Time Travel: What would you do?

Cybsled · May 27, 2023

We know mass and speed can both effect how the passage of time is perceived by the impacted subject. We've been able to demonstrate relativistic time is real already, which means if you expand it to speeds approaching light, then the effect would be magnified. It doesn't prove time travel in reverse is possible, but it does demonstrate that matter in the universe and how it passes through what we perceive of as time can be manipulated.

Although if you get into the "time is an illusion" bit, then that potentially also goes into the realm of the static time hypothesis. In effect, everything is predetermined and everything that exists already exists (both what we perceive to be the past and future), but quirks in our consciousness perceives the passage of time even though time doesn't exist. I never really subscribed to that, because it falls too heavily into the "humans are uniquely special" trope at best.

Edaw · May 27, 2023

Cybsled said:
"humans are uniquely special"

Do you think dogs perceive time the same way humans do?

Furry · May 27, 2023

Edaw said:
Do you think dogs perceive time the same way humans do?

We know that different animals perceive time passing at different speeds. A lot of animals perceive time more slowly than us, so when they see a human walking, the human appears to be walking in slow motion. There is evidence that dogs are one of those animals, and we appear to move slowly, but likely not jarringly so. There’s evidence many insects perceive time jarringly more slowly, hence why they can react with incredible speed.

Edaw · May 27, 2023

Furry said:
We know that different animals perceive time passing at different speeds. A lot of animals perceive time more slowly than us, so when they see a human walking, the human appears to be walking in slow motion. There is evidence that dogs are one of those animals, and we appear to move slowly, but likely not jarringly so. There’s evidence many insects perceive time jarringly more slowly, hence why they can react with incredible speed.

My point is, humans are not special. Everything living experiences time in much different ways, even amongst themselves. Environment and situations can alter perceptions even further. I don't perceive time the same way as you do, nor you another person.

Zapatta probably has a nice Taoistic saying to sum it up nicely.

Fogel · May 27, 2023

Don't buy into Lumi's bullshit guys. He's only trying to convince us that time travel isn't real because he himself is a time traveler. How else could he know about the power of garlic?

Captain Suave · May 27, 2023

Furry said:
We know that different animals perceive time passing at different speeds.

I've seen a bunch of this research and never been convinced of the equivalence between detecting higher-resolution events and the actual experience of time at a different rate.

Furry · May 27, 2023

Captain Suave said:
I've seen a bunch of this research and never been convinced of the equivalence between detecting higher-resolution events and the actual experience of time at a different rate.

I don’t see why you’d have much objection to it. In a fundamental way, it’s pretty logical as a base assumption from how different biologies are between animals. Additionally there are objective tests to measure time perception. That said, it is pretty logical to accept that humans have a more complete understanding of time than any other animal.

Captain Suave · May 27, 2023

Furry said:
I don’t see why you’d have much objection to it. In a fundamental way, it’s pretty logical as a base assumption from how different biologies are between animals. Additionally there are objective tests to measure time perception. That said, it is pretty logical to accept that humans have a more complete understanding of time than any other animal.

My base assumption would be that time perception and reaction times are independent concepts. Time has to do with the propagation of causation and not biology. I understand why biology would influence reaction times, as having a larger and more complex brain lowers "clock speed" just based on the requirements for transmission and integration of neural signals. I just don't think it's necessarily so that "clock speed" and time perception are the same thing.

What are the cross-species objective tests for time perception that aren't reaction time tests?

Lumi · May 27, 2023

Cybsled said:
We know mass and speed can both effect how the passage of time is perceived by the impacted subject.

Yes precisely. It's only the perception being altered but time itself always flows at the same speed for all things.

Furry · May 27, 2023

Captain Suave said:
My base assumption would be that time perception and reaction times are independent concepts. Time has to do with the propagation of causation and not biology. I understand why biology would influence reaction times, as having a larger and more complex brain lowers "clock speed" just based on the requirements for transmission and integration of neural signals. I just don't think it's necessarily so that "clock speed" and time perception are the same thing.

What are the cross-species objective tests for time perception that aren't reaction time tests?

The blinking light test. I know from extensive experience that console people with their acceptance of low frame rates as fine are a lesser people. Yes it is clock speed, and the smaller an animal is, typically the faster they perceive time. It’s only logical, because a smaller animal deals with small and fast interactions frequently, while humans don’t, because things on that scale often aren’t important. Animals probably lack all or most of the concepts we have about time, though.

Captain Suave · May 27, 2023

Furry said:
The blinking light test. I know from extensive experience that console people with their acceptance of low frame rates as fine are a lesser people. Yes it is clock speed, and the smaller an animal is, typically the faster they perceive time. It’s only logical, because a smaller animal deals with small and fast interactions frequently, while humans don’t, because things on that scale often aren’t important. Animals probably lack all or most of the concepts we have about time, though.

Last comment because I think we're taking in circles around each other, but I don't think that being able to react to or detect events in finer intervals is the same as time running more slowly. One minute of experience is still a minute if in 30 fps or 60 or 150. I don't think it's safe to assume that one click of the minimum perceptible time increment is perceived to have the same duration by two minds sampling at different frequencies.

