There were actually several things you said, but I think the following is probably the best one to point to when taken out of context.



I don't think you would have ever made that statement if you truly understood time dilation.

It's not at all about just trying to make the laws of physics the same for all frame of reference.

Yes! It is true that this was the premise that Einstein used as his initial assumption to launch his theory. But once the theory was underway it became clear that this insight was merely a guiding light. It's not the foundation upon which the theory rests.

I think if you genuinely understand time dilation intuitively (or better yet mathemtically in detail) you'd see why this principle must be so.

But again, (and like Billy had pointed out), this is certainly not to imply that you are slow at grasping this.

EVERYONE is slow at grasping this!!!

There are professors who teach relativity and they genuinely don't even 'get it' themselves. What they actually teach is the all the equations, and they give tests based on whether or not student can calculate the correct results. And a student can PASS a course in relativity simply because he or she can weild the equations.

That doesn't mean that they intuitively understand it!

To intuitively understand it takes TIME. Seriously it does. People who study the brain have shown why it takes people time to adjust to knew ways of thinking.

It's not just a matter of pure intellect. It actually takes some time getting accustom to thinking about it. Of course, the more problems and scenarios you work through the better insight you will gain.

I'm sure you understand the mechanics (the equations) of what time dilation is supposedly about.

But you can also understand it on a much deeper and more intuitive level. Few people actually do, I might add.

However, once you do understand it as second nature, you won't be saying things like, "In short the claim is this...The Laws of Physics are the same for any and all frames of reference. It has to fit...lol"

You'll understand why this must be so.




Because it's not space-time. It's spacetime.

Think of it as one word. I'm not saying that it's technically wrong to hyphenate it. That's not the point. The point is that spacetime is a continuous fabric.

Anything that space does, time also does!

Spacetime is not only 'curved' in the spatial sense, but it's also 'curved' in time!

In fact, it's the curvature of TIME that makes gravity WORK.

Or perhaps in keeping with my demand that 'spacetime' is a continuous fabric I should say more technically correct,...

"In fact, it's the curvature of the TIME aspect of spacetime that makes gravity WORK.

You might wonder how time can be 'curved'.

But in pure mathematics dilation is a 'curve'. (i.e. it's not a straight line)

Time curves. (or in keeping with my demand - the time aspect of spacetime curves right along with the space aspect of the fabric.

This is actually undergraduate physics, however, few are the undergraduates that truly comprehend it to this level.

This is usually not understood until much later.



Exactly!

Now look at the flip side of the same coin!

An attempt to consider gravity without taking taking into consideration the relative temporal distances is like attempting to make an egg sandwich without an egg.

The mere fact that you're asking me what time dilation has to do with gravity shows me that you aren't even in the ball park much less playing the same game.



It has everything to do with it.

Time dilation is what makes gravity work!



That's cool.

Special Relativity and General Relativity take time to truly digest. Especially if you are seeking to gain a deeply philosophical understanding of them.

I think a lot of engineers learn to number crunch the equations of relativity. They can do the calculations for time dilation, and for spacetime curvatures. But they have no true insight to what they are doing. They just learn how to plug numbers into the equations. They think they understand it, but they don't. They just know how to calculate these things and give the answers to practical problems (engineering).

And it works for engineering!

But if you want to understand it as a philosopher then you need to move way beyond that.

You need to understand the mathematics at a deeply abstract level so that it's not just numbers anymore. It becomes patterns and forms of and you can begin to visualize, not only the warping of space, but even the warping of time!

That's when you silently shake your head with understanding and say, "Ok Albert really was a genius. So now what's next?"

I'm fully aware that you have the cerebral capacity to comprehend this stuff. But you are bucking it (just like everyone does!). And that's natural. I did it too, for years!

But you're not going to truly 'get it' until your done bucking around.

I say this with the utmost sincerity and respect.

question;

how

was it a proven fact
that time slows or increases
based on this gravity affect? (now, i am way over my head so treat me easy here).
thnks

They don't require two different answers, but forget about that and focus on my answer to both questions.

