Time Explained

[Brain Man]

Brain Man: very interesting. I'll get back to you.

Cant belive i wrote all that..Think i had too much bank holiday free time on my hands..

Suppose it is usefull for myself to sort out if the science groupthink premise is consistent with the physicsworld comments that theorists are actually being punished.

[Farsight]

Sorry to be tardy, Brain Man. The two-year-old has chickenpox, poor little lad. But touchwood, he's on the mend now.

Some comments:

Why does the average capable scientist face a hard time, no matter what new ideas he produces? The answer is, so these ideas are tested. You get a hard time, in the same spirit as when you propose to play in any given area of endeavor.

See ACS Chemical Biology which features this Nick Kim image:



However some ideas aren't tested because they aren't testable, and they don't get a hard time. Whilst some ideas are testable but don't get tested, because they get a hard time. Et cetera!

What if group interests have taken over the scientific agenda as some of the links I have posted suggest they have? Social study of ingroup agendas show that ingroups tend to produce various levels of rejection, banishment and punishment by any means palatable to the group. The aim is to protect the culture that has grown within from alteration. It’s a basic drive. i.e. We are now punishing and banishing, rather than testing.

I'd say it's always been like this to some extent. Newton had a hard time. Einstein wasn't well known until 1919, and in 1923 he was still being dismissed in Cambridge. Science is a battle of ideas, and once an idea has finally beaten the resistance and dogged opposition the "hard time" stuff tends to be played down and swept under the carpet by the airbrush of history. You can still find out about it, but most people don't.

This forum itself was borne from an ingroup linked to the Richard dawkins, who is not so much a scientist, but a linguistically adept self appointed ingroup/outgroup leader for science vs athiests. Interestingly like the beginning of any ingroup formation the initial leaders tend not to care too much about their subjects in a democratic manner, which is how dawkins was with his forum. I am guessing this is because it takes a power-seeking character to garner the individual all out focus to motivate and push for such a position. But what else is supposed to transpire considering we have populations now believing in science, and so its all entirely natural for matters to end up like this. That’s a separate issue.

Interesting chap is Dawkins. Say no more!

We are only discussing if the scientific process is being compromised here. So if this hypothesis is true, that is the premise of science has been twisted by ingroup behaviour, (interstingly the kind of behaviour that gave rise to the rigidity of later organized religion), what we should expect to see is means and invitations to test theories replaced by ingroup agendas self organizing to give versions of science palatable to its members as scientific “reasons” but with a different aim, to give lip service to fundamental premises of science, but in reality to reject, banish and punish fundamental alterations to the groups information, which has now become a scientific culture. We all know what people will do to protect culture.

I think there's some truth to this, but it isn't black and white. There are multiple groups attempting to impose their favoured hypotheses as consensus, and other groups trying to protect their reputation and standing and control media. People are people, and they're very good at persuading themselves that what they're doing is the right thing, especially when this confers benefit to themselves.

And this is precisely what some very well heeled people, award winners of the highest standard, think has happened in science today. Why does it take such people to make the statement? They are stepping forward from inside the ranks using their status, because they are dealing with a problem being stated from inside by people they can respect who are having problems. Today when I am faced with people saying they have new theories, I simply cannot evaluate them on the basis of their standing within science anymore.

I'd say there's a realisation that things got a little extreme with string theory, and now people are recognising that "the system" as epitomized by peer-review is even less perfect than they thought. It hasn't delivered adequate results, and public and governmental patience is wearing thin, so something must be done.

I have to consider now that all these independent theorists on the fringes might have something important, even if they cannot gain resources to express it technically. I would rather things were not this way as my workload increases exponentially. I am faced with the choice of accepting what is rejected by the mainstream...

Alternatively you could just wait a while. Let's gauge how long by looking at The Golden Age of General Relativity:

"The Golden age of general relativity is the period roughly from 1960 to 1975 during which the study of general relativity, which had previously been regarded as something of a curiosity, entered the mainstream of theoretical physics."

That took 45 years! I hope you understand why I'm a fairly patient sort of guy.

...and live with the nagging feeling fair and encouraging testing is not occurring, or entertain everything no matter its problems and look at it myself. For areas that concern me I have to do the latter as I simply cannot trust science to extract what could be good from todays pool of ideas.

