I decided to record myself singing a few of my favorite songs. The recorder I was using timed out at about thirty seconds. So, I just sang a few dozen different ones, and strung the best ones all together. They're all acapella. Also, they're in ogg vorbis; so if your player doesn't support that you made need to download a plugin.
-----
12/9/2010
I've since put the medley on YouTube (with pictures of flowers, of course - what else could I use?):
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
TV and Read-It!
As most of you probably already know, I basically grew up without a TV. I remember "movie nights" - special events every month or so when my Dad would rent several videos and a VCR and come home and hook up a computer monitor, and set it all up on the fireplace. Then we'd all stay up late into the night watching movies and eating junk food and camping out in sleeping bags in the living room. After every movie, we'd have a family discussion: What were the people who made this movie trying to say? Do we agree with this? Than, after a few days, the equipment would all get packed up and taken back to the video store.
Of course, I'd still get to watch movies/TV from time to time at friends' or grandparents' houses, or sometimes in motel/hotel rooms on vacation (in the rare event we weren't camping). Eventually, it got to the point where my parents decided we were watching too much TV that way, and limited it to one hour a day at friends' houses. As far as movies, my parents followed the ratings fairly strictly. PG means parental guidance - so, generally speaking, we weren't allowed to watch PG movies unless they had seen it first and OK'ed it. I remember being at my friend's house for a birthday party and needing to call home to get permission:
Me: Mom, they want to watch a movie called "Princess Bride," it's PG - can I watch it?
Mom: I don't know. I haven't seen that one"
Me: Please??
Mom: (to my Dad in the background: What do you think? Dad: I haven't seen it either. But at least she called first; maybe she's old enough now.) OK.
Me: Thanks!!!
(a while later)
Me: Mom, they want to watch a movie called "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," it's PG - can I watch it?
Mom: You already watched one - I think that's enough for today.
Me: No I didn't! They all got bored and we never finished "Princess Bride" so now they picked this one.
Mom: OK. But this is the last one.
Me: I hope so!
It always seemed to me that my TV-watching public schooled friends got bored way too easily; especially with movies! It was infuriating. Even today I have a hard time keeping my cool if Adrian gets bored with a movie (as he often does; perhaps even with good reason). People complaining about being bored really gets on my nerves. As a kid, I wasn't even allowed to say the word "bored." The only time I've felt that someone outside my family could sympathize with my view of boredom was when reading something by Gatto:
"One afternoon when I was seven I complained to [my grandfather] of boredom, and he batted me hard on the head. He told me that I was never to use that term in his presence again, that if I was bored it was my fault and no one else's. The obligation to amuse and instruct myself was entirely my own, and people who didn't know that were childish people, to be avoided if possible. Certainty not to be trusted."
Anyway, back to the main topic. Eventually, video stores quit renting VCRs, and we ended up buying one (a VCR, not a video store). At first it was only connected now and then, but inevitably the times when my parents forgot to disconnect it were longer and longer. Eventually, the old monitor broke, and my parents bought an actual TV. Grandparents and other people gave us videos as gifts. We never got cable, and we never watched TV per-se, but video watching became quiet commonplace. I'm not sure if my younger siblings really remember literally living in a house without a TV as I do, or the special movie nights with a computer monitor and rented VCR on the fireplace. I also don't think they have the same sense of always trying to be prepared for a discussion of every movie.
My parents still stuck to their guns as far as ratings, though. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that my younger siblings often watched movies without permission at their friends' houses, and unlike me never bothered to call home and ask. As a teenager, I remember it had become quite common to take advantage of the loophole that old black and white movies from the library very often were unrated. Haha! Which spawned a unique, if small, family culture amongst us siblings.
Another thing that is a unique feature of our family culture is: Read-It! Many other Christian homeschooling families also banned TV (or at least severely limited it), and paid strict attention to movie ratings. But, my Dad did something that I consider truly brilliant: he created a substitute. Perhaps his love of good literature (deep at least, if narrow at points) goes back to the fact that somewhere in our family tree is the tutor of Charles Dickens. He really was able to bring a story alive: he wasn't simply reading words on a page, he breathed a unique and personal voice into every character - it was hard not to listen. I remember when he used to read Tolkien's orcs, he'd end up needing my mom to bring him a glass of water every 5 minutes, and we'd never get as many chapters out of him on those nights. But, of course, we tried. This is where the names comes from. At the end of every chapter, where the author so artfully leaves you hanging, we'd chant, scream even: Read-It! Read-It! Read-It! Dit-Daddy, Dit-Daddy, DIT!!
Of course, as I got older, I did get a bit spoiled with it. I remember more than once being quite put out that I had to spend the evening at home and listen to The Hobbit or something for the fourth time because we were having "family time" and all I wanted to do was go over to my friends' house.
Really, the culture of my family owes alot to my Dad: What he forbade, why, and what he replaced it with. My parents used to often say something along the lines of "If it's not good for kids, it's not good for adults either." Thus was avoid, I think, alot of the hypocrisy that comes along with rules in other families. It wasn't that we weren't allowed to watch TV, but then as soon as we were asleep the parents would stay-up watching prime time. It was that life is both different and more important than TV: for them as well as us.
The eviction of TV from our house started when my older brother was a baby. My Dad says that alot of the reason why he decide to quit watching TV was because he found it addicting, but really wanted to spend more time improving his drumming skills. My parents literally cut the plug off the TV cord, and then put the TV in the basement. After a few months, they had some excuse to watch something, and my Dad would mend the cord. Then, they'd forget to put the thing back in the basement, and would slowly get addicted again, until they decided to cut the cord again. This continued until they finally cut the cord to a stub, and decide just to throw out the whole set. It was over a decade before they bought a replacement, and that replacement never took up the same prominence as the old one.
Homeschool groups often put on graduation ceremonies - and because the groups are small, often each graduate is allowed some time to showcase a talent. My older brother gave a speech (which my Dad helped him write). I don't remember the whole thing, but I remember a phrase "You can either sit around and watch TV; or get up and do something and be on TV." So far, none of us has really ended-up on TV (these days, I'm not even sure I'd want to be on TV), but I think my life has been much more interesting because of the lack of TV. And so, I thank my parents for (mostly) banning TV from our house.
Of course, I'd still get to watch movies/TV from time to time at friends' or grandparents' houses, or sometimes in motel/hotel rooms on vacation (in the rare event we weren't camping). Eventually, it got to the point where my parents decided we were watching too much TV that way, and limited it to one hour a day at friends' houses. As far as movies, my parents followed the ratings fairly strictly. PG means parental guidance - so, generally speaking, we weren't allowed to watch PG movies unless they had seen it first and OK'ed it. I remember being at my friend's house for a birthday party and needing to call home to get permission:
Me: Mom, they want to watch a movie called "Princess Bride," it's PG - can I watch it?
Mom: I don't know. I haven't seen that one"
Me: Please??
Mom: (to my Dad in the background: What do you think? Dad: I haven't seen it either. But at least she called first; maybe she's old enough now.) OK.
Me: Thanks!!!
(a while later)
Me: Mom, they want to watch a movie called "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," it's PG - can I watch it?
Mom: You already watched one - I think that's enough for today.
Me: No I didn't! They all got bored and we never finished "Princess Bride" so now they picked this one.
Mom: OK. But this is the last one.
Me: I hope so!
It always seemed to me that my TV-watching public schooled friends got bored way too easily; especially with movies! It was infuriating. Even today I have a hard time keeping my cool if Adrian gets bored with a movie (as he often does; perhaps even with good reason). People complaining about being bored really gets on my nerves. As a kid, I wasn't even allowed to say the word "bored." The only time I've felt that someone outside my family could sympathize with my view of boredom was when reading something by Gatto:
"One afternoon when I was seven I complained to [my grandfather] of boredom, and he batted me hard on the head. He told me that I was never to use that term in his presence again, that if I was bored it was my fault and no one else's. The obligation to amuse and instruct myself was entirely my own, and people who didn't know that were childish people, to be avoided if possible. Certainty not to be trusted."
