\TY-roh\, noun:
A beginner in learning; a novice.
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Unable to reconcile the hypothetical situation brought up the other day, I'm going to explore it here.
What I drew in class was a line, with the number 3 at the beginning of it (to represent our 3 dimensional world), and at the end of the line drew a perpendicular one, to bring it to a full stop. This is where spacetime (as represented by the line) theoretically stops, or at the very least every moving thing does. This is just a philosophical consideration--who knows how or why everything would stop moving, but it does. Literally everything in the third dimension.
Then I drew the line onward, and drew another perpendicular line, to represent when time begins again. And I wondered--would such a thing be instantaneous, or only to the things within it that have stopped moving? Conceivably, it would be much like sci-fi or fantasy notions of stopping time--everything stops moving, but for the people within, when it starts again, no 'time' has passed at all.
Thus, the line carving the start and stop would seem, to those moving, to be one line. But then I drew another line, alongside the first, with all the same provisions, except no line where motion stops. This is an alternate universe, and I put a rock and an observer in it. Now, when the first universe stops moving, time/motion does not stop for the second, so conceivably (should they have extra-dimensional perception), someone standing the second reality could recognize the complete lack of motion in the other universe as time passing, but only in their own.
So can it be said that time still moves, even if that universe is not moving at all? But still, something must be introduced as moving to recognize that time is passing at all (this second universe). But this is not to say that without the second universe, time would not pass (as it needn't an observer, I think, to function). Thus, the "time" occurring in the full stop of motion would be relative to a different perspective: a different sort of relative time. But here I've confused myself again, as time is intrinsically related to space, and without space as a referent for bending time, how can we know how and if time continues to progress without motion?
Perhaps there is some way to measure time without the bend of space: time certainly seems intrinsically related (embodied as this wildly different other dimension in making calculations about space), but not necessarily confined to solely the movement of space? I don't know. Obviously I can theorize that time continues to move while motion stops but I have no idea what we would then think of time. But perhaps I'm just running myself in circles because I don't have enough information.
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5 comments:
When you ad the second universe, it gets sticky. You have placed an observer, and wisely a rock. The observer is what allows the perception of stop/continuity of time in the first place. But, if all motion stopped in universe A, and all motion continued in universe B, then time could not have stopped because there was still motion somewhere. But then to those in the frozen universe, how could a change in time be accounted for if all motion ceased?
"would such a thing be instantaneous", I would have to say yes. It is like trying to think about the space in between thoughts. You can never comprehend it, because you're already in a thought. There is a space in between thought, but it cannot be thought.
If the observer were able to say, visit the motionless universe while it was still. If he/she stood in front of a perceptive being while motion began again, the observer would appear as though out of thin air. Even if the observer was standing in front of the perceptive being for 2 Earth hours, the observers appearance to the perceptive being would be instantaneous. This leads me to believe that the entire cease of motion and its eventual restart of motion must be instantaneous. The stop and start must lie in the space between thought. Although this time increment may be larger than planck time, time treats life and non-life very differently. A day to a rock is un-relatable to that of a deer, bacteria, or human.
An entire cease of movement in all universes, in everything. No observing dimensions, no observing universes...All is subject to the cease of motion, then what? If it begins again, has time passed...If it truly would be an instant to any psychological mind, then no time would have passed?
blindfolded circles
-Nicholas
I share your bewilderment entirely!
But you must assume the visitor's visit takes time (involves movement of at least a cognitive variety); and so you reintroduce tacitly time as measurable by these unfolding events. There's no concievable way around permanently associating the two, in my view.
Thanks for helping me out in class today. I like reading your blog, its well written and interesting, with great points and background info.
I really appreciated your comment on my first one. I'll try to start commenting more, I'm still not quite used to blogging but I'm getting there :-)
Professor--I agree. I can't find a way around it.
Katherine: you are too kind, I appreciate the comment. I look forward to reading more of your entries--we seem to be on the same page often.
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