Truth will out, Brain Man. It just takes a while. Don't forget that it's professional physicists who are fighting the mainstream, not just amateurs on the fringe. The problem is that magazines like New Scientist and newspapers like The Times tend to take the mainstream side whilst denying publicity to alternatives which are then "studiously ignored".

This means that science is starting to collapse into itself under its own burden. I hope this will sort itself out in the next ten years or so, and have taken an interest in this to see what to expect. It may just be that the fundamental premise of the creativity of science does not scale well to large group proportion. The reason large groups cannot entertain too much creativity, is for many reasons, but summed in that it causes destabilization.

I'm not sure that's true of science. I think it's perhaps true of certain sections of theoretical physics, but then it's a paradigm collapse and a scientific resurgence.

The demand is on the increase by the populations for a version of science that does scale to its need, (more politicians citing studies to win a point).

I'd perhaps put it another way. Excuse my French: the demand from the public is for some tangible fucking results!

The future of science is going to be very different to its beginnings then, and as already occurred is a slow creeping evolution from its previous form. The solution is that a reform might have to be devised for pure research, not for science to fight against the machinations of delusion (i.e. how it arose to fight religion). Going too far in that direction will inhibit any creativity, as you can basically label any novel idea, so what is required is a mechanism to protect the creative scientific core from the political tendencies of human groups themselves.

I feel optimistic. Apologies, I can't be totally open as to why. There are a few things that it would be improper for me to talk publicly about - not so much secrecy as personal confidences, it's not done to repeat private email exchanges.

[colubridae]

This has become a pure 'bitch' about the peer review system and should be split onto another topic.

[Brain Man]

This has become a pure 'bitch' about the peer review system and should be split onto another topic.

Well we dont really need to go there. Practically every other scientist you meet has a problem with todays journal system.

Personally i really benefited from peer review. Free criticism that helps sort out the problems with your work. I was pretty much over the moon. Try getting that kind of on demand expertise for free in any other area.
Doesn't appear to be so straightforward for everybody though.

The journals (not the editors and reviewers) with their so called "business model" are completely un co-operative unless you have a very large cheque book. i.e. When you publish you give them free copyright over tabled datasets and images. You then need permission to use the work of other scientists. It can cost a couple of thousand and take half a year to deal with their bureaucracy. Write to the scientists themselves and you will have permissions often within a day.

[Brain Man]

back on subject research into time peception and the brain.

http://neuro.bcm.edu/eagleman/time.html

Very interesting article, Brain Man. I've read about this sort of thing before, because I do have something of a side-interest in consciousness. It stems from my IT background, how optical illusions seem to say something about neuroscience, and observations of machine-like convictional behaviour. I don't know if it's of any relevance or interest, but I do seem to have extraordinarily fast reaction times.

well it is, and this is going to come off as me sounding like your fan club here (im not and attempt to put all your ideas under "fair" scrutiny and comparison)...

but fast reaction times have been correlated with high IQ, and till the IQ debate was closed down completely for political reasons. reaction time was seen as the remedy for researchers to offset cultural context to testing.

[Brain Man]

I feel optimistic. Apologies, I can't be totally open as to why. There are a few things that it would be improper for me to talk publicly about - not so much secrecy as personal confidences, it's not done to repeat private email exchanges.

That sounds interesting. I think one thing we can have some level of blind faith about, is that as humans we do tend to sort everything out for the better in the end.

BTW..I didnt expect a reply to that over indulgent bank holiday essay, but thanks anyway...especially considering the circumstance. pre-diagnosis can be an anxious time when young ones have illness of that kind..

[Brain Man]

Gardner explains criterion 4:

When Newton was the outstanding name in physics, eccentric works in that science were violently anti-Newton. Today, with Einstein the father-symbol of authority, a crank theory of physics is likely to attack Einstein in the name of Newton. ...

This doesn't apply to me, lpetrich. I side with Newton and Einstein.

While misunderstanding them and quote-mining them, and refusing to acknowledge where they do not support your theories.