Anyway, back to the main topic. Eventually, video stores quit renting VCRs, and we ended up buying one (a VCR, not a video store). At first it was only connected now and then, but inevitably the times when my parents forgot to disconnect it were longer and longer. Eventually, the old monitor broke, and my parents bought an actual TV. Grandparents and other people gave us videos as gifts. We never got cable, and we never watched TV per-se, but video watching became quiet commonplace. I'm not sure if my younger siblings really remember literally living in a house without a TV as I do, or the special movie nights with a computer monitor and rented VCR on the fireplace. I also don't think they have the same sense of always trying to be prepared for a discussion of every movie.
My parents still stuck to their guns as far as ratings, though. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that my younger siblings often watched movies without permission at their friends' houses, and unlike me never bothered to call home and ask. As a teenager, I remember it had become quite common to take advantage of the loophole that old black and white movies from the library very often were unrated. Haha! Which spawned a unique, if small, family culture amongst us siblings.
Another thing that is a unique feature of our family culture is: Read-It! Many other Christian homeschooling families also banned TV (or at least severely limited it), and paid strict attention to movie ratings. But, my Dad did something that I consider truly brilliant: he created a substitute. Perhaps his love of good literature (deep at least, if narrow at points) goes back to the fact that somewhere in our family tree is the tutor of Charles Dickens. He really was able to bring a story alive: he wasn't simply reading words on a page, he breathed a unique and personal voice into every character - it was hard not to listen. I remember when he used to read Tolkien's orcs, he'd end up needing my mom to bring him a glass of water every 5 minutes, and we'd never get as many chapters out of him on those nights. But, of course, we tried. This is where the names comes from. At the end of every chapter, where the author so artfully leaves you hanging, we'd chant, scream even: Read-It! Read-It! Read-It! Dit-Daddy, Dit-Daddy, DIT!!
Of course, as I got older, I did get a bit spoiled with it. I remember more than once being quite put out that I had to spend the evening at home and listen to The Hobbit or something for the fourth time because we were having "family time" and all I wanted to do was go over to my friends' house.
Really, the culture of my family owes alot to my Dad: What he forbade, why, and what he replaced it with. My parents used to often say something along the lines of "If it's not good for kids, it's not good for adults either." Thus was avoid, I think, alot of the hypocrisy that comes along with rules in other families. It wasn't that we weren't allowed to watch TV, but then as soon as we were asleep the parents would stay-up watching prime time. It was that life is both different and more important than TV: for them as well as us.
The eviction of TV from our house started when my older brother was a baby. My Dad says that alot of the reason why he decide to quit watching TV was because he found it addicting, but really wanted to spend more time improving his drumming skills. My parents literally cut the plug off the TV cord, and then put the TV in the basement. After a few months, they had some excuse to watch something, and my Dad would mend the cord. Then, they'd forget to put the thing back in the basement, and would slowly get addicted again, until they decided to cut the cord again. This continued until they finally cut the cord to a stub, and decide just to throw out the whole set. It was over a decade before they bought a replacement, and that replacement never took up the same prominence as the old one.
Homeschool groups often put on graduation ceremonies - and because the groups are small, often each graduate is allowed some time to showcase a talent. My older brother gave a speech (which my Dad helped him write). I don't remember the whole thing, but I remember a phrase "You can either sit around and watch TV; or get up and do something and be on TV." So far, none of us has really ended-up on TV (these days, I'm not even sure I'd want to be on TV), but I think my life has been much more interesting because of the lack of TV. And so, I thank my parents for (mostly) banning TV from our house.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Dangerous Knowledge
I like to read books. Adrian will listen to books on CD, and watch documentaries, but won't read actual books. He says that after staring at a computer screen all day long, it hurts his eyes to stare at a book. That makes sense. At least, it would make sense with listening to books on CD - but watching movies/documentaries doesn't seem too easy on the eyes. Hmm. Still, I wanted to find a way to share some things I'd read with him (specifically, Gödel's ideas), and came across a Google Video made by the BBC called Dangerous Knowledge.
Watching this vid, I was reminded of a few things. At one point, WWI is mentioned as sort of going along with the intellectual spirit of the times (zeitgeist?), which was basically alot of conflict that didn't resolve anything. Anyway, I've been slowly making my way through Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Times by Dr. Carroll Quigley. I'm just getting through WWI now, and I can't think of a more perfect way to describe it than that "alot of conflict that didn't really resolve anything."
The other thing that reminded me of something was that the reason this is "Dangerous" Knowledge is because all the scientists/mathematicians featured went crazy and died from causes related to their craziness. A long time ago, I think before we were even married, I had said something about how it could be cool to be a genius. Adrian countered, saying that most geniuses go crazy or something, and he didn't have any interest in being a genius because of that. I said that, since their ideas were so great, maybe it was worth it, maybe going crazy isn't really all that bad. At least you wouldn't be boring. Adrian probably just found that idea cute, laughed, and kissed me. Which is fine by me. There are many worse ways that one could respond. Generally speaking, he's the practical one and I'm the dreamer (Well, not in the Bohemian way, maybe more in an autistic way -see below- though, somewhere on my mom's side we are supposed to have a relative from Bohemia...). Opposites attract for a reason.
But, really, it's not the first time I've thought about the idea that "going crazy" is a small price to pay for being a genius. Like, autistic savants seem really cool. If I were to have some kind of mental disorder, I think autism might be what I come the closest too. They like order and familiarity. They are very habit bound, and the slightest change can really upset them. They aren't particularly social, and sometimes have trouble even recognizing faces. Now, I'm not actually autistic, and I'm certainly no savant. But I couldn't help wondering (I think the book Positive Addiction started me thinking like this) if it would be possible to become autistic, or become a savant, just by imitating their habits. I remember reading Tesla's autobiography; I can't help but think that he was probably mildly autistic, and maybe even had some savant capabilities. Anyway, he seemd to think that his abilities could be taught.
Oh, and I've just been thinking that this (sacrificing sanity for genius) is another interpretation for one of my favorite quotes from The Horse and His Boy "Please, you are so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I'd rather be eaten by you than fed by anyone else."
Anyway, onto Dangerous Knowledge:
Watching this vid, I was reminded of a few things. At one point, WWI is mentioned as sort of going along with the intellectual spirit of the times (zeitgeist?), which was basically alot of conflict that didn't resolve anything. Anyway, I've been slowly making my way through Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Times by Dr. Carroll Quigley. I'm just getting through WWI now, and I can't think of a more perfect way to describe it than that "alot of conflict that didn't really resolve anything."
The other thing that reminded me of something was that the reason this is "Dangerous" Knowledge is because all the scientists/mathematicians featured went crazy and died from causes related to their craziness. A long time ago, I think before we were even married, I had said something about how it could be cool to be a genius. Adrian countered, saying that most geniuses go crazy or something, and he didn't have any interest in being a genius because of that. I said that, since their ideas were so great, maybe it was worth it, maybe going crazy isn't really all that bad. At least you wouldn't be boring. Adrian probably just found that idea cute, laughed, and kissed me. Which is fine by me. There are many worse ways that one could respond. Generally speaking, he's the practical one and I'm the dreamer (Well, not in the Bohemian way, maybe more in an autistic way -see below- though, somewhere on my mom's side we are supposed to have a relative from Bohemia...). Opposites attract for a reason.
