[QUOTE=Anubis678;29024957]Oh no, I understand the quote perfectly well.
Explain why that wasn't your point.[/QUOTE]
Apparently not since you twisted a quote that is stating the exact opposite of what I think you are into what you think is an argument for your point but okay.
Memories, the past, the future, blah blah blah don't give a shit doesn't matter. Time could go by at 5 times the speed it seems to now and it would make no physical difference. So why does it pass at the rate it does? Why does time pass how it does, versus 80 years going by in what seems like 5 minutes does to us now? Is it entirely a perception issue, or is time forced to tick by at a given rate?
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;29025143]Time could go by at 5 times the speed it seems to now and it would make no physical difference. So why does it pass at the rate it does? Why does time pass how it does, versus 80 years going by in what seems like 5 minutes does to us now? Is it entirely a perception issue, or is time forced to tick by at a given rate?[/QUOTE]
What is time and what is the passing of the time? You cannot define a concept and then use your own definition to back up your argument.
What is the current speed of time? How quickly is time passing?
The perception of the passage of time is subjective to each individual, and to each moment in which the passage of time is observed. Surely you've experienced periods of time where minutes felt like hours, or vice-versa. But that's just the subjective nature of time. Does there exist an objective nature of time?
What is a year? It's a means of measuring the passage of time. A "year" is one of many concepts created to quantify the passage of time. How do you quantify 80 years' time outside of our constructed measurements of time?
What Manhattan was saying is the human perception of time is wrong. The whole history of everything is one big long geometrical object, and we're just seeing it a time-slice at a time instead of how it really is. If you don't believe time is one big continuum stretching from past to future than he is saying precisely the opposite of what you are.
[editline]6th April 2011[/editline]
[QUOTE=Anubis678;29025387]How do you quantify 80 years' time outside of our constructed measurements of time?[/QUOTE]
The duration of 23,191,906,839,897,600,000 oscillations of a cesium-133 atom between the levels of its ground state. Time is objectively quantified. The rate at which it passes can be objectively quantified between relative frames of reference. My question is, is the rate at which time seems to pass for an observer determined entirely by the person's consciousness or is there an objective rate at which time passes which is modified slightly by our perception? If the second one exists, why is it what it is?
You seem to be asking the same questions as me and acting like I'm saying something else.
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;29025407]What Manhattan was saying is the human perception of time is wrong. The whole history of everything is one big long geometrical object, and we're just seeing it a time-slice at a time instead of how it really is. If you don't believe time is one big continuum stretching from past to future than he is saying precisely the opposite of what you are.[/QUOTE]
Haha wow, that's not what he's saying at all...
Instead of looking at time as a line, look at it as a single point. Look at the line as a whole, every event happening simultaneously.
"Yesterday" exists only because we've conditioned ourselves to look at existences in terms of "now" and "not now."
[QUOTE=Anubis678;29025580]Haha wow, that's not what he's saying at all...[/QUOTE]
Have you actually read Watchmen?
[editline]6th April 2011[/editline]
It's literally not ambiguous at all, that is definitely what he is saying.
[editline]6th April 2011[/editline]
By the by, not only is the rate at which time passes relative, but simultaneity is relative as well. Two observers in different reference frames can witness two events occurring at different relative times and both be correct. It's hard to claim that everything could just be happening simultaneously if happening simultaneously is affected by your motion through space.
Yes, I have. I've got it sitting in my lap at this very moment.
I just went and re-read the chapter in question.
[editline]6th April 2011[/editline]
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;29025407]What Manhattan was saying is the human perception of time is wrong. The whole history of everything is one big long geometrical object, and we're just seeing it a time-slice at a time instead of how it really is. If you don't believe time is one big continuum stretching from past to future than he is saying precisely the opposite of what you are.[/QUOTE]
Alright, I'm going to need you to explain what you mean by "one big long geometrical object" and "time-slice"
[QUOTE=Anubis678;29025922]Yes, I have. I've got it sitting in my lap at this very moment.
I just went and re-read the chapter in question.[/QUOTE]
As did I.
[QUOTE=Anubis678;29025922]Alright, I'm going to need you to explain what you mean by "one big long geometrical object" and "time-slice"[/QUOTE]
I figured it would come to that at some point. Give me a few minutes to make a diagram.
Alright, thanks
Time does exist, and it's relative.
That explains why there's no set "direction" for time to run in.
I came here because of science.
[editline]7th April 2011[/editline]
Actually, "time" is the human measuring system made to quantify time, so in a way that does not exist.
Spacetime is the physical definition of what defines time itself, and that is what JohnnyMo is referring to.
Most people just call that "time" as well, to simplify things.
[QUOTE=Anubis678;29025973]Alright, thanks[/QUOTE]
Actually, I'm not sure I'm artistic enough to illustrate it so I will explain what I mean and I have a picture as an aid.
Imagine you have a sphere in a 3d space. Next to that sphere is a plane. The sphere moves toward the plane and, when it reaches it, through it. A flat person, confined to the plane, who can't see the sphere hovering in space, sees a point expand into a circle and shrink back to a point and disappear as the sphere passes through the plane. From the outside, we can see the whole thing going on, the sphere moving through and everything, but the flat person is stuck seeing the strange expanding and contracting ring.
Now imagine the same thing except rather than a sphere, it's the history of a person. It starts as a baby and progresses through life until it becomes and old man. Every moment is right on top of the next one, forming a big, continuous, centipede-like timey-wimey thing. It looks kind of like this (except that this is only a short interval of time):
[IMG]http://i51.tinypic.com/35lywxk.jpg[/IMG]
This passes through the plane and the 2D observer sees it begin as a child, and grow until it eventually gets old and ends. At any moment, the flat person sees only one "slice" of this history, the part that is intersecting the plane. (That's what I meant by time-slice.) We are the flat observer on the plane, seeing it a slice at a time. Dr. Manhattan is us, looking at the whole history-centipede passing through the plane. He can see the time-evolution of everything at once. That's why Ozymandias uses the tachyons to throw off his predictive abilities, otherwise Dr. Manhattan would already know how everything would play out. We see things in the whole Mars chapter from his perspective. The photograph falling in the past is still there, as part of the long history-object.
[editline]6th April 2011[/editline]
My question was, why is the object (history) going through the plane as fast as it is? Why not faster? Why not slower? Does it make a difference, or is it all down to perception?
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;29026187]Actually, I'm not sure I'm artistic enough to illustrate it so I will explain what I mean and I have a picture as an aid.
[img_thumb]http://i51.tinypic.com/35lywxk.jpg[/img_thumb]
[/QUOTE]
Looks like Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase, No 2"
[IMG]http://www.beatmuseum.org/duchamp/images/nude2.jpg[/IMG]
It's a representation of the same thing. I was going to use that but that's a liiiittle difficult to decipher what the fuck is going on.
[editline]6th April 2011[/editline]
I am enjoying this discussion.
[editline]6th April 2011[/editline]
Even though it's too intense and argumentative at times.
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;29026187]This passes through the plane and the 2D observer sees it begin as a child, and grow until it eventually gets old and ends. At any moment, the flat person sees only one "slice" of this history, the part that is intersecting the plane. (That's what I meant by time-slice.) We are the flat observer on the plane, seeing it a slice at a time. Dr. Manhattan is us, looking at the whole history-centipede passing through the plane. He can see the time-evolution of everything at once. That's why Ozymandias uses the tachyons to throw off his predictive abilities, otherwise Dr. Manhattan would already know how everything would play out. We see things in the whole Mars chapter from his perspective. The photograph falling in the past is still there, as part of the long history-object.[/QUOTE]
Well said. Yeah, it seems like we were mostly getting at the same thing, I was just getting tied up on the words and notions, and seriously misinterpreting what you were saying.
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;29026187]My question was, why is the object (history) going through the plane as fast as it is? Why not faster? Why not slower? Does it make a difference, or is it all down to perception?[/QUOTE]
What if it is all simultaneous, as well? Just as we can only see a time-slice of our own "level" of existence, so can Dr. Manhattan only see a time-slice of his own.
I dunno. I've probably already more than established that my understanding of the subject is lack-luster, at best.
[editline]6th April 2011[/editline]
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;29026230]I am enjoying this discussion.
[editline]6th April 2011[/editline]
Even though it's too intense and argumentative at times.[/QUOTE]
Haha, I don't mean for it to be argumentative. I apologize.
[QUOTE=Anubis678;29026351]Well said. Yeah, it seems like we were mostly getting at the same thing, I was just getting tied up on the words and notions, and seriously misinterpreting what you were saying.[/QUOTE]
That's the thing that sucks about arguments like these. Meaning gets buried in so much language it's hard to distinguish the minute differences in what people are arguing.
