TIME PASSAGES - Part 1
I want this to be a relatively condensed compendium of the various faces of time, as I know them. This will be a collection of divided topics which the reader should discover turn out to be related to each other in discrete if not miraculous ways, oh yeah. So, bear with the seeming disjointedness of it all.
First, I want to touch on the essential fallacy of reason, which is related to the essential fallacy of existence. In a recent post, I wrote how one does not need to be a Christian, etc., to do good. Both atheists and Christians can do good, and so, ultimately, there is no big difference between the two. But this is only so because we are defining good one way, absolutely, and not relatively. But, some atheists may say Christians perform a 'good' which is different to their kind of 'good', because they are motivated by doctrine, or such. Likewise, Christians may say that the 'good' of atheists is different to their own, since atheists are not inspired by god.
You see, as when we have one god, when we measure from the one GOOD, then other concepts or people fall into place and can be measured, or justified, against each other, instead of scattering into a babel of relativity, where there is no central reference, and so the common denominator becomes force, or war. As I discuss in an upcoming post, we have the same issue when it comes to labels like, "he's in DENIAL." When the concept of denial becomes relative, instead of central or absolute, then anyone can claim that anyone is in denial, and then only the POWERFUL shall forceful prevail in deciding who is in denial and who is not. The same issue goes for so many other concepts: evil, racist, right, wrong, crazy, sane, and so forth - and it REALLY gets thorny when people not only relativise and squabble, but when they assume the intentions or thoughts of others, which takes us into witch-hunting, and guilty-before-innocent. Nothing but dissonance.
In physics, this is comparable to having one point in the universe, (or etc.), by which everything else in the universe can be measured, instead of everything being immeasurably out of synch with each other. This establishment of a single INNERTIAL FRAME OF REFERENCE, (I.F.R.), is a kind of imposition of Newtonian physics from the perspective of one point, which is innertial. The movements, accelerations, mass, gravities and times are all measure according to this one point. Say we choose the Earth as the I.F.R., similar to what was done in the Middle Ages, then we measure the speed of the moon, sun, etc., according to this point. And so, it may appear that all is moving around our I.F.R. Then, we may go to a better I.F.R., like the Sun, and measure from their instead, and think that all revolves around that I.F.R., as if it were a god.
However, according to Einstein's general relativity theory, everything is relative, and there is nothing like a Sun around which all revolves. Instead, any choice of an IFR is naturally arbitrary, and it is only used as a measuring point for other objects in motion, usually locally or regionally, in astrophysical terms. It is our chosen "still-point" by which we observe the "turning world" to paraphrase Yeats. [But, of course, is there ever really any still point in any turning disc? Even if we, "step to the extreme middle," the centre atom will still be turning, at least in dynamics. There is no fixed point, even into infinity. Therefore, the IFR is not real, but is based on integers and finities and theory. Nevertheless, we use this assumption as a quasi-physical tool to study the rest of the universe].
So, you are sitting in a field, watching what goes on in the distance, all around you. You can see that a dog is running after a ball, away form you, at some speed. You can see that the clouds are rolling on at some speed. You can see how the trees move, how the cars pass on a bridge, and so on. You, the 'still point', are, "Monarch of All You Survey", (Thoreau).
A 'side' note: Since the 'still point' of a turning disc is impossible to the infinite degree, and since the establishment of an IFR is physically artificial, and since the IFR is necessarilly the temporal 'beginning point', then the consequence of setting an IFR anywhere in nature is that everything else in its universe exists 'in the past'. The mathematical IFR is analogous to you sitting in your field: Everything around you exists in the past, to some imperceptible degree. Yes, the stars are light-years away; but, by light, people on the other side of the word are a tiny fraction of a second in the past, and so are the trees around you. So are your hands. So are your nerves.
So - if even the cells in your head are in the past, then where are you now? Where is the you that is measuring all this? Where is the consciousness that is the NOW which deems all else PAST?
