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Secret

Registered Senior Member
research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/index.html#data=4%7Cd88d1dbd-a736-4c3f-b832-2b0df62e4eca%7C%7C

The distinction of Past and Future

From here Feynman said the irreversibility of time is due to the irregular motion of a huge amount of particles becoming more disordered over time (e.g.a system of many particles in a ink-water mixture, it is less likely for the ink particles to separate from the water particles (or become more ordered) than remain mixed (disordered))

In the end he also mentioned that for a closed system, things tend to go to states where the availability of energy decreases/become more distributed (i.e. entropy increases). But what about the formation of memory, as entropy seemed to be decreasing? Does "no memory" has more energy than "memory"? Or is formation of memory considered a open system?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_of_time

In reference to my 2nd block of text, the perceptual/psychological arrow of time is what bugs me most, as it seemed to go in a direction opposite to entropy

P.S. Any more insights to this topic?

N.B. Original title (blocked by error 500): The difference of past, present and future
 
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From here Feynman said the irreversibility of time is due to the irregular motion of a huge amount of particles becoming more disordered over time (e.g.a system of many particles in a ink-water mixture, it is less likely for the ink particles to separate from the water particles (or become more ordered) than remain mixed (disordered))


Yes but the disorder will be increased only if time goes in one direction.
If it went in both directions, then particles could become more ordered.

Are you sure that Feynman said that?
It seems to posit the problem as a solution to the problem.
 
Yes but the disorder will be increased only if time goes in one direction.
If it went in both directions, then particles could become more ordered.

Are you sure that Feynman said that?
It seems to posit the problem as a solution to the problem.

Umm I'm not sure if it's really feynman said that, but at least the feynman in that video (Not sure about its validity, though, It said it is a recording of feynman's lectures, by BBC) (And I'm not sure whether you can find a similar video in youtube cause to see that video it requires you to install microsoft silverlight)

The difference between the past and the future is time.

The year 1900 was the past.
The year 2100 is the future.

2100-1900=200 years

Any questions?

Sorry but you missed the point
The thing you quoted is simply telling the title of the video in the link
What I want to ask is the nature of the arrow of time
Cause many said its entropy
But is it not that simple?

Also the questions are those followed by the question marks, not the thing you quoted
It seemed to me that memory go against the direction of entropy
Therefore I wonder whether memory formation is an open system, or is memory had higher entropy than no memory
 
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Also the questions are those followed by the question marks, not the thing you quoted

You said:
P.S. Any more insights to this topic?

The topic is "The distinction of Past and Future" so I gave you what you asked for, more insight.

Time is a duration, nothing more. During a duration, you can force mass to have a greater density, as opposed to entropy which causes mass to become less dense. During a duration, you can organize things or disorganize things.

Time is simply the duration in which motion occurs.
 
Relative to neural memory, the neurons use ATP energy to create the membrane potential. This lowers entropy within the membrane, since it segregates cations; potassium and sodium, on the opposite sides the membrane. Higher entropy would prefer a uniform solution of cations for maximum degrees of freedom.

The brain is a slick natural design, since this energy intensive process of lowering entropy and increasing energy within the membrane (membrane potential and cationic segregation), puts the neurons and brain at odds with the rest of the universe. There is a universal push to reverse the brain, via neuron firing, into the universal direction of lower energy and higher entropy.

Once the low entropy/high energy conditions are established by the brain for its memory, it is inevitable this memory has to fire, since the rest of the universe heads in the direction of its firing (firing increases entropy and lowers potential).

Computer memory is designed for stability. It is not based on the hair trigger design of life that induces memory into the opposite direction of the rest of the universe. Living memory becomes alive because it sets itself up for spontaneous change, using the two universal potentials of energy/entropy. The brain is a blend of these two processes; life's contrary direction, plus the universe's natural direction.

As a visual exercise for how the brain and universe combine for consciousness, consider the situation of having ten different block types in a large box. What you will do is randomly take a block and then using that random block, build a castle. Because the blocks are being chosen randomly, you may need to work in different areas of the castle, at the same time, so there is always a place to add a random block to the structure. You make use of the shape of give blocks to combine them easier.

