TIME
As in many cases, there are two kinds of time: scientific time, and philosophical time. Once again, it is my contention that the scientific study of what time is only obscures and misdirects the philosophical study. Science can only relate to time as instants on a linear continuum. This is one way of ?defining? time; but it does nothing for the ?meaning? of time. For philosophical inquiry purposes, since it will be an investigation of ideas of ?significance,? not definition, I suggest the most undefined and amorphous representation of time as a starting point, and that is that ?time is a white noise.? This will get the philosophers past the burdensome imagery of points along a line. In this way, there is no need to get lost in definitions of causation, reality and history. These are stumbling blocks that make contemplation of philosophical time so difficult. Let?s talk about time without these impediments to our discussion.

True Light
Time is but a measure of human construct in a Universe that is truly immeasurable.
Removing measurements such as time from the equation reduces the Universe mathematically to Einstein's long sought after unified field equation, the equation for truth that unites us All. Removing the uncertainty of measure from the equation leads to the solution, to truth, the absolute, to justice, to liberty, to freedom.
Removing the speed from light leads One to true light!
The equation for truth is:
energy equals mass times the speed of light squared > energy equals mass > =

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." Martin Luther King, Jr.
Love,
=

During the boradcast, John recommended this video by our guest, Julian Barbour ? check it out:
http://tvo.org/video/185595/julian-barbour-does-time-exist

熵出现在这个节目中，指的是宇宙中无序的数量随着时间的推移而增加。我一直没能弄明白。这不是个主观问题吗?就像，如果你看一个十步棋的棋盘，对一个不懂象棋的人来说，它会看起来很混乱。对那些知道的人来说，那些了解开口和棋子如何移动以及什么受到了攻击，什么没有受到攻击的人来说，这看起来不会是混乱的。所以这只是个人观点的问题，有多有序，不是吗?

Time seems so real to us and yet all the physics we know seems to treat time as merely another dimension. There is a dynamic, we believe, and the equations of physics seem to reduce things to a static description. Can the many alternate futures that quantum mechanics rescue the dynamic? Because from a given present, there seem to be many alternate futures, perhaps an infinite number of them. If these are all laid out in the space-time continuum, could we accept the infinite possibilities from any single physical state as providing a substitute for the dynamic we fear we might otherwise loose from describing all things in as existing in a space-time continuum?
To make this more personal, I look at my life as a track with choices I make as forks in the track and I traverse the track and come to a fork and take one choice.
But that's illogical. I've added time again in order to traverse that track, and I already used time once to lay down the track, so that's not a reasonable thing to do.
Instead, in order to recover the dynamic, postulate infinite options? The mystery of infinity then takes the place of a flow in time in providing the dynamic - or perhaps something we might call equivalent to the dynamic.
Does this possibly make sense to anyone else besides me?

Most entropy is actually at the atomic or molecular level, and represents the disorder that comes about as heat makes the atoms move around. Such entropy in its sheer quantity dwarfs any little bits of entropy we may or may not perceive in the places chess pieces occupy on the chess board.

This link is very helpful in getting to exactly what Barbour is saying here... I don't think I would understand his point of view nearly as well without it. Thanks.

Paul,
I think Barbour is saying the laws of physics are limiting the infinity of possibilities for any given physical state to the finite possibilities/probabilities defined by the laws of physics. He is also stating that there is no space-time continuum only a space continuum onto which conscious minds project time as a means of understanding it as the continuum changes.
I'm understanding your recovery of the dynamic to be the taking on of the mystery of physics and consciousness in lieu of the flow of time. This makes time the construct of the mind to interpret the changes in the physical state it experiences. Hmm...I think that is what he is saying.
我期待着明天的谈话，看看他是否会给出进一步的说明。

Most entropy is actually at the atomic or molecular level, and represents the disorder
这是因为热量使原子运动。
所以能量是有规律的?但如果它从一个有序的状态开始，然后通过物理定律进入到另一个状态，那么新的状态不是同样有序吗，因为物理定律是可以预测的?或者这就是海森堡测不准原理发挥作用的地方?