But, really, it's not the first time I've thought about the idea that "going crazy" is a small price to pay for being a genius. Like, autistic savants seem really cool. If I were to have some kind of mental disorder, I think autism might be what I come the closest too. They like order and familiarity. They are very habit bound, and the slightest change can really upset them. They aren't particularly social, and sometimes have trouble even recognizing faces. Now, I'm not actually autistic, and I'm certainly no savant. But I couldn't help wondering (I think the book Positive Addiction started me thinking like this) if it would be possible to become autistic, or become a savant, just by imitating their habits. I remember reading Tesla's autobiography; I can't help but think that he was probably mildly autistic, and maybe even had some savant capabilities. Anyway, he seemd to think that his abilities could be taught.
Oh, and I've just been thinking that this (sacrificing sanity for genius) is another interpretation for one of my favorite quotes from The Horse and His Boy "Please, you are so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I'd rather be eaten by you than fed by anyone else."
Anyway, onto Dangerous Knowledge:
Monday, October 19, 2009
What Is Selfishness?
If I remember correctly, I wrote this just before I started reading Atlas Shrugged. I think Ayn Rand herself actually wrote something similar. I was reading Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy, and he was explaining on one of the reason's for the Biblical commands against adultery. Basically, he was saying that love - every kind of love - is a good thing. However, as finite human beings, we should concentrate our love (particularly our physical love) on only one person, because we are finite. So, now, if I were going to coin my own virtue (as Ayn Rand did), I would borrow Willard's thinking and define something like a "Virtue of Proximity." Basically, the further removed you are from a situation, the less you will know about it, and therefore the less you should concern yourself with it. If you go sticking your nose into things you aren't really familiar with, you're likely to hurt rather than help. On second thought, you could just call it the "Virtue of Minding Your Own Business."
Selfishness
First of all, let us say that selfishness is: to be self-centered, that is to put yourself and your own desires first. In other words, to do things because they bring benefit to you. For instance, giving money to the poor might bring a nice feeling to the benefactor. In fact, most acts that we would call "selfless" have some kind of emotional reward. If the person being selfless truly intended to gain NOTHING from their actions, then they would be doing things without reasons, in other words they would be acting irrationally. Still, selfishness has some rather negative connotations, even if it seems (IMHO) to be a semantically correct title. The kind of selfishness I have described is rather broad, and the following divisions seem the most natural to me:
Type I selfishness: Positive, philanthropic, cooperative, mutual, unselfish
Example: Giving money to the poor in order that *you* may store up treasure in heaven.
Type II selfishness: Neutral, isolated
Example: Choosing to eat your favorite meal.
Type III selfishness: Negative, harmful, selfish
Example: Stealing to gain wealth.
Example: Giving money to the poor in order that *you* may store up treasure in heaven.
Type II selfishness: Neutral, isolated
Example: Choosing to eat your favorite meal.
Type III selfishness: Negative, harmful, selfish
Example: Stealing to gain wealth.
Positive selfishness stems from the idea that if something benefits one person, it is likely to benefit others. This benefit to others might or might not be intentional. Negative selfishness comes when what benefits one person hurts others. Neutral selfishness simply has no consequences for anyone other than the perpetrator. I definitely believe in positive selfishness, but I'm not so sure the other two really exist.
First of all, I'm not sure neutral selfishness exists because I'm not sure it is possible to do anything without it affecting other people. Therefore, I would have to say that for purposes of discussion, neutral selfishness is that in which the person is ignorant of the effects on others. It is this definition which tends to make me want to say that ignorance is bliss. So it remains to be decided if neutral selfishness stemming from intentional ignorance is really neutral. However, the opportunity cost of shedding this ignorance has no limit. Therefore can a person really be blamed for intentional ignorance, and if so how much can they be blamed?
Second is the reason I'm not sure that negative selfishness exists. I believe in absolute right and wrong. These are not relative to the individual. Therefore, how can a single (willful) event be good for one person and bad for another? I am stressing here that cost and benefit usually reach deeper than they appear. If one person does something to hurt another, then they also unintentionally hurt themselves. For instance, if you murder someone you might go to hell, and you will probably be punished on earth, by guilt if nothing else. Or, if people are really bringing benefit, to themselves, then they must be bringing benefit to others even if the others don't see it as a benefit. For instance: a parent that is disciplining a child. For the sake of discussion I will let negative selfishness be that which brings obvious hurt to others, while seeming to benefit the perpetrator.
Now, all of this calls for a very large dose of discretion. I administer that dosage by saying that all people have intrinsically equal susceptibility to ignorance of the true consequences of any given action. That is not to say that a person cannot work to improve their predictive odds in making judgment calls. The process of making good choices is improved by the process of making good choices. However, this still skirts the questioning of what makes the initial choice 'good,' or positively selfish... but don't look at me, I never said I had all the answers.
Anyway, since people can't always be sure about whether or not their actions are hurting others or not, and since they can't intentionally do things that bring them NO benefit unless they are crazy, it seems that the best thing to do is to pursue selfishness - ahem - KEEPING IN MIND that if it comes to their attention that they are hurting someone else, they should stop whatever it is that they are doing. Now, it seems to me that a person would usually be more aware of the true consequences of their action on themselves than on anyone else. Having said that, the most honest thing for a person to do is to always express their desires as a function of selfishness. Anyone who claims to be doing anything else is probably a liar. Ergo, if it seems at times that I am always thinking of myself first, I am. However, AFTER the first expression of an idea, I will try to always give room for a consideration of responses. That's not to say that I'm terribly good at it.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Sentences: Short & Sweet (...or, Short & Scary)
Haha! I just ran across this the other day. It was an assignment from my first on-campus college course. Basically, the task was to take a very simple sentence, and use descriptions to expand it:
Jennifer Giles
English 101
9-10-98
"Near the house stood a tree."
An ancient and twisted cypress tree, draped in Spanish moss, grew only a few yards from the deserted mansion.
"The sun went down."
The sun lingered, projecting its crimson glare onto the surface of the barren planet, then sluggishly departed to a hidden crevice in the sky.
Jennifer Giles
English 101
9-10-98
"Near the house stood a tree."
An ancient and twisted cypress tree, draped in Spanish moss, grew only a few yards from the deserted mansion.
"The sun went down."
The sun lingered, projecting its crimson glare onto the surface of the barren planet, then sluggishly departed to a hidden crevice in the sky.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Time, Part 3
I did once compose a letter to Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe, with yet more ideas. But, I can't seem to find it. Anyway, I recently (within the last few months), finished the book: A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy Of Gödel And Einstein by Palle Yourgrau. So, this brings me to the final planned installment of my trilogy of time blogs (that was a mouthful... er, handful).
So, for many years now, I had been wondering, how can time be considered a dimension if, unlike the other dimensions, we cannot stop or go backwards in it (and therefore the t-axis is non-interchangeable with x- y- z- axes)?
I think one of the posters before had started to go in this direction, but I had the feeling that he was simply repeating something he'd been taught, rather than actually getting to the heart of the question.What the book on Gödel and time that I recently finished helped me to understand was this:
Intuitive time and mathematical time ARE different concepts which do not necessarily coincide. Intuitive time DOES "pass," and there is a difference between past, present and future, and what's gone is gone. In relativity, time, for two different observers, can be relative. They may be in different enough situations that they perceive the passage of time as going at different rates, and there is no way to say who has the "better" or correct point of view. This is why Einstein famously said “To us believing physicists the distinction between the past, the present and the future is an illusion, albeit a persistent one.” Keep in mind, Einstein and Gödel were very close friends.
Einstein's theory of relativity constitutes a system of equations, any solution of which is a "world." Each unique solution represents a unique geometrical world (or universe). People talk about the universe expanding, curving, having multiple dimensions (superstring theory posits at least 10), and other claims that amount to geometrical statements. What Gödel did was to find a unique solution to relativity theory - a universe - in which the axis of time ran in a circle.
