World Science Scholars

8.3 The Reality of Past, Present, and Future

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    • Are you convinced by the relativistic reasoning that the past and future are real—that they truly exist, just like the present? Why?

    • The past and future exist, but not right NOW.

    • I’m totally convinced, but my phantasy is not strong enough for all the consequences. If a photon leaves a very far galaxy in my direction, the photon clock doesn’t run because of the speed of light and additionally, the present of the leaving photon is the same as the big bang at my place. This blows my mind.

    • In the course of a year the earth moves relative to a distant galaxy. Does the fact of relativity of simultaneity affect observations, say when a supernova happens in the galaxy?

    • Yeah

    • Totally convinced

    • No, I am not totally convinced by this relativistic reasoning of past and future being real just like present.How can we see future of something which hadn’t happened before?Is that mean the future is deterministic rather than probabilistic?

    • By saying “No, I am not totally convinced” and following it with a question suggests confusion. You should instead withhold any answer because saying you’re not convinced is simply an emotional opinion. And yes, Einstein did believe (understand) that the universe is designed. “Time is only an illusion, however persistent” Albert Einstein.

    • Yes, I understand the reasoning I just wish I could see the mathematics of it but I guess the gamma factor is used to prove the theory.

    • I understand what Prof. Greene is saying, but I’m trying to wrap my head around the direction of the angle and its implications. Any way to discuss the math for that? My guess is it is related to light cone diagrams. But I’d like to see if I can replicate the math.

    • How much can we alter the order of events by picking different observers? Imagine a car waiting for the green light. Can we always pick 2 observers such that for the first one, the car starts moving after the green light is given, while for the second one, the car drives through all of the crossing while still on red light?

    • Yes I believe that future too exists and we are in a block universe. But not all scientists would like to accept this as it would mean that we have to accept the concept of predetermined destiny, beyond one’s control?

    • Oh, Jesus, I shouldn’t have thought about it after a glass of wine. Of course, it is the opposite. The photon leaving the far galaxy in my direction has its present with my future on earth and when it touches me in my future, it remains the same time for the photon, since it runs with the speed of light. Everything fits.

      • And that saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast in the wine slows cellular aging.

    • if they truly exist, just like the present i am questioning the concept of freewill. Does it exist?

    • I just started studying the mathematics to understand this concept. And yes, when you see how spacetime diagrams can show past and future exist for an observer you will all understand. Can’t understand it without the maths though

    • Yes. the past and the future does exist and it is true.But the real question is, what is the present?. What is actually the ‘Now’ moment?. Since the time itself, is proved as relative by various theoretical views and experimental supports, The moment of present is uncertain and also relative. If only when the present is completely precised, The moment of so called,’past’ and ‘future’ will be determined.

    • Yes, except that this then raises the question of what “exist” means in this context i.e. is it more specific than being in the wave function of the universe?

    • It is in the math, but in practice it seems like a moot point because I cannot NOW see what is happening “now” in a distant galaxy. If a supenova happens in a distant galaxy at what I would consider to be the same moment in which I am typing this, I will not know about it and no-one on Earth will now about it until millions of years later. When the future eartlings see the supernova, they will think of it as happening in their “now” even though they know it happened millions of years in their past. I often think we are confusing two different concepts when we think about time – I wonder if time as a dimension (in which the time slices would be cut) is different from the concept of past, present, and future, the latter being a product of our perception (as with wavelengths of light being pereived as different colours). Maybe we need to disentangle these two concepts of time.

    • An individual itself can never learn about its past and future but it can be visible for any other individual billions of light years away.

    • The weight of your intentions is what affects the field, therefore affecting the outcome and all parties involved. Time is irrelevant and after our baryonic clock has expired, we will realize that a collection of experience, lessons learned and the love felt and dealt is all that matters. Memories are timeless, and reliving traumatic memories yields the same psychological reference point of origin. Consciousness is far greater of an ancestor than lead on to be.

    • What happens if the alien who is sufficiently far away and moving away from the earth at sufficiently high velocity? Will it’s angled time slice go beyond the 13.5 billion years age of the universe?

      • Ah, professor has already answered this question! The maximum angle is limited to the speed of light and hence 45 degrees. But a follow up question is, what is the same question is applied to the early universe, can the time slice angle extend beyond the big bang?

    • It would be easy to think we have been shown how we can see the future before it happens (or it has already happen).
      However another explanation is, once an event has happen in the future, the info is sent into the past, this is my opinion.

    • The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. As said by Albert Einstein.