Cybsled · May 27, 2023

Lumi said:
Yes precisely. It's only the perception being altered but time itself always flows at the same speed for all things.

But that perception extends beyond just perception in the cognitive sense. Time in the respect of how your body or materials age is altered.

For example, if I am traveling at 99% the speed of light, 5 years for me is 36 years for everyone else not traveling that fast. I would have only aged 5 years so to speak while everyone else would have aged significantly more

Captain Suave · May 27, 2023

Lumi said:
Yes precisely. It's only the perception being altered but time itself always flows at the same speed for all things.

No, that's not true at all. If you take observers and subject them to dramatically different speeds they will have experienced different amounts of time when reunited. GPS doesn't work without accounting for the fact that time literally runs slower for the satellites than it does here on Earth to the tune of 7 microseconds per day. It's not an information/perception lag; the clocks would still be out of sync if you brought them back to Earth.

Lumi · May 27, 2023

Cybsled said:
But that perception extends beyond just perception in the cognitive sense. Time in the respect of how your body or materials age is altered.

For example, if I am traveling at 99% the speed of light, 5 years for me is 36 years for everyone else not traveling that fast. I would have only aged 5 years so to speak while everyone else would have aged significantly more

No that's not how it works actually. You are only feeling the effects of 5 years while still having experienced 36. Also, nothing with mass can come anywhere even remotely close to reaching the speed of light to begin with so it's an irrelevant example.

Lumi · May 27, 2023

Captain Suave said:
No, that's not true at all. If you take observers and subject them to dramatically different speeds they will have experienced different amounts of time when reunited. GPS doesn't work without accounting for the fact that time literally runs slower for the satellites than it does here on Earth to the tune of 7 microseconds per day. It's not an information/perception lag; the clocks would still be out of sync if you brought them back to Earth.

You're not understanding what is actually occurring. Time is moving at the same speed for everything. What is actually happening is the instruments that are measuring are malfunctioning in a sense. Think about it logically. How could we interact with them if they exist in the future or past? They would literally be phasing out of existence otherwise.

Captain Suave · May 27, 2023

Lumi said:
You're not understanding what is actually occurring. Time is moving at the same speed for everything. What is actually happening is the instruments that are measuring are malfunctioning in a sense.

No, the mathematics of physics is quite clear that the two observers are experiencing time differently. "t" is right there in the equations.

Time dilation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Lumi said:
How could we interact with them if they exist in the future or past? They would literally be phasing out of existence otherwise.

We're interacting with the signals that come from those objects experiencing time differently than from our perspective, not directly with the objects themselves. That's why telescopes are views into the past. There's no inconsistency or phasing required.

Lumi · May 27, 2023

Captain Suave said:
No, the mathematics of physics is quite clear that the two observers are experiencing time differently.

They're experiencing the effects of time differently but the total amount of time elapsed is still identical. I think it's perfectly explained by the quote of Einstein when he said "when your hand is on a hot stove a minute feels like an hour but when you're talking to a beautiful girl an hour feels like a minute".

An hour is an hour is an hour.

Captain Suave · May 27, 2023

Einstein was literally the twu

Lumi said:
They're experiencing the effects of time differently but the total amount of time elapsed is still identical. I think it's perfectly explained by the quote of Einstein when he said "when your hand is on a hot stove a minute feels like an hour but when you're talking to a beautiful girl an hour feels like a minute".

An hour is an hour is an hour.

No, that's very much not what Einstein's work says. Modern physics is very clear that time passes differently for different observers due to the local shape of spacetime. That's the foundational point of relativity.

Zapatta · May 27, 2023

Edaw said:
My point is, humans are not special. Everything living experiences time in much different ways, even amongst themselves. Environment and situations can alter perceptions even further. I don't perceive time the same way as you do, nor you another person.

Zapatta probably has a nice Taoistic saying to sum it up nicely.

Dude it's a 3 Day BBQ weekend, all of you need to go outside and touch grass.

Furry · May 27, 2023

Captain Suave said:
Einstein was literally the twu

No, that's very much not what Einstein's work says. Modern physics is very clear that time passes differently for different observers due to the local shape of spacetime. That's the foundational point of relativity.

Einsteins life work was to steal lorentz’s work. As for Lorentz, he was specifically trying to write an equation where people traveling at different speeds experience the same thing. This goes back to Galileo’s boat quandary. If it was true that people or objects experience different things traveling at different speeds in a world where the speed of light was finite, scientists devised an experiment that would calculate the absolute speed of earth. Many scientists tried this experiment and it always failed. So one of the assumptions there was categorically wrong.

We’re pretty sure of the speed of light on earth, so that was found to likely not be the problem, so the problem is that you don’t experience different things, even approaching the speed of light, which experimentally was true, but mathematically made no sense.

Lorentz’s relativity is the formula that makes such a world “work”. It’s only gaping flaw is that it can’t account for not being able to see the effect of rotational motion. So if the theory is believed, no, you don’t experience anything different within your boat when traveling near the speed of light. The biggest glaring flaw is that the outside world would accelerate, thus allowing you an alternative way to discover the absolute speed of an object, but that problem can mostly be hand waved away, as experimentally it is beyond our technology.

Time Travel: What would you do?

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