What is Time and Space

Just came across this on. It is about the speed of gravity. I thought you might be interested.What Is Gravity? | Space

This is maybe off topic for this thread but it is close. I understand that under GR gravity is acceleration. If I fall out of an airplane I'm just hanging in space and the Earth rushes up to meet me.I'm having trouble with this on a couple of grounds. Is this acceleration to do with our movement relative to the sun, relative to the gravitaional field of all mass and energy, has it to do with the fact that all galaxies are accelerating away from each other, or is it something else entirely?It also is difficult to understand how the Earth is accelerating upward at both the north and south poles simultaneously.Any help is appreciated.

Thanks cavediverI'm probably reasonably normal in that my mind is locked in 3d. That was really helpful and I am going to have to think and read more on geodesics.I should have sorted out the north and south pole thing as the idea that gravity is maintaining us on the ground at both poles is related to the concept that it we leave the north pole flying right side up we're still right side up, (not inverted), at the south pole, which, (I think) proves that the answer had to be outside of my 3d thinking. I keep trying to picture 4d in my mind but I have to say that I'm not making a lot of progress. I have to stop think of the world as a sphere in 3d and start trying to picture a tube in 4d some how.

I have been mulling this over ever since you posted it 10 days ago. I like the term projection. I had been thinking of us as a reflection or even a shadow but I think projection is a much more accurate depiction of the theory.What does this mean to cosmology. If we aren't part of the "real" universe what scientists are studying isn't reality. Watching a movie on a screen doesn't tell you anything about what is going on in the projector. It seems to me that everytime there is a breakthrough in science we open one door only to find we have 4 more closed doors staring us in the face. It seems like the more we learn the less we know.When science finally comes up with a unifying theory it will probably find that you are right. What then? We will have a great deal of knowledge about what is being projected but we'll still know very little about the projector.Is the projector the same thing as what we refer to as the metaphysical or is that something else again? Who knows? We think that as a civilization that we have acquired so much knowledge. The trouble is, there is no objective standard for thinking that. How much knowledge is there to be had and how much of it is actually accessible to us.Sorry to ramble on but I have just been so intrigued by your post.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

If we are a projection then what are we a projection of?String theory postualtes that everything is made up of minute bits of energy. Schroeder goes futher and suggests that this energy is fundamentally information. It makes sense to me that we are a projection. What constitutes the real world where the projector resides. Are we talking about something that is real, abstract or just a mathematical formula?

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

That may be randman but the projector could also be part of the physical that makes this projection work, and the metaphysical is outside that as well.

I have just ordered a DVD of Brian Greene's Nova series on his book "The Elegant Universe". I know that you're not a proponent of string theory but will this DVD straighten out my "mumbo jumbo". I thought that I had a bit of a sense of it when I thought that strings were little loops of energy that vibrate, and that the vibration would create the characteristics of the various particles.Also, on the same topic in post #88 in this thread I quoted Greene on the relationship between string theory and loop quantum gravity. I'd like to know if you agree with what he has written.One more thing. You mentioned that the real world or projector is a 2d worldsheet. (I realize that this is just theory at this point.) Do you feel that science will be able to investigate that so called "real world" in the way that approaches the way we are able to investigate the projection?Thanks again for your patience.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

You mentioned a few posts back that you are a fan of Penrose. I googled around a bit and found that he is heavily into sorting out the mysteries of consciousness.I'm not at all sure that I got this right but is he suggesting that "time" is just something that is perceived by our consciousness?Certainly our perception of time appears to change. We all know how much faster our perception of time is as we age. I think most of us have experienced time slowing down immensely in a time of crisis.Just curious as I spent a lot of time researching Penrose and found him to be a bit of an enigma.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

I realize this is all theory, but what do you think might be some of the characteristics of a 2d projector.

I'm not sure if you have read Gerald Schroeder or not. I found his latest book fascinating. Here is his web site.http://www.geraldschroeder.com/

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

His book "The Hidden Face of God" relates exactly to your post about information.

