Nature of time

5 views
Skip to first unread message

LCC

unread,
Dec 18, 2010, 2:28:43 PM12/18/10
to Epistemology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology
I just finished reading the above, and joined the group on the offhand
that discussion might be fruitful, so please bear with me, as I am
seriously interested in responses.

I regard myself as a sceptic, based upon the article's definitions.
However, some evidence in my past experience leads me to THINK (notice
that I do not say BELIEVE) that time may not be an infinite arrow of
events leading from the present into a deterministic future based
solely upon the present shared situational state, proceeding at one
second per second. For example :

1) Subjective personal experiences in which time slowed to a halt,
evidenced by objects moving extremely slowly, and noise grinding down
to the subsonic.
2) Remembered information which disagrees with evidence at some later
date, being noted, and then transitioning to yet another set of
"facts" or reversion to the original state.
3) Evidence of widespread disagreement regarding the observed facts at
some past event, by OTHER people, not just me. Much of that can of
course be attributed to flawed memory, but a small residue in some
cases points to genuine observation of different versions of past
events, converging to a shared present. To forestall acidic inquiries,
no I will NOT give any examples of such events.

Anyway, I am interested in whether these three observations are shared
by anyone else. Furthermore, just to clarify the point, this is not
one one my jokes such as I pulled on my own newsgroup and spammed in
various places back in 2007. This is a sober 100% serious inquiry into
whether I am deluded or have something in common with others who
prefer unvarnished truth to slick fallacies perceived as unalloyed
indisputable truth by the common crowd.

LCC

unread,
Dec 18, 2010, 11:25:23 PM12/18/10
to Epistemology
No responses? How about a joke...
A crowd of people is assembled in a public place to view the
performance of a "magician". The magician explains that he can do a
magical deed, observable by all, and sets his hat down to collect the
applause money. He performs the magical deed of producing a gold coin
from his empty hands, with no possibility of cheating because he is
wearing only briefs. He tosses the gold coin into the hat and produces
another, which he tosses into the hat. As the crowd applauds, he asks
for donations, and a few coins are tossed his way, which he puts into
the hat. The following observations are made :
1) A Priest sees the performance, and thinks "Perhaps I have seen a
miracle", he hurries away to tell his confessor.
2) A Physicist sees the same, and thinks "Perhaps I have seen evidence
of a violation of natural law", and rushes off to write a new theory.
3) An Engineer sees the same, and thinks, "Perhaps I can build a
machine to do that", he approaches the magician and asks him to talk
in private when he is done performing.
4) A Businessman sees the same, and sidles up to the magician. He
whispers in the magician's ear "I will let you have 20% of the profits
if you let me license your act".
5) A Pickpocket sees the same first coin appear, and while everyone is
oohing and aahing at the spectacle, he works the crowd, escaping with
a dozen wallets and a new appreciation of magicians.
6) A policeman sees the same, works his way through the crowd to the
magician and demands to see his license for public performing.
7) Well, I could go on but the point should be made by now...

They all saw the same event, yet none of them really perceived what
happened, because they were too busy filtering their senses with
preconceptions. The point which I am trying to make here as regards
my first post is that I do NOT claim any special ability or knowledge,
rather I think that there are millions of people who have experienced
at least one of those three examples above. Due to cultural bias, the
discussion of such topics is left to those who are considered insane,
because the mere claim that such things occur is a-priori evidence of
insanity as judged by the current crop of psychologists. Would it not
be better to examine the possibility of such things occurring (the
message), rather than labeling all who observe them (the messengers)
as insane? Within this newsgroup epistemology, I expect that there are
dozens if not hundreds who were led to the subject itself due to the
fundamental question being raised in their own minds regarding the
nature of reality in general, and time in particular. In my personal
experience there have been two occasions when something which I
observed was also observed by another person (in both cases total
strangers). In both cases they rejected the observation with the
equivalent of the logical sequence :
1) Unless I am going crazy, something impossible just happened.
2) I am very sane, and cannot afford to be judged crazy.
3) Since I am sane, impossible things do not happen.
4) Therefor I will forget that it ever happened.

As someone says in his signature (I could Google it, but am too lazy)
"I reject your reality, and substitute my own."

If there is an authoritative non-mystical, non-religious, treatment of
the topic "Nature of time" OUTSIDE of fiction, I would greatly
appreciate a reference. I am well aware of the dozens of science
fiction books which SPECULATE on the topic. My interest ranges from
amusement to disgust in such cases...

