Timeline for What grounds the difference between space and time?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 16, 2013 at 20:05 | comment | added | Terry Bollinger | You make a good point your self, but alas, I can't claim that one. 3D is indeed close to optimal for connectivity without degenerating into isolationism, but my point above was that particles in spacetime are represented as world lines, with the line part following the "stringy" time axis. So, just at a thread is boring if you only look along its length and ask "did anything change?", a particle in spacetime is boring along $t$ for much the same reason. But if you have additional axes where the particle can be at just one location, you can e.g. tie knots that can become very complex. | |
| Feb 14, 2013 at 21:24 | comment | added | Alexey Bobrick | Thank you! I see a very good point here. If you let me rephrase it, it would go as: Conserning conciousness and mind, it is dimensionality, that matters. 3 dimensions provide much broader range for possible structures, than 1 dimension. Hence, space is more suitable for defining a state, than time. | |
| Feb 12, 2013 at 4:07 | comment | added | Terry Bollinger | You asked: "Why do we actually store memory temporally and experience $\tau$ as we live rather than some $x$?" Length-like $t$ time is an exceedingly stringy and fibrous thing, an axis whose very direction is defined by those persistences (local conservation laws) I just mentioned. Persistences are what form the fibers and worldlines of length-like $t$, and through those its overall direction. But precisely because such $t$ fibers define "sameness," it is only their braiding and mutual relations in the much richer and infinitely complex axes of space that one can define memories and meanings. | |
| Feb 12, 2013 at 3:57 | comment | added | Terry Bollinger | Alexey, oops, I noticed your question but then forgot about it. Hmm. I... don't know an easy way to answer it. My day job requires examining "obvious" assumptions about how intelligence works in a very skeptical fashion, because computers are exceedingly unforgiving in ways that human intelligences are not. I think the issue is this: The consistent, recognizable persistence of anything is one of those deep and distressingly anthropic mysteries of our universe, because many other options (e.g. a hot ball of gas that never condenses) don't even support "objects," let along "cycles" in them. | |
| Feb 9, 2013 at 12:32 | history | edited | Terry Bollinger | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
A more complete answer
|
| Feb 5, 2013 at 21:37 | comment | added | Alexey Bobrick | Even beautiful and brilliant discussions typically posess clear underlying ideas beneath. I see two in your answer: 1) cyclic proper time and 2) memory (and correct me if I'm wrong). As to 1) there is nothing special about cycles. I use digital watch, some other person could just have a continuous variable in her pocket. Concerning proper time and memory - what about them after all? Why do we actually store memory temporally and experience $\tau$ as we live rather than some $x$? I don't find a clear answer to this in your discussion. | |
| Feb 5, 2013 at 13:47 | history | answered | Terry Bollinger | CC BY-SA 3.0 |