So far, it seems from this, that all of time is an illusion - and then, so, by whom? Also, a paradox of this arrangement is that the light from the sun that you see now is actually 8 minutes in the past, right? Well, if you are the observing IFR, then what does "the past" mean, except that it is never YOUR actual past. The only way it could both be THE PAST and YOUR OWN PAST is if you are somehow married to it beyond the speed of light. In other words, this part of you experiences the sun already, 8 minutes before it even gets to Earth. I am speaking of psychic phenomena, and superluminal quantum entanglement, which are the key to consciousness, I believe - or at least in equal measure to the local here and now, (i.e., the regressive past).
Another way of understanding this past/past differential is by, first, remembering that the material 'past' is a consequence of establishing one central point of reference and, second, that all that is, by this, called the past, is a mathematical formula, system or theory. THAT past diverges from your PAST/memory because THAT past is a compromise of all times/objects, and is set as a kind of virtual reality grid over your experiential reality, even though you are the IFR.
All of this is EXTERNAL measurement and definition and, because it concerns only beings and not BEING, or consciousness, then is not a complete model of reality. It begins with math and external measurements, and so the end result, to compromise all of relativity, and an infinity of actual IFRs in nature, is an external grid which rather bifurcates from personal experience and consciousness. I am not saying this science is completely wrong. It is correct as an extension of how we beings tend to move through reality in the first place. It appears to be a fact of nature, although we do not yet fully understand it. I am here to help in that department.
How does relativity theory reconcile the past/past divergence? How does it maintain that you, an IFR, experience you own time and past, and yet the light of the sun is some other time, and gets to you with an 8 minute delay? How can you be the centre and judge of all when, still, all else is off in some other existence, with nothing to do with you? It does it with paradox. Whereas you are an IFR, with your own time and judgement, so is the sun! The sun may be contemplating you in perlexion just as you do him.
The way theory reconciles the divergence is by qualifying the nature of light, which, figuratively speaking, 'bends' itself so that all parties are both individual/apart, and married together, through time and space. Thus we observe the qualities of light, such as red shift, or gravitational distortion, to study the nature and expansion of the universe. Still, we do so under a lot of mathematical assumptions, which may or may not be correct. [For example, the discussion of accelerated expansion as judged from red shift necessitates the assumption of dark matter. But we still don't understand red shift, really].
Have I lost you yet? No! You are still out standing in your field. And the sky is blue.
Did you know that most people don't notice the sky is blue until they learn the actual word, "Blue?" Language helps brings humans out of the subconscious. But - consciousness takes a myriad of forms, like colours in the rainbow. Plants are conscious in their own way, and, I would go so far to say that the sun is probably conscious, as well... Anyway... You are in your field. And the sky is blue. Do you know why the sky is blue? (Well, despite the whole subjectivity of the idea of blue in the first place), the sky is blue because the sun is sending light in our direction: And when light heads toward us, it looks blue.
On the other hand, when the galaxies of the universe speed away from us, close to the speed of light, they look red. Red shift has been compared to the Doppler effect, where distant noises take longer to reach your ears. But, in fact, red shift is very different to this. Actually, red shift is a quality change within light itself.
OK - imagine that you are observing two very distant objects which are next to each other, and at exactly the same distance away from you. The one on the right is speeding away from you, close to the speed of light. The one on the left is speeding towards you, close to the speed of light. You take a photo when they are exactly side by side. Even though they are both equally distant from you, the one on the right will appear red, and the one on the left, blue. Ponder this. It means that the very quality of light is different for each of them. The light is perturbed within, but the same without. The only explanation is that memory is held withing the light itself, but memory of how either object flies through time relevant to YOU.
Looking up from your field, you see a rocket-ship taking off towards the sun, near the speed of light, its lights appearing red to you. The people in the spaceship look back and see the light on Earth turn red. Now, you are both diverging in time, which is manifest as the red shift, either way. When they return to Earth one day, their age will have changed bizarrely. Despite having been lost in a very separate time from you, they now reunite with you, in a changed form. (For more on this, time dilation, go to any textbook discussing general relativity with examples of the speeding train, etc.)
