From: snodgras@crash.cts.com (John Snodgrass)
Subject: Re: invention of time
Date: 11 Sep 92 04:03:04 GMT

In <1992Sep8.010243.21974@unixg.ubc.ca> ramsay@unixg.ubc.ca (Keith Ramsay) writes:

[causality]
>which is often used in a very informal way.  Imagine that one is
>having a candlelight dinner, and nods off. One then wakes up some time
>later, unaware that it has been several hours since one fell asleep.
>One asks, "Why are the candles so much shorter than they were?" The
>answer "Because of the passage of several hours' time" is not
>attributing some novel cause to the shortening of the candles; it is
>just singling out the important feature of the (known) process (of
>burning) which you needed to know. It will also explain, for example,
>the "cause" of the clock on the wall registering a later time.

      Special relativity does not treat time in this informal way, if that
is what you're trying to imply. Geometrical space and absolute time are,
as Paul Davies has put it, no longer considered just the arena in which
events occur, but have become players themselves.

>Likewise, relativity ascribes physical causes to the effects it
>described, just as much as any other theory does. Clocks function as
>always supposed, by an interaction of mechanical and other physical
>effects. A clock ticks in the way it does because of the forces
>involved, not because of some extra entity "time" causing it to do so.
>It would, perhaps, be good if accounts of relativity were to make this
>point somewhat more clear.


      You should write a book on your interpretation. You're the first I've
heard with this point of view. Besides, you're  passing the buck to
frames of reference, which is just anoher subjectivist notion with no
physical basis. Correct me if I've mistaken your meaning.

>You can say, if you like, that the clocks run more slowly when moving
>quickly "because of" some details of the interactions of the
>mechanism, and how it operates when moving at relativistic speed. In
>some sense, this account will be a more faithful use of the word
>"cause".


>The details of its mechanism are not especially relevant to an
>exposition of relativity, however, since the same correspondence
>between the activity of stationary and moving bodies is supposed to
>hold for any other kind of system, even if it doesn't operate by
>springwork.

      Yes, this is what makes it mystical. It doesn't involve physical
interaction as a cause, therefore it is placing mathematical notions (which
are meant to be descriptive) in the role of cause. It's an advanced form
of superstition. Numerology with abstract variables.


>The crucial fact, from a modern point of view, is the kinds of
>symmetries which (all known) phenomena of nature are found to have.

      This is the heart of the myth. Nature may or may not possess symmetries.
IMO it does not. Just as it does not possess straight lines or perfect
curves or dodecahedrons. But scientists are always wishing it would, because
then a description would fit nicely into a chalkboard formula, which is
the theoretical physicist's idea of paradise -- especially if he personally
is the one to discover that formula. This is what drives this mystical hunt
for the 'cosmic answer' in mathematical terms. It'll never happen. Nature
is not that way.

      The typical example of failure of symmetry is the once-vaunted
conservation of parity. Scientists spent 25 years or so seeing this principle
at work -- the principle which never existed. Did they learn their lesson?
Hah-hah.

      Antimatter is the same blunder. In fact, no such thing as antimatter
(as the term is taken) exists. You have a particle with a few (very few)
properties. You discover another particle where all the (miniscule number of)
other properties appear the same or opposite. Voila! Antimatter! Then they
can't understand where all the antimatter went, given it must have been
created in the big bang in equal quantities. But, sure, they've cooked up
plenty of explanations. Fantasies built on fantasies. These theories are like
snowflakes built around tiny particles of data. Very pretty, but a little
sunlight and they melt right away.

>The Lorenz transformations, the symmetries of special relativity,
>transform a model of a ticking clock into a model of a more slowly
>ticking clock, moving at high speed. If the theory is correct, then
>all the (physical!) forces causing a clock to tick, whatever they may
>be, are symmetric under that transformation. If one description is an
>accurate description of the behavior of a clock, the other is expected
>to be as well. The forces should therefore, if the clock is caused to
>move at great speed, cause it to tick less frequently.  Likewise,
>fast-moving particles will decay, *for whatever physical cause of
>their decay*, with a longer mean time (with respect to Earth clocks)
>if they are moving quickly (with respect to the Earth).

      Interesting. Your invocation of 'forces' to explain an abstract
theory is mere justification. If the equation holds in practice, there is
a reason why it holds. The reason, however, is unlikely to be some alteration
in the fabric of spacetime such that it affects a cesium clock and a cuckoo
clock the same way. People want to believe that Einstein figured out something
that deep -- even if its ludicrous. That's the profound human need to
believe in someone. Einstein cashed in on that need and converted humanity
by a cultural transformation. His concept of matter was, compared to the
notion you just described, shall we say _superficial_....


>To state that time runs more slowly at high speeds is just a summary
>of this generalization, not a substitution of an extra causal factor.

      That's your interpretation, which, though one might question the need
such a generalization serves, seems perfectly acceptable, providing one
admits that 'time' is just an abstraction invented, a sort of mnemonic for
a certain variable -- and that the equations make no pretense at describing
the _real_ universe.

      But what this is reminiscent of is when you're watching a poorly
written movie, and some character does something really stupid because an
exigency of the plot requires it, and you point that out to someone else,
and they say "Hey, it could happen!" Yeah, sure. But you know that's not
the point. The point is, it's only a movie, and it's a lousy script, and
that's the reason that character did that. But if you want to believe that
"It could happen" because you're into the movie, and you don't like
wet-blanket remarks -- hey, each to his own. To me it's all incredibly
contrived. But I don't kid myself that people cannot see the smoke and
mirrors -- they choose to ignore them for their own reasons.


>Keith Ramsay
>ramsay@unixg.ubc.ca

      John E. Snodgrass [snodgras@cyber.net]