't just plausible--it necessarily exists! > > However, Godel's incompleteness theorem forever shut the door on the Platonic view that there was a "mathematical reality." This contradicts the notion that a "theory of everything" exists. Well. In mathematical terms. Enter Physics: the counter-claim to my position is that physics isn't an axiomatic system. Therefore, a theory of everything can exist. But Godel still constrains this view, because if you ditch axioms, then you have to have inconsistencies and holes in your understanding. -Understood. > > This property of "twoness" is however abstract, a relationship that doesn't really exist outside of the realm of the observer's mind. -That makes perfect sense.-> > All of that is really a fancy way of saying this: I think your real point is that you're amazed that we can predict events in our universe. But even if you study malformed universes--they still all behave predictably. In short, predictability is a necessary property of existence itself, and I don't think we should be amazed at that.-I am amazed at predictability, but math viewed the way you point out makes perfect sense. It fits my idea that the universe is really mind and consciousness. I don't believe that inorganic material can become alive and invent consciousness, unless consciousness already exists. Thank you for this post!

Einstein and Time: The \"reality\" of math (reply)

xeno6696 — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 18:54:21 +0000

This universe and/or any other multiverses had a beginning: > > > > > > > > > http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27793/ > > > > The corollary: God is finite. > > Unless He is eternal and outside the math, which He created. The reality of math is that it exists whether we are here or not to discover it. I know yhou know that. We only discover it, not invent it.-It goes back to the basic discussion we had regarding panentheism/pantheism and the universe. Existence/nonexistence. -If God is part of the universe, then God IS the universe. If God is separate from the universe, than God is not part of the universe. These are the only two possible distinctions. -It really comes down to, do you take the western notion of a completely transcendent God (Abrahamic) or the all-inclusive God is "in everything." -There is no mixture. -As for the reality of math, you need to go back to an ancient post I had. You're conflating Physics with Mathematics. -Mathematics is language only. Mathematics, is ultimately "made up." We use it to describe the world in physics. As I've asked before, should we be surprised that the most precise language ever invented can precisely describe the world? -If you push deep enough into the structure of mathematics, you will ultimately ascertain that the foundation or bedrock of mathematics itself is based on tautologies... Not on observation. As a computer scientist I have to be intimately aware of the "nature of numbers." The superstructure of mathematics is ultimately based on pure, raw logic. The corollary of this is that if math has a "real" and "independent" existence, then a mathematical "theory of everything" isn't just plausible--it necessarily exists!-However, Godel's incompleteness theorem forever shut the door on the Platonic view that there was a "mathematical reality." This contradicts the notion that a "theory of everything" exists. Well. In mathematical terms. Enter Physics: the counter-claim to my position is that physics isn't an axiomatic system. Therefore, a theory of everything can exist. But Godel still constrains this view, because if you ditch axioms, then you have to have inconsistencies and holes in your understanding. -To try and communicate the ephemeral quality of mathematics: If you take a pencil, and then take a glass. Set them down. -What does mathematics allow you to do? Just to say that you have "two" objects in front of you. -This property of "twoness" is however abstract, a relationship that doesn't really exist outside of the realm of the observer's mind. It is extremely difficult to be able to determine if the property you're discussing with mathematics is one based only upon logic or based on observation. An entire study of the philosophy of mathematics is in fact, predicated on exactly this kind of study. And it's NOT a fun read. Even for me. -All of that is really a fancy way of saying this: I think your real point is that you're amazed that we can predict events in our universe. But even if you study malformed universes--they still all behave predictably. In short, predictability is a necessary property of existence itself, and I don't think we should be amazed at that.

Einstein and Time; Vilenkin is back!! (reply)

David Turell — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 04:03:34 +0000

This universe and/or any other multiverses had a beginning: > > > > > > http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27793/ > > The corollary: God is finite.-Unless He is eternal and outside the math, which He created. The reality of math is that it exists whether we are here or not to discover it. I know yhou know that. We only discover it, not invent it.