The question was WHAT determines...etc..
The answer was the nature of the matter itself does. (The sphere or whatever)

And of course you see things differently from your perspective. You are on a completely different page that I am as usual.


JB

""And of course you see things differently from your perspective. You are on a completely different page that I am as usual"".

...LIKE SO MANY OTHERS ARE, ABOUT POLITICS, SCIENCE, RELIGION AND ISSUES OF THE HEART, SOUL AND MIND.
THERS ALOT OF NICE PEOPLE WITH POSITIVE ENERGY AND THEN THERE ARE THOSE THAT, WELL .....FEEL and act LIKE SOMEBODY CRapped in their wheaties.

I don't think I know you. Care to introduce yourself before you begin to pass judgment upon me?

It is a rare thing when you find a good friend who IS on the same page as you are in specific matters. I have a few very good friends. I don't expect to be on the same page as most people. I don't even like the book they are in.

The Muon is a fine example of proving Time dilation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon

These particles are unstable and decay pretty fast (hehe)

But when you zoom them at 99.9% the speed of light then they live ALOT longer (from our frame)

From there frame, they have lived the same time regardless of speed . . . because from the Muons perspective its just as valid to say its not it zooming around at near light speed, its the whole planet and everyone on it zooming at near light speed

I am sitting here wondering why I am even responding again.It is beginning to feel like an attempt at retaining a prior image of whom I thought another was...

It is funny how that type of reference frame can be disillusioning...



James, you remarked as below...



No one here has been consistently speaking in relatively-correct language regarding the topic, but I did not actually mind it that much, the points were getting across at times none-the-less. If they were not, then someone was sure to point it out.



I wrote the following things, all of which you copied and pasted in an attempt to support your claim that I do not understand time dilation..



I am failing to find an issue with the above and then I wrote the following as well...



While this was a sort of tongue-in-cheek remark, it is valid, wouldn't you agree? The mathematics is sound, this I realize, but honestly James... there is no reality underlying any mathematics, it is a system of organization which helps one to grasp different types of conceptual understandings regarding that which we experience.



Again, are you seriously claiming that this response is a justifiable reason for one to believe that the author does not comprehend relativity??? What is not completely valid about that statement? It actually answers the "why" questions that you have been falsely attributing to myself, while you were simultaneuosly claiming that one cannot know that answer, or that physics(science) does not give it...

There it is! the answer of "why"...

But your direct response to it was this...




Insert scratching head emoticon here...



Ooops... ya got me there! This is surely a great substantiation...

My spell check says it is hyphenated, although most of what I have read is not...

But then you clamed the following...





and then this...



So are you claiming that the curvature of the time aspect of spacetime IS time dilation?

In the most extreme example of time dilation that I can think of time actually stops. This would be the singularity of a black hole.

The cause is phenomenally intense gravity due to mass/energy.

The effect is time stopping(time dilation).

An effect cannot be the cause of the cause of itself.

Maybe your right, I do not think that we are playing the same game...

My brain hurts.

I confess I know NOTHING about quantum mechanics and I don't understand mathematics or time dilation or any of that stuff.

I just try to feel my way and imagine all possibilities. Most of the information that I get is way over my head and I just skim over it. Who has time to get stuck on the details?

Don't sweat the small stuff.

All of it is small stuff.

JB
(very tiny stuff come to think of it.)

Clearly we aren't.

You're responses come across to me as being quite defensive.

I'm just trying to offer the best understanding I have of the subject.

You seem to be rejecting the main ideas, yet I haven't seen where you've offered any alternative ideas.

All you've done is given the same complaints that I've heard time and time again from just about every physics student who has ever studied relativity.

I've even confessed that I had the same complaints when I first studied it.

However, I've come to understand it since. And so this is where I'm coming from.

The scientific community didn't make Einstein an icon because he was handsome I can assure you of that.

Every physicist I've ever met had fought tooth and nail against Relativity, including myself.