    • It was was hard to grasp at first but once understood it is exciting, and also my mind says ok may be but not fully into it

    • Absolutely real, past, present and future all exist simultaneously. As Einstein said reality is an illusion however persistent.

    • It,s real. But I have a question. If an alien sees our future from a distant galaxy as it’s now slice can we ever know that? Because by the time it’s news come to us we would already be in that moment. Isn’t it?
      It would be great if someone clarifies me

      • As I understand it, a distant observer could observe an event that will happen tomorrow, as judged in our own reference frame. Tomorrow’s event will reach that observer in proper sequence, meaning that today’s events here on Earth will precede tomorrow’s, according to the distant observer. However, we here on Earth would have already experienced tomorrow’s event according to our own clocks, by the time the distant observer receives it. Our past event therefore becomes his future event, and there is no paradox in saying that. The seeming paradox is resolved using the fact that there is no universal “now”: Simultaneity is relative, and the speed of light is constant and finite. The distant observer cannot influence our past.

    • Well, this must work both ways!
      If som rare astronomical event happens, and we observes it to late, we could “move away” to analyse the replay, right?

    • If time is a dimension of space alone then all of Einstein relative lanes of thought apply to time . As our arrow of time is set in an Newtonian direction.
      Is there a possible yet unknown divisible dimension of time in the governed undetectable by gravity. possibly present in the cosmic microwave back ground.

    • The past and the future are equally as real as the fleeting precent what we class as the present itself may need reevaluating but it is clear that a far away observer looking at earth would see a completely different time to the one we are currently living in even if they were to be instantly transported there.

    • Yes I do, but then I also held this concept prior to learn about physics or any of its key underlying principles… I am actually current working of a theory the show how combining quantum computing (I am using the IBM Quantum experience to create the circuits in order to run simulations), teleportation, the spacetime now slice, and time dilation, that it is actually possible for us to not only travel to the future, but also to the past.

      Before I get to much into this, I want to point out two things about myself. The first is that I am an Autistic Savant and secondly I have an IQ of 186 (Wechsler based, rarity of appox 1 in 200,000,000 for having an IQ >= 186, in other words there are estimated to be less then 40 people in the world with IQ’s >= mine). I am not pointing this out to say I am more intelligent then others because that is not what IQ measure, it instead measures your adaptability in thinking. With all that said, both my Autism combined with that high of an IQ greatly increases my Autistic Trait of making connections that most others would miss (most people with HFA have this trait, but the higher the IQ, the way more pronounced it is), combine this with the level of adaptability in thinking, and your mind goes places and makes connections most others cant. My personal example is that I already had a lot of the concepts and theories presented by Quantum Mechanics (entanglement, particle/wave duality, and teleportation for examples) before even grade 5, which was long before I had even learned about them from any outside source.

      For 15 of the last 20 years I have been working on a unified theory, which I am happy to announce that I have completed mentally, now I just have to get it organised and written down as well as show my formulas. I also just started working on developing the quantum circuits required to run the simulations I need to back my work, the results of which will be included in my final theory.

      The reason I had turned my attention to teleportation was originally to address the concept of a quicker colonization of other planets to help reduce the impacts of over-population, lack of resources (our natural renewable resources yearly restoration benchmark is now mid-summer, meaning we are using them at a rate twice as fast as they can replenish themselves, this is the fastest rate ever known in human history), and to reduce the amount of climate change caused by having such a large amount of humans on the planet. The effects of the human population itself as it relates to climate change is a largely understated part of the problem, we do focus on our actions during day to day life being causes (ex: burning fossil fuels), however the impact of just the population alone tends to be over shadowed by the impact of our actions.

      Anyways I digressed from my original point, so I will get back to that now. I am not going to get into any real detail, but instead provide three key points in my theory on time travel, from these three points, I challenge others to do thought experiments so they can try to figure out their own solution, the reason for this is simple, the more theories developed by this thought experiment, the better chance that any missed gaps in thought from one theory could be filled by aspects of another theory that is working along the same lines.

      KEY POINTS
      1: We would only need to slightly improve our current technology to be able to achieve this.
      2: Achieving speeds near the speed of light is NOT required because teleportation via quantum entanglement is instant.
      3: We could possibly achieve it without teleporting far from Earth, however the further we are from Earth, the greater we can manipulate time dilation for the end result which would reduce the number of time jumps required to reach the destination.

      We have been able to teleport particles and atoms now, its only a matter of time (albeit small) before we can teleport more complex energies/information/mass/matter, I believe our greatest setback is not so much what we are currently able to teleport, but instead our current rate of success, once it is fine-tuned to 95%+ (I would prefer 100%, but that may be impossible) success rate, I think we will make leaps in bounds in that field because our results and data will both be more complete and accurate, which in turn leads to more data to work with so we can better study and understand the underlying principles of teleportation using Quantum Entanglement.