The random blocks are like the universal potentials trying to lower energy and increase entropy within the brain and memory. While the castle building is connected to the brain chemistry of life that is trying to constantly expend energy to lower entropy and increase energy (take this farther and farther). The brain and memory may need to work in many areas at once to maintain order using the random, as the random appears within the order to lower its energy and increase its entropy.

Our sensory system send input into the brain that fires neurons. This neuron firing induction is following the path of the universe. The action of the sensory systems are connected to the universal potentials. The universe finds a way. The brain and life, use these blocks of data to build its castle of multi-tasking consciousness. The more conscious we become, the more subject we become to universal potentials which add new and increasingly subtle variations of random building blocks. These are assembled vai mental castles, such as theories which create order (lower entropy).

Intelligent computing could be done with hardware that is designed to lower entropy and increase energy. You will need software that can make castles from the random blocks provided by the universe.
 
Saying "time is the difference between the past and the future" is nonsensical.

The past and the future have to have "times" associated to them before it makes any sense to say there is a remainder. All it says is a time in the future minus a time in the past is an interval of time, so it doesn't really tell you anything.

As for "time is a duration, in which motion exists", this is also self referencing. "Duration" is already defined in terms of time, and motion isn't independent of time.

I see no "insight". Why would anyone think it's insightful?

Einstein's opinion is better--we invent time "in the past" and "in the future", so we can conveniently identify "where we are now". Even "now" is a convenience, there is no actual moment you can pinpoint, yet the illusion persists.

The only reason humans agree with each other about what time it "is", is because we're all located in the same place (roughly). We aren't moving relative to each other with enough velocity to make any noticeable difference to the measurements we make as individual observers.
 
Einstein's opinion is better--we invent time "in the past" and "in the future", so we can conveniently identify "where we are now". Even "now" is a convenience, there is no actual moment you can pinpoint, yet the illusion persists.

The only reason humans agree with each other about what time it "is", is because we're all located in the same place (roughly). We aren't moving relative to each other with enough velocity to make any noticeable difference to the measurements we make as individual observers.

You can travel 100 meters in 1 second, or you can travel 100,000 meters in one second. Your velocity does not affect time, your velocity is dependent on time. A duration of time doesn't change because you went fast or slow, or traveled 1 meter or 1 million meters. Einstein didn't know time, and neither do you.
 
Motor Daddy said:
Einstein didn't know time, and neither do you.
You don't understand Einstein's opinion of time, nor do you understand any of his theories even at a very basic level.

You don't know anything. You've managed to demonstrate that several times.
 
Secret said:
But what about the formation of memory, as entropy seemed to be decreasing? Does "no memory" has more energy than "memory"? Or is formation of memory considered a open system?
This is a good observeration; memory is an information pattern in our brains that is clearly more ordered than complete neural randomization. I used to wonder the same thing about cities: aren't they more structured than, say, woodlands (or rather, isn't it obvious that we could choose for them to be)? The answer to both is the same. The process of acquiring and organizing that information (or making the cities) produces externalities which far outweigh the associated local entropy decreases. Both processes (memory-making or city-building) would be impossible in a truly closed system.
 
Regarding the arrow of time, it's purely a function of entropy. The real question to ask is, why did the universe possess a low-entropy state from which it could transition?
 
I used to wonder the same thing about cities: aren't they more structured than, say, woodlands (or rather, isn't it obvious that we could choose for them to be)?

More structured, but less information.
Probably the most complex non-organic thing in a city is a computer, but even very simple organic life would contain more information. A leaf of grass for example.
 
You can travel 100 meters in 1 second, or you can travel 100,000 meters in one second. Your velocity does not affect time, your velocity is dependent on time. A duration of time doesn't change because you went fast or slow, or traveled 1 meter or 1 million meters. Einstein didn't know time, and neither do you.

Ummm, no, Time dialation does take effect at a certain point, it is a real effect of traveling at high v relative to c. From the frame of reference of the object travelling closer to c everything will seem different than from some other frame of reference viewing the same events.
 
Ummm, no, Time dialation does take effect at a certain point, it is a real effect of traveling at high v relative to c. From the frame of reference of the object travelling closer to c everything will seem different than from some other frame of reference viewing the same events.

Really? So use your concept of time to show me your numbers of this scenario:

You would not be going back in time if you traveled faster than light towards the star.