But if you stick with it long enough you'll eventually understand why it has to be so.

That's all I know.

If you have dreams of reverting back to a universe of absolute time and space I think you're in for a futile waste of time.

Physicsts in general aren't that stupid. Relativity has survived an onslaught of rebellious physicists since it's birth in 1909.

It's predictions have been experimentally verified time and time again. In literally billions and trillions of experiements in particle accelerators.

Special Relativity and time dilation are observationally confirmed facts of how our universe behave.

General Relativity goes on to give a very detailed account of gravity.

Incomplete at the quantum level? Maybe. But certainly not totally wrong. Too many of its predictions have been experimentally verified.

You say that observation doesn't prove reality (or the mechanism that causes the observations.

I'll agree with that.

None the less, the predictions of Special Relativity and General Relativity have been verified.

If their precise mechanisms are incorrect that still isn't going to change what they have predicted thus far.

So all I'm saying is that if you expect to make progress in on these concepts you're going to have to move them forward. In other words, you're going to add enhancements to them.

There's no going back and starting over to come up with different results.

It is true that you can create mathematical version of 'absolute and absolute time'. But to do so you will need to construct a model that is so formidably complex that it would be virtually useless.

It not unlike the idea that you could create a model of an Earth-centered universe if you want to.

But then you'd be stuck with a universe in which the laws of physics change depending on where you are relative to the earth.

Could the universe be like that?

Sure. Anything is possible.

But wouldn't that be one hell of a human-centric universe?

Relativity is the only sensible way to think IMHO. It makes perfect sense once you get used to it.

Moreover, you had spoken about 'other directions' that spacetime could be bent. Yet you haven't suggested what 'directions' they could be?

I've offered two options.

Spacetime can bend toward mass, or away from mass.

What other "direction" options are there?

You make these comments, but then never follow up on them to explain what it is that you're even attempting to suggest.

I'm totally open to hearing what it is that you are trying to suggest if you can put it into words that I can wrap my mind around.

I don't know what other directions space could be bent. So I'm at a loss to understand what you are even attempting to suggest.

Well for whatever it's worth, from having read your posts I think you have a better intuitive understanding of both Relativity and Quantum Mechanics than a lot of physics students I've met (and maybe even some proffessors!)

I don't know about the Draconians though.

But hey, that's no more far-fetched than to believe that some guy who was nailed to a cross is going to come back and rule the world.

I've been thinking about creating my own personal spiritual dream that my mother is going to come back and live with me again.

I know that some people might not like the idea of their mother living with them, but my mother was the sweetest person you could ever imagine. She never complained about anything and was always fun to be around.

I'm sure that if I started living my life as though my mother was going to come back everyone would think I'm crazy and want to put me in a funny farm.

But hey, if Christians can believe that Jesus is coming back and they haven't been committed then why should people think I'm crazy?

In fact, believing that my mother is coming back is the most heavenly thought I can imgine. I'd much rather see her than Jesus any day.

She was a lot nicer. She would never upturn money tables in a public square.

Yep, I might just start believing in that myth. Why not? It's the loveliest myth I can think of.

I agree Abra.

For Creativesoul, to resist a theory or fact because he can't grasp it is understandable.

I can't grasp it either, nor can I argue for or against it in detail because I don't have a scientific understanding of any of it.

But Creative is analytical mentalist thinker and I am an imaginative and intuitive thinker. That alone always puts us in a different book. He zooms in on the details and I zoom out and look at the whole because the details only confuse me. Creative can't see the whole because he is caught up in some detail he can't get past.

So he never gets to the point and never presents his own alternative, if he has one. I don't know that he has.

My understanding is penciled in because it is not complete nor has it been brought into clear focus ....yet.

Maybe someday.

JB

I was very fortunate to learn how to zoom back and forth quite early in my life. I did start out with the extreme analytical approach though. But I was fortunate enough to run into people who helped me to see the larger intuitive picture.