As ChildInAZoo pointed out, you fit the first part very well, though you take it a step further than the anti-Einstein crackpots of Gardner's day. In fact, one can recognize a progression:

1. Newton -> anti-Newton
2. Einstein -> anti-Einstein, restoring Newton
3. String theory -> anti-string-theory, restoring Newton, Einstein

Likewise with dark matter and Higgs particles.

That would be fair if string theory were an accepted paradigm.

What you are saying is that this "restoring" as part of Gardners analysis points out a kind of fundamentalism in deluded thinkers. A need to get back to solid paradigms, whilst decrying anything new from the main players ? An extension of teenage rebelliousness, which may be indicative of the neuron pruning teens go through. i.e. Some neuroscientists think Schizophrenia is thought to be an extension of the teenage neuron pruning going wrong. So when you see extreme rebelliousness with no attempt to fight with reason, it is a good indicator that there may be delusion in the picture.

Thats fair enough, problem is you cant correlate all behaviors so easily to delusion like this. Some people might be angry for other reasons that are non delusional. Gardners analysis isn't a psychologically evaluated model of testing mental dysfunction. Neither is the Quackwatch questionnaire.

But i get the point that the difference between the successful maverick and the not so, is that the successful maverick has an inside out understanding of the area he is trying to improve.

[newolder]

... successful maverick has an inside out understanding of the area he is trying to improve.

How could it be otherwise?

[lpetrich]

Farsight and Brain Man, much of your argumentation fits Martin Gardner's pseudoscience criteria 2 and 3 suspiciously well. Do you have any better arguments than what oxen the orthodox are? Nobody's ever gotten a theory accepted by making that orthodox-oxen argument. You also ought to realize that exploring new theories ought to be done with critical sense -- being heretical doesn't make you right.

I'd say there's a realisation that things got a little extreme with string theory, and now people are recognising that "the system" as epitomized by peer-review is even less perfect than they thought. It hasn't delivered adequate results, and public and governmental patience is wearing thin, so something must be done.

How is that supposed to be the case? And how is that supposed to demonstrate your pet theories?

Let's gauge how long by looking at The Golden Age of General Relativity:

"The Golden age of general relativity is the period roughly from 1960 to 1975 during which the study of general relativity, which had previously been regarded as something of a curiosity, entered the mainstream of theoretical physics."

That took 45 years! I hope you understand why I'm a fairly patient sort of guy.

General relativity was NOT dismissed as heretical -- it was viewed as an arcane curiosity with elaborate math.

[Twiglet]

Einsteins theories actually predicted something, and they were accepted widely within a few years.

Einstein also created most of his science between what 1910-1920.... Gee communication was fast back then, not like today, where everything has to travel by carrier pigeon. Much easier to validate his calculation back then too, before computers and calculators were in common useage. Things were faster on the abacus.

The scienmtists of today have to spend years painstakingly doing arithmetic with slide rules to work out even the most basic calculation. Denied the opportunity to plug a formula in a program and see the results derived.

Yes, back in Einsteins day things were so much easier....

/sarcasm

A few points:

1) If time is not a dimension, then how do you explain causality.
2) Given point 1, mustn't we, by definition, be living in a deterministic universe, as all sapce, regardless of our perception, would be mapped without reference to non-existent time.
3) How can the conclusion drawn above be reconciled with the uncertainty principle.
4) What experiment can be conducted to prove time doesn't exist. How and where will the results differ from established theory?

[lpetrich]

I think that the development of quantum field theory helped physicists get interested in general relativity, because QFT gave many physicists practice in mathematics that is as arcane as GR's mathematics. Try calculating a one-loop Feynman diagram, as opposed to drawing pretty pictures.

[Farsight]

Farsight, I dare you to read Albert Einstein's The Meaning of Relativity, pages 16-17, where he explains how Special Relativity treats space and time. I will quote a little bit from it to give you a summary of what Einstein thought:

"Upon giving up the hypothesis of the absolute character of time, particularly that of simultaneity, the four-dimensionality of the time-space concept was immediately recognized. It is neither the point in space, nor the instant in time, at which something happens that has physical reality, but only the event itself. There is no absolute (independent of the space of reference) relation in space, and no absolute relation in time between two events, but there is an absolute (independent of the space of reference) relation in space and time, as will appear in the sequel. The circumstance that there is no objective rational division of the four-dimensional continuum into a three-dimensional space and a one-dimensional time continuum indicates that the laws of nature will assume a form which is logically most satisfactory when expressed as laws in the four-dimensional space-time continuum. Upon this depends the great advance in method which the theory of relativity owes to Minkowski. Considered from this standpoint, we must regard x1, x2, x3, t as the four co-ordinates of an event in the four-dimensional continuum."

