What is Time and Space

Enjoyed reading through page 3, but figured I better back-trap some now to address or ask questions. I think the answer is that a being that could and was travelling at the speed of light would not experience time as we do and would never age, but would be present at all the points and thus places in time at the same time along that path. He would be super-positional and always in the present, from his perspective.A day with the Lord is as.....? Hmmm...Basically, imo, I think there is a superpositional, or multi-form, aspect to reality that explains the conudrum.I'd be interesting in what others more educated in physics here think about this concept. Interesting point. Is time being created non-linearly? I am not sure we can. I think your question is interesting.
If, for example, the universe is, say, 15 billion years old, but we went back in time, which time of course is the relevant question, but going back in time for rhetorical sake 8 billion years, would the universe actually be 7 billion years old?Could it be, if we plopped into space back then, that the universe would appear, say, a billion years old? QM seems to show that at least on quantum levels (and maybe higher, and definite some QM effects are now seen for larger objects such as some molecules, that physical existence is actually first superpositional, meaning several different possibilities exist in terms of form prior to that form becoming a physical reality. A photon can exist as a wave that appears to be a particle in more than one place at once, but can then collapse into a single point/pathway.What appears to cause the "collapse of the wave function" is observation, and since observation implies consciousness, you get scientists talking about the age-old concept of whether something exists if no one sees it.There was a joke told that went something like this. First they told us the earth was flat, and then the earth was round, and now that the earth doesn't exist at all!An intrigueing idea is that this suggests a universal observer present all along for matter to exist as a definite form, assuming this interpretation of quantum physics, or one alternative is that the universe evolved as a multi-verse in a superpositional state of all possible universes until one possible "universe" evolved consciousness and collapsed the multi-verse into one state, or some variant including these ideas.if such consciousness-based interpretations of QM are correct, it may be that consciousness plays a bigger role than we think.There are other interpretations, one being waves travelling back in time, and that all possible universes exist, the many-worlds interpretation.Frankly, as weird as they sound, I think there is some real merit to all of these ideas, and I am not as sure all of them are as mutually exclusive as are presented.

Ok, this small point got me excited, as I have been tried to think in those terms and apply that thinking for some time to different issues.Is it possible in your opinion, for one point "later" along that line, more on one end, to effect an "earlier" or another point along that line?I beleive we will discover (if we haven't already?) that this is possible and is occurring; that there are causal effects essentially backwards in time because things really consist not of an object floating through time but a more holistic view, a more real view in terms of science, shows that the object is line in space-time. So the whole can be affected by anything done to it.The affects from the present moment to the next are the largest causal determinative effects, but if there are smaller causal effects essentially backwards in time, from our perspective, then the longer the object in space-time, the more time elapsed from our vantage point, the larger these effects would be, and the more the past would be changed.Indeed, the universe as a whole can be imagined from an observer beyond superluminal space-time, as a thought experiment, as one streak or line, and as in the scenario above, causal effects on the whole can and do, imo, make the past non-static.This message has been edited by randman, 08-03-2005 02:32 AM

So you are saying that an object existing prior may experience time in a different manner, of course, "experience" suggests consciousness I suppose, but for sake of argument, the object's experience of time if it could measure at that point would be different and thus measure the age of the universe differently assuming that was possible?Just trying to get that right?Sort of ties back into the OP. If a creature was essentially a sentient photon, would it still be at all points of it's trajectory without any time passing, but superpositional in it's presence at all points?Maybe that's not relevant to the age of the universe, but it is hard to get the mind around. If that was the case, from a photon's perspective, what we call time does not exist.is that right, or am I misreading something?

That's a pretty heavy thought there all on it's own, but seems correct.So when a photon passes through spot in the universe, the photon, from it's perspective, is still at that spot, but since time is static, that spot is also seen as not having the photon since we can observe that, meaning the past, present, and future are all "now" from the photon's perspective, and space can sort of be layered out instead of arranged by time, from that perspective?Intreresting.I think I am getting it. Sort of reminds me of the non-linear beings in the worm-hole on Deep Space Nine a few years back

Well, quantum properties do suggest a deeper structure of the universe than 4D (3D and time).There is something called entanglement, which Einstein for example thought had to be but dismissed it as spooky action at a distance. What occurs is that particles can become entangled, such as a pair of photons and even some larger objects have been shown to become entangled, and when this occurs affecting one will automatically affect the other, regardless of the distance.There is work and speculation that this process can be used to develop quantum computers, which we won't get into now, but since the action is instantaneous, there is either superluminal transference of information, or the objects are somehow non-separable by a structure within the universe not yet observed.So light and perhaps all things do exist, it seems, in states or dimensions not normally considered classical space-time.But maybe someone else can say it better here?

GDR, cavediver is correct from what I have read. Gravity is not thought to act instanteneously. It is true that for a long time I don't think gravitons had really been observed or detected, and that this may still be the case.Truthfully, I have never found all of the explanations for gravity fully satisfactory, but you'd have to ask cavediver or soku about it to get more understanding.

GDR, as Son Goku points out, the jury is still out on gravity. In a debate here, someone told me I was out of date and that in the past few years, gravitons were discovered. I had my doubts, but didn't delve enough into the claims. I suspect soku is correct and that gravitons have not been discovered.it is odd that often people will talk about basic realities like gravity as a given, prefectly understood, when really all we have is the effect of gravity to measure. I don't think we know what it really is yet.This message has been edited by randman, 08-04-2005 05:24 PMThis message has been edited by randman, 08-04-2005 05:25 PM

I posted a comment to cavediver that maybe you'd like to take a stab at. If objects should really be viewed as streaks through space-time, then could something affect the object as a whole, say, cause a vibration or wobble?What that would mean is that there would be causal effects backwards in time?I think that's reasonable and that we see some evidence for this. It may be small, very small, even, but regardless the longer an object is (the more time elapses), such changes would increase in size.I beleive science will discover this as a well-established fact.Superluminal action via entanglement already, imo, deals with this, and as Brukner and Vidral showed fairly recently, particles can become entangled even over segments of time.But the data is still in the early stages or maybe not even that is verifiable, but still believe this is what we will discover.thoughts?
from someone more educated in this than I am?