Now I use both, zooming back and forth. I need to make sure that they both make sense.

One thing that I've learned quickly with Relativity and Quantum Mechanics (through my own bucking around) is that ideas that aren't in accordance with them had better show some promising predictions that can be verified. Otherwise what's the point?

Like Michael suggesting another dimension that space might be warped.

Well, fine. Is there a theory there? If so, then what is it and what are the consequences of it?

If there's not theory (or even a suggestion for a new direction) then what exactly is being proposed?

A wild stab in the dark?

Like what if we try this by 'trial and error'? What might it produce?

Hey, fine. If someone wants to dream about new possiblities using trial and error methods more power to them.

I'll be glad to give them my full attention AFTER they stumble onto something that makes sense.

Otherwise, I'm just babysitting a daydreamer who's groping around in the dark without any clue at all where he might be going.

That's not science. That's just stabbing in the dark.

Even Einstein had REASONS for coming up with his theory. It wasn't just a stab in the dark.

Now maybe Max Planck's discover was a stab in the dark. But it was a mathematical stab in the dark, and even then he had a specific purpose in mind.

He thought he was going to be able to pull the dagger back out again.

Surprise surprise!

The only thing is that he knew exacty where to stab the dagger. It wasn't just a random dart shoot. His only shock was that he thought he could pull it back out again and then found out that it was stuck permanently.

I do that to a certain extent, especially where painting pictures is concerned.

But when I zoom in to quantum scientific details it is the math that I don't comprehend.

I also get a sense that there are some things in the details that are all wrong but I don't know enough to pick them out.

So as not to get lost in bad information, I just skim over it and then read several different opinions about it from people who I feel know what they are talking about. So to a certain extend I place my faith in some authorities that seem reasonable.

I do like to read explanations from philosophers who know how to speak my language and back themselves up with the scientific details.

JB

I believe that it is possible that a technological Singularity event has already occured and it will probably happen again and we could very possible live in some form of false/illusionary reality construct.

That's a terrible shame and it's not your fault either.

Mathematics is the worst-taught subject in all of academia. Especially at the grade school and high school levels.

They dont' teach mathematics at all. They teach arithmetic and number crunching. And they create true hatred for mathematics before the student ever even gets to algebra which is where real mathematics actually begins.

And even when they teach introductory algebra they teach it as number crunching rather than as relationships. It's so terribly disgusting it makes me want to puke at the whole educational system.

So many student never even make it to calculus where the real beauty of mathematics just begins to shine. And if they do get that far they are still thinking in terms of crunching numbers that they often don't even understand the true beauty of calculus. True calculus is so far from number crunching it could be taught without ever using any numbers at all. Of course that would be a shame to have to do it that way just because the numbers were misunderstood in the first place.

If I could teach a group of average students mathematics from the time they enter grade school through to the 12 grade, when those kids graduated everyone would think they were Einsteins. They would have a grasp of mathematics so deep they would be dangerous! They would be Shamans of mathematics.

And they would LOVE IT! Seriously, I would have never given them any reason to hate it. Moreover, they would be more than welcome to use calculator from day one! I don't care if they never did any mental arithmetic the whole way through. They would love mathematics so much that they would automatically have picked up the rudimentary arithmetic just as a side-effect without ever truly having to actually study it.

This world has been a total disappoint to me in every facet. Our major religion failed me. Our major educational institutions failed me. Most of what I learned I actually had to learn on my own in spite of the educational system rather than because of it.

It was a struggle against a truly terrible academic system the whole way through. Once in a great while I would get a teacher who 'understood' and I would worship those teachers.

But overall the system is a miserable failure. People hate mathematics because they are taught to hate it!

It just amazes me how this kind of ignorance can just continue year after year after year and the vast majority of people just seem to go along with it for some reason. Either they don't know any better or they just feel powerless to change it.

I know when I was teaching college classes my greatest obstacle was the college administration. I felt like I was teaching with both my hands tied behind my back and a mute rammed in my mouth. All because I had to teach it the 'traditional' way!

