Dear Hal,
----- Original Message -----
From: ""Hal Finney"" <hal.domain.name.hidden>
To: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Saturday, May 07, 2005 2:48 PM
Subject: Re: Bitstrings, Ontological Status and Time
> Time is just a coordinate, in relativity theory. The time coordinate
> has an opposite sign to the space coordinates, and that subtle difference
> is responsible for all of the enormous apparent difference between space
> and time.
[SPK]
I would agree that Time is just a coordinate (system), or as Leibniz
claimed "an order of succession", if we are considering only events in
space-time that we can specify, e.g. take as a posteriori. What I am trying
to argue is that we can not do this in the a priori case for reasons that
have to do with Heisenberg's Unceratanty Principle. Since it is impossible
to construct a space-time hypersurface where each point has associated with
it all of the physical variables that we need to compute the entire global
manifold, from initial Big Bang singulary to the, possibly, infinite future,
it is a mistake to think of time simply as a coordinate. OTOH, it is
consistent if we are dealing with some particular situation and using
Special (or General) Relativity theory to consider the behavious of clocks
and rulers. ;-)
> [HF]
> Granted, relativity theory is not a complete and accurate specification
> of the world in which we live (that requires QM to be incorporated),
> but it is still a self-consistent model which illustrates how time can
> be dealt with mathematically in a uniform way with space. Time and
> space are not fundamentally different in relativity; they shade into
> one another and can even change places entirely, if you cross the event
> horizon of a black hole.
[SPK]
I am trying to include the implications of QM in my thinking and hence
my point about time and my polemics against the idea of "block" space-time.
I do not care how eminent the person is that advocates the idea of Block
space-time, they are simply and provably wrong.
>
> In fact, one can construct models in which there are more than one
> dimension of time, just as we have more than one dimension of space.
> How would your renaissance philosphers deal with two dimensions of time?
> I think their ideas are obsolete and have no reference or value given
> our much deeper modern understanding of these issues.
>
[SPK]
If you look around in the journals and books you will find discussion of
the implications of multiple-time dimensions. For example:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=multiple+time+dimensions+physics
Kindest regards,
Stephen
> Hal Finney
>
Received on Sat May 07 2005 - 16:17:17 PDT