Quote:
|
Originally Posted by mcan
I've actually never studied "Newtonian" time, nor have I heard of M-Theory. Obviously I know about Newtonian Physics and gravity and all that macro stuff that the people in this movie seem to ignore or dispute or even laugh at indignantly. I do try hard not to be rigid in my world view and give any and all thought an equal opportunity to pass my bull-shit test. My intuition tells me, however, that since time is measured in units that are indistinguishable and undefinable except by movement, that really what we are measuring is movement. When we say someone runs a 4.4 second hundred meter dash, what we really mean is that person goes this distance in the same amount of "time" that a clock's second hand moves that distance. So, we can give the illusion of time travel by manipulating distances, but the "past" and the "future" are nothing but conceptual. In fact, the whole notion of "time" is just a simple way of conceptualizing a ratio of two movements. I secretly laugh inside every time I hear someone conceptualize time with some kind of linear structure.
|
"Newtonian" time is basically a method of thinking of time as a "container" which holds events and stuff, Mr. mcan. Nothing to it, really. But, when you describe your view that time is measured in "units" that is very much like Newtonian time. It's all based on our perception of change ... sun, moon, dick size, etc. As change occurs, we think of the events as being "contained" in a unit of time. I did that then. I'll do this next, etc.
As for M-Theory, this is not the thread to go into all that because Mr. Simplex3 will most likely steal all my ideas (read Beryllium Spheres) and make a whole new thread anyway. Nevertheless, the basic concept of time as a body of water might go something like this ...
Imagine a big water planet. Big oceans and lots of rivers, creeks, and streams and stuff. The water is time. The water is the same in all the lakes and rivers and so forth. The only difference is that some water is in one place and some water is in another. Now, imagine that there are giant beavers who are constantly building dams and tearing down dams and changing dams all over the planet. We will call these our "Time Beavers".
Whenever a Time Beaver changes the flow of water, time itself is modified ... it flows a different direction, or stops flowing, or becomes agitated and eddys are created. The Time Beaver bastards are hard at work making changes, because that's what they do. We live in one of the streams that just so happens to run fairly smoothly in a particular direction so we "perceive" and "observe" time as coming from somewhere, existing in the "now", and moving past us down the stream. As long as we don't have to face the horrible possibility of Time Beavers, that's all we know and all we care to know. Beware the Time Beavers.
FAX