And there were also things that I simply wasn't allowed to teach the students simply because they didn't fit into modern day mathematical formalism. A formalism that is technically incorrect I might add.

I really need to write a book about that before I die.

I would like to bring the major contributors of this thread back together on the topics being discussed.

I think that each of the topics being discussed here are in themselves topics that could consume multiple threads each just on details within that single topic.

Relativity
The Big Bang
Quantum mechanics
Determinism
Cause and Effect

Creative I don't think it was fair of us to flat out say becuase you don't except some facets of these theories that you don't understand them, although abra is right, this is exactly what every physics student goes through, myself included.

Many physicist feel the same way as you do . . . but have not moved the theories forward either . . neither have I BTW hehe.

Lets review some of the facets of this discussion which have been tossed around and give people fits when trying to understand this stuff.

-Light
-Gravity
-Spacetime
-Uncertainty & wave particle duality
-Teleportation /Tunneling
-Cause and Effect


I would like to pose a series of statements /questions and have both abra and creative give yes or no answers or best simple statements as to if you think my statements /questions are valid.


1) Light does not age . . . time does not move for Light. Light does not experience cause and effect.

2) a)The effect of gravity is experienced through the warping of space time, OR b)Gravity IS the warping of spacetime *(a) quantum gravity, b) no quantum gravity. c) neither and explain . . . (subtle differences here)

3) a) Uncertainty is a result of our methods. b) Uncertainty is the result of spacetime distortions due to the "froth" of spacetime at the quantum level. c) uncertainty and particle duality are a function of higher dimentions d) uncertainty and duality are a function of a multiverse

Im tricky here c & d are closely related, but some physicists accept one and not the other so I added both seperatly, but you could say C and D and it would work . . .


IM gunna stop here because your answers here will justify the next topics.

feel free to say none of the above but then please explain yourself clearly, I really love this topic, or else I wouldn't pursue it via education, but I also would hate to see this topic end due to simple disagreement, or even worse perceived disagreement that is in fact agreement disguised as disagreement through the complexity of the topic.

Also feel free to ask me to explain myself and cite sources . . . if my question doesn't make sense chances are I didn't ask it well or present the statement well. I am knee deep in this stuff and dont always preface mysef very well.

Thank you Bushidolbillyclub


Creativesoul has VERY limited time and access to a computer now so it may take him several days to respond ... I know he'll be checking the thread when he gets online ...

Yes or no answers are always difficult because there are often contextual situations that can go either way. So prepare for a ramble.




This is a tricky question that I've wrestled with on many occassions. The answer is not simple by any means, and one of the reasons for this is because light IS simple!

In fact, the more I think about answering this question the more I realize the contextual difficulties.

You say that light does not age.

I would agree, and so I say yes to this part.

You say that time does not move for light. This is where it gets extremely tricky.

I would say YES time DOES move for light, but the time of light is devoid of entropy. So in this sense light is 'dynamic' but it doesn't get old. There is no 'arrow of time' for light, and that's because of light's simplistic nature.

Nothing within light is 'changing form'. It's merely vibrating which is a purely cyclic motion, one cycle of vibration is no different from the next or the previous. In other words, all oscillations of light could equaly be called 'past, future, or now'.

Maybe a better way to put that is to say that since every cycle of vibration is the same, then every vibration is 'now' because there is nothing to differentiate it from any other cycle (save for the relative motion of other objects).

However, those other objects are then forcing their experience of 'directional time' onto light. And those other objects only have a 'directional time' because of their complexity (in other words, they aren't truly simple objects like light is, they are a conglomerate of many fundamental waves and thus they do 'change' over the course of their vibrational existence, and thus they 'create' an illusion of an arrow of time (i.e. entropy).

In other words, light has no entropy of it's own.

That's the more direct way of putting it I guess.

Now, you suggest that light does not 'experience' cause and effect.

This one is truly more complex. I have answers but they are dependent on the contextual situations.