Lonnie Courtney Clay formerly "Laughing Crazy Coot" - no longer
laughing, trying to overcome crazy, but unfortunately still a balding
old coot...

Georges Metanomski

unread,
Dec 19, 2010, 3:09:55 AM12/19/10
to episte...@googlegroups.com

Searching wisdom in Wikipedias may only lead to confusion.

Please, have a look at "TIME, AWARENESS AND EVENTS" in
http://findgeorges.com/CORE/A_FOUNDATIONS/a1_time_awareness_and_events.html

It may look surprising, but it has the merit of being the first
step of deriving Einstein's ontology, his "Physical Reality".

Being the first step, it is not the solution, but an opening
towards further complex steps and possible discussions.

Georges.


--- On Sat, 12/18/10, LCC <clayl...@comcast.net> wrote:

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the
> Google Groups "Epistemology" group.
> To post to this group, send email to episte...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> epistemology...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/epistemology?hl=en.
>
>


LCC

unread,
Dec 19, 2010, 3:57:35 AM12/19/10
to Epistemology


On Dec 19, 2:09 am, Georges Metanomski <zg...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Searching wisdom in Wikipedias may only lead to confusion.
>
> Please, have a look at "TIME, AWARENESS AND EVENTS" inhttp://findgeorges.com/CORE/A_FOUNDATIONS/a1_time_awareness_and_event...
>
"When I perceive a tree I'm not aware of being aware of perceiving a
tree, but I'm aware of "tree", so that the only way of expressing
Awareness would be "Tree"."

Hmm, apparently due to early training, my mind functions differently
from yours. In the third grade AT (Academically Talented**) program, I
was taught to think in multitrack mode, with recursion. Not only do I
see a tree, I am aware of the process of observing the tree, of the
process overlaying that of categorizing the tree as important/relevant
to my situation, if so then why it is relevant, if sufficiently high
priority what are the courses of action which I might take regarding
the tree, all processed in parallel and integrated into a gestalt
awareness of myself and my current situation. This is not to imply
that I must focus entirely upon the tree, but upon the tree in context
to the total environment. As an example, In Heinlein's "Tunnel In the
Sky", the main character goes into the training situation armed only
with a knife because he had deduced from conversation that the
knowledge of his vulnerability would increase his situational
awareness. Once he discovers that there are large carnivores in the
territory, he makes it a point to stay near to climbable trees. This
pays off when he is surprised by a large lionlike carnivore. He had
(while paying attention to the total environment), kept IN MIND the
probability that he would need to go up a tree very quickly, and of
course with the author on his side, he succeeded. He was practicing
multitrack thinking.

Combat troops can attest to the value of situational awareness, and as
I understand what little I see on television regarding modern combat
tactics, leadership training emphasizes the importance of that topic.
In combat situational awareness is enhanced by multiple information
sources designed to present a hierarchy of information giving the
necessary levels of detail without overloading the soldier's attention
mechanisms. A prime example is the training of jet fighter pilots...

** The AT program collected all of the genius grade children from
Shelby County TN into one hotbed of fermenting minds from 1964 to
1968. It was one of Johnson's "great society" programs cancelled by
Nixon. Teacher student ratio was 15-20 students per teacher. Every
imaginable trick of the time was tried out to educate students to
college level 3-4 years sooner than normal schools. A typical
experiment was the packet system of learning, self paced, self
directed, only scoring being performed by teachers. Another was the
teaching of graduate level English language theory to grade schoolers,
including sentence parsing for structural diagrams, reading at high
school then college level, rules of logical reasoning, rhetoric, and
composition.

Lonnie Courtney Clay

einseele

unread,
Dec 19, 2010, 7:33:46 AM12/19/10
to Epistemology
Hi

Yes the story is good, and falls into the common situation where there
is an important obstacle between the "I" part of any equation, and the
object.

In other words, a classic subject-object relationship. In order to
grip that object we find the something who stop us by definition, we
ourselves.

Under certain point of view, this "we ourselves" is language.
Undestood as the instance able to uncover the world by blinding those
who need it as the only ridiculous tool available.

In another post you mentioned how a code line in a wrong position
stopped your program and how difficult was to see a piece of text, of
your own. Like if you wanted on purpose not to see what you yourself
knew was there.