The thing about this was, that you can theoretically go fast enough (in a very fast spaceship) and come around to the same point in the circle that you once were. What this means is that time, in the intuitive sense, doesn't exist. The inhabitants of this world would probably still experience time the way we do, but logically it would be false to say that it still exists because if you can return to any point in time, then it hasn't truly passed.
Of course, in a geometrical sense, Gödel's Universe was very unlike our own (I won't go into cosmological details here). However, this is where the philosophical magic happens. There are two terms common in philosophy (which I finally got down, thanks to this book): ontology and epistemology. Ontology concerns the world as it actually is, whereas epistemology concerns what we are able to know about it. Much of modern philosophy tends towards epistemology, that is, only what we can directly sense or know is deemed important.
I had first heard of ontology based on different proofs for God's existence. There are many varieties of proofs for God, a short list would include:
empirical (a survey of facts, such as The Case for a Christ, I Don't Have Enough Faith to be An Atheist, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, etc)
teleological (intelligent design, basically)
Pascal's Wager (more of a suggestion than a proof)
ontological (... !?)
OK. I first heard of the ontological argument when reading a book called God, Creation, and Contemporary Physics. It comes from old church fathers/saints, I think. Anyway, the idea is this: think of something perfect. If you can find something wrong with it, it's not perfect. But, once you figure out what's wrong with it, you know how to correct the idea. Something infinite is better than something finite. Something living is better than something non-living. Something loving is better than something non-loving, etc. So, eventually you come up with an idea that is SO perfect, that nothing else can be more perfect. (Here's the part I don't get) Now that you've thought of this, it must exist. I don't get this because, afterall, I can imagine aliens. But I don't believe in them. I can imagine that I'm a millionaire, but I'm not. I guess the difference is that these things are not THE most perfect thing of all. If you don't call it "ontological proving," but instead call it simply "ontological reasoning," then I think it can be valid in certain instances. What Gödel did was to use ontological proving/reasoning to show that because there could be a universe without time, therefore all possible universes do not have time.
Whala! Intuitive time doesn't exist. If it weren't Gödel who said it, I don't think I could believe it.
I just need to study the idea of ontology ALOT more - afterall, Gödel's Universe isn't THE perfect thing either.
Time, Part IV
So, for many years now, I had been wondering, how can time be considered a dimension if, unlike the other dimensions, we cannot stop or go backwards in it (and therefore the t-axis is non-interchangeable with x- y- z- axes)?
I think one of the posters before had started to go in this direction, but I had the feeling that he was simply repeating something he'd been taught, rather than actually getting to the heart of the question.What the book on Gödel and time that I recently finished helped me to understand was this:
Intuitive time and mathematical time ARE different concepts which do not necessarily coincide. Intuitive time DOES "pass," and there is a difference between past, present and future, and what's gone is gone. In relativity, time, for two different observers, can be relative. They may be in different enough situations that they perceive the passage of time as going at different rates, and there is no way to say who has the "better" or correct point of view. This is why Einstein famously said “To us believing physicists the distinction between the past, the present and the future is an illusion, albeit a persistent one.” Keep in mind, Einstein and Gödel were very close friends.
Einstein's theory of relativity constitutes a system of equations, any solution of which is a "world." Each unique solution represents a unique geometrical world (or universe). People talk about the universe expanding, curving, having multiple dimensions (superstring theory posits at least 10), and other claims that amount to geometrical statements. What Gödel did was to find a unique solution to relativity theory - a universe - in which the axis of time ran in a circle.
The thing about this was, that you can theoretically go fast enough (in a very fast spaceship) and come around to the same point in the circle that you once were. What this means is that time, in the intuitive sense, doesn't exist. The inhabitants of this world would probably still experience time the way we do, but logically it would be false to say that it still exists because if you can return to any point in time, then it hasn't truly passed.
Of course, in a geometrical sense, Gödel's Universe was very unlike our own (I won't go into cosmological details here). However, this is where the philosophical magic happens. There are two terms common in philosophy (which I finally got down, thanks to this book): ontology and epistemology. Ontology concerns the world as it actually is, whereas epistemology concerns what we are able to know about it. Much of modern philosophy tends towards epistemology, that is, only what we can directly sense or know is deemed important.
I had first heard of ontology based on different proofs for God's existence. There are many varieties of proofs for God, a short list would include:
empirical (a survey of facts, such as The Case for a Christ, I Don't Have Enough Faith to be An Atheist, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, etc)
teleological (intelligent design, basically)
Pascal's Wager (more of a suggestion than a proof)
ontological (... !?)
OK. I first heard of the ontological argument when reading a book called God, Creation, and Contemporary Physics. It comes from old church fathers/saints, I think. Anyway, the idea is this: think of something perfect. If you can find something wrong with it, it's not perfect. But, once you figure out what's wrong with it, you know how to correct the idea. Something infinite is better than something finite. Something living is better than something non-living. Something loving is better than something non-loving, etc. So, eventually you come up with an idea that is SO perfect, that nothing else can be more perfect. (Here's the part I don't get) Now that you've thought of this, it must exist. I don't get this because, afterall, I can imagine aliens. But I don't believe in them. I can imagine that I'm a millionaire, but I'm not. I guess the difference is that these things are not THE most perfect thing of all. If you don't call it "ontological proving," but instead call it simply "ontological reasoning," then I think it can be valid in certain instances. What Gödel did was to use ontological proving/reasoning to show that because there could be a universe without time, therefore all possible universes do not have time.
Whala! Intuitive time doesn't exist. If it weren't Gödel who said it, I don't think I could believe it.
I just need to study the idea of ontology ALOT more - afterall, Gödel's Universe isn't THE perfect thing either.
Time, Part IV
Friday, October 9, 2009
Time, Part 2
I still haven’t checked up on the resources given to me by these people (my own motivation is the greatest impedance in my solution of anything…), though the ideas of treating any dimension as 1/d comes from The Elegant Universe. Anyway, here is the basic outline of the time discussion cont’d with other participants:
--- Jennifer .. wrote:
I was just wondering if there is ever any justification for treating time as 1/t instead of simply t, in the mathematics of physics.
My reasoning is:
1) much of relativity is based on observations dependent on non-Euclidean geometry
2) the observations hold for very large areas
3) in the case of time, they hold for very large velocities
4) time is a dimension, and therefore perhaps velocities are areas
but therein lies the problem. (area equals width X length) A=wl, but (velocity equals distance over time) v=d/t, not v=dt (distance X time); however, if time=1/t, then v=dt (velocity = distance X time). This could be interpreted as an area, because it is a measurement in one dimension multiplied by a measurement in another dimension (albeit non-spacial). If there is any merit to this reasoning, it would also imply that there is a dimension whose measurement is 1/t, and that time is possibly only a by-product of this "true" dimension. Let me know what you think.
~Milany
Date:
Sat, 28 Apr 2001 00:51:04 -0700 (PDT)
From:
Subject:
Re: time=1/t
To:
"Jennifer" ..
Howdy Milany,
Wow you really know your stuff....actually much more than I know about classical physics. There is a website at www.reciprocalsystem.com. I think the people at that website will be able to talk to you much more intelligently than I could. This is what I know: According to Dewey B Larson, SpaceTime is actually what he calls 'Motion' and it is composed of 2 components: Space and Time, which exist in 3 dimensions each. Therefore, there are actually a total of 6 dimensions, not 4. As you probably know, there are actually 2 Theories of Relativity: The ‘General' and the 'Special'. The general theory of relativity 'works' as evidenced by the atomic bomb. However, its applications are limited by the fact that it does not acknowledge the other 2 dimensions. As far
as I know, the special theory of relativity is pretty much discredited by larson. Again, there are people at the yahoo groups connected with this information, and they are much more capable of handling this question than I. Tell you what, though. How about if I give this question to the group and see what they think? I'll let you know. Give it a few days though. Thanks for following up.
jim ruff
--- Jennifer .. wrote:
Thanks - I appreciate being referred to them. Also - thanks for the address, I checked out isus.com and it doesn't seem to exist. There is an isus.org but it seems to be some kind of business group. Thanks again!