Clearly we can create photons, shoot them across a room and have them obsorbed by something. So we certainly appear to be able to control light using 'cause and effect'

The light itself also appears to have been created, lived for a short time, and then transformed into something else.

This implies that we can put it an 'age' on it from our persepctive. And this clearly shows that light at least responds to cause and effect situations.

However, light (by itself) is a freely propagating wave. We can't truly say that it is quantized during propagation. We can't talk about freely propagating 'photons' as though they are 'individual' things.

(in fact this is closely related to my concerns with mathematical formalism, but that's another story)

Let's say that I shoot 1000 photons toward you from a light gun. Let's assume that you are far enough away from me that I can shoot all thousand of these photons 'single-fire' in succession like a machine gun. But you are far enough away that you don't start to collect your 'first one' until I've emptied my photo magazine.

At that moment how many 'photons' are between us? We might be tempted to say that there are a thousand individual photons heading toward you from me. But that would be wrong.

There are no individual photons when light is a 'free wave'. There's simply enough energy in the electromagnetic field that you can collect 1000 photons on your detector at your end. And you can't even say that the first one you collect was the first one that I shot.

It is the actual collection process that forces the light energy back into a restricted quantum state.

In other words, there is no such thing as a 'photon' of light. All that truly exists are 'photons' of interaction. It is the interaction between the electromagnetic field energy and your detector that 'creates' photons. Just as it was my photon gun that created 'photons' when it released energy into the electromagnetic field.

Photons are the quantum of interaction. There is no such things as a free photon.

So back to your question of whether or not light can experience 'cause and effect'.

I say 'no'. Cause and effect are the property of interactions. Not a property of the stuff that's taking part in the interactions.

I know this probably made no sense at all, but this is my answer.

As you've said, entire threads could be created just to discuss minute details. And even those threads would probably just grow into monsters of many more details.



Gravity IS the warping of Spacetime.

And the presense of mass/energy is what causes spacetime to warp.

I can't say about quantum gravity. If I could I'd be looking at a Nobel Prize.

I haven't truly looked into the problem of quantum gravity. I was going to and I started studying the mathematics and realized that I'm just not up to this anymore. So I bought a cello instead.




At this point in time I'd choose b).

But that's kind of an erroneous choice because b) requires a solid picture of quantum gravity which we don't yet have.

Absolultely. No degradation or disrespect is intended by suggesting the all of the details haven't been fully realized.

These are deep concepts. There's more to them than meets the eye.

In fact, Michael, I actually recognize your ability to think deeply and perhaps this is why I'd like to see you move past the skepticism to get on to the point where you can actually address the real issues. Trying to buck against Relativity and QM before you've truly digested them is a bit premature.

You're trying to come up with a whole new breakthrough without having seriously understood what is already known.

I can just about guarantee that's not going to pan out. You would really need to hit one hell of a stroke of luck to do that.

Moreover, as I've said, anything you come up with is going to necessarily include time dilation because that's been verified beyond refute.

There's just no getting around that one. That's a verified property of the universe. To denounce that is truly rebellious without merit.

No theory is going to make time dilation go away. It's here to stay.

To Michael,

I might also mention here that I probably have a much better understanding of what you are going through that you realize. I've been there Michael and maybe I can help you out by recalling my experience a bit.

I fought the concept of Time Dilation for YEARS. Literally. Even after I saw how it could word to explain things, I still wanted to go deeper on a more 'philosophical' level and how time dilation is actually 'just an illusion'.

In fact, this is the trap that almost every physicist who has ever studied Relativity has fallen into. Paul Davies wrote a book called 'About Time' that addresses this issue. Paul Davies was suggesting that there is more than 'one kind of time'. "There just has to be!" he would decree. And he gives really good arguments in his book but confesses at the end that he hasn't made one iota of progress in showing how it can be done. None the less, he's still a fairly famous physicist and wrote a lot of books.

