Re: Human time perception

From: AllYou! (idaman_at_conversent.net)
Date: 01/14/05 

Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 15:36:07 -0500

"PD" <pdraper@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1105733681.275303.299490@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> AllYou! wrote:
> > "PD" <pdraper@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > news:1105728031.532510.74280@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> > > AllYou! wrote:
> > > > "PD" <pdraper@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > > > news:1105723195.992665.61820@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> > > > > AllYou! wrote:
> > > > > > "Richard" <richard4576@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > > > > > news:34q759F4eij72U1@individual.net...
> > > >
> > > > [snip]
> > > >
> > > > > The arrow of time and entropy are real. It's built into the
> > > universe.
> > > >
> > > > Where? Give me the simplest example you can of where *time* is
> more
> > > than an abstract
> > > > notion equivalent to......let's say math.
> > >
> > > I didn't say time, I said the arrow of time.
> > >
> > > I'll give you not the simplest example, but a good example:
> diffusion.
> > > Through random collisions, a gas initially confined to a small
> corner
> > > of a room will eventually permeate the room. In a zillion trials of
> > > this, the gas will always permeate the room. In a zillion trials of
> a
> > > room full of gas, it's highly, highly unlikely that the gas will
> > > congregate to a small corner of the room in even one of those
> trials.
> > >
> > > This *behavior*, recorded by our senses, points to an underlying
> > > property of the collection of gas molecules. That property is not
> > > abstract, because the behavior would not happen without that
> property.
> > > And that property is associated with the ordering of events in that
> > > collection of gas molecules. The ordering is part of the behavior.
> The
> > > ordering is physical.
> >
> > All well and good, but I have two issues with this.
> >
> > The first is the one I've tried to explain before. It is only that
> man tries to
> > conceptualize this process that any ordering of the events is
> required. Ordering is like
> > counting, it's a math process. There is nothing physical about
> counting any more than
> > there is about ordering. It's strictly a conceptual notion.
> Therefore, your statement
> > that ordering is physical is simply not accurate. Counting physical
> things is not
> > physical, it's an intellectual process. Ordering physical events is
> not a physical
> > process either, it's an intellectual one.
> >
> > But where does time enter into any of this anyway? Ordering has not
> anything necessarily
> > to do with the notion of time except to the extent that our psyche is
> inextricably tied to
> > it. We can order the events of the motion of molecules by simply
> referencing those events
> > to the occurrence of an standard set of events. For example, take
> the motion of the
> > rotation of the Earth and divide it up into any number of segments
> you wish. Now that we
> > have a standard for motion, we can use it to note the motion of the
> molecules of gas.
> > Viola, we've ordered events without the use of time. Not that
> ordering is physical
> > anyway, which it is not.
>
> If ordering were not important, then nature would not make a
> distinction which ordering choice is made. It would be
> order-ambivalent. And it is clearly not, as I've tried to point out.

Ordering is not important to nature. It doesn't know how to do it. Whatever properties
which exist in each molecule which drive them to separate such that *the gas* fills the
room is the phenomenon at work. There is no ordering in terms of sequence by nature.
There molecules only know where they are at any given instant, and the fact that their
inherent properties are influencing them away from each other. Hence, they move. It
wasn't necessary for them to know where they were at the last instant, just that they
can't stay where they are.

Recall the example of the two pucks? All they knew is that each exerted an influence upon
the other. How that came to be and how long that influence has been exerted was
immaterial to the influence.

> Now if you are saying that an absolute time scale is not physical and
> that it is sufficient to specify the relative ordering of all events, I
> might even agree with you. This is analogous to saying that spacetime
> coordinates are not physical and only relative spacetime intervals are
> required to specify the locations of all events. (Or to make it more
> elementary, given a particular observer, only relative distances are
> required to specify the location of all objects.) But relative ordering
> still perserves order, as it must, because ordering is physical.

That's not at all what I'm saying.

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