~Milany
Date:
Sat, 28 Apr 2001 00:54:42 -0700
Subject:
time as 1/t?
From:
To:
isus-discuss@yahoogroups.com
CC:
arcology2@yahoo.com
Howdy Group,
Well, here's a puzzle for all you brilliant people. In the Physics room at Yahoo Chat, someone asked me a question regarding the treatment of Time. I let her know I would ask you and give her the answer. Would that be all right? Or if you prefer, her e-mail is included, you could answer her directly.
Date:
Sat, 28 Apr 2001 11:44:04 -0700 (PDT)
From:
Subject:
Re: time=1/t
To:
"Jennifer Giles" ..
howdy milany,
well you received two answers. one person stated that you cannot use both t and 1/t in the same equation, which he (jan) said you appeared
to be doing. the other person, bruce, gave a different explanation, and here it is:
It would seem that she has an apprehension of two things:
1) Velocity has a key role in the relationship between space and time.
Pursue this line; since the speed of light is common to all reference frames in relativity, suggest making it the "natural datum" from which to reference things, and define it as 1.0 (the parametric approach). Then you can build on the fact that anything <1.0 is sublight -- therefore mass, etc., must all be temporal displacements.
2) Intuition of "time as area": consider this, in "equivalent space" (inside the unit boundary, where 3/1, 2/1, 1/1 becomes 1/2, 1/3, ...), the equivalent of space is 1/t (since the is no space inside the unit boundary). Thus, motion, s/t in equivalent space would be (1/t) / t = 1/t^2. Time "squared" is temporal area inside unit space (which would be the "space" of the atom). See page 6 of Basic Properties of Matter,
and Chapter 8 of Nothing But Motion.
You could also suggest that if "time" were an area (hinting at coordinate time -- it could also be a volume), then "distance per temporal area", s/t^2, would be acceleration, not velocity.
Bruce
Time, Part 3
--- Jennifer .. wrote:
I was just wondering if there is ever any justification for treating time as 1/t instead of simply t, in the mathematics of physics.
My reasoning is:
1) much of relativity is based on observations dependent on non-Euclidean geometry
2) the observations hold for very large areas
3) in the case of time, they hold for very large velocities
4) time is a dimension, and therefore perhaps velocities are areas
but therein lies the problem. (area equals width X length) A=wl, but (velocity equals distance over time) v=d/t, not v=dt (distance X time); however, if time=1/t, then v=dt (velocity = distance X time). This could be interpreted as an area, because it is a measurement in one dimension multiplied by a measurement in another dimension (albeit non-spacial). If there is any merit to this reasoning, it would also imply that there is a dimension whose measurement is 1/t, and that time is possibly only a by-product of this "true" dimension. Let me know what you think.
~Milany
Date:
Sat, 28 Apr 2001 00:51:04 -0700 (PDT)
From:
Subject:
Re: time=1/t
To:
"Jennifer" ..
Howdy Milany,
Wow you really know your stuff....actually much more than I know about classical physics. There is a website at www.reciprocalsystem.com. I think the people at that website will be able to talk to you much more intelligently than I could. This is what I know: According to Dewey B Larson, SpaceTime is actually what he calls 'Motion' and it is composed of 2 components: Space and Time, which exist in 3 dimensions each. Therefore, there are actually a total of 6 dimensions, not 4. As you probably know, there are actually 2 Theories of Relativity: The ‘General' and the 'Special'. The general theory of relativity 'works' as evidenced by the atomic bomb. However, its applications are limited by the fact that it does not acknowledge the other 2 dimensions. As far
as I know, the special theory of relativity is pretty much discredited by larson. Again, there are people at the yahoo groups connected with this information, and they are much more capable of handling this question than I. Tell you what, though. How about if I give this question to the group and see what they think? I'll let you know. Give it a few days though. Thanks for following up.
jim ruff
--- Jennifer .. wrote:
Thanks - I appreciate being referred to them. Also - thanks for the address, I checked out isus.com and it doesn't seem to exist. There is an isus.org but it seems to be some kind of business group. Thanks again!
~Milany
Date:
Sat, 28 Apr 2001 00:54:42 -0700
Subject:
time as 1/t?
From:
To:
isus-discuss@yahoogroups.com
CC:
arcology2@yahoo.com
Howdy Group,
Well, here's a puzzle for all you brilliant people. In the Physics room at Yahoo Chat, someone asked me a question regarding the treatment of Time. I let her know I would ask you and give her the answer. Would that be all right? Or if you prefer, her e-mail is included, you could answer her directly.
Date:
Sat, 28 Apr 2001 11:44:04 -0700 (PDT)
From:
Subject:
Re: time=1/t
To:
"Jennifer Giles" ..
howdy milany,
well you received two answers. one person stated that you cannot use both t and 1/t in the same equation, which he (jan) said you appeared
to be doing. the other person, bruce, gave a different explanation, and here it is:
It would seem that she has an apprehension of two things:
1) Velocity has a key role in the relationship between space and time.
Pursue this line; since the speed of light is common to all reference frames in relativity, suggest making it the "natural datum" from which to reference things, and define it as 1.0 (the parametric approach). Then you can build on the fact that anything <1.0 is sublight -- therefore mass, etc., must all be temporal displacements.
2) Intuition of "time as area": consider this, in "equivalent space" (inside the unit boundary, where 3/1, 2/1, 1/1 becomes 1/2, 1/3, ...), the equivalent of space is 1/t (since the is no space inside the unit boundary). Thus, motion, s/t in equivalent space would be (1/t) / t = 1/t^2. Time "squared" is temporal area inside unit space (which would be the "space" of the atom). See page 6 of Basic Properties of Matter,
and Chapter 8 of Nothing But Motion.
You could also suggest that if "time" were an area (hinting at coordinate time -- it could also be a volume), then "distance per temporal area", s/t^2, would be acceleration, not velocity.
Bruce
Time, Part 3
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Time, Part 1
I used to participate in message boards alot. Here's some excerpts from a poll/thread I posted a long while ago (before I was even a physics major) about time:
Message #1, From: Arcology2
Wednesday, Jan 19 2000
4:21 p.m. PST
Question:
Is time a dimension?
Result:
47 votes
63% - Yes
12% - No
23% - Only in terms of mathematical convention
Author's Comment:
By mathematical convention I mean the way a variable is added to an equation to represent any quantifiable number. To me, a real dimension is an axis (probably either infinite or circular). Real dimensions above the first three would be extremely hard, if not impossible, for us to perceive - except in a theoretical sense.
Message #14, From: Dr-sociology
To: Bradkin ( Message #13 )
Tuesday, Feb 22 2000
10:33 a.m. PST
Okay, now, if you remember, I asked you to set aside all human conventions of time. Obviously, you didn't. If you keep holding on to what we have labeled as time, such as feet/second, or miles/hour, then you can never see what I am trying to say. My point is this: an object moves from one place to another because a force acted upon it. Now that this object is in motion, it will move accordingly and affect other objects, thus sending them off on their new courses. Time is not a dimension, it is an ideal, as I said before. We use it for the primary ideal of measurement - sure, it may take four or five seconds for a baseball to leave your hand and come back to the ground, but it still comes back down. If you were to take away all concepts of time, and you threw that ball, it would still go up, because you acted upon it, it would still fall to the ground where it would come to rest, but not before it acted upon the ground and caused minor changes to the grass lawn.
