How do we know we're moving forward in time?

[AB1OB]

There is a logical reason that our reality actually moves through time the way it does...

And, YES, it is moving ONE-WAY! It also moves ALMOST unilaterally in constant motion.

The math & science direct our knowledge of the reality (that we call universe) to the idea of symmetry.

The symmetry of expansion is contraction. We evolved in the expansion aspect of the "universe". Our relativity is within expansion. We only see transition & contraction 2nd hand (DarkMatter/DarkEnergy).

There is no reason to fear any illogical time paradox arising because expansion ("our" flow of time) and contraction (opposite flow of time) are segregated actions of the universal system.

SEE BELOW FOR ORIENTATION:



Entering a massive black hole is entering contraction. You are NOT going back to your imagined past of your memory.

The past, ALL time is under constant change. As mentioned already, our reality flows through time via expansion but imagine a perspective, where we could step off this treadmill of time and just remain fixed in time.

If you are following this, you will see how the "many-worlds" hypothesis makes perfect logical sense, within this perspective.

So IF we could jump into a BlackHole and travel back in time and then jump out...AND SURVIVE...then we could be at a previous time (relative to the level of expansion), but it would be a different world that existed there, not our own. It would be one that was created at a later time than ours. One that evolved from a similar set of starting conditions but not likely to be anything near identical by the time significant complexity evolves.

[Present awareness]

If you are watching a waterfall, the water you see falling is in the present, the water coming towards the falls, is in the present, the water that is downstream from the falls is also in the present. Hence, time is an illusion, since the present is all that there ever is. Changes happen within the present of course, but the the present itself, remains without moving.

[AB1OB]

If you are watching a waterfall, the water you see falling is in the present, the water coming towards the falls, is in the present, the water that is downstream from the falls is also in the present. Hence, time is an illusion, since the present is all that there ever is. Changes happen within the present of course, but the the present itself, remains without moving.

You are blind to the movement of the present because you are in steady state movement within the present.

Your current perspective is on a kayak coming downstream. You are always in the present. You approach the falls in your present. You go over falls in your present. You continue downstream in your present. This is the perspective WITHIN TIME.

Correct the perspective. This is the perspective OF TIME, Now stand on the shore and watch the river of time go by. Upstream water is younger than downstream water because it is closer to its source. The present position of time at your observation point is the falls. You are at a fixed point in time and you watch younger time (of existence) flow over towards becoming older time (of existence-extant).

As you stand there many different presents are continually coming over the falls (the water itselff or multiple kayas) "many worlds" at the same point in time.

[Present awareness]

If you stand far enough back on the shore, you will be able to see upstream, the falls and downstream from the falls, at the same time. So how can it be said that upstream is younger then downstream?

[AB1OB]

If you stand far enough back on the shore, you will be able to see upstream, the falls and downstream from the falls, at the same time. So how can it be said that upstream is younger then downstream?

Start at the source of the river. That is the beginning of river's flow. Throw a ball in and start your stop-watch. Keep pace with the ball as you walk a parallel trail.

After 1 minute, the river is 1 minute old at that point. It is a small gentle flow at that point let's stay there and watch it a while. It is constantly changing because water is constantly flowing by. But it always keeps its identity as a very young river. (That perspective, of watching time flow by, would be the time of expansion relative to our reality.)

The constant changes, caused by the slight variations in flow, is analogous to "many worlds"...there are many slightly different states (water worlds) at the 1 minute extant location.

Now throw another ball in and start the stop-watch and time a much longer period, let's say we have a road and can keep pace by vehicle and we get way down stream after a lot of other tributaries have joined in.

Now we are at a place where the river has taken 2 days to get here. It is a mature river and always 2 days old at that point. But of course it is never the same (constantly changing many worlds, running through all possible probabilities).

I hope that I have explained this properly for you to understand.

You are looking at a mental image that you interpret as the present. Your present is ever changing but you are always in your present. Your present might be a view of the river encompassing some upstream, the falls & some downstream. You see younger, midway & older parts of the river at the same time.

But where is your present? Your present flows with expansion, like the ball on the river. (a very fast ball )

Your present is a constant unilateral radial motion. (That the constant is the speed of light). Our reality beams along at c. While within that beam, is our reality of relative motion.

[LogicReasonEvidence]

You are asking 'Telling me that the entropy is decreasing isn't proof either' (I can only imagine that was an error & you meant to say 'increasing' yes?) Well that's what we call 'time': changing from a more orderly state towards a more disorderly state. Actually your question is an interesting one because if the existing custom was the opposite i.e. Time is said to travel backwards, it would still describe the same phenomena & in a sense it could be argued it describes it more appropriately. But does it? And is saying time goes forward really better or worse for that matter? You could just as well say time goes left not right - or right not left. The terms are arbitrary even though we have an existing standard where 'forward' is correct & 'backward' is incorrect.