Einstein and Time; Vilenkin is back!! (reply)

xeno6696 — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 01:39:38 +0000

This universe and/or any other multiverses had a beginning: > > > http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27793/-The corollary: God is finite.

Einstein and Time; Vilenkin is back!! (reply)

David Turell — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 01:17:34 +0000

This universe and/or any other multiverses had a beginning:- http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27793/

Einstein and Time (reply)

dhw — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:42:44 +0000

ROMANSH: My two cents worth (or tuppence in the inflationary UK). I don't have a good handle on the concept of time - relativity and more importantly evidence that supports relativity shows me that time is not as I perceive it. Almost by definition an illusion. But is it a delusion? I don't know. I have a sense of colour, pain, free will, dualism, self and much, much more. Plainly these things are not as they seem. Adding time to that list is no big deal.-I'm with you in adding time to the long list of subjective perceptions, but that doesn't mean that WHAT we perceive doesn't have a reality of its own. Our overall problem is that we simply can't be sure of the extent to which our perceptions correspond to that reality. As regards time, we need to distinguish between the different concepts. I'm not arguing against relativity, or the subjectivity of human perception and measurement. My point is that without time as a continuum in which events happen in a sequence of cause-effect-cause-effect etc., of before and after, of future becoming present becoming past, we negate all the findings and observations of the sciences and of human experience, which constitute the only access we have to the universe. That is what I call the philosophical level, on which NOTHING is real, and it ends all discussion. In the English-speaking world, the word we've invented to describe the above sequence is "time". And so, as I keep asking our time-sceptics, if you accept the reality of that sequence, and if you actually believe as I do that it went on before we humans were here and will continue after we humans have gone, what other word would you use to describe it?

Einstein and Time (reply)

romansh — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 21:46:00 +0000

My two cents worth (or tuppence in the inflationary UK).-I don't have a good handle on the concept of time - relativity and more importantly evidence that supports relativity shows me that time is not as I perceive it. Almost by definition an illusion. But is it a delusion? -I don't know.-I have a sense of colour, pain, free will, dualism, self and much, much more. Plainly these things are not as they seem. Adding time to that list is no big deal.-rom

Einstein and Time (reply)

dhw — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:54:57 +0000

STRANGELOOP: I too wrestled with these issues. That was until I stumbled across a web-site that changed my whole way of thinking about time and our relation to it. I strongly urge anybody interested in this topic to familiarize themselves with the truly profound writings of Michael Hoffman found at his web-site: www.egodeath.com Don't let the domain name fool you - this guy knows his stuff!-Thank you for this, strangeloop. I haven't had time to read the whole article yet, but from what I've seen so far, it's certainly an original approach we haven't discussed before! I'll get back to you in the next couple of days, but in the meantime, a warm welcome to the forum.

Einstein and Time (reply)

strangeloop — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 03:51:32 +0000

I too wrestled with these issues. That was until I stumbled across a web-site that changed my whole way of thinking about time and our relation to it. I strongly urge anybody interested in this topic to familiarize themselves with the truly profound writings of Michael Hoffman found at his web-site: www.egodeath.com Don't let the the domain name fool you - this guy knows his stuff!

Einstein and Time (reply)