In the end, I will not say that time is not essential to our lives. I am simply saying that it is more of a convenience than any form of a dimension: Humans have exceedingly short lives, when compared to how long the earth has been around, and therefore humans have had to find ways of being able to measure out the path of earth's orbit around the sun, then break that number down into fitting little blocks, which we call days, and so on. This allows humans to get the most of out their short lives.
Message #15, From: Arcology2
To: Dr-sociology ( Message #14 )
Tuesday, Feb 22 2000
12:48 p.m. PST
I think I understand what you're saying - that motion can exist independent of time. But I'm not sure I agree with it. If you define time as a method of measurement, then that is true. And yet, there is a definite sort of 'axis,' or dimension, which allows things to not happen all at once. Again, I'm referring back to time measurement (all at once) - it's very hard to talk about time, or another concrete dimension, without doing so. But, if we don't
measure it - does that mean that it suddenly becomes unmeasurable? I guess it's kinda like, "if a tree falls in the middle of the forest, and no one's there to hear it, does it make a sound?"
If you have ever read Flatland, or Sphereland, then let me explain my theory based on those analogies: I think time is not actually a dimension, but it hints at another dimension. Just as when Mr. Square began to talk about another dimension that could not be sensed, and tried to explain this, the Flatlanders assumed he was describing shading. Shading itself is not the third dimension, but it is the only conception of depth that they have.
For those of you who have not read these books, let me give a few more examples: A Flatlander is one who lives in a plane. I find it convenient to imagine their world to be a piece of paper. But you have to realize that their eyes and faces do not look up out of the paper. The extent of their field of vision is a line. Their geometry is quite different. For instance, you can draw circles (or any polygons) on a piece of paper, then mark where their eyes would be. Now, from the point of view of the shapes, they see themselves as all closed up, but you see both their insides and exterior simultaneously. Interesting concept. Those little Flatlanders would be quite puzzled, and pained, if you were to touch their internal organs.
But suppose this paper world we have constructed is merely a plane, and you can put your finger through. Imagine what the Flatlanders would see, if you were to slowly pass your finger through their world. Shapeshifting! Only you must remember that to them a 'circle' is a line. The varying widths of your finger would appear as a line that changed widths. And, remember that to them, your finger has appeared out of nowhere, and disappears without a trace.
The interesting thing about such phenomena, is not so much that there is another dimension, but that the Flatlanders are 2D-beings. They cannot perceive that which is outside their 2D world. However, that is not to say that they don't exist in 3D. Their world has to have some depth, or they would not exist (at least not to us - lol). Yet, their whole land can exist within an infinitely thin sliver of our 3rd dimension. It is also intersecting to note that a plane consists of any two geometrical dimensions, therefore the terms 1st, 2nd, 3rd (and greater) dimension are actually meaningful in only a relative sense. For instance, we could have a horizontal Flatland, composed of length and width, or we could have vertical Flatlands, composed of depth and width, or depth and height. In fact, we could even have Flatlands of diagonal dimensions. There could be an infinite number of 'planar universes,' within our own. However, unless they were parallel, they would intersect at some point (assuming we keep this simple and leave out the possibility of non-Euclidean geometry).
Likewise, our 3D world can only exist within an infinitely small sliver of time at any given point. The fact that time "passes," would suggest that our whole 3D coordinate system is moving along a 4th axis, a bit like movie film for 2D. Time itself would be a product of motion, but our ability to perceive it, more or less uniformly throughout the universe (in that as far as we know, the whole universe is experiencing time), stems from something else, IMHO.
Other physical properties, such as density, are debatably dimensions, and can be mathematically represented as such. Density is the only example I can think of, but it is really contained within our 3 dimensions, having to do with how much empty space there is left over after adding in all the necessary protons, neutrons, electrons, etc. in any given atom.
Message #16, From: Bradkin
To: Dr-sociology ( Message #14 )
Tuesday, Feb 22 2000
5:47 p.m. PST
I wish to start by saying that I enjoy debate and hope that you see this as only debate and not argument. I am searching only for truth, not to prove you wrong. The following is a quote from "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene. Brian Greene is a physicist who graduated from Harvard and Oxford. He now works on super string theory. He too uses human terms in his description, but being that we are human it is difficult to describe a theory without involving us (I'm not saying that the theory doesn't exist without us, only that its description is easier with us)-- this does not invalidate a theory. "We and everything around us are aging, inevitably passing from one moment in time to the next. In fact, the mathematician Hermann Minkowski, and ultimately Einstein as well, advocated thinking about time as another dimension of the universe -- the fourth dimension -- in some ways quite similar to the three spacial dimensions in which we find ourselves immersed. Although it sounds abstract, the notion of time as a dimension is actually concrete. When we want to meet someone, we tell them where "in space" we will expect to see them -- for instance, the 9th floor of the building on the corner of 53rd Street and 7th Avenue. There are three pieces of information here (9th floor, 53rd Street, 7th Avenue) reflecting a particular location in the three spatial dimensions of the universe. Equally important, however, is our specification of when we expect to meet them -- for instance at 3 PM. This piece of information tells us where "in time" our meeting will take place. Events are therefore specified by four pieces of information: three in space and one in time. Such data, it is said, specifies the location of the event in space and in time, or in spacetime, for short. In this sense, time is another dimension." Feel free to offer rebuttal,
but I can speak on this subject no more clearly than a physicist and wouldn't try.
Message #17, From: Arcology2
To: Bradkin ( Message #16 )
Tuesday, Feb 22 2000
7:02 p.m. PST
Sounds interesting, I started reading that book the other day, but returned it as I was busy with some other reading material and didn't think I'd have time to finish it before my library loan time ran out. I'll probably just buy the 2000 edition that's coming out.
I agree with what you're saying - but I don't think you quite understood my post. Let me try putting it differently. First of all, I think that calling time the 4th dimension is only half-true, because we have multiple definitions of time (though until recent times we wouldn't have realized this). I don't know what the 4th dimension ought to be called, but "time" invokes irrelevant concepts into the primary concept. The word dimension has a similar problem.
The prefix 'hyper-' means over, or above. If you consider my earlier analogies, our 3rd dimension rises above the 2nd dimension (it also goes below, but as we know, perfect definitions are a rarity). Likewise, the 4th dimension can be imagined to rise, somehow (in the instance of Flatlanders, we say up, they think North. What we are speaking of when talking about 4th dimension is not true up, but another sort of up) above the 3rd dimension. For the sake of clarity, let us call the 4th dimension hyperspace. We, our universe, and therefore every evidence we have of our 3 dimensions, could be imagined to be moving along a 4th axis, hyperspace, yet occupying only a sliver of it at a time. All of history lies behind us in hyperspace, all of the future lies before us. The fact that time 'passes,' is the same as saying that hyperspace passes. That sliver of hyperspace that our universe occupies at any given moment passes. However, most people don't think of history, the future, and the present, as being time. To us time is not static, while an axis, relative to itself, is clearly static. What many people actually think of when we say time is the passing, not the axis. Therefore, we can have an hour of time, just as we can have a
foot of length. Often people will ask for the dimensions of an object. What they really want is the absolute/non-relative (or at least as close as we can get) measurements of an object within the dimensions it occupies. It would be absurd, or at least irrelevant to us as 3D beings, to ask what the dimensions of an object are, in terms of axis'.
We are finite in relation to time, and do not perceive its boundlessness in the way the we see everything stretching out in our 3D directions. Otherwise we would be able to 'see' the past and present all at once. Seeing the future would still be another problem as even if 'the future' stretched visible before us, the events of the future would only be in place once they had been caused- i.e. once we got there. Therefore, our verbal and conceptual definition of time is finite, but what we are referring to in the term hyperspace is not subject to the same limits. 'Time' confuses people, at least in introducing the concept, and it is easier to use a word whose definition you can control.