I'm a linguist and I'm interested in two dimensional objects. I'm
referring to objects which need by definition two parameters, and two
only.

Time looks like one of those if you think you need always two
reference points.
Any reference to time always needs duration, which is made of two
references. Regardless physics, music, pseudo science, religions, etc,
and even regardless if it even exists, time cannot be referred by one
or more axes, but two.

Same happens with temperature, and other concepts, and importantly to
me, text (I'm including here any conventional list of elements which
only need to be unique and to have a unique position in that list)

Will appreciate your point of view as a software engineer, you deal
with sequences, when you write you need to follow the order needed by
the application you try to develop. So you are used to a bidimensional
space as a writer

rgd

Carlos

LCC

unread,
Dec 19, 2010, 9:37:51 AM12/19/10
to Epistemology
Hmm I suspect that English is not your native tongue, so I will try
not to use any ambiguous words. Although time DURATION requires two
points in time to exist, time references can be a single point, as in
"at that point in time, I ..." The statement would be the same
regardless of the time at which it was made, with no second reference
point necessary. As you say, time durations seem to require only two
reference points, however at relativistic speeds particles which decay
in low speed environments have been VERIFIED to decay at new half-
lives dependent upon the relativistic speed of their travel. So no,
the idea that time duration is defined by the two points of reference
is not sufficient, because you also must know AT LEAST the magnitude
of the velocity with respect to the observer of the object under
examination.

In software there is an enormous freedom to innovate. The simplest
operations which a machine can perform are in the form of an operation
code (opcode) which is the "I" observing, and a source for the
operation to use to alter a machine state, or alternatively, a
destination such as in a clear register operation. Some operations
have implicit sources and destinations buried within the opcode rather
than being explicitly given as an opcode "argument". In such cases the
implicit information takes the form of a machine reference to itself
as in "my" arithmetic results flag register. I have not examined a
machine specific instruction set in the past 20 years, but in the
early 90s a trend was appearing to use what was called at that time
RISC (Reduced instruction set computers). In those architectures, most
of the "my" opcode implicit references were being replaced by explicit
opcode arguments which could take the form of either a constant, a
pointer to the information, a pointer plus offset, or a pointer plus
index and object size plus offset. More recently machine independent
languages have been developed with such names as "J" code which
replace "my" by "some abstract processor's" generally present
functional element, getting away from machine dependent opcodes
entirely.

In general you are correct that machine operations need to be
performed in a specific order to attain proper function. However,
there has always been a recognition that unless a dependency or
coupling relationship exists between the output of an operation and
the inputs of another operation which occurs later in the code stream,
then the later non-dependent operation can be shifted to an earlier
point in the code stream. An enormous amount of effort was put into
algorithms to detect dependencies and wherever possible to shift
operations to the earliest point in time at which they could be
correctly executed, particularly in the case of operations inside
execution loops. I stopped writing software in 1993, so I cannot
report on the current state of the art, particularly that "object
oriented" philosophy which wants to enforce rigid controls over
information AVAILABILITY within functions. If it had not reared its
ugly head, then there would probably by now be global application
level optimizers which pre-calculate as much information as possible
which is needed within calling functions before function call so that
stack relative operations can be reduced, substituting instead clean
simple pointers to memory.

The advent of multi-tiered memory structures such as cache on
processor chips introduced a new wrinkle to the optimization game,
namely the desire to use the same memory locations as often as
possible within functional code blocks, and relieved the processor
users of the necessity to generate what is known as "expanded code".
Expanded code is an attempt to reduce execution time by replacing
execution loops with the same statements over and over again, varying
only constants and pointers, while avoiding those time consuming
offsets and indexes. Expanded code was in danger of making recursion
extinct, which was probably why so many people in applications which
lacked time criticality despised it. More recently, we now have multi-
threaded architectures, which take advantage of multiple processors to
concurrently perform machine operations which are known to have no
coupling relationships.

In summary, I was not aware that any software engineer ever had the
luxury of dealing with just a two dimensional space of neatly ordered
sequences of instructions. A particular processor on a particular
machine does not even have that luxury due to the pipelining of
instructions. Not only is the current instruction being performed, but
also the next instruction to be performed is fetching its arguments so
that it will be immediately ready for execution when its turn comes.
Further along the pipeline looking ahead to future instructions you
have instructions being fetched from cache, or in the worst case from
memory, requiring the cache processor to negotiate with itself over
what gets overwritten as least likely to be called upon soon, and with
memory controllers regarding how big of a chunk of memory the cache
needs to have delivered to it, from what location. Pipeline control is
a topic with which I am somewhat familiar, having worked on
development of instruction test sequences for the SJS version of the
RS6000 chip set in 1989-1990. That task required reading the standard
cell code being written to generate the chip architecture, locating
vulnerabilities and oversights in the design, and coming up with
opcode sequences to demonstrate the defects so that the chip designers
could develop a defect free chip design.


