[Mr. Data]

ah forget it Mr. Data, it is "now" a thing of the "past". Let's move on to the "future".

''now'' we are making this complicated - if the ''past'' holds any precedence in the ''future'', I think maybe we should worry about the ''present''!

[Bill E Goat]

I can't tell the past from the future. I think that's because I'm a sock puppet too.

[Mr. Data]

I can't tell the past from the future. I think that's because I'm a sock puppet too.

You can't tell the difference between two things which actually don't exist. The past and future, mr sock puppet, is I tell you, elements of a psychology, not the true nature of physics and relativity.

[Dr. Junix]

I can't tell the past from the future. I think that's because I'm a sock puppet too.

You can't tell the difference between two things which actually don't exist. The past and future, mr sock puppet, is I tell you, elements of a psychology, not the true nature of physics and relativity.

Very well said, Mr. Data, but you have to admit that Physics and relativity are used to predict the "future" and learn the "past". Whereas psychology may in fact be the issue "NOW".

[Mr. Data]

I can't tell the past from the future. I think that's because I'm a sock puppet too.

You can't tell the difference between two things which actually don't exist. The past and future, mr sock puppet, is I tell you, elements of a psychology, not the true nature of physics and relativity.

Very well said, Mr. Data, but you have to admit that Physics and relativity are used to predict the "future" and learn the "past". Whereas psychology may in fact be the issue "NOW".

There are many models of physics in general, which do rely on past and future states: This is very true, and lyes in the heart of probability fields and how they act on measurements, such as a wave function dictating the past and future, but a collapse is made in the present. As for General Relativity, things are a little more complicated than that. Einstein once said it best:

http://thinkexist.com/quotation/the_distinction_between_past-present-and_future/184152.html

“The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion”

So if the psychological makeup of the brain decodes a past and future as a boundary to the present state, then it is us who are fooled by the true nature of time.

[Dr. Junix]

True, true, we've been fooled by this discussion of time, but still I appreciate the brain damages I acquired during this bout which for me is not an illusion but a good experience.

Thank you so much people for enlightening me and deepening my perspective on time.
Time must not be wasting.

[Mr. Data]

True, true, we've been fooled by this discussion of time, but still I appreciate the brain damages I acquired during this bout which for me is not an illusion but a good experience.

Thank you so much people for enlightening me and deepening my perspective on time.
Time must not be wasting.

There is so much more to time as well... then you need to ask, if this is an illusion this ''past'' and ''future'' state, then what is time really like? Is it static? Or what if the illusion runs deeper than that... General Relativity seems to indicate through the Wheeler de Witt equation that we live in a timeless universe, because it admits pure gravity solutions, meaning there are no moving clocks in the universe, it is devoid of matter-fields.

[Dr. Junix]

I think it is not an illusion, and if we go any further we may invent a real time machine.

Lets say, water is time. You open a faucet, imagine the faucet as the "FUTURE", you never know what comes out next, but you expect it to be water, Now imagine the flowing water as "NOW" you are experiencing the running water as "NOW". Next imagine the pool of water in the tub as "PAST". It is there pooled and stagnant. You can step into it, but you cannot experience it the same as running water. We are experiencing the past thru archeology.

Now, when you try to control the water. Let's say you want to stop time. You turn off the faucet. The "FUTURE" stops flowing, there is no more "NOW". but the "PAST" is still there in the tub.

We cannot stop time or "NOW". We leave it at that. Let's turn on the "FUTURE" again we are back to normal. To go to the "FUTURE" is impossible. You cannot go inside the faucet. But we can go back and re-experience the "PAST" in the tub. Let's say you create another "FAUCET" where its source is the tub. You open the second faucet, You are now experiencing the flow as "NOW". Viola. you created a new instance of now. There are now two "NOWS" running simultaneously. But only one "PAST" for they are flowing into the same tub.

[Mr. Data]

It is nice of you to say you think of it not as an illusion; but this is not what science says. In fact, any indication of treating time like a river, which you seem to be doing, is not actually what physics thinks at all, never mind the postulates of relativity, which can even make time disappear!! Only the kind of minds which can detatch themselves from the idea of a flux in time can begin to appreciate that the mental projection of time is all that can be concievable.

[Mr. Data]

Let's begin to understand what the ''time problem'' really is. Fotini Markopoulou said it best I think in her document which was given to the FQXI team for an investigation into the Nature of Time (which was then subjected to prizes drawn on the best written work.)

''Space does not exist, so time can.
By Fotini Markopoulou


Essay Abstract
It is often said that in general relativity time does not exist. This is because the Einstein equations generate motion in time that is a symmetry of the theory, not true time evolution. In quantum gravity, the timelessness of general relativity clashes with time in quantum theory and leads to the "problem of time" which, in its various forms, is the main obstacle to a successful quantum theory of gravity. I argue that the problem of time is a paradox, stemming from an unstated faulty premise. Our faulty assumption is that space is real. I propose that what does not fundamentally exist is not time but space, geometry and gravity. The quantum theory of gravity will be spaceless, not timeless. If we are willing to throw out space, we can keep time and the trade is worth it.

Author Bio
Fotini Markopoulou works on the problem of quantum gravity. Her work explores the microscopic structure of spacetime and the role of causality at very high energies. Born in Athens, Greece, she received her Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Imperial College, London. She held postdoctoral positions at Pennsylvania State University, Imperial College, and the Albert Einstein/Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, Berlin, before moving to Canada in 2001 as a founding member and faculty at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada, a research institute devoted to foundational issues in theoretical physics. ''


http://fqxi.org/community/essay/winners/2008.1


She explains the time problem very well. And it involves a deep understanding of a phase space applied to a cosmological value, where the Wheeler de Witt equation dictates there is no energy change in the branch (universe) - the description of time is also altered in this understanding.

[Mr. Data]

She got in the second community prize draw, but her work should be given more credit as half if it is in the bowels of quantum theory.

[Dr. Junix]

ow