You see, science, like nature, has had to reconcile, (in infinite cases), three basic states, existing independently: 1 - You, the #1 Innertial Frame of Reference (IFR), who lloks ate the universe through Newtonian, Euclidean eyes, where all should work in concert, under ONE TIME, your time; 2 - The OTHER IFR, out there, such as said spaceship, which looks at the universe in exactly the same way, expecting you to conform to IT's ONE TIME, and, 3 - The fact that no one thing is an IFR: Nothing is inert because everything is in motion, relative to something else: There is not good, no evil, no denial, because this state of the universe is completely external and objective, or is all-encompassing, such that the "dimension of time" actually becomes a kind of a superstatic space-time.
In order to bridge #1 over #3 and to #2, science and nature paradoxically require that the quality of light, and so of time, must mutate according to every relator. In order for absolute you to transcend absolute relativity and connect with absolute HIM or HER, across millions of light-years, then, somehow, your experiential past, and HIS experiential past, must somehow be brought together, despite the vast divergence in actual pasts. So, a dance of dilation occurs, where beam of light A may be red, while beam of light B, of equal length, may be blue, so that another relative observer may now step in and try to make sense, and so forth.
In my philosophy, I have the Double Paradox to help describe reality. It has four possibilities, which are all equally valid:
A alone, (or #1 alone)
B alone, (or #2 alone)
Both A and B together in relationship
Neither A nor B
This is not just a logical doodle. The Double Paradox is a Superstate. Within each possibility are the possibility of the others. Each arm is used in a different way to understand existence. Arm three, whereas A and B comprise the entire universe, would most relate to general relativity.
Arm #4 suggests the ultimate nonsense of a universe of absolute relativity, or of the ultimate void of existence in which, nevertheless, consciousness may lurk. Like the concept of God: If all is god, and god is all, then there is no one else to see this, and so it is nothing. Or, if god is completely divorced from all the material world we encountre and that is, then what is god but a complete abstraction, or nothing at all? And so forth. I only use the idea of God because it is the biggest absolute there is, for simplicity's sake. These phantom ideas whisping through this last possibility, Arm #4, are all implied by the other three.
Maybe more on the Double Paradox some day soon. It is not that germane to this post, but I do want to emphasize that reality is rife with what we finite mortals see as contradiction, but which can be enjoyed rather than denied or feared, as paradox, or, as I prefer, the omnipotence of irony, lol. I have so, so much more to say...
I might start Part 2 with my model of the Psychic Dog, just because it is fun...
First, I want to touch on the essential fallacy of reason, which is related to the essential fallacy of existence. In a recent post, I wrote how one does not need to be a Christian, etc., to do good. Both atheists and Christians can do good, and so, ultimately, there is no big difference between the two. But this is only so because we are defining good one way, absolutely, and not relatively. But, some atheists may say Christians perform a 'good' which is different to their kind of 'good', because they are motivated by doctrine, or such. Likewise, Christians may say that the 'good' of atheists is different to their own, since atheists are not inspired by god.
You see, as when we have one god, when we measure from the one GOOD, then other concepts or people fall into place and can be measured, or justified, against each other, instead of scattering into a babel of relativity, where there is no central reference, and so the common denominator becomes force, or war. As I discuss in an upcoming post, we have the same issue when it comes to labels like, "he's in DENIAL." When the concept of denial becomes relative, instead of central or absolute, then anyone can claim that anyone is in denial, and then only the POWERFUL shall forceful prevail in deciding who is in denial and who is not. The same issue goes for so many other concepts: evil, racist, right, wrong, crazy, sane, and so forth - and it REALLY gets thorny when people not only relativise and squabble, but when they assume the intentions or thoughts of others, which takes us into witch-hunting, and guilty-before-innocent. Nothing but dissonance.
In physics, this is comparable to having one point in the universe, (or etc.), by which everything else in the universe can be measured, instead of everything being immeasurably out of synch with each other. This establishment of a single INNERTIAL FRAME OF REFERENCE, (I.F.R.), is a kind of imposition of Newtonian physics from the perspective of one point, which is innertial. The movements, accelerations, mass, gravities and times are all measure according to this one point. Say we choose the Earth as the I.F.R., similar to what was done in the Middle Ages, then we measure the speed of the moon, sun, etc., according to this point. And so, it may appear that all is moving around our I.F.R. Then, we may go to a better I.F.R., like the Sun, and measure from their instead, and think that all revolves around that I.F.R., as if it were a god.