      I believe that when we reach this point, that is when we will unlock the key to teleporting humans and things we have constructed (ex: spaceship, equipment to colonize other planets, ect).

    • I should note to my comment above that I also believe that the Universe has protected itself from us being able to influence/change/interact with both the past and the future, I think that when we are able to do either that there is a force which frequency changes with time and this causes a frequency change in ourselves, due to this frequency change, any travel to the past or future would be the same as us watching a holographic movie which surrounds us. Things will be visible and audible to us, however we will not be visible or audible to them and this frequency change makes it so we cant actually interact with the future or past, but only observe.

    • Realizing that the future does, ‘already’ exist, does seem to imply a fixed, fated future, And, that conflicts with the freedom of choice we also kow we have.
      Most of us have the freedom to choose a, ‘soda’, or ‘fruit juice’, in a meal we plan to consume tomorrow. Many of us cannot choose a very expensive bottle of champagne.
      If the future is fixed. How can we choose at all?
      That, involves the existence, of yet another dimension I like to call ‘trend’. The dimension of superpositions, of the quantum wave function,, many worlds,, etc. Where ‘spacetime membranes’, “branes”, are stacked up in trend, much like ‘space membrane’ “moments”, are stacked up in time.
      Just as our attention to “now”, travels futureward in time. So can our attention to the choice we wish to make, travel in trend. Towards the lunch where we are having a fruit juce, or whatever. :shrug: The ‘parallel universe’, where we are having the very expensive champagne, may be farther than our attention can travel, in one day. :shrug:

    • I am convinced by the relativistic reason that past and future exist like present.

    • The past and the future are equally as real as the fleeting precent what we class as the present itself may need reevaluating but it is clear that a far away observer looking at earth would see a completely different time to the one we are currently living in even if they were to be instantly transported there.

    • Yes. Co-existance of distant objets proves that (we are “their” future and they are “our” past)

    • Yes, it convinces me, although for the observer who always looks from within his frame of reference, there is always the present. Only a comparison of the information contained in different systems (calculating the dividing distance) would give an idea of what is the past and what is the future for a given observer. I only have a problem with how for someone from a distant system there can already be an observable future that has not happened in the observed system yet …?

    • The past and future do exist but irrelevant to me right now. In the scaling of time the events have already occurred and do not require the observation of the observer to make the events believable or any less real.

    • Yes, without the past, present, and future being consistent with each other, there is no concept of consequence as a result of cause and effect which can be manipulated through the concepts in relativity as any other intervention in the processes.

    • It is a very suggestive idea but I’m not convinced that we can categorically affirm that the past and the future have the same real existence like the present (supossing that at this point of the course we still have a clear idea of what is real). May be the concept of simultaneity can not be extended in that way and only have local meaning. I still resist to the idea that the fate is already written.

    • Yep

    • Convinced

    • The past, present, and future as seen under the looking glass called

      ~now~

      … cannot really be denied. The relativistic slices that get viewed under the ~now~ looking glass simply has different angles or areas of focus.

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    • yep it works great.

    • Yes, I am convinced by the relativistic reasonings that the past and future are real and truly exist, just like the present. This perspective aligns with the understanding of time in modern physics, particularly in the framework of relativity theory.
      According to relativity, the concept of “now” is not absolute but depends on an observer’s frame of reference and their relative motion. Different observers moving at different velocities will have different perceptions of simultaneity. It implies that what is considered the “present” for one observer may be in the past or future for another observer.
      Additionally, the theory of relativity suggests that time is not a fixed and universal quantity but is instead malleable and influenced by factors such as gravity and velocity. This notion is supported by empirical evidence, including experiments with atomic clocks on spacecraft and observations of time dilation around massive objects.
      Considering these aspects, it becomes apparent that the past, present, and future are not static, isolated entities but interconnected aspects of a broader space-time framework. Each event or moment in time has its own existence within this framework, and the distinction between past, present, and future is relative to the observer’s reference frame.
      Therefore, based on the scientific understanding of relativity theory and the evidence supporting it, I am convinced that the past and future are real and have an existence on par with the present.

    • I agree with the perspective presented though am not fully convinced if that’s how it works because I think relativity and space has still more investigation to be made though it makes a lot of sense it actually works like that.

    • Yes, because what happened in the past and those that are going to happen in the future are absolute reality in the spacetime frame.

    • Yes it must otherwise where did our now come from and where is it going

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