Dear Organlearners,
Gavin Ritz <garritz@xtra.co.nz> writes:
>That was an excellent contribution very well put and quite true.
>In fact it has never been proven that time exists at all. Time is
>a total mental creation of man. There have never been any
>scientific experiments that proves time.
Greetings Gavin,
As I understand it, the basic idea of any scientific experiment (as part
of the scientific method) is not to prove anything, but to falsify our
speculations based on observations. Furhermore, all our speculations, true
or false, are real like all other mental creations. They never stop to
exist when we scrutinise them by logics or empirics and then find them to
be false. They only become more qualified, for better or worse.
The question thus is not whether time exist or not, but whether it can be
qualified furthermore. The first person in all history of humankind who
could qualify it more than merely as the result of measurements based on
events which occur periodically, was Einstein. This makes Einstein one of
the most creative thinkers in all history of humankind. Since then only
Prigogine took one step further, showing that on the level of atoms time
pulsates like a beating heart through the action of the time operator.
I myself believe that we use the concept (mental creation) of time as an
inappropiate articulation of something else. That is why I wrote:
>> What do clocks, our instruments for measuring time, measure?
>> The formal answer is to say that they measure time. It is such
>> an obvious answer that we do not think a second time about it.
>> But what does your tacit knowledge say? Look at your wrist
>> watch. We have learnt from other people that it ticks second
>> after second away. But is it what the watch is actually doing?
>> What regularity is actually operating here?
to which George Bartow <jorge@tenet.edu> replied:
>Looking at the watch?
Ay, look and see.
Every watch (clock) works by dissipating its free energy into thermal
energy (heat). It does not matter what type of watch it is. In a sand
(hour) glass the free energy is gravitational. In a mechanical watch the
free energy is elastical derived from a wound-up spring. In an electronic
(digital) watch the energy is electrical derived from a battery. In an
atomic (cesium) watch the energy the energy is electronic derived from the
jumping of valency electrons.
When all the free energy has been used up, the watch cannot work any more,
i.e "measure time". The watch has reached its equibrium state. Time
ceases to exist for that system.
All watches has a subsystem which controls how its free energy is used up.
Specifically, this control subsystem ensures that the free energy is used
up in constant amounts for a cyclic event. In the case of a sand glass it
is a fixed hole through which a fixed number of sand particles must fall.
In the case of a mechanical watch it is a fly wheel (or pendulum) which
has to oscillate through a fixed angle. In the case of a digital watch it
is a tiny quarts crystal which has to oscillate in an electric field.
The free energy of any system is that part of its total energy which can
be used to change the future organisation of the system. The organisation
consists of processes and structures. One or more forms of energy (all
forms make up the total energy) can contribute partially or fully to the
free energy. The free energy is converted into less organised forms of
energy like thermal energy which cannot be utilised again for
organisational change UNLESS the system emerges constructively to
something new. Associated with this conversion of the free energy is a
production of entropy.
The free energy in a sand glass is used to make an increasing pile of
sand. The free energy in a mechanical watch is used to change the
organisation of its gears and face hands. The free energy in a electronic,
digital watch is used to change the electric flip-flop status in the
transistor circuitry and the liquid crystal screen.
To summarise the above:
A watch (clock) is an apparatus which uses up its
free energy in a fixed (linear) manner to bring about
a regular change in its organisation. This regular
change is called time.
When we observe how any system changes with respect to time, we actually
compare the change in that system to a linear decrease in free energy and
a linear increase in entropy of the watch (clock). Unfortunately, since
we think of time rather than changes in free energy and entropy, we do not
perceive that these systems themselves change because of changes in their
free energy and entropy. In other words, if we cannot perceive entropy
production in the watch (clock), we cannot perceive it in other systems.
Thus we do not understand that we are actually comparing a linear entropy
production in the watch with a non-linear entropy production in the other
systems.
Gavin, that is why you articulate it as follows:
>That is why there is such confusion over it. Because time
>can be linear and non linear at the same time, confusing I'm
>confused too.
Gavin, you also write:
>Time and problem solving ability is also related, look
>at Einstein.
Einstein took a unique position to the Second Law of Themordyanics -- the
law which says that the entropy of the universe has to be created. He did
not deny this law. But he insisted time and again that the irreversibility
of time was an illusion -- a creation of the mind. How close was he not to
the answer?
Time has no irreversibility. Why? Time is the illusion.
Irreversibility (entropy production) is actual. The illusion is to
deny entropy production by assuming it to be time. This is why
irreversibility (which we call time) cannot have irreversibility. Its
like saying "velocity has velocity", "red has red", "pain has pain",
"learning has learning", "love has love", etc. It is the worst form of
self-referance (tautology).
I am now living approximately 20 years without a watch. I seldom need the
exact time. When I do, I ask the time from the person for whom such time
is important. (Sometimes I get the reply "It is time to buy a watch".) Why
do I avoid clock time? To free myself for more non-linear thinking, trying
to harmonise with the music of entropy production in the systems around
me. I find regular beats too hypnotic, preventing me from following the
excciting course of life.
If the terms entropy and free energy are bewildering to any newcomer to
our learning forum, please browse through the Primer on Entropy to help
you get your bearings. The URLs are:
Primer on Entropy - Part I LO19979
http://www.learning-org.com/98.11/0265.html
Primer on Entropy - Part II A LO19986
http://www.learning-org.com/98.11/0272.html
Primer on Entropy - Part II B LO19987
http://www.learning-org.com/98.11/0273.html
Primer on Entropy - Part III A LO20018
http://www.learning-org.com/98.11/0304.html
Primer on Entropy - Part III B LO20048
http://www.learning-org.com/98.11/0334.html
Primer on Entropy - Part III C LO20049
http://www.learning-org.com/98.11/0335.html
Best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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