How does the illusion of time come about

(7 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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I think a good answer explaining the illusion of time would be to imagine a river or better a shower. We can use the word flow for both of them as well as for the passage of time. We see in the case of the shower a large number of particles flowing together. They seem sinchronized but they are not. These particles are not related to one another, however the fact that our sensors record them together in our memory make them seem related and create the illusion that they move through the same time. The water particles in a river seem even more related on the fact that we are not able to distinguish between them. but still their connection is weak.

So in other words the illusions of the passage of time comes from the from the fact that a number of different movements are recorded in the same memory and this same support make them seem related to the same reference.

The useful part of this mechanism is that we are able to compare cycles and if for example the observer has a clock in sight would be able to quantify the duration of the perceived movements relative to the number of clock ticks recorded at the same time.

We should also nothe that this is an illusion invloving sight and light and special consideration should be given to phenomena evolving at speeds closer to light speed as the info coming from the moving elements will reach the eye of the observer after light would have passed the distance from the element to the eye.

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Relative simultaneity and speeds greater than speed of light

(6 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)

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Reading the very entertaining book “In Search of Time” by Dan Falk, I felt the need to write down two notes. Maybe to return later on them.

First one on simultaneity, looking at the explanation on why simultaneity is relative, as explained on page 165/Albert’s Time, if the 2 observer won’t be Newton’s God like creatures receiving instantly the tow signals as the flashlights are trigered, then would be no need really for the train to move closer to light speed to affect simultaneity. In other words, if the observers are regular people, who have to wait for the beam of light from the flash to reach their eye before making a recording in their memory, then it is enough for them to have different positions in raport to the median plan between photodiode and flash unit systems, in order to report different on simultaneity or sequence of the 2 events. For example, if the second observer is very close or virtually in the same position as the right flash unit on the train car, then he will have to wait for the light of the flash of the first observer to pass half the lenght of the train car in order to triger the right fotodiode and then the flash unit for him to report his first event. Then he will have to wait basically 3 times more for reporting the second event as the info/light will have to pass three times the distance before reacing his eye. It will be the same half lenght of the train car for the light from the center observer to reach the left photodiode and then he will have to wait for the light from the left flash unit to pass the entire lenght of the car before he would conclude he recorded the second event. If our second observer would stay close to the left flash unit he would observe a similar but reverse succession of events comparing to the guy in the middle of the car who will see both events as simultaneous. So there is really no need for a relative  movement between the two observers.

The second note is on the speeds greater than speed of light which seems to me to be more and more, but artificially, imposed on our mind and understanding as the maximum speed for information to travel and to be processed. However the fact that we don’t have the sensors to detect phenomena faster than speed of our information processing is not a reason to say they cannot exist. We might still perceive such phenomena based on their light footprint and their perceived sequentiality a would be in fact a reversed one. We might be as blind to phenomena at speeds greater than light’s as the bats would be b;ind to phenomena at speeds greater than the speed of sound. But this is just a matter of limitations on sensors and info processing not necessarly that such phenomena dos not exist.

It would be quite interesting to see bats reaction to speeds grater than sound…

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Time Machines by definition

(6 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)

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Let’s assume we observe a particle moving through space at a constant speed going through point A and then point B. What would we expect to see if our particle will go back in time? I guess we’ll agree that we’d like to see the same particle moving back through B and then A. The equivalent of this back in time movement we could obtain simply by reverting the speed vector of the particle. If we increase the reversed speed we might even pretend the particle is moving fast backward through time. So we can conclude that we can build a time machine by reverting the speeds of the subject particles.

Obviously we’ll need some energy especially if we want an accelerated time travel. But the real problem in building such a machine will be the knowledge required to identify all movements of all particles in a subject and to apply simultaneously synchronized forces to all particles in the system to make the whole system revert all internal movements.

If we’d like to send a human back in his/her own time, We should know precisely all vectors of all particles in his body and apply precisely the opposite force to move in a synchronized manner all particles back in their own time. this should result in reversed processes which could be described to some extent as rejuvenating.

But wait, unfortunately, if we want our hero to go precisely through his previous memories, we’ll have to bring back in time a whole lot more particles for all his historical interaction with anything outside his body. And since there are plenty of interactions the amount of particles to get reversed will soon be just beyond our imagination to count not to mention the need to find them and reverse the movement of all of them and any others which interfered in their past.

Pretty soon we’d find that we might have to reverse the movement of a good chunk of the particles in the universe. Just consider the fact that the Sun and Moon who had some influence to the movements the have to be back in their previous positions at the right time and since their movements are related to other celestial bodies, in fact many of them if not really all…

So let’s assume we somehow can identify and modify the speed simultaneously for a good chunk of the universe if not all of it. the problem now will be not only that we’d need another universe of energy to make our universe go back in time but we’d also have to deal with the issue of the observer who’s as linked to the universe as the subject and who should be left in his own time to confirm the time travel and check it against his/her memories.

I guess this could be another explanation why a true time machine cannot be built.

However in a digital system where records of all movements/changes are properly captured, we could imagine reverting the changes, quite similarly to the safety features helping us return from improper system settings. Those limited time machines can be and are built relatively cheap.

We should explore in some other post how parallel times can be simulated based on different decisions in the past. And keep in mind this is working just for eSouls. Prepare to become one!

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