[MD] MD On Time?

[Scott Roberts]

Case,

Scott said in the Looking for the Primary Difference thread:
This bit of pruning needs to be reinstated, since it is the crux of the
whole matter.

Is time durational or successive? What continues when you sense a change?

[Case]
I agree this is a really important point. I am throwing together a few
initial thoughts but would love to hear your take. Since I am admittedly
prone to misunderstanding; I think what you are asking is whether time is
continuous or discrete. Your problems with bits and elementary levels of
processing suggest that you regard it as discrete but I am very interested
in your actual thoughts. In fact this is just a bit of rambling in the hope
you can help either throw it out or give it some shape.

Scott:
What I am getting at is raising the question of how we can be aware of time 
passing (that is, of things changing) if awareness is thought to emerge in a 
Newtonian universe. (More on what I mean by this below).

Case continued:
The specific nature of time is intertwined with the nature of space; since
they are supposed to be the same thing. We think of space as continuous so
perhaps time is as well. However in order to talk about space we have to
divide it up into units of measurement. The same occurs with time. Even if
it is continuous we don't seem to be able to do much with it until it is
carved into units.

Euclid begins with: A point is that which has no parts. Does this referred
strictly to space but does it apply to time as well?

We often speak of a point in time but I wonder what significance this has.
Whenever we talk about the past or future, we seem to be talking about
periods of time, time as a certain number of units past or future. Is there
a fundamental unit of time? If you say that a "point" is "that which has no
parts," can you say that an "instant" is "that which has no duration"? Is
there a geometry for this?

Scott:
I'll interrupt here. First, one should be aware that a mathematical point 
and a mathematical continuous line are mathematical creations. There is no 
reason to assume that physical reality has points or continuity. Newton did, 
and Einstein also, but quantum physics challenges this. In quantum gravity 
theories, it is more or less accepted that there is basic unit of time (and 
of space -- the latter called the Planck length, I forget what they call the 
time one, maybe Planck time). Because of the Uncertainty Principle, anything 
smaller is meaningless. Space and time are also thought to be meaningless in 
black holes. (Even in special relativity, there is no space and time for a 
photon). Furthermore, they (the quantum gravity folks) are trying to work 
out what they call "background-independent theories", which is to say a 
theory in which space and time are NOT the background, but are derived 
within the theory.

Case continued:
It would seem that the most significant point in time is "Now". I would
conjecture that "Now" is the "instant" in which all probability achieves
100% in other words it is the instant of absolute certainty. Every other
instant is probabilistic in relation to the "Now instant". I suspect this is
tautological but it is interesting. For example can probability hold at 100%
for some duration? That would make the fundamental unit of time the duration
for which all of the quantum uncertainties can be said that have been
resolved. I am going to hazard a guess that this would be a very very short
duration. Smaller even than itsy bitsy.

Scott:
Well, what you seem to be ignoring is that we don't experience an "instant" 
of time. "Now" is a duration. If time were a succession of points (discrete 
or continuous, it doesn't matter -- in the continuous case, one can assume a 
sequence of discrete snapshots), one has to ask, what endures so that we 
hear a whole note lasting a second in a piece of music, and not 440 changes 
in air pressure (which in turn consist of a zillion electromagnetic events).

Case continued:
This "Now instant" would make space and distance, even the shape of space,
irrelevant; as it would apply to all things everywhere. It should apply to
everything that does or even does not exist. This seems to have self
evidence going for it.

Your actual question was framed as: Is time durational or successive? So
perhaps you mean does "Now" have duration or is it a succession of
"instants" in time. If it is a succession of instants there is the huge
problem of what happens between then. It is like a clock cycling between
time and no-time. What happens during the no-time cycle? Could no-time
cycles be said to have duration in any sense? Would the entire universe be
configuring and reconfiguring itself from instant to instant. Or would it be
something like prime numbers where the number of primes is infinite but the
space between them is hard to put a finger on.

Scott:
It is not so much a problem of what happens between them as what spans them. 
It's the homunculus problem again.

Case continued:
Or if we are saying that an instant has no duration, can a stream of
no-durations have duration, as a line is a succession of points?

Rather than asking how can consciousness exists if awareness is limited to
some fixed instant or set of instances I suspect you are really asking how
can anything at all exist.

Scott:
No, I am attempting to point out that assuming that time is "out there" 
raises unresolvable paradox. (Note: when I say "time", you can always 
substitute "things changing" to avoid the Newton/Leibniz debate over whether 
time is something in itself (Newton) or just relations (Leibniz).) To say it 
is successive raises the homunculus problem. To say it is durational raises 
the problem of what delimits durations. It can't be any change, since things 
are changing as we listen to a one-second note, so then something endures 
over changes. What all this leads to is not asking whether anything at all 
can exist, but that time and awareness are inseparable, that awareness 
creates time (and space). The paradox arises when it is assumed that space 
and time exist prior to awareness. Of course reversing this assumption 
raises other problems, namely, what is timelessness (eternity) "like". Well, 
I don't know. All I know is that mystics assure us that eternity is real, 
that time is (as Plato put it) a measurement of eternity.

- Scott