Heisenberg proved nature to be truly immeasurable. It was this realization that led science down the grey path of probability, what is called quantum mechanics today. Einstein didn't believe Nature to be a dice game at best and spent the rest of his life searching for the absolute Way, the right Way. Science is lost now, lost in their theories of God particles and big bangs and string theories, lost in the their own quagmire of uncertainty, lost in the the dark searching for light, searching for the solution that is simply the other Way.
What is order, what is chaos, what is normal, what is just? What is red? What time is red? The answers can be found by going the right Way!
To truth,
=

Michael,
I'm curious what the right Way is? In total agreement with your post though - science is going to have a hard time finding it. Barbour's conception of time is, for me at least, mind expanding. This is the first I have come to consider the Wheeler-Dewitt equation. Second to Kurt Godel's incompleteness theorem - I find this equation to be disconcerting to say the least. Both Godel and Dewitt make me feel somewhat lost.
I'm going to have to think quite a bit more. Hopefully this will lead to the right Way.
真理——确实如此。

If MJA is implying I'm hung up on science, he's right. Philosophers are good at asking questions and making distinctions, but science is better at providing answers. Ain't nothing perfect about it, of course, it's by nature a matter of probabilities. It's based on evidence, but since evidence is perceived by humans, there is necessarily a subjective component to it. You have to decide what to make of the evidence. Like, for instance, whether the universe was more ordered a split second after the Big Bang than it is now. That's a subjective matter. My chess game analogy was just that, an analogy, I wasn't trying to comment on any bits of energy the chess pieces might have in some quantum mechanical sense.

If I may,
让我们超越科学的理论和不确定性，因为数学解决方案已经写在之前的文章中并找到了。你看到了，不是吗?你不，他们说印第安人第一次到达时看不到哥伦布的船，因为他们的头脑无法掌握船只，这是真的吗?如果你还没看到，不要惊慌，爱因斯坦也没看到。
无论如何，让我们超越一切的方程式，进入经验，进入形而上学的光芒(哦神秘)，超越科学的不确定性和关于什么是真理的无尽的哲学问题，超越宗教的信仰和对正义的盲目，让我们移动到一个地方，真理只是简单的。让我们暂时走出教堂，走出实验室和我们的核加速器，走出我们无尽的书籍和学校，走出我们冥想的无脑状态，只是暂时的，去到一个叫做自然的地方，一个真理居住、实践和生活的地方。Where is you ask, Michelangelo pointed me this way:
Find yourself at or as a river or steam and a stick of any kind, throw the stick into the river, the direction to truth is the same direction the stick or river goes. Follow the stick to truth!!
= is

Fred,
Philosophy and science weren't different to begin with. When they separated it was never overt or intentional, I think. Science for me at least is the middle place. Philosophy asked the questions to begin with. Philosophy asks the questions that science doesn't answer (that apparently sometimes it can't answer... but like you I prefer it to any other tool.) Recently it seems philosophers are rejoining the scientific community with bouts of experimental philosophy that, after reading many dead philosophers, is refreshing to my aging mind.
就我对巴伯的理解，熵是时间箭头的类比。在这个方程中，无论有没有时间，能量和质量仍然紧密地联系在一起。关于熵和能量有一个很好的一小时长的纪录片。它不像Barbour对时间的理解那么开明，但它确实可以与国际象棋进行类比。无论人类、生物或太阳的能量在这个星球上制造了什么样的秩序，我们所看到的表面秩序都是一种浪费和最终的熵作用的结果。这是那个纪录片……如果我错了，请告诉我。熵是现实中一个非常深奥的概念。在我屈服于它之前，我非常希望能尽可能地理解它。

Tim -
A comment regarding the role of science in philosophy. Take the issue of privacy, that came up on the show a while back. A scientific look at nature tells you that mice and other such animals like to stay in their hiding place. Or imagine a couple of philosophers watching a squirrel spiraling up the trunk of an oak tree - he's exercising his right his privacy. Also, female mammals, birds etc. will protect their young. You see these traits in humans, too, in addition to a long period of the parents raising their children. And the home provides an environment where that can happen. Scraps of information like this can help illuminate whatever the philosophical question is. A scientific look at the roots of privacy doesn't answer everything about it, but it does give you a pretty good start. This is typical of science. In other words, I think science has about the same role in philosophy that it has in most other things.
Regarding Goedel's incompleteness theorem, by the way, if you're a materialist like I am, and you think that matter (and, I guess, energy, and the laws of physics) come first, and ideas are just a matter of patterning, perception, and so on, then conundrums like this just vanish.
也许你可以告诉我们关于熵和能量的纪录片的名字。他们好像已经把链接去掉了。

