Other dimensions as an explanation.

[Thomas R Morrison]

Yes I got all that, but the point remains the same that there's a difference in the context between spatial dimensions and time as a "dimension" in a 4D coordinate system. In other words there's a big difference in context between saying that a location at point x,y,z,t has anything to do with area or volume. It's simply a point coordinate. Point coordinates have no size, therefore they have no area or volume. Also it's hypothetically possible for everything to exist without time. It's just that nothing would change. Just put the simulation on pause. From a perspective outside that universe, all spatial dimensions would remain perfectly intact, but because t=0, it's irrelevant to the spatial elements of the construct.

BTW, I enjoyed the podcast too. Good stuff. You should start a thread for it and post up some links and notifications of new episodes. I don't think Gene would mind ( maybe ask him to be sure ).

Just to add a quick point on time dilation. It seems to be a rather big mystery to most people why it takes place ( why being separate from the math that describes it ), but it seems rather obvious to me that the faster something is moving, the less it will change over the same distance as something moving slower. Or maybe it's just that there's a limit to the amount of change the processors in the system can deal with. At light speed maybe they're so busy calculating the location of an object that there's no time to calculate any changes in it's properties before the next iteration.

I like that you think about this stuff and look for new perspectives on it all. I do the same thing constantly - it's good to maintain the neuroplasticity, and it's endlessly educational (well, as long as you spend roughly 50% of your energy on figuring out where most new ideas have gone astray - which is excellent exercise).

I'm glad you enjoyed the podcast - I'm miserable that we don't have a title card yet, but we'll work it out eventually.

I think you're dead wrong about existence without time. Without time, there are no observations because there are no photons, and there's no measurement, or energy, or even mass (nearly all of the mass in the universe is actually kinetic energy - which doesn't exist without time, and the rest is attributed to the Higgs mechanism, which also doesn't work without time). There's no spatial dimensionality either because there are no reference points, since nothing can be observed. Nothing exists in zero time - it's the one dimension that physical reality can't do without. That's why I consider it to be the first dimension rather than the fourth.

There's a very instructive concept in physics called "four-velocity." Four-velocity is the rate of motion in all four dimensions. And it's always constant, C. From this perspective, you can never change your four-velocity: you can only change the ratio between spatial velocity and temporal velocity, which always yields your constant four-velocity (the speed of light). So if you're "at rest," then all of your velocity is through time. If you accelerate through space, then you decelerate through time, to precisely the same degree. That's the entire special theory of relativity in a nutshell right there. And the relationship between spatial velocity and temporal velocity plotted on the x and y axes defines a perfect circle with the radius of C. It's an incredibly compelling and powerful, elegant model. And if you try to model this stuff any differently, then you end up with an absolute rest frame - the idea that space itself has some kind of rest frame. But that's proven to be a terribly misled, wrong-headed notion - the aether theorists tried to prove the existence of an aether rest frame, and failed at every turn for centuries, to the point now that anyone who even mentions it gets kicked off of the mainstream science boards. I suppose that someday the tables could turn the other way, and some team of physicists will find a way to define a rest frame for quantum fields, but right now that seems outlandishly unlikely because QFT works perfectly with special relativity, and in no sense that we've ever seen can quantum theory define a rest frame (if that ever changes, then I suppose we'll have to throw out quantum electrodynamics and posthumously revoke Feynman's Nobel Prize).

I just don't see a logical basis for going after the dimensionality of time without throwing out space as well. I actually expect that to happen one day - that there's a more fundamental model of physics where space and time are products of underlying dynamical factors, and in fact it's already widely understood in many circles that spacetime is in fact a field, which can be modulated and exploited just like any other field. But from the brilliant successes of relativity and its profound clarity and simplicity, I can't help but presume that regardless of whatever future model comes along to unify all of the forces of nature under one umbrella, that space and time (or rather, velocity and time) will always be two sides of the same coin within that larger theoretical edifice.

 

[Randall]

I like that you think about this stuff and look for new perspectives on it all. I do the same thing constantly - it's good to maintain the neuroplasticity, and it's endlessly educational (well, as long as you spend roughly 50% of your energy on figuring out where most new ideas have gone astray - which is excellent exercise).