No problem lpetrich. That's on page 30 of my paperback copy, Note that he's talking about events, and that I talk about Minkowski spacetime too. Now go and read Time Explained. But before that, turn back a page or so and read this:

"The theory of relativity is often criticized for giving, without justification, a central theoretical role to the propagation of light, in that it founds the concept of time upon the law of propagation of light. The situation, however, is somewhat as follows. In order to give physical significance to the concept of time, processes of some kind are required which enable relations to be established between different places. It is immaterial what kind of processes one chooses for such a definition of time. It is advantageous, however, for the theory, to choose those processes concerning which we know something certain. This holds for the propagation of light in vacuo to a higher degree than for any other process which could be considered, thanks to the investigations of Maxwell and H A Lorentz."

Doubtless you will now dismiss this as quote-mining, and insist that space and time are coequal, and time is NOT derived from motion. Now, I dare you to read A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Godel and Einstein. That dates from 1949.

[Farsight]

Farsight and Brain Man, much of your argumentation fits Martin Gardner's pseudoscience criteria 2 and 3 suspiciously well...

Enough, lpetrich, Tackle the scientific evidence and the logical argument, If you can't, bow out instead of making sneering ad-hominem allegations that make you look like a fool and a hypocrite.

General relativity was NOT dismissed as heretical -- it was viewed as an arcane curiosity with elaborate math.

I didn't say it was dismissed as heretical. I said it was dismissed in Cambridge in 1923. Don't you even read my OPs? See How Gravity Works. You can see a reference to this on page 53 of Graham Farmelo's Dirac biography The Strangest Man:

"At that time, Cunningham and Eddington were streets ahead of the majority of their Cambridge colleagues, who dismissed Einstein's work, ignored it, or denied its significance".

[Farsight]

Einsteins theories actually predicted something, and they were accepted widely within a few years.

See my previous post and The Golden Age of General Relativity.

Einstein also created most of his science between what 1910-1920.... Gee communication was fast back then, not like today, where everything has to travel by carrier pigeon. Much easier to validate his calculation back then too, before computers and calculators were in common useage. Things were faster on the abacus.

Don't forget that 1905 was his miracle year. But granted, his contribution diminished from around 1920. Maybe not 1920 exactly, but he didn't do much after GR.

The scientists of today have to spend years painstakingly doing arithmetic with slide rules to work out even the most basic calculation. Denied the opportunity to plug a formula in a program and see the results derived. Yes, back in Einsteins day things were so much easier....

Some say that as Einstein's mathematics improved, his insight diminshed.

A few points:

1) If time is not a dimension, then how do you explain causality.

It is a dimension. I say it's a dimension in the OP. It's just that it isn't the same kind of dimension as the dimensions of space in that it doesn't offer freedom of movement. Causality is because one event causes another, because you have to move from A to B in order to move from B to C. There's still a sequence.

2) Given point 1, mustn't we, by definition, be living in a deterministic universe, as all space, regardless of our perception, would be mapped without reference to non-existent time.

Not at all. And FFS, read the OP, I say time exists like heat exists. A deterministic universe is impossible because in order to calculate the positions of all particles, you have to move even more particles around to perform the calculations.

3) How can the conclusion drawn above be reconciled with the uncertainty principle.

The HUP applies to a wave. It's an extended entity, it doesn't have a pinpoint position, and the momentum it imparts varies as it passes. All "particles" are wave configurations, which is why HUP applies.

4) What experiment can be conducted to prove time doesn't exist. How and where will the results differ from established theory?

FFS read the OP. Time exists. Your question should be What experiment can be conducted to prove that time flows or that we travel through time at the rate of one second per second? The answer is: none.

[ChildInAZoo]

How can time be a dimension and exist like heat exists? Is heat a dimension?