Lonnie Courtney Clay

LCC

unread,
Dec 20, 2010, 11:27:25 PM12/20/10
to Epistemology
Today, at this point in time, we have a prime result of a glaring
discrepancy, in lyrics which I recall versus the web results. No
results found on Google for A) "pull that line, tote that bale" ->
"drunk on pain, land in jail" ---> from "Old Man River".
Is anyone out there willing to admit that you also recall the lyrics
the way I recall them? Perhaps a wise course of action would be to
create a blind drop box email account specifically for the purpose of
responding...
Furthermore from what I read of the lyrics at :
http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/o/olmanriver.shtml
someone has taken the liberty of revising the entire song into a
stream of filth.

Lonnie Courtney Clay

LCC

unread,
Dec 20, 2010, 11:41:21 PM12/20/10
to Epistemology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTnw_MmVptQ
Frank Sinatra 1946 - well if Frank sings "tote that barge, lift that
bale" etc, then I suppose that I just could have misremembered the
words...
UH-HUH UH-HUH

okay here's another one which I noticed when I finally found the
singer last year
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_Wi5vgTe7Y
He - Al Hibbler
any takers for "HE - Beyond the stars, before the Angels sang"?

Lonnie Courtney Clay

einseele

unread,
Dec 21, 2010, 11:50:24 AM12/21/10
to Epistemology
When you say that the expression "at that point in time", refers to a
spatial reference in Time, I believe that we are tunning a different
channel. There are no places or points or any spatial concept in Time,
which still needs to be referred to two references. I dont think you
are talking like: "Today at 8:00" was a "moment/point/place/anything"
in time, are you.
Whatever is Time's nature, (not clear to me, btw) has no spatial
references, unless you talk about space-time, which is a concept
combining space/time, and so a totally different situation.

Also when talking about text/software you made an obscure point,
specially expressed for nobody's understanding, even if you work on
multidimensional objects, the text itself cannot expand other than two
dimensions, what leads me to see that you again did not get the
question. Text is not that something you refer to but that you write,
and I dont see how you can write in three of more dimensions. Please
do not answer this with something like "a point...", also there are no
points or places in text, or in Temperature, etc

Finally I recommend you to keep it simple, which is always the hardest
part

LCC

unread,
Dec 21, 2010, 12:11:49 PM12/21/10
to Epistemology
see :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_diagram
I learned the Reed-Kellogg system of diagramming…

The word "point" has to be interpreted based upon the surrounding
information in a sentence, and prefix/suffix modifiers. For example
(These are ONLY examples, without meaning beyond their own
sentences) :
A line is defined by two points, a plane by three points.
I pointed out that some words have multiple meanings.
A pointer is used in an opcode when the address of the information is
unknown at compile time.
An appointed official is often a bureaucrat, regardless of political
party.
A pointless argument wastes time.
A pointed remarked can be cutting.
Need I go on?

At a certain point in time, further elaboration is counterproductive…

Lonnie Courtney Clay

einseele

unread,
Dec 21, 2010, 12:14:26 PM12/21/10
to Epistemology
A "point in time" is like military music, does not exist

LCC

unread,
Dec 21, 2010, 12:49:43 PM12/21/10
to Epistemology

On Dec 21, 11:14 am, einseele <einse...@gmail.com> wrote:
> A "point in time" is like military music, does not exist
>

Well, if you want to think that way then do your own thing, and grant
that I have the right to self determination, doing as I please so long
as I am peaceful.