Ok, I actually agree with Davies. And I've thought about this a lot. I like said Michael, I consider this stuff for YEARS.

What I've finally realized, is that YES, on a purely philosophical level we can imagine an 'ABSOLUTE TIME'. It's the backdrop in which Einstein relative time operates. However there is a huge CATCH to this philosophical notion. That 'imaginary' purely philological notion of an absolute time, is precisely that. It's a purely philosophical imaginary notion that has absolutely not value in physics.

There are two things that come into play.

1. That purely philosophical notion of absolute time must necessarily be free of entropy.
2. A time that is free of entropy doesn't truly 'flow' anywhere. It just spins its wheels in the primordial 'now'.

YES! I fully understand that philosophical concept of a 'divine perfect absolute time' in which all of this relativistic physics is unfolding.

However, while that concept if a purely philosophical absolute time might be personally fulfilling on some kind of intuitive level, it does nothing to help explain either the behavior of relativistic time, nor the behavior of quantum mechanics other than to suggest that all of this is taking place in a primordial every-flowing NOW, that truly isn't flowing anyway because it has no entropy.

It's like light. It has no entropy.

The time that we're interested in, in physics has entropy. In fact, it's entropy that contributes to the illusion of cause and effect. If there was not entropy there would be no markers that could be called 'cause' or 'effect'.

In other words, consider this.

Can anything that can only cycle between two states be considered to be flowing through time? All by itself and not relative to anything else?

No it can't. The reason being that there is no way to say which state came 'first' and which state came 'second'. You can say that it's changing but you can't say that it's moving in a direction.

Consider a more concrete example.

You have a perfect sphere. You look at it and it's perfectly smooth. Then to your surprise it chances and has bumps on it's surface. Ok, at this point you could say that it changed, and maybe even you would like to say that it moved FORWARD in time.

But now as you look at it, it suddenly REVERTS back to it's original state of being perfectly smooth.

Well what did that represent?

Another more FORWARD in time? Or a move BACKWARD in time? After all, it REVERTED to a previous state, typically we'd say that is moving backward in time.

Not it starts oscillating back and forth between smooth and bumpy surface. Every time it has a bumpy surface the bumps are precisely the same as the 'last' time it had a bumpy surface. Kind of like dimples on a golf ball maybe.

Ok the thing is oscillating continuously now. Is it moving though time? Or is it oscillating back an forth between a 'future state' and 'past state'?

In other words, if this is all it ever does and there is nothing else around to 'time' it with. Then does that motion actually even represent "time" at all?

Not really. It just represents an oscillation that could be said to be going from future to past, future to past, future to past. It never gets anywhere.

This is kind of the way light is. It has no entropy of its own.

This is the way any 'absolute' notion of a perfect philosophical time would need to be. It's just a concept of change without direction. It's 'time' without entropy.

But time without entropy is nothing more than an ever-changing NOW.

Now that's the kind of absolute time I can agree with. Unfortunately that kind of philosophical absolute time doesn't help with explanations of our physical universe. At least no within mathematical frameworks.

They might help on a personal level of spirituality or something along those lines. It's like understanding why God's time is eternal. God's time has no entropy. And therefore in a very real sense it isn't even time at all, it's just an ever-changing primordial NOW.

Jeanniebean is going to have dancing bananas for this one I'm sure.

I think we're all on board with you on that one Michael. But no one has yet found a way to bring that concept into physics on a mathematical level that makes any sense or sheds any light on anything.

I think most practicing physicists are aware of this kind of philosophical notion of absolute time. But they are also aware that it has no entropy and therefore it doesn't loan itself to being helpful in the mathematical descriptions of the physics of this universe.

Hopefully this will help you to understand that physicists have tried to consider absolute time, it just doesn't pan out. Moreover, even if it did pan out, it would still be just a backdrop which contains GR and QM.

I might also add that a time that has no entropy also denies 'cause and effect'. So it's not going to bring those concepts back into the picture either. It would just deny cause and effect altogether anyway. So we're right back at square one.