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It may be twaddle, but there's something nagging at the back of my tiny rodent brain that has twanged with relation to time dilation and velocity. I shall have to ponder this further.
Certainly there is a problem that any study of the universe is filtered through our ability to perceive it, but I don't see the wave/particle duality as itself a manifestation that one is less perceptual in nature than the other.In both cases, we are merely using tools to predict what we will perceive. In neither case can we truly say that matter is a wave, a particle, or anything else. What we can say is that we can create models that assume matter is a particle, or that matter is a wave, and these models give us accurate (within certain limitations) predictions of how we will perceive the universe at some certain time if some certain event is observed at present. Whether matter is a wave (or even if matter even exists as a local entity), who can say; but we can say that if you see certain situations arise, and the assume matter is a wave, and make calculations upon the assumption, you can predict what situation you will see 10 seconds later, and lo and behold, when you look 10 seconds later, that is what you see. In other situations, you can use a model that assumes matter is a particle, and make predictions based on that, and look again and see those predictions coming true. Who can say what is reality (if any of them - maybe none of them are true reality), but they work as tools of prediction.
Perhaps I have not explained it well at all. Believe me, I'm not putting this forward as some cosmological, quasi-religious buffoonery - there is no hidden agenda within this, I assure you.(I know this goes on far too much...., and perhaps you are suspicious of questions because of this). Nor am I saying it is right (and so questions are good, it is why I asked the questions in the first place).
Firstly, I cannot see how science can transcend perception.By being counter-intuitive. (and perhaps what I mean to say is conceptual precepts, as opposed to perception, or as perception.)Eventually one would like to offer evidence of any idea put forward, a 'theory' untested and untestable is nothing more than philosophy after all. But what I meant by "transcend" in this instance is that, perhaps (and maybe this isn't the case) we confuse our understanding of the nature of the universe by being beholden to certain precepts. In this case, maybe the idea that matter exists as anything other thn a facet of our perception could be a stumbling block. We look for the building blocks of matter, for example. Perhaps if we were looking at how different interactions of energy react with each other, without considering it's nature as matter, we might begin to understand better the interactions that manifest themeselves as 'gravity', for example. By "ttranscend" I simply mean, that by our perception do we seek the answer by asking the wrong question?
As to how to test it otherwise. I've often wondered how it is that within memory we can jumble up the order in which things occured.
Memory can be subject to change, of course, it tends to be 'coloured' by the state of mind in which we access it. But I would have thought that if memory were to be good for one thing, especially if we perceived time as a constant flow, then chronology ought to be it.
I'm open to suggestions, hence (as I said before) why I posed the questions here....
As with most of the misunderstandings here this is likely just a poor use of language in terms of framing a scientific idea. When I refer to the "pre-conscious mind" I simply mean at some level before we are conscious of it, and addressing "mind" to be a function of the brain, perhaps outside of a definition of mind as you understand it.
We understand the three 'physical' dimensions by means of information fed to our senses. Time we perceive on an entirely other basis. If, for instance we are placed into an entirely darkened and soundproofed room, we have no way of guaging the room's size (assuming we have not seen it before we enter). However, in this environment, without any signal to our senses as to it's passing, we are still aware that time is passing. How are we aware? If we were just passing through time entirely linearly then by what means are we aware of it?
To extend the analogy. If we were placed into a darkened and soundproofed room upon a moving platform, and that platform was moving silently in any direction at a constant speed, we would not be aware of that motion. If, on the other hand, the platform moved, then stopped, moved, then stopped we would become aware of our motion through space.Is our perception of time based upon a similar principle?
This is just, again, my poor use of language - I think. But here we see that matter, particles are referred to, and that the energy is a function of the wavelength of that matter, but what I'm suggesting is that particles don't exist except as a consequence of the way we have evolved such that we can make sense of the universe that we live in. Perhaps I might better explain that by saying that matter (such as it is) is in a constant state of flux (that is defined by its wave nature). In fact, all that I'm saying seems to be;If you are trying to say that particulate matter does not exist, but is merely a manifestation of the wave nature of matter, then this is consistent with what quantum physics is trying to say; but it does not say that matter at all does not exist, and the waves are quantum waves, but not waves of energy (at least, not in the nomenclature they would use). On the other hand, this has little to do with the quantisation of time.except that I'm looking for a reason that we perceive matter as particulate.
If we consider, for example, an electron hitting a sensor: Does the electron pass an amount of energy into the sensor, or does it pass an amount of mass? Does the electron actually have a mass, or is it's mass simply a factor of us holding the moment in place? (I'm not sure that even made complete sense to me, so I apologise in advance).
Exactly. The mind is not linear, so why would we expect information to be dealt with linearly? The fact that we can move things out of sequence surely says something about how we store memory?