Lonnie Courtney Clay

LCC

unread,
Dec 21, 2010, 2:00:58 PM12/21/10
to Epistemology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLQRW7J_D0U
Kiki Dee - I got THE Music in ME

Lonnie Courtney Clay

LCC

unread,
Dec 21, 2010, 2:17:53 PM12/21/10
to Epistemology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWCMhL5qxlE
Leslie Gore - YOU don't own ME

Lonnie Courtney Clay

LCC

unread,
Dec 21, 2010, 2:24:46 PM12/21/10
to Epistemology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVlT9vpv47w
The Grass Roots - THE river IS wide

Lonnie Courtney Clay

LCC

unread,
Dec 21, 2010, 2:28:29 PM12/21/10
to Epistemology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8smO4VS9134
Gerry & THE Pacemakers - You'll never walk alone

Lonnie Courtney Clay

LCC

unread,
Dec 21, 2010, 2:32:26 PM12/21/10
to Epistemology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKCnHWas3HQ
Petula Clark - Downtown

Lonnie Courtney Clay

LCC

unread,
Dec 21, 2010, 2:40:14 PM12/21/10
to Epistemology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIFknAdVvNM
Melanie Safka - Brand new key

Lonnie Courtney Clay

LCC

unread,
Dec 21, 2010, 2:44:14 PM12/21/10
to Epistemology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbLs80cuots
Lulu - To SIR with love

Lonnie Courtney Clay

LCC

unread,
Dec 21, 2010, 7:24:18 PM12/21/10
to Epistemology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrryT-GNXIU
The Ames Brothers and The McGuire Sisters - Side By Side

Lonnie Courtney Clay

LCC

unread,
Dec 21, 2010, 7:38:13 PM12/21/10
to Epistemology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzYBuKaQ83s
Sonny and Cher - I got You Babe

Lonnie Courtney Clay

LCC

unread,
Dec 21, 2010, 7:52:15 PM12/21/10
to Epistemology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCGpvVH41Iw
John McDermott - A little bit of Heaven!
You DID know that I am Irish/ Scots/ Dutch descent among others?
I kissed The Blarney Stone in my imagination, which was sufficient for
MY purposes!

Lonnie Courtney Clay

LCC

unread,
Dec 22, 2010, 12:46:10 AM12/22/10
to Epistemology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWmi2IxgDuk
Nana Mouskouri - The Ash Grove

Lonnie Courtney Clay

LCC

unread,
Dec 22, 2010, 12:50:47 AM12/22/10
to Epistemology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GowMI4wvmU4
John McDermott - Scotland THE Brave

Lonnie Courtney Clay

LCC

unread,
Dec 22, 2010, 12:53:09 AM12/22/10
to Epistemology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ETrr-XHBjE
The Star Spangled Banner of The United States of America

Lonnie Courtney Clay

LCC

unread,
Dec 22, 2010, 1:02:27 AM12/22/10
to Epistemology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESebV4H5JuM
The Seekers - Waltzing Matilda
I reckon The Seekers took out all of the bombs and the rockets before
any harm was done.
Furthermore IRE LAND is also ir-resistable radiation environmentalists
- currently cleaning up all the damage which did occur.

Lonnie Courtney Clay

LCC

unread,
Dec 22, 2010, 1:07:43 AM12/22/10
to Epistemology
Now that the excitement is over, consult "The Genesis Machine" by
James P. Hogan, skip to end of book...

Lonnie Courtney Clay

LCC

unread,
Dec 22, 2010, 3:54:45 AM12/22/10
to Epistemology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBlj9EZFWMs
Barry White conducting the Love Unlimited Orchestra - Love's Theme

Lonnie Courtney Clay

LCC

unread,
Dec 22, 2010, 5:23:53 AM12/22/10
to Epistemology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-1_d6bbM1I
Petula Clark - My love iS warmer than THE warmest sunshine

Lonnie Courtney Clay

LCC

unread,
Dec 22, 2010, 5:29:17 AM12/22/10
to Epistemology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNNW0SPkChI
Little Eva - The Locomotion

Lonnie Courtney Clay

LCC

unread,
Dec 23, 2010, 5:23:33 AM12/23/10
to Epistemology
Upon consideration, I recommend against listening to the locomotion,
until you have a very firm grip upon reality...

Lonnie Courtney Clay

einseele

unread,
Dec 23, 2010, 9:00:38 AM12/23/10
to Epistemology

LCC

unread,
Dec 23, 2010, 9:11:08 AM12/23/10
to Epistemology
On Dec 23, 8:00 am, einseele <einse...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Down here is about carnavalhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPmg_F3WwKA&feature=related
LOL I am 54 years old, but still appreciate talent when such a display
occurs onscreen. However, I made a promise that I would reduce the
viewing of such things until I found myself in a sound financial
condition...

Lonnie Courtney Clay
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages