The crack between the future and the past
Breathing between tomorrow and today
Lonely island or sandy, sea-locked reef
Surrounded by a large number of oceans
On whose shore, my soul is trapped, cast,
The shipwreck was washed away
The horizon of that day
Until I finally peeked at Telltale Sail
A phrase “wait for the turn of its crown
Causality is intimate
Watch at night
It means that darkness is fading
All good things will be introduced in a timely manner
I can make the flowers grow by waiting– Max Leyf
The way physicists think about time includes built-in contradictions. No one denies this, and there is a wide range of literature in the philosophy of physics that has little agreement.
The most common paradox is that the “time arrow” of thermodynamics cannot be found in the basic equations of physics. Based on the microscopic equations of physics, thermodynamics is considered a derivative science, which is fundamental. However, the basic equations are exactly the same and are carried out in time, while the derived equations (about the increase in entropy) tell the changes in a time direction of irreversible changes.
We have experienced the difference between the past and the future. We have a proxy awareness of the future, and we see the past as being in trouble. Where does asymmetry come from? If the equations of particle physics are indeed the root of all reality, why is the direction of time so different from the backward direction in our experience?
However, there is a bigger paradox that only physicists can solve skew. The most prominent feature of our time experience is that there is a “now” that is different from all other times. What is crucial to our conscious experience is a sense of passing. However, this “now” cannot be found in all the equations and laws of physics.
“The moving finger wrote; and, there is a warrant,
Keep going: Not all piety, not wit
It should be tempted to cancel half of it,
There was no cry of a word washed away. ”
– Omar Khayyám (Tr Edward Fitzgerald)
You can pore through all the equations of physics – very efficiently describing all equations from particles in high-energy colliders to motion of galaxies – all of which do not understand the special “current moment”. Our subjective temporal experience as moving things has no place in Newton’s equations and remains the case in quantum physics.
The feeling of moving “now” is so essential to our experience that it is inseparable. Conscious consciousness and “time flow” are part of a concept, or a different way of doing the same thing.
Things got worse. We firmly believe that “now” is special because the fact that everyone we know is strongly enhanced by the same fact that “now” we do. For people who are close enough to interact with us, their “now” is the same as our “now” and in a million seconds, it is too short for our perception device to distinguish. Communication at the speed of light can connect anyone with anyone within a few hundred seconds, which is the threshold of the time interval that our senses may perceive. In daily conversations, the time lag of sound speed is also within one percent of a second.
Absolute, real and mathematical time itself, flows averagely from the essence of its nature without relating to anything external, while other names are called durations: relative, obvious and common time, is some kind of wise and external (either accurate or unfair) duration. – Isaac Newton
Our subjective experience is moving “now”. Einstein shows us that the subjectivity of time is relative, and he further claims that “now” is an artifact of our human condition, a fantasy without physical meaning. Recently, Julian Barbour wrote an article, and the entire book denies the reality of that era. I think this is an extremely pervert to science. The purpose of science is to explain our experience so that it is understandable and (somehow) predictable. Science is burning for us when science tells us that there is no explanation because our experience is a fantasy.
It is difficult to make predictions, especially for the future.
– Yogi Berra
In quantum mechanics, the equation itself is symmetrical with respect to the forward and backward times. But, in reality, we always use quantum mechanic equations to predict the future of the past and never “review” the past. This can be seen as an additional, unexplained rule in the basis of quantum physics: wave functions must be used to predict future probability, but by no means the past. This shows a way in which quantum mechanics can provide the basis for subjective “now.”
“Nothing happened in the past; it happened in the present. Nothing happened in the future. It will happen in the present.” – Eckhart Tolle
Quantum mechanics famously requires the “observer” to complete the theory. For each observer, observation occurs in the subjective “present”. The choice of observation is similar to our feeling, that is, we are free to guide our attention. It is through this choice that consciousness enters the physical world, and we can pass through the impact on the future.
One idea that comes to my mind recently is to determine what we call “consciousness” through the feeling of moving “now”. Observation is a means by which consciousness enters the quantum physics mode. The Schrödinger equation tells how probabilities develop between observations, but humans (or animals or plants) choose shares of shares to observe with equations that have a causal relationship in making the past develop to create the future.
We (and our entire life) are created by us as witnesses. When choosing the focus of our attention, we will be involved in creating the future at every moment. This is the physical meaning of “now”.
There is a quantum phenomenon called the inverse zeno effect, and repeated selection of the method to be measured can affect the quantum state to become different states.
I suggest incorporating consciousness into the physical basis, investing time from its physical characteristics, including causality and increase in entropy, separates unidirectional macrophysics from the time symmetric equations of fundamental physics.
Background – If this starts to rotate your head, I suggest you review past articles about quantum measurement problems. Here and here more.
If you are interested in conceptual alternative to the physical universe on the conceptual basis of science, I suggest reading the background. This is the subject of a book I hope to finish this year, and on my writing of this science blog, I will publish excerpts.
For those who are impatient, this is a brief introduction to the revolutionary reimagining of the scientific foundation.
- Quantum physics already contains the potential role of consciousness in the form of “measurement problems” or “wave function collapse” (two names of the same thing).
- Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne determined in Princeton Pear Lab that simple thoughts affect the quantum probability of distance, and that there is no “physical” connection between humans and quantum systems. (On the one hand, this discovery is so profound that it deserves a Nobel Prize, and on the other hand, contrary to traditional physics, most physicists don’t even look at their experiments.)
- There is a hint that it is not unique to humans – animals and even plants can do it.
- Although Jahn and Dunne found little effect, they worked with distracted experimental topics, who volunteered to complete a boring task and had no shares. This is a reasonable inference that in our bodies, intention has a much greater impact on probability. We have skin in the game, and as babies we learn to use our intentions to control the brain and body in detail. My hypothesis is that the Jahn-Dunne effect explains our intention to be able to create thoughts and muscle movements in our brains.
Our view is individual. Our “now” is individual to each of us, and Einstein taught us different times for different observers. However, there is a consensus reality. To a large extent, I can talk to you about events in the world and I can count on you to verify their potential. It is (mainly) an objective universe, and different observers can bring together their observations to create composite reality.
If physics tells us that every observer influences the physical world through the choices she makes in terms of what she measures and what to pay attention to, our experience tells us that together we create consensus reality by communicating and combining observations.
The way we combine observations to build consensus reality is an open question that science has masked. The most famous mention of this question comes from Nobel Prize winner and second-generation quantum physicist Eugene Wigner. He raises a question in the form of paradox that has been called “Wigner’s Friend”. Wigner directly points out that when we treat the external human brain as a quantum system, we can query through measurements and we encounter paradoxes. The larger point is that the method of combining information from different observers is an unsolved problem in the physical basis.
If you are still confused, then the expected results of this article. Physicists work closely with time as a parameter, but do not understand our time experience and may even tend to deny our experience because they think their equations are more real than our views. Studying paradoxes and contradictions in theory is often through a broader, more inclusive, fruitful pathway to transcend current theories. The idea on this page is an invitation to the project.