I think you are beginning to mix up the points here. What i am talking about here is how we, as conscious entities, are conscious of time. I am not suggesting that time does not exist, so clearly a machine will 'understand' the passage of time as we create it to. BUT, as I have already alluded to, we have used machines to perceive the world that we understand as particulate matter as something other.
You might like to read what I wrote again, as I never, ever used the term instantaneous, nor does the term have any meaning in terms of what I was saying. I thought it would be clear from my explanation of the darkened and soundproofed room that we can detect (to a certain extent) distance by means of judging sounds - which take a period of time to reach our ears (and also lose energy as they travel). Of course it is not instantaneous.
The dimension of time we do not perceive as a physical dimension, we cannot (well, hardly) move ourselves through that dimension. We perceive time other than physically. So what cues are we using to alert us to that constant 'motion'?
To ask why we developed theories around particulate matter, you have to go back to the origin of those theories in classical physics. Right up until the early years of the 20th century, most physics looked at the behaviour of the large scale world (how cannon balls flew, or how apples dropped), and in that context, it made sense to them to regard those apples and cannon balls as solid objects. It then made sense to leverage what they knew about cannon balls and apples to apply to the smallest things they could imagine, i.e. atoms, and subatomic particles. From the beginning there had been problems in fitting light into the notion of solid particles, and there had always been much debate as to whether light was composed of a solid stream of particles, or of non-particulate waves; but everything aside from light fitted very well.It was only well into the 20th century that people started realising that even ordinary matter, when looked into at its deepest level, began to show the same ambiguities that light had always shown, and so they started to formulate models that allowed for that observed paradoxical behaviour.That is why we have the models we have. Now, the first question ofcourse is, how should we now treat cannon balls - do we regard them as something other than solid objects. In a sense, strictly speaking it might make sense to do just that, but it would complicate trying to manage their equations of motion, and for most practical purposes, there is no need for that complication.You are quite right to say that for most practical purposes there is no need for that complication. But it is not the strictly practical that I am thinking of.In a sense, strictly speaking it might very well make sense, might literally help us to make sense of some of the forces and counter-intuitive phenomena, if we treated 'matter' as something other than solid objects. I'd go further, and say that the very term 'matter' itself traps conceptual precepts into that very paradigm. Even in quantum physics, though the underlying thesis is that of matter as non particulate, the particulate nature is reverted to in order to try and understand it. It talks of particles being passed between greater particles. Perhaps, in order to really understand what is going on, we need to be looking to models that are far removed from our biologically pre-conceived notions of 'matter'.
An electron has mass in the sense that we calculate its motion using equations that assume it has mass, and it abides by those calculations. Beyond that, what is mass? Mass is just a number we feed into an equation, and those equations work.And this is precisly my point. But it works only up to a point. Mass is just something we assume it has, and that because of our understanding of the universe that is trapped within our biologically pre-conceived mindset.
And how do we manufacture instrumentation that measures time? By what method do we record time? We set periods. We break time down, and by such action understand it's passage.
We live in a constantly shifting point in time, we are at the leading edge of time (which is why we can only move backwards in time, and why our movement within space is subject to Einstein's relativity - why our 'clock' runs slower relative to someone notionally(relatively) motionless.) I am suggesting that our perception of the world as particulate matter is due to the way we have evolved to sense time, which is by means of some internal method of breaking time down into 'packets'.
In fact this seems to be arguing my point rather than against.
The notion of a particle is a convenience, in that it allows us to set manageable boundaries upon what we are looking at.Indeed, but perhaps it also sets us boundaries beyond which we cannot see...., unless we can acknowledge such.
On the other hand, if one wishes to look at the local behaviour of a wave, it makes sense to set boundaries upon what you are looking at, simply because it is not possible to view a boundless universe at one time. We have the capability to compute what one or two waves are doing, but to try and look at the totality in one go is simply beyond any feasibility capability.Indeed, and perhaps this is exactly what I'm getting at. We revert to the 'comfort' of our perception. But perhaps we have to find a way of understanding those waves, without reverting to our notional paradigm, in order to be able to understand many of the forces which enact upon, and many of the reactions within, our universe.
Yes, the recording of time (as the recording of distance, or the recording of any other measurement) will be in fixed intervals, insofar as the limitations of our communications tends to be by using multiples (commonly integer multiples) of the reference values as a way of recording the value we are choosing to record. This is a limitation of language, but not a limitation of our perception of reality.But, if our understanding of time, if the paradigm with which we view time, is essentially created of that same technique (on a pre-conscious, biological level) and that that notional understanding ascribes our view of the universe (for instance, as particulate), isn't it important to understand that, and thereby judge our questions, and our reading of results, in that knowledge?