However, according to Einstein's general relativity theory, everything is relative, and there is nothing like a Sun around which all revolves. Instead, any choice of an IFR is naturally arbitrary, and it is only used as a measuring point for other objects in motion, usually locally or regionally, in astrophysical terms. It is our chosen "still-point" by which we observe the "turning world" to paraphrase Yeats. [But, of course, is there ever really any still point in any turning disc? Even if we, "step to the extreme middle," the centre atom will still be turning, at least in dynamics. There is no fixed point, even into infinity. Therefore, the IFR is not real, but is based on integers and finities and theory. Nevertheless, we use this assumption as a quasi-physical tool to study the rest of the universe].
So, you are sitting in a field, watching what goes on in the distance, all around you. You can see that a dog is running after a ball, away form you, at some speed. You can see that the clouds are rolling on at some speed. You can see how the trees move, how the cars pass on a bridge, and so on. You, the 'still point', are, "Monarch of All You Survey", (Thoreau).
A 'side' note: Since the 'still point' of a turning disc is impossible to the infinite degree, and since the establishment of an IFR is physically artificial, and since the IFR is necessarilly the temporal 'beginning point', then the consequence of setting an IFR anywhere in nature is that everything else in its universe exists 'in the past'. The mathematical IFR is analogous to you sitting in your field: Everything around you exists in the past, to some imperceptible degree. Yes, the stars are light-years away; but, by light, people on the other side of the word are a tiny fraction of a second in the past, and so are the trees around you. So are your hands. So are your nerves.
So - if even the cells in your head are in the past, then where are you now? Where is the you that is measuring all this? Where is the consciousness that is the NOW which deems all else PAST?
So far, it seems from this, that all of time is an illusion - and then, so, by whom? Also, a paradox of this arrangement is that the light from the sun that you see now is actually 8 minutes in the past, right? Well, if you are the observing IFR, then what does "the past" mean, except that it is never YOUR actual past. The only way it could both be THE PAST and YOUR OWN PAST is if you are somehow married to it beyond the speed of light. In other words, this part of you experiences the sun already, 8 minutes before it even gets to Earth. I am speaking of psychic phenomena, and superluminal quantum entanglement, which are the key to consciousness, I believe - or at least in equal measure to the local here and now, (i.e., the regressive past).
Another way of understanding this past/past differential is by, first, remembering that the material 'past' is a consequence of establishing one central point of reference and, second, that all that is, by this, called the past, is a mathematical formula, system or theory. THAT past diverges from your PAST/memory because THAT past is a compromise of all times/objects, and is set as a kind of virtual reality grid over your experiential reality, even though you are the IFR.
All of this is EXTERNAL measurement and definition and, because it concerns only beings and not BEING, or consciousness, then is not a complete model of reality. It begins with math and external measurements, and so the end result, to compromise all of relativity, and an infinity of actual IFRs in nature, is an external grid which rather bifurcates from personal experience and consciousness. I am not saying this science is completely wrong. It is correct as an extension of how we beings tend to move through reality in the first place. It appears to be a fact of nature, although we do not yet fully understand it. I am here to help in that department.
How does relativity theory reconcile the past/past divergence? How does it maintain that you, an IFR, experience you own time and past, and yet the light of the sun is some other time, and gets to you with an 8 minute delay? How can you be the centre and judge of all when, still, all else is off in some other existence, with nothing to do with you? It does it with paradox. Whereas you are an IFR, with your own time and judgement, so is the sun! The sun may be contemplating you in perlexion just as you do him.
The way theory reconciles the divergence is by qualifying the nature of light, which, figuratively speaking, 'bends' itself so that all parties are both individual/apart, and married together, through time and space. Thus we observe the qualities of light, such as red shift, or gravitational distortion, to study the nature and expansion of the universe. Still, we do so under a lot of mathematical assumptions, which may or may not be correct. [For example, the discussion of accelerated expansion as judged from red shift necessitates the assumption of dark matter. But we still don't understand red shift, really].
Have I lost you yet? No! You are still out standing in your field. And the sky is blue.