I have actually read that particular article, which is interesting as some others are in quantum physics that deal with time.I am though a little surprised there is not more work on this, which I figured you or cavediver might know about.For example, and tell me if you think this is unreasonable, but from the photon's persepective, everything would be present, no past, no present and no future, just space, right?So if we were moving at that speed, we would see an object as a path of that object at all points on that path, at once. So we would be looking at it's past, present, and future all as one time, spread out in space.Well, this is the part I want to get my brain around. This view of space-time has to be just as accurate as our perspective, correct? Just because the photon is not conscious should not make the perspective from the photon unreal, and if all is present, just space, from that perspective, then it seems likely this object, this space and filled trajectory of the object, could be affected by a wave-like effect on it, all at once, past, present, and future.Or, an event at one point in the object could have an effect on the object as a whole, causing a vibration, and thus affecting the past, present, and future at the same time, or in a wave-like manner.This message has been edited by randman, 08-04-2005 11:46 PM

Thanks for helping me here, btw.Why couldn't that one spot be massive, many, many times the size of the universe with all points in time (all changes) spread out like folds or something or pages in a book torn out and laid out in one large spot bigger, but flatter, than the book?I guess I don't understand "length contraction."Once again, any help would be appreciated.

Maybe there is some incompleteness to relativity, specifically assuming only a 3-D with time, or 4-D, universe. Entanglement indicates processes that occur superluminally.Maybe there are superluminal dimensions?spiritual dimensions?What do you think?It doesn't seem correct that everything can exist in a single spot with no distance. I sort of see from that vantage perspective, and maybe all mass is actually non-separable and existing in one spot, but it defies the imagination how you can even have a spot without distance. Is there a quanta for distance that defines a spot that has no distance within it?If such a concept could somehow be true, then it seems that what we are seeing with space is an imagination, something that appears to occupy distance, speed, laws, etc,...but in reality exists all in one location that is defined as occupying no real space.Hmmmm....the mind of God?

"No reference frame"?Does that mean the photon exists apart from 4-D? Maybe we are just seeing part of the photon and it does have a reference frame, but within a deeper, superluminal structure or dimension?I guess it just does not yet make sense to me that a photon can exist in 4-D and not have a reference frame. That suggests we are arbitrarily limiting the universal to non-superluminal dimensions and a more complicated process is at work.What do you think? Is GR just too incomplete?

Cavediver's looking at the spiritual and metaphysical straight in the face, if not the next step past the word of God in creating and upholding the physical universe, but he doesn't see the forest for the trees.That's Ok for this discussion. We can disagree.The topic is the actual science and data, and hopefully cavediver won't begrudge me for learning, from him and others, and just can't help it, but the more I learn, the more it dovetails the spiritual principles I had learned before.

I agree. I think you may be misunderstanding my point a little. Take the concept of every soul being created by God. We say to people that they are a special creation of God, a unique individual, but that doesn't mean we don't participate or that God does not use a fully natural process.In fact, while the creation of the soul and spirit may be somewhat mysterious, we understand that God uses a very natural process to create an individual, and our free will and natural actions have something to do with it.So I am not trying to suggest that because something is mysterious, it must be God, or that if we more fully or completely understand it, that God isn't somehow involved.But just as natural principles work well with natural processes, I think QM principles seem to dovetail with spiritual principles, that are understood mind you, that it suggests to me that QM and GR are getting into what we have labelled the spiritual realm.By "spiritual" here, I don't mean necessarily the biblical concept of spirituality in being submitted to God, but the broader sense of the arena we have called "spiritual."For an example of what I am talking about, QM posits that some things we would consider impossible are actually, by the laws of physics, always possible, but very unlikely, or at least that's how it's been presented. An example I've read concerns quantum tunneling with the idea that a ball always has a slight chance to go right through a wall without breaking it, but this is so unlikely that we don't expect it to ever happen, but happens with smaller particles in quantum tunneling.What I see in something like that is a mechanism for the miraculous. In other words, people have said miracles (very rare events either in actual deed or timing or both, aided by God) are not possible by such and such laws of physics, but really that old paradigm of classical physics is not entirely correct if taken to an absolute. Well cavediver, something that appears very strange when compared to everyday "reality" is indeed strange, and just because we can come to understand it, does not make it strange.Like you perhaps considering your church, certain spiritual phenomena are no strange to me at all because I have been educated about them and have some understanding and experience how they work, but I wouldn't say they are not strange because from the "natural" mind's perspective, they are strange indeed.Just because math and deeper concepts can make sense of physics does not make it strange because it is strange, and it seems to me that even physicists find it strange when you hear them talk about it, and speculate if such and such is true.

[qs] A perfect artist doesn't leave brush strokes... or a perfect watchmaker, scratches... /qsNot to be argumentative, but great artists in fact use the brush-strokes as part and parcel of the art.Would a Monet, for example, be any good without the brush strokes being so visible?Not really. The painterly aspect of much of the best paintings in the world are crucial to the art itself.But I get the point. I do think that God does hide things, but not so much it is futile to ever seek and find Him out in certain areas.