The following a segment of an interview with Roger Penrose. I don't have any technical knowledge in this field so I can't enter into any kind of debate but I'm interested in knowing what others on this forum think of this whole concept of time and space being a function of consciousness.
Do those with some expertise agree with Penrose that time is an illusion that stems from consciousness? If not why not?Roger Penrose : Yes I think physicists would agree that the feeling of time passing is simply an illusion, something that is not real. It has something to do with our perceptions.Narrator : Illusion or not, our perceptions emerge somewhere between the cosmic scale of Relativity where the flow of time is frozen and the quantum scale, where flow descends to uncertainty.Our world is on a scale governed by a mixture of chance and necessity.Roger Penrose : My view is that there is some large scale quantum activity going on in the brain.Physics does not say that Quantum Mechanics takes place in small areas, but also take place over larger areas. I think this has to do with the consciousness. I think we need a new way to look at time, not either Quantum Mechanics or Relativity.Narrator : If Quantum Mechanics is taking place in the brain then the same randomness of outcome and unpredictability might explain our ability to make sometime random choices. Opening up the future to the possibility of change would provide the first step of restoring to physics the flow of time it currently denies.Physicist : I don't think time flows, I feel that time flows, but I feel we can only understand this if we have a better understanding of how consciousness works. I think human consciousness probably has the secrets as to how and why we think of time as going by.Roger Penrose : I don't think we have the tools, I don't think we have the physical picture to accommodate these things yet. We're not very close to it.

Thank you so much for your reply. that helped a lot.I make no secret of the fact that I'm seriously out of my depth here but I came across one thing in one of the wiki sites that made me think there is something to what he is saying. I have had experiences, as have most of us, where time definitely slowed for me. One case in particular. I was riding a bike and the peddle snapped off. My leg went under the bike and I rolled over backwards with the bike going over top of me. The process probably took about .5 secs but in my personal time frame it probably took about 3 secs. I remember thinking that I was going to wreck the white jacket I was wearing, and that I was going to have to lift my head and put my chin on my chest or I would crack my coconut on the pavement. Time definitely changed for me and that fits with the above quote and, as I see it, gives credence to his theory.As far as everything being an illusion is concerned it seems to me that could very well be credible. When you look at what constitutes an atom it seems that everything is virtually nothing, at least in the terms that we perceive something to be something.I have no scientific background but it does seem to me from my reading that the more scientists learn the more they learn they don't know. I'm reading Lisa Randall, (Warped Passages) right now. She asks, "Have we reached a point of scientific discovery so advanced that the laws of physics as we know them are simply not sufficient? Will we all soon have to accept explanations that previously remained in the realm of science fiction?"Thanks again nwr, that was really helpful and interesting.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

I agree that ID is outside the bounds of science as we now know it but scientists have to go wherever the evidence leads and that is what I assume Penrose is doing. Maybe the sea outside the ship really does exist and it is consciousness. He is obviously one of the top people in his field and I have to assume that this is where the evidence is leading him.I think that besides the example I gave in my last post there are other examples of time being a variable that we all experience that seem to tie in with consciousness. Everyone agrees that we perceive time as passing much more rapidly as we get older. I read somewhere that half of our perceived life is over by the time we are 21 years old.Everone also experiences the concept of time passing more quickly when we are occupied and busy than when we aren't.Maybe at some point in the future the study of physics and metaphysics will be connected. (and maybe not )

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

I’m still trying to sort out in my own mind a concept of the relationship between time, space and consciousness. I’m definitely educationally challenged but I do like to read.As I understand it many particles including photons move at light speed. Some of these particles that move at light speed, such as photons, have no mass. Gravitons, (if they exist), do have mass as they exert a gravitational force. Mass can only become matter when it is moving at less than the speed of light.Cavediver who actually knows about this stuff wrote this in another thread. If our entire universe existed in the manner that massless particles do, we would be living in a universe that exists without space or time. Maybe what was in existence, is in existence and always will be in existence is a universe that exists at light speed.The only way then that matter could exist is for massless particles in our universe to slow down so that they can take on the various forms that we observe in our physical universe. It seems to me that if this slowing of particles had been caused to happen then that would bring about the start of space and time that we see at the BB.As I understand Penrose and others, they are suggesting that time is based on how our consciousness perceives change. As I mentioned earlier this perception of time changes under periods of high stress and it changes as we age so this seems to make sense from actual experience.Could this all mean then, that our universe is really governed by the laws of massless particles moving at light speed and that our consciousness causes us to perceive the universe differently in a way that causes us to live in a universe of 3 spatial dimensions made up of matter space and time. This would mean that if all consciousness ceased so would all time and space, but what would go on is a universe where time and space don’t exist.Julian Barbour suggests that each little chunk of time is really a separate universe whatever that means but it would bring about another way of looking at this.And by the way, no I don’t do drugs.