The bottom line is we could represent the passage of time in any number of ways: 'Now' as static & time traveling 'clockwise' i.e. (around to the right) or anti-clockwise (around to the left). We could even say it spirals clockwise or anti-clockwise towards or from the Big Bang -or towards the heat death of the universe.

Strictly speaking we might not be able to be certain 'time' actually exists & it is actually an illusion, but not an illusion in the sense that time isn't real but that it isn't what we think it is, however it is still something. Perhaps we should say time is doing exactly what it's doing: changing & that is all. If there were no changes at all there would be no time at all.

[Sim Al-Adim]

At some point the universe will stop expanding and will stop circulating in a positive direction. It may remain this way for a long time. But, eventually it will turn in the negative direction and will slowly begin contracting. Long after everyone is dead, they will find themselves in their graves - having piles of dirt heap away from their caskets - then into the morgue and out of the morgue.

They'll awake with a reverse death gasp; undergo the pains of dying in reverse and all of the aging pains from the inside out. Their poop will come into their butts. They will reverse shuvle food onto spoons onto plates building mountains of mashed potatoes - finding their way out of boiling pots of water back into the ground from whence they were reverse picked.

Farmers will put radishes into the ground. It will all seem very very normal. We will talk in reverse about how we wonder what happens after we're born. To be born will be to die. Our speech will somehow make all of the current discussion about "what is this" and "what is that" relavant in reverse terms.

"That is what" or "this is what" will be answers; not questions. You will reach the end of existence in your mothers womb. You will be born in a tomb and your death will be a horrible vacuum into the womb. Etcetera etcetera. It won't be weird at all. It won't be any weirder than being born in order to die. But it will justify everything. The rich will be poor and the poor will be rich. Everything a rich man has now will be a process of loss. Everything a poor person has lost will be a process of gain. It is the ultimate balance. It will happen. And it will be normal.

[Marsh8472]

The way I'm interpreting the question is that: if we imagine reality of time works like constructing a movie frame by frame except starting from the end of the movie, time is moving backwards but from the point of view of the movie during any given frame time would be moving forwards. It technically would appear the same to us either way.

[Frank Aiello]

I think you mean "entropy is increasing". For a closed system, entropy (i.e. a measure of disorder of a system), will always increase. This is the second law of thermodynamics, which is founded upon statistical mechanics. For all intents and purposes, the equations physics are time-symmetric or time-reversible. Given the initial conditions, you can calculate the behavior of the system at any future time and thus "run the system backwards" like a film. Why, then, do broken cups not magically reassemble into their previously ordered shape? It is because of the second law of thermodynamics. There seems to be somewhat of a conflict here, but really there's not. We know causes precede their effects, and (excluding retrocausation in certain QM models such as the Transactional Interpretation), you can at least define the arrow of time based on causation, if nothing else. That would be my response, anyway. However, whether we are moving backward in time and forward in time - I would say could tell simply by certain rules of temporal logic. If we were truly moving backward in time, paradoxes could emerge that would violate causality.

-- Updated December 19th, 2014, 12:07 pm to add the following --

I think you mean "entropy is increasing". For a closed system, entropy (i.e. a measure of disorder of a system), will always increase. This is the second law of thermodynamics, which is founded upon statistical mechanics. For all intents and purposes, the equations physics are time-symmetric or time-reversible. Given the initial conditions, you can calculate the behavior of the system at any future time and thus "run the system backwards" like a film. Why, then, do broken cups not magically reassemble into their previously ordered shape? It is because of the second law of thermodynamics. There seems to be somewhat of a conflict here, but really there's not. We know causes precede their effects, and (excluding retrocausation in certain QM models such as the Transactional Interpretation), you can at least define the arrow of time based on causation, if nothing else. That would be my response, anyway. However, whether we are moving backward in time and forward in time - I would say could tell simply by certain rules of temporal logic. If we were truly moving backward in time, paradoxes could emerge that would violate causality.

[AB1OB]

Time (which is a Planck scale "carrier wave", flows into expansion and carries matter with it.

Once the matter becomes grouped, space develops and light is transmitted through the, now empty of matter, "spaces" between the groupings. The same carrier wave expands photon energy through the empty of matter patches.

I'll add a picture soon..

-- Updated December 19th, 2014, 12:21 pm to add the following --



I hope you can enlarge it on your screen to see the detail....they limit the size of posting pics here.

[Logic_ill]

Forward is a term we use to describe how things commonly change. There's a consensus to it because that's the way most observable parts of our universe works. For example, we all (organisms) start out small and slowly grow. We might call those changes "forward", while backward in our universe would be to be brought from death, reliving and experiencing life from that source point, being born, going back into the womb, etc.

What we mean by forward as it applies to time is descriptive of the changes we can observe. However, in another context "forward" means something different. For example, a human being walking as it normally does (in direction to its frontal area), not backward (in direction to its back). Our eyes are in front of us,so there may be a connection...

We know we are moving forward in time because we have been here long enough to describe these major changes, movements, cycles, additions, substractions, etc, we all view the phenomenon that way. and "forward" is the term in English we might use to describe it.