Say the star was 100 light years away from you. It emitted light in the year 1911, and the light arrived at your position in the year 2011. Just as the light reached you you started traveling towards the star at 2c. As you traveled towards the star, you would be encountering younger and younger light from the star that was emitted after the original light that emitted in 1911 that reached you when you started traveling.

When you get to within 50 light years of the star, you will have traveled for 25 years, and traveled a distance of 50 light years. So the year is 2036, and the light that hits you there was emitted 50 years ago, so the light left the star in the year 1986.

When you get to within 25 light years of the star, you will have traveled for 12.5 more years (37.5 total), and traveled a distance of 25 light years (75 light years total). So the year is 2048.5, and the light that hits you there was emitted 25 years ago, so the light left the star in the year 2023.5.

When you get to within 1 light year of the star, you will have traveled for 12 more years (49.5 total), and traveled a distance of 24 light years (99 light years total). So the year is 2060.5, and the light that hits you there was emitted 1 year ago, so the light left the star in the year 2059.5.

When you get to the star, you will have traveled for .5 more years (50 years total), and traveled a distance of 1 light year (100 light years total). So the year is 2061, which is 50 years later than when you left in 2011, because you traveled for 50 years.
 
That's a stupid scenario. If a rocket was travelling at twice the speed of light, Relativity says the rocket would measure complex-valued time and space coordinates for the star's light emissions. Relativity doesn't deal with things moving faster than c.
 
@Motor Daddy;

Your scenerio is not possible, it simply doesn't exist, no such thing as an object travelling through space at 2c. Without moving space via some form of Alcubierre drive. At which point there is no scenerio to explain. Time AND space dialate for an object travelling through space at any significant fraction of c.

Without being able to travel that speed, let us play a mind experiment here, The higgs boson is discovered, and a method for disrupting the interaction between an object and the higgs field is determined. (This allows us to create a ship and then make it mass-less.) This ship now has a top speed of c, (in fact it has a bottom speed of c... ) No time will pass for this object between destination and origin. When it arrives 100 ly from origin it will see the fresh light from the star. If it stops at any point along the way, it sees light emitted from that star at some point previously. But this object never travels faster than light through space.

Now; if the object was in an Alcubierre Space, moving through the rest of space... time travels forward at the 'normal' rate for the ships original reference frame. But it is constantly encountering younger light from the star, at whatever rate it is passing through space.

The numbers are straightforward, basic math in this case, not even algebra. I think you can do it.
 
memory goes against the arrow of time because it reduces entropy. but only locally.
if you take the whole universe as your system, the entropy increase elsewhere will make up for the entropy decrease by formation of memory and other things.
 
That's a stupid scenario. If a rocket was travelling at twice the speed of light, Relativity says the rocket would measure complex-valued time and space coordinates for the star's light emissions. Relativity doesn't deal with things moving faster than c.

That's relativity's problem that it can't deal with things moving faster than c. There is nothing wrong with my scenario and it's not "stupid" because relativity can't deal with it. If anything is stupid it's relativity because it falls apart at the speed of light.
 
@Motor Daddy;

Your scenerio is not possible, it simply doesn't exist, no such thing as an object travelling through space at 2c. Without moving space via some form of Alcubierre drive. At which point there is no scenerio to explain. Time AND space dialate for an object travelling through space at any significant fraction of c.

Without being able to travel that speed, let us play a mind experiment here, The higgs boson is discovered, and a method for disrupting the interaction between an object and the higgs field is determined. (This allows us to create a ship and then make it mass-less.) This ship now has a top speed of c, (in fact it has a bottom speed of c... ) No time will pass for this object between destination and origin. When it arrives 100 ly from origin it will see the fresh light from the star. If it stops at any point along the way, it sees light emitted from that star at some point previously. But this object never travels faster than light through space.

Now; if the object was in an Alcubierre Space, moving through the rest of space... time travels forward at the 'normal' rate for the ships original reference frame. But it is constantly encountering younger light from the star, at whatever rate it is passing through space.

The numbers are straightforward, basic math in this case, not even algebra. I think you can do it.

The point is not that an object can travel at 2c, the point is how distance and time work at ANY speed. The scenario numbers add up perfectly, and never miss a beat. Distance and time work exactly as I described in the scenario, whether a ship can travel at 2c or not. The math works as outlined.
 
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