I'm glad you enjoyed the podcast - I'm miserable that we don't have a title card yet, but we'll work it out eventually.

I think you're dead wrong about existence without time. Without time, there are no observations because there are no photons, and there's no measurement, or energy, or even mass (nearly all of the mas in the universe is actually kinetic energy - which doesn't exist without time, and the rest is attributed to the Higgs mechanism, which also doesn't work without time). There's no spatial either dimensionality because there are no reference points, since nothing can be observed. Nothing exists in zero time - it's the one dimension that physical reality can't do without. That's why I consider it to be the first dimension rather than the fourth.

From the point of view of someone inside the construct looking at it from your particular perspective, that makes sense. But once again this isn't a situation where you're right and I'm wrong. We're looking at it two different ways. Maybe this is the top level construct ( I don't know ). But either way it's still rather easy ( for me ) to imagine that the whole thing could simply come to a standstill for no apparent reason.

But that's the difference between they way we look at these things. I'm always on a fundamental conceptual and philosophical level, while you're into the equations and the way scientists explain them to lay people. To me that's interesting, but it allows for blind spots. Like the earlier article I posted says:

"4D Minkowski spacetime has created a century-long misunderstanding of time as the fourth dimension of space that lacks any experimental support." - https://phys.org/news/2012-04-physicists-abolish-fourth-dimension-space.html#jCp

Scientists suggest spacetime has no time dimension: https://phys.org/news/2011-04-scientists-spacetime-dimension.html

So there's more than one way to look at it and well informed opinions to tend to vary. I'm just of a different viewpoint. I don't know if mine is necessarily any closer to the "true reality", but when I see problems with the fundamentals, even if the formulas are useful, I don't see sufficient reason to make the assumption that equations = reality.

There's a very instructive concept in physics called "four-velocity." Four-velocity is the rate of motion in all four dimensions. And it's always constant, C. From this perspective, you can never change your four-velocity: you can only change the ratio between spatial velocity and temporal velocity, which always yields your constant four-velocity (the speed of light). So if you're "at rest," then all of your velocity is through time. If you accelerate through space, then you decelerate through time, to precisely the same degree. That's the entire special theory of relativity in a nutshell right there. And the relationship between spatial velocity and temporal velocity plotted on the x and y axes defines a perfect circle with the radius of C. It's an incredibly compelling and powerful, elegant model. And if you try to model this stuff any differently, then you end up with an absolute rest frame - the idea that space itself has some kind of rest frame. But that's proven to be a terrible misled wrong-headed notion - the aether theorists tried to prove the existence of an aether rest frame, and failed at every turn for centuries, to the point now that anyone who even mentions it gets kicked off of the mainstream science boards. I suppose that someday the tables could turn the other way, and some team of physicists will find a way to define a rest frame for quantum fields, but right now that seems outlandishly unlikely because QFT works perfectly with special relativity, and in no sense that we've ever seen can quantum theory define a rest frame (if that ever changes, then I suppose we'll have to throw out quantum electrodynamics and posthumously revoke Feynman's Nobel Prize).

I just don't see a logical basis for going after the dimensionality of time without throwing out space as well. I actually expect that to happen one day - that there's a more fundamental model of physics where space and time are products of underlying dynamical factors, and in fact it's already widely understood in many circles that spacetime is in fact a field, which can be modulated and exploited just like any other field. But from the brilliant successes of relativity and its profound clarity and simplicity, I can't help but presume that regardless of whatever future model comes along to unify all of the forces of nature under one umbrella, that space and time (or rather, velocity and time) will always be two sides of the same coin within that larger theoretical edifice.

Yes. It seems all internally coherent. But because we still don't have the answer to the big questions, like whether or not this universe is a sub-realm of some containing construct. If it's a sub-realm, then it may be the case that infinite expansion is an illusion created by the system, and if we're on the top level, it cannot be expanding because infinity isn't something that expands. It's an all-in-one deal.

Either situation throws a wrench into the picture you describe, and I always tend to think that when we're not entirely sure about the initial premise, then we can't be sure about all the conclusions drawn from that. Again, if this is some sub-realm run on some vastly powerful system that simply runs on rules and clock cycles, what's to stop it from being put on pause? Nothing. We'd be none the wiser and all our internal rules and ideas would simply go on hold along with the rest of it.