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Tim,
a decade - or so - ago I ent through some agony
to identify the "simple" concepts MY WAY. (I was not exluding earlier similar
variations of others, if they seemed acceptable in my terms).
For time I remember the definition: a function
of movement (I added: in space) which can easily be generalized into a function
of change in its sequence.
I found an inadequacy between our ideas (as
crutches for the understanding of the world) of space and time: in the
physical sense I could figure space without time, but not time, without space.
Generalized: topics can be seen without change, but change cannot be seen
without topics.
Then I slipped into trying to find terms of
aspatial and atemporal world systems, which is very hard. I had to abandon
causality in timelessness, since cause and effect mixed together, in spite of
Feynmans sweat to do a similar thing in QM.
I believe the 'time' problem is so fundamental
in our reductionism based ways of thinking that the 'time' <G> may not be
ripe for the clarification of the concept.
Just a remark from an innov=cent
bystander.
John M
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 3:58
PM
Subject: Re: Time and context
Hi
Judith,
I think we are
indeed each looking of time in somewhat different ways. As do you, I do
not think time is "merely a figment of collective human imagination". Not
entirely, anyway. To me, time is the observer-imposed relation of
changes in some physical clock system as a reference system to
changes in some physical system under study.
What I see in
ch. 4 ("The Encoding of Time") of AS is primarily the exploration of
dynamics and logical time as a way of exposing the notion of "time" as not
being a true physical quality; but, rather, a quality of the type I
mentioned above.
To me, the
dilemma of "time" is that it is inherently about the relations between changes
in values of observables of multiple systems, and therefore we cannot study
this relation except by comparison of two (or more) such systems. In a
sense, we have no way to speak of changes in the material world except in
reference to other changes in the material world. This is, of course,
just the frustrating restriction due to not belonging to
a universe we can make fully objective, and one in which we can
deem no particular source of change as being regarded as 'the' universal and
fundamental measure of change in the universe.
Regards,
Tim
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