[QUOTE=Anubis678;29026351]What if it is all simultaneous, as well? Just as we can only see a time-slice of our own "level" of existence, so can Dr. Manhattan only see a time-slice of his own.
I dunno. I've probably already more than established that my understanding of the subject is lack-luster, at best.[/QUOTE]
INCEPTION.
[QUOTE=Anubis678;29026351]Haha, I don't mean for it to be argumentative. I apologize.[/QUOTE]
Well not just you. Me too. And Lenni.
Here, let Dr. Quantum and Carl Sagan do the work of explanation for you:
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWyTxCsIXE4[/media]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnURElCzGc0[/media]
Also this:
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q_GQqUg6Ts[/media]
Agh that imagining the tenth dimension video is so bad
get it out get it out
[editline]6th April 2011[/editline]
And Dr. Quantum is part of a stupid silly quantum mysticism movie.
Carl Sagan is great though.
I'm going to ban the both of you if you don't stop arguing!
[sp] Haha [/sp]
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;29026557]Agh that imagining the tenth dimension video is so bad
get it out get it out
[/QUOTE]
Why exactly?
[QUOTE=Jo The Shmo;29026894]Why exactly?[/QUOTE]
After about the 4th dimension or so everything it says is wrong
[editline]6th April 2011[/editline]
Up until then it's very good, however.
It says it in a pretty basic way, but that is one of the valid theories out there.
There's no "wrong" or "right" answer since we can never actually know what's in the 4th dimension, or even if it exists.
We can only think about it based on our best logic and knowledge of the third dimension.
We know what the fourth dimension is and that it exists. It's time. At least, that is what we commonly call the fourth dimension. Unless you mean the fourth spatial dimension.
It's still just a theory that time is the fourth dimension.
We know time exists, but not that it is its own dimension.
Everything in science is a theory or lower. Theory is tantamount to fact, in this case. Relativity is incredibly well-evidenced.
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;29027042]We know what the fourth dimension is and that it exists. It's time. At least, that is what we commonly call the fourth dimension.[/QUOTE]
The author of the video chooses to not describe time as a dimension and rather as a direction. He doesn't reject the idea of time as a dimension, but he prefers to call it a direction for conceptual reasons.
[URL="http://www.facepunch.com/"]View YouTUBE video[/URL]
[URL]http://youtube.com/watch?v=LDajcGcKiAM[/URL]
And here is also a video clarifying it.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfhOBevrN2U[/media]
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;29023150]If you move close to the speed of light, clocks in your frame of reference slow down. This is because time and space are actually combined into one 4-dimensional manifold. They're not separate, they're all part of one big thing, spacetime. You're always moving at a constant speed through spacetime: the speed of light. The faster you move through space, the slower you move through time to preserve that.[/QUOTE]
The clock part is wrong in this. In your frame of reference the clock would not slow down, but to observers outside of your frame of reference your clocks would, and from your frame of reference the observers clocks would slow down. First postulate of special relativity.
So, time is best conceptualized as another axis that matter can exist upon and move along - but why is that events develop in just a single direction on that axis?
SMARKED
[QUOTE=Godrek;29027673]The clock part is wrong in this. In your frame of reference the clock would not slow down, but to observers outside of your frame of reference your clocks would, and from your frame of reference the observers clocks would slow down. First postulate of special relativity.[/QUOTE]
But if it's not being measured by some outside observer, you're not moving with respect to light at all.
And whether their clocks seem to slow down to you depends on if your frame is inertial or not.
[editline]6th April 2011[/editline]
If you're going to nitpick about my poor wording I demand that I be right via technicality!
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;29028043]But if it's not being measured by some outside observer, you're not moving with respect to light at all.
And whether their clocks seem to slow down to you depends on if your frame is inertial or not.
[editline]6th April 2011[/editline]
If you're going to nitpick about my poor wording I demand that I be right via technicality![/QUOTE]
Well unless you happen to be accelerating you can't ever be sure you are moving with respect to something else. Just pointing out that in a spaceship going at the speed of light your clock would be fine... outside of the spaceship? You would see nothing as space would be contracted to a singularity
This thread just makes me think about how a perfect computer simulation of physics is slowed down by the fastest moving particle of the physics system. Each particle has to be simulated again for each Planck length it moves so a particle moving at 100 Planck lengths per second would have to be simulated 100 times for a second to go by while a particle moving at 1 Plank length per second would only have to be simulated once for a second to go by.
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