dhw — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 20:58:21 +0000

I'm feeling a little guilty at having tried to bully Matt into answering three loaded questions concerning the reality of time. (Sorry, Matt.) -It might perhaps be fairer if I develop my answer to the question you posed in your post of 8 February at 00.26: "How can you possibly argue that time is "real" outside of conscious human existence...outside of the observation of phenomena?" I did respond to this on 12 February at 14.21, but the subject was not followed up, and it seems to me so fundamental to our discussion that it needs to be highlighted.-Our concepts of reality can hardly be based on anything other than human observation and the inferences we draw from our observations. Another of your comments was: "...there is no objective reality for time." In most areas of life we have no way of knowing whether our observations and inferences correspond to objective reality. But that doesn't mean that our concepts are wrong. As you have pointed out yourself, six witnesses describing an accident will give six different accounts, but the subjectivity and relativity of their observations does not mean that the accident itself wasn't "real".-As far as time is concerned, we have agreed that there is no objective way of measuring it, because it's always relative to its context and to the situation of its observer. But there is also a general consensus that things change, and the something DURING which they change is what we humans have always called "time". This applies as much to the birth and death of stars as it does to our own movement from babyhood to old age. -The discussion we're having hinges on definitions and hierarchies. What form of "time" are we talking about (see above), and what do we consider to be "reality"? Of course we humans do create our own realities (and woe betide you if you ignore them!) ... money, machines, jobs, art ... which in relation to the cosmos have no "reality". If there were no humans, none of these would exist. But my (subjective) view is that you can't say the same about time, because even if there were no humans, I firmly believe there would still be a moment-to-moment-to-moment sequence (which we call "time") in the course of which present conditions would change to past. I would even go so far as to say that without that sequence, you and I would not be here. My three questions still apply, but I hope this will be a gentler way of explaining why I feel I have to ask them.

Einstein and Time (reply)

dhw — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:23:54 +0000

MATT: The differences here aren't philosophical as you keep insisting. Relativity is an experimentally verified phenomenon. Clocks run slower orbiting the earth, because reality is different there. Screams of dismay, disbelief, despair, dis AND dat. Am I an illusion? Are you an illusion? Is everything an illusion? I speak, but no-one answers. I am alone in the universe. But I am British. Stiff upper lip. Never give up. If at first you don't succeed...If at the one hundredth time you don't succeed...Once more unto the breach, dear friends...-Matt, nobody has the authority to make statements like "Time is necessarily separate from the sequence of events", or "Time requires an observer". It all depends what you mean by "time", so please listen carefully to the following points as I make them for the umpteenth "time": 1) I have never questioned relativity or any of the examples of it that you have given. 2) I am not talking about clock time. 3) There are many different uses of the word "time". The time I am talking about is: a sequence in which the not yet existing future becomes an existing present that becomes a no longer existing past. (Similar definitions of "time" are to be found in multiple, perfectly respectable sources.)-Now here are three questions for you:-1) Do you believe in the reality of the sequence defined in Point 3) above? 2) If you do, what do you call it? 3) Do you believe, as I do, that even if there were no humans, this sequence would continue to occur in the universe (e.g. the birth and death of stars)?-Are you with me, Matt? Have you read and understood the questions? Please answer questions 1) and 3) with yes or no, and I promise I won't tell Einstein.

Einstein and Time (reply)

David Turell — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:05:46 +0000

And as one of my new favorite physicists Gevin Giorbran echoes, "A creator simply moves the question of existence back one layer. Instead of 'why is there something rather than nothing,' we then ask 'why is there a creator rather than nothing?'" It is no more a solution the the problem than many worlds or many universes. And though he writes agnostic to creators, he asks, "Why then, couldn't a universe--a simpler object than the creator--also be uncreated?"-The great disparate authorites in theology always describe the creator as pure simplicity. This is one of the great divides: atheists want God complicated. Religions claim He isn't! > > Giorbran starts his book with a discussion about "nothing," and I think it will breathe some fresh life into our discussion as well... Your homework question is to come up with some thoughts about why "Nothing" is necessarily simpler, more primordial than "something." What is "nothing?" > (This one goes for you too David...)-Anything, something has a cause of existence. Nothing does not exist, has no cause and is necessarily simpler. Very simple and very complex are two poles of a comtinuum.

Einstein and Time (reply)

David Turell — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 01:23:57 +0000

> I will be discussing this next in more detail, but Giorbran flatly states that we confuse the idea of "nothing" with "nonexistence." The former is always tied by language to some object. The latter is completely unfathomable. "There's nothing in the refrigerator" presupposes that objects exist, only they aren't present. > > There is no "void" that we can possibly fathom. And even the existence of a God is necessarily--not "void." -I await your next explanation of Giorbran's thinking.