Fred,
Here is that link... it's pretty good. The link above is working for me (it's on the word "Here" - maybe it's a browser thingy).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezoTJJ9wfNY(I'll save listing it by name as that is the way most youtube things see death.)
I think we feel differently about the implications of Goedel's theorem. That is another topic and another time. This view on time is far and away enough to talk about here. I will say this though... the proof is hard to deny and is very far reaching in consequence. Of course everything I say is my opinion but a logical theorem or a scientific theorem is not. A logical theorem can not be refuted by a twist of philosophical perspective. It's true for materialists and every one else. You might as well deny the truth of the Pythagorean theorem (which I guess would be correct in a non-euclidean context... so there's that.)
Regarding your comment. I think we both agree that science comes first then philosophy. The problem with most scientists is that they don't take the philosophy seriously or refuse to take that step at all. This refusal is unfortunate because philosophy is where truth lies. And I mean that with all its double entendre.
Sorry about the linky thing. Let me know if you watch the documentary. Entropy is constant throughout all chess matches...throughout all time. If there is such a thing as time. My head hurts.

Fred,
The second critical part of the documentary above is here...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNGa9IfRzM4
?The over arching idea is Landauer's principle. Again... sorry for not getting the links right originally. I thought this second part was included above.
Cheers,
Tim

爱因斯坦曾经说过一句话:时间是一种幻觉。，他的理由是，如果你在做你喜欢的事情，一小时就像一分钟，如果你在做你讨厌的事情，一分钟就像一小时，所以时间是相对于你的经验，当然，这是吗?从这个角度来看是正确的。然而，当你在一个像地球一样的物理平面上时，不管它看起来是什么样子，一分钟仍然是一分钟，一小时仍然是一小时。基本上，时间作为一个统计参数只是一个有用的参考，而生活的现实是所有的创作都需要一个线性的时间量。时间线性流逝的体验是意识在物质世界中生存的重要体验之一。

I find this post very interesting. As soon as we open our eyes, after birth, we see light and darkness, later when we learn how to speak we are taught that these light and dark cycles are days, which as every adult knows, are due to the spinning motion of earth. A little later, yet still not knowing about earth's motion, we are now taught that a day is a time, which is divided in 24 equal times called hours. A bit older we become aware of the seasons, and years, which as every adult knows, are coincidental to earth's revolution around the sun and in spite of the fact that this new motion has nothing to do with earth's spin we are nevertheless taught that seasons, and years are also times.

OK... links come and go... the title is "BBC Horizon Order and Disorder Energy | History Documentary | BBC News". Search it and you can find it. Sorry for not listing it before. The second part is on Information Theory. Check it out if you have the time. :-|
Tim

I like Einstein's analogy about the illusiveness of time---or would that be the illusoriness of time? Perhaps it is truly both ? When I was but fourteen or fifteen, I postulated that time did not exist and that what we perceive as time is merely the passage of people, places, things and events--- as long as there is a somethingness, rather than nothingness to the known universe, what we choose to call such passings does not matter a jot or even a tittle. Well, physicists and others would have had no use for that most unscientific of notions and now, after many years, I recognize that I was just a dumb kid attempting to explain the unexplainable. If only to my acolyte self. So, anyway, the significance of time is there because we as advanced sentient beings make it so. On nearly level of human existence and endeavor, human beings must account for time, make the best use of time, save daylight time, take time for reflection, and yes, even occasionally, take time out.
美国原住民(或我们认为是原住民的那些人)意识到时间，知道时间在某种程度上是重要的，但他们可能不像我们现代人那样痴迷于时间。他们出生，长大成人，生孩子，发动战争，缔造和平，保卫属于他们领土内的土地，从弱小的部落夺取土地，并最终杀死想要消灭他们的白魔鬼。这只是在特定环境下需要发生的事情。如果没有白魔来与之斗争，时间对他们来说可能永远不会比事件改变一切之前更重要。并不是说印第安人永远不会进步——他们必须发展出不同的策略来延续他们的文明。但是，我必须提出:他们会这样做的，因为他们足智多谋。时间也不会妨碍他们。幻觉或没有。