Message #18, From: Dr-sociology
To: Arcology2 ( Message #15 )
Tuesday, Feb 22 2000
8:40 p.m. PST
I see your point, and it is a very good analogy. I especially liked how you referenced different books - it was a nice touch. Now, I am not going to argue with you. You seem learned enough to be able to see multiple viewpoints on any given subject, so let me say this: would I be wrong to say that time is a property of our three dimensions? As you stated, for multiple happenings to occur at simultaneously, they would need to be established within certain boundaries, and perhaps time is a property afforded by the already existing dimensions of life that allows things to occur at the same moment.
Later thoughts:
The really peculiar thing to me is that time is not traversable in the same way that other dimensions are. We can’t move around at will in time, whereas we can in the other dimensions. Therefore, time is not a dimension in the same way that the others are dimensions. However, there is something of an analogy if you involve gravity. We really can’t move up and down completely at will, and if we were constantly separated from the Earth we would always be moving down, if the Earth had the mass of a black hole we would never be able to travel up no matter what kind of device we invented (although I guess one should never say never…). So, there seems to be some kind of interconnectivity between time and gravity, though the 4th dimension (not time exactly) still ought to be analogous
and interchangeable with the other 3.
Time, Part 2
Message #1, From: Arcology2
Wednesday, Jan 19 2000
4:21 p.m. PST
Question:
Is time a dimension?
Result:
47 votes
63% - Yes
12% - No
23% - Only in terms of mathematical convention
Author's Comment:
By mathematical convention I mean the way a variable is added to an equation to represent any quantifiable number. To me, a real dimension is an axis (probably either infinite or circular). Real dimensions above the first three would be extremely hard, if not impossible, for us to perceive - except in a theoretical sense.
Message #14, From: Dr-sociology
To: Bradkin ( Message #13 )
Tuesday, Feb 22 2000
10:33 a.m. PST
Okay, now, if you remember, I asked you to set aside all human conventions of time. Obviously, you didn't. If you keep holding on to what we have labeled as time, such as feet/second, or miles/hour, then you can never see what I am trying to say. My point is this: an object moves from one place to another because a force acted upon it. Now that this object is in motion, it will move accordingly and affect other objects, thus sending them off on their new courses. Time is not a dimension, it is an ideal, as I said before. We use it for the primary ideal of measurement - sure, it may take four or five seconds for a baseball to leave your hand and come back to the ground, but it still comes back down. If you were to take away all concepts of time, and you threw that ball, it would still go up, because you acted upon it, it would still fall to the ground where it would come to rest, but not before it acted upon the ground and caused minor changes to the grass lawn.
In the end, I will not say that time is not essential to our lives. I am simply saying that it is more of a convenience than any form of a dimension: Humans have exceedingly short lives, when compared to how long the earth has been around, and therefore humans have had to find ways of being able to measure out the path of earth's orbit around the sun, then break that number down into fitting little blocks, which we call days, and so on. This allows humans to get the most of out their short lives.
Message #15, From: Arcology2
To: Dr-sociology ( Message #14 )
Tuesday, Feb 22 2000
12:48 p.m. PST
I think I understand what you're saying - that motion can exist independent of time. But I'm not sure I agree with it. If you define time as a method of measurement, then that is true. And yet, there is a definite sort of 'axis,' or dimension, which allows things to not happen all at once. Again, I'm referring back to time measurement (all at once) - it's very hard to talk about time, or another concrete dimension, without doing so. But, if we don't
measure it - does that mean that it suddenly becomes unmeasurable? I guess it's kinda like, "if a tree falls in the middle of the forest, and no one's there to hear it, does it make a sound?"
If you have ever read Flatland, or Sphereland, then let me explain my theory based on those analogies: I think time is not actually a dimension, but it hints at another dimension. Just as when Mr. Square began to talk about another dimension that could not be sensed, and tried to explain this, the Flatlanders assumed he was describing shading. Shading itself is not the third dimension, but it is the only conception of depth that they have.
For those of you who have not read these books, let me give a few more examples: A Flatlander is one who lives in a plane. I find it convenient to imagine their world to be a piece of paper. But you have to realize that their eyes and faces do not look up out of the paper. The extent of their field of vision is a line. Their geometry is quite different. For instance, you can draw circles (or any polygons) on a piece of paper, then mark where their eyes would be. Now, from the point of view of the shapes, they see themselves as all closed up, but you see both their insides and exterior simultaneously. Interesting concept. Those little Flatlanders would be quite puzzled, and pained, if you were to touch their internal organs.
But suppose this paper world we have constructed is merely a plane, and you can put your finger through. Imagine what the Flatlanders would see, if you were to slowly pass your finger through their world. Shapeshifting! Only you must remember that to them a 'circle' is a line. The varying widths of your finger would appear as a line that changed widths. And, remember that to them, your finger has appeared out of nowhere, and disappears without a trace.
The interesting thing about such phenomena, is not so much that there is another dimension, but that the Flatlanders are 2D-beings. They cannot perceive that which is outside their 2D world. However, that is not to say that they don't exist in 3D. Their world has to have some depth, or they would not exist (at least not to us - lol). Yet, their whole land can exist within an infinitely thin sliver of our 3rd dimension. It is also intersecting to note that a plane consists of any two geometrical dimensions, therefore the terms 1st, 2nd, 3rd (and greater) dimension are actually meaningful in only a relative sense. For instance, we could have a horizontal Flatland, composed of length and width, or we could have vertical Flatlands, composed of depth and width, or depth and height. In fact, we could even have Flatlands of diagonal dimensions. There could be an infinite number of 'planar universes,' within our own. However, unless they were parallel, they would intersect at some point (assuming we keep this simple and leave out the possibility of non-Euclidean geometry).
Likewise, our 3D world can only exist within an infinitely small sliver of time at any given point. The fact that time "passes," would suggest that our whole 3D coordinate system is moving along a 4th axis, a bit like movie film for 2D. Time itself would be a product of motion, but our ability to perceive it, more or less uniformly throughout the universe (in that as far as we know, the whole universe is experiencing time), stems from something else, IMHO.
Other physical properties, such as density, are debatably dimensions, and can be mathematically represented as such. Density is the only example I can think of, but it is really contained within our 3 dimensions, having to do with how much empty space there is left over after adding in all the necessary protons, neutrons, electrons, etc. in any given atom.
Message #16, From: Bradkin
To: Dr-sociology ( Message #14 )
Tuesday, Feb 22 2000
5:47 p.m. PST
I wish to start by saying that I enjoy debate and hope that you see this as only debate and not argument. I am searching only for truth, not to prove you wrong. The following is a quote from "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene. Brian Greene is a physicist who graduated from Harvard and Oxford. He now works on super string theory. He too uses human terms in his description, but being that we are human it is difficult to describe a theory without involving us (I'm not saying that the theory doesn't exist without us, only that its description is easier with us)-- this does not invalidate a theory. "We and everything around us are aging, inevitably passing from one moment in time to the next. In fact, the mathematician Hermann Minkowski, and ultimately Einstein as well, advocated thinking about time as another dimension of the universe -- the fourth dimension -- in some ways quite similar to the three spacial dimensions in which we find ourselves immersed. Although it sounds abstract, the notion of time as a dimension is actually concrete. When we want to meet someone, we tell them where "in space" we will expect to see them -- for instance, the 9th floor of the building on the corner of 53rd Street and 7th Avenue. There are three pieces of information here (9th floor, 53rd Street, 7th Avenue) reflecting a particular location in the three spatial dimensions of the universe. Equally important, however, is our specification of when we expect to meet them -- for instance at 3 PM. This piece of information tells us where "in time" our meeting will take place. Events are therefore specified by four pieces of information: three in space and one in time. Such data, it is said, specifies the location of the event in space and in time, or in spacetime, for short. In this sense, time is another dimension." Feel free to offer rebuttal,
but I can speak on this subject no more clearly than a physicist and wouldn't try.