Did you know that most people don't notice the sky is blue until they learn the actual word, "Blue?" Language helps brings humans out of the subconscious. But - consciousness takes a myriad of forms, like colours in the rainbow. Plants are conscious in their own way, and, I would go so far to say that the sun is probably conscious, as well... Anyway... You are in your field. And the sky is blue. Do you know why the sky is blue? (Well, despite the whole subjectivity of the idea of blue in the first place), the sky is blue because the sun is sending light in our direction: And when light heads toward us, it looks blue.
On the other hand, when the galaxies of the universe speed away from us, close to the speed of light, they look red. Red shift has been compared to the Doppler effect, where distant noises take longer to reach your ears. But, in fact, red shift is very different to this. Actually, red shift is a quality change within light itself.
OK - imagine that you are observing two very distant objects which are next to each other, and at exactly the same distance away from you. The one on the right is speeding away from you, close to the speed of light. The one on the left is speeding towards you, close to the speed of light. You take a photo when they are exactly side by side. Even though they are both equally distant from you, the one on the right will appear red, and the one on the left, blue. Ponder this. It means that the very quality of light is different for each of them. The light is perturbed within, but the same without. The only explanation is that memory is held withing the light itself, but memory of how either object flies through time relevant to YOU.
Looking up from your field, you see a rocket-ship taking off towards the sun, near the speed of light, its lights appearing red to you. The people in the spaceship look back and see the light on Earth turn red. Now, you are both diverging in time, which is manifest as the red shift, either way. When they return to Earth one day, their age will have changed bizarrely. Despite having been lost in a very separate time from you, they now reunite with you, in a changed form. (For more on this, time dilation, go to any textbook discussing general relativity with examples of the speeding train, etc.)
You see, science, like nature, has had to reconcile, (in infinite cases), three basic states, existing independently: 1 - You, the #1 Innertial Frame of Reference (IFR), who lloks ate the universe through Newtonian, Euclidean eyes, where all should work in concert, under ONE TIME, your time; 2 - The OTHER IFR, out there, such as said spaceship, which looks at the universe in exactly the same way, expecting you to conform to IT's ONE TIME, and, 3 - The fact that no one thing is an IFR: Nothing is inert because everything is in motion, relative to something else: There is not good, no evil, no denial, because this state of the universe is completely external and objective, or is all-encompassing, such that the "dimension of time" actually becomes a kind of a superstatic space-time.
In order to bridge #1 over #3 and to #2, science and nature paradoxically require that the quality of light, and so of time, must mutate according to every relator. In order for absolute you to transcend absolute relativity and connect with absolute HIM or HER, across millions of light-years, then, somehow, your experiential past, and HIS experiential past, must somehow be brought together, despite the vast divergence in actual pasts. So, a dance of dilation occurs, where beam of light A may be red, while beam of light B, of equal length, may be blue, so that another relative observer may now step in and try to make sense, and so forth.
In my philosophy, I have the Double Paradox to help describe reality. It has four possibilities, which are all equally valid:
A alone, (or #1 alone)
B alone, (or #2 alone)
Both A and B together in relationship
Neither A nor B
This is not just a logical doodle. The Double Paradox is a Superstate. Within each possibility are the possibility of the others. Each arm is used in a different way to understand existence. Arm three, whereas A and B comprise the entire universe, would most relate to general relativity.
Arm #4 suggests the ultimate nonsense of a universe of absolute relativity, or of the ultimate void of existence in which, nevertheless, consciousness may lurk. Like the concept of God: If all is god, and god is all, then there is no one else to see this, and so it is nothing. Or, if god is completely divorced from all the material world we encountre and that is, then what is god but a complete abstraction, or nothing at all? And so forth. I only use the idea of God because it is the biggest absolute there is, for simplicity's sake. These phantom ideas whisping through this last possibility, Arm #4, are all implied by the other three.
Maybe more on the Double Paradox some day soon. It is not that germane to this post, but I do want to emphasize that reality is rife with what we finite mortals see as contradiction, but which can be enjoyed rather than denied or feared, as paradox, or, as I prefer, the omnipotence of irony, lol. I have so, so much more to say...
I might start Part 2 with my model of the Psychic Dog, just because it is fun...