[AB1OB]

Forward is a term we use to describe how things commonly change. There's a consensus to it because that's the way most observable parts of our universe works. ............................

Exactly! And why do they work in this coordinated fashion?

Because there is an underlying connection that ties it all together.

For those familiar with current science jargon, the microwave background radiation, is the carrier wave through expansion.

The last point of scattering, is where space started to evolve between radial expansion.

The solid condensed plasma state that preceded that, is the "time wave-carrier wave's" source of generation.

This microwave background radiation sounds like empty radio static Which is what it is. It is a physical time wave.

Expansion is a one-way time. It is a quantum expansion from a common source of time waves produced from solid plasma.

The WMAP images are actually black body radiation of solid plasma.

Time is a cycle, the return flow is a segregated pathway.

Dark Matter precipitates out of this carrier wave and is attracted through a magnetic resonance which forms a worm-hole back towards the source of expansion (completing the cycle of time) and also forming the "skeleton" for large scale structure within expansion, which is arranged around this contractive force.

[Misty]

We've talked about changes in time and abstract time, but I don't recall any evidence for time moving forward. Telling me that the entropy is decreasing isn't proof either because maybe it is decreasing while time is moving backward.

So what evidence exists that time is moving forward? I would like to know.

PhilX

If we don't know if we are moving forward in time, what difference does it make?

[Logic_ill]

It may make a difference, Misty. If we didn't have information or data on natural processes as we do, we might have to gather it. I mean, we have seen (up to now) many processes and can predict that a child will be born, for example, grow and go through a certain development, etc. BUt that's because we human beings have enough experience to be able to predict what's going to happen. There may be certain processes we have yet to discover or may seem unpredictable for the time being, and we may learn more about as we go along.

"Forward" may simple mean the manner in which these processes (events) take place. If we are not familiar with an event or its process, we have to recollect the data in order to make predictions. If we get to understand the process, it may be included in our definition of "time moving forward".

[MidiChlorian]

We've talked about changes in time and abstract time, but I don't recall any evidence for time moving forward. Telling me that the entropy is decreasing isn't proof either because maybe it is decreasing while time is moving backward.

So what evidence exists that time is moving forward? I would like to know.

Philosophy Explorer, you mention "entropy" but I'm assuming that you are referring to Entropy as "arrow in time" where it could be interpreted as:

Entropy is the only quantity in the physical sciences (...) that requires a particular direction for time, sometimes called an arrow of time. As one goes "forward" in time, the second law of thermodynamics says, the entropy of an isolated system can increase, but not decrease. Hence, from one perspective, entropy measurement is a way of distinguishing the past from the future. However in thermodynamic systems that are not closed, entropy can decrease with time: many systems, including living systems, reduce local entropy at the expense of an environmental increase, resulting in a net increase in entropy.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(arrow_of_time)

However, it would seem that we relate to time as a human sense, where the perception of time has been identified as one of a humans twelve senses. Therefore it would seem that time, as we perceive it, is moving forward because our mind thinks or visually conceives reality as a sequence of events, which consciously are recorded from present to future, but having been recorded what was present becomes past, and as one remembers or recalls present-past, time is moving backwards but, this is based on information recalled from the events, which can be related to Entropy as "Information theory", where:

In information theory, entropy is the average amount of information contained in each message received. Here, message stands for an event, sample or character drawn from a distribution or data stream. Entropy thus characterizes our uncertainty about our source of information. (Entropy is best understood as a measure of uncertainty rather than certainty as entropy is larger for more random sources.) The source is also characterized by the probability distribution of the samples drawn from it. The idea here is that the less likely an event is, the more information it provides when it occurs.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory)

However, with information and its relation to human memory, and how it is recorded, assuming that science has progressed enough to catalog the information held within the human brain, could also be changed prior to the attempt to recall this information, which would register in the human mind as past information as memories which may be consciously realized through the recall of those human senses, of which the perception of time has now moved forward from past-present and is now the reversal of time or recall of events, which now are reoccurring in the minds reality.

It has been theorized that "time" can be visualized as a fourth dimension, however this is only relative to motion, in that if you take a spatial three dimensional object with height, width and depth, moves from one place to another would indicate the time it takes to move from point A to point B.




The first four spatial dimensions.
1 Two points can be connected to create a line segment.
2 Two parallel line segments can be connected to form a square.
3 Two parallel squares can be connected to form a cube.
4 Two parallel cubes can be connected to form a hypercube.

If we then assume that in space, or anywhere within a universe which has a reference or place, would require six points of reference to be able to focus on a seventh point within the parameters of the six, and with the movement of this seventh point, would indicate that time must be contained within seven dimension, so time would not be able to exist without motion and at least seven dimensions. Assuming that this is true, and depending on where one is within these seven dimensions, time can be viewed as forward or backwards, up or down, etc., or as having infinite possibilities and or sequences from the perspection of a human being, who has a mind to be able to perceive time. Animals do not perceive time like humans because they use the basic senses and have no