Message #17, From: Arcology2
To: Bradkin ( Message #16 )
Tuesday, Feb 22 2000
7:02 p.m. PST
Sounds interesting, I started reading that book the other day, but returned it as I was busy with some other reading material and didn't think I'd have time to finish it before my library loan time ran out. I'll probably just buy the 2000 edition that's coming out.
I agree with what you're saying - but I don't think you quite understood my post. Let me try putting it differently. First of all, I think that calling time the 4th dimension is only half-true, because we have multiple definitions of time (though until recent times we wouldn't have realized this). I don't know what the 4th dimension ought to be called, but "time" invokes irrelevant concepts into the primary concept. The word dimension has a similar problem.
The prefix 'hyper-' means over, or above. If you consider my earlier analogies, our 3rd dimension rises above the 2nd dimension (it also goes below, but as we know, perfect definitions are a rarity). Likewise, the 4th dimension can be imagined to rise, somehow (in the instance of Flatlanders, we say up, they think North. What we are speaking of when talking about 4th dimension is not true up, but another sort of up) above the 3rd dimension. For the sake of clarity, let us call the 4th dimension hyperspace. We, our universe, and therefore every evidence we have of our 3 dimensions, could be imagined to be moving along a 4th axis, hyperspace, yet occupying only a sliver of it at a time. All of history lies behind us in hyperspace, all of the future lies before us. The fact that time 'passes,' is the same as saying that hyperspace passes. That sliver of hyperspace that our universe occupies at any given moment passes. However, most people don't think of history, the future, and the present, as being time. To us time is not static, while an axis, relative to itself, is clearly static. What many people actually think of when we say time is the passing, not the axis. Therefore, we can have an hour of time, just as we can have a
foot of length. Often people will ask for the dimensions of an object. What they really want is the absolute/non-relative (or at least as close as we can get) measurements of an object within the dimensions it occupies. It would be absurd, or at least irrelevant to us as 3D beings, to ask what the dimensions of an object are, in terms of axis'.
We are finite in relation to time, and do not perceive its boundlessness in the way the we see everything stretching out in our 3D directions. Otherwise we would be able to 'see' the past and present all at once. Seeing the future would still be another problem as even if 'the future' stretched visible before us, the events of the future would only be in place once they had been caused- i.e. once we got there. Therefore, our verbal and conceptual definition of time is finite, but what we are referring to in the term hyperspace is not subject to the same limits. 'Time' confuses people, at least in introducing the concept, and it is easier to use a word whose definition you can control.
Message #18, From: Dr-sociology
To: Arcology2 ( Message #15 )
Tuesday, Feb 22 2000
8:40 p.m. PST
I see your point, and it is a very good analogy. I especially liked how you referenced different books - it was a nice touch. Now, I am not going to argue with you. You seem learned enough to be able to see multiple viewpoints on any given subject, so let me say this: would I be wrong to say that time is a property of our three dimensions? As you stated, for multiple happenings to occur at simultaneously, they would need to be established within certain boundaries, and perhaps time is a property afforded by the already existing dimensions of life that allows things to occur at the same moment.
Later thoughts:
The really peculiar thing to me is that time is not traversable in the same way that other dimensions are. We can’t move around at will in time, whereas we can in the other dimensions. Therefore, time is not a dimension in the same way that the others are dimensions. However, there is something of an analogy if you involve gravity. We really can’t move up and down completely at will, and if we were constantly separated from the Earth we would always be moving down, if the Earth had the mass of a black hole we would never be able to travel up no matter what kind of device we invented (although I guess one should never say never…). So, there seems to be some kind of interconnectivity between time and gravity, though the 4th dimension (not time exactly) still ought to be analogous
and interchangeable with the other 3.
Time, Part 2
Saturday, October 3, 2009
MacArthur Park
Some people think this is a drug song. Some people think it's a love song. Some people think it's about dinosaurs. I prefer to think of it as a love song (or rather, a song about love lost). Still, with the original (non-dinosaur) words, it doesn't really make complete sense either way (which, if it's a drug song, it doesn't really have to make sense); but she has a lovely voice, and the weirdness has a certain beauty, so I like the song :D. I don't particularly care for the disco segues, which musically suggests more to me that it's a drug song. Also "sweet green icing flowing down" suggests hallucinations, I mean, who bakes a cake with green icing??? Well, the lady who made the armadillo groom's cake in Steel Magnolias would probably do it, but who else??? Some people think the words are "sweet CREAM icing" - but that's not the majority opinion. The first Donna Summers song that I learned was "She Works Hard for the Money," which also tends to have a bad reputation as being about "a woman of ill repute." However, in that case, the lyrics really don't support that idea since it says "9am on the hour hand" and "she'll never sell out/she never will/ not for a dollar bill." Poor Donna Summer. Always misunderstood. Of course, being famous for a song called "Bad Girls" probably doesn't help either (but I don't really like that one, and don't know the words either). "Heaven Knows" is another one I do like. Anyway, here's MacArthur park (which wasn't even written by Donna Summer):
Spring was never waiting for us till
it ran one step ahead
as we followed in the dance.
Between the parted pages
we were pressed,
in love's hot, fevered iron
like a striped pair of pants.
Mac Arthur's Park is melting in the dark
all the sweet green icing flowing down
someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'cause it took so long to bake it
and I'll never have that recipe again
Oh, nooo!
I recall the yellow cotton dress
foaming like a wave
on the ground beneath your knees
birds like tender babies in your hands
and the old men playing
Chinese checkers
by the trees
Mac Arthur Park's is melting in the dark
all the sweet green icing flowing down
someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'cause it took so long to bake it
and I'll never have that recipe again
Oh, nooo!
There'll be another song for me
and I will sing it
there'll be another dream for me
someone will bring it
I will drink the wine while it is warn
and never let you catch me
looking at the sun, oh yeah
and after all the loves of my life
after all loves in my life
you'll be the one
I will take my life into my hands
and I will use it
I will win the worship in their eyes
and I will lose it
I will have the things that I desire
and my passion flow
like rivers through the sky
oh and after all the loves in my life
after all the loves in my life
you'll still be the one
and I'll ask myself why.
Mac Arthur's Park is melting in the dark
all the sweet green icing flowing down
someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'cause it took so long to bake it
and I'll never have that recipe again
Oh, nooo!
Spring was never waiting for us till
it ran one step ahead
as we followed in the dance.
Between the parted pages
we were pressed,
in love's hot, fevered iron
like a striped pair of pants.
Mac Arthur's Park is melting in the dark
all the sweet green icing flowing down
someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'cause it took so long to bake it
and I'll never have that recipe again
Oh, nooo!
I recall the yellow cotton dress
foaming like a wave
on the ground beneath your knees
birds like tender babies in your hands
and the old men playing
Chinese checkers
by the trees
Mac Arthur Park's is melting in the dark
all the sweet green icing flowing down
someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'cause it took so long to bake it
and I'll never have that recipe again
Oh, nooo!
There'll be another song for me
and I will sing it
there'll be another dream for me
someone will bring it
I will drink the wine while it is warn
and never let you catch me
looking at the sun, oh yeah
and after all the loves of my life
after all loves in my life
you'll be the one
I will take my life into my hands
and I will use it
I will win the worship in their eyes
and I will lose it
I will have the things that I desire
and my passion flow
like rivers through the sky
oh and after all the loves in my life
after all the loves in my life
you'll still be the one
and I'll ask myself why.
Mac Arthur's Park is melting in the dark
all the sweet green icing flowing down
someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'cause it took so long to bake it
and I'll never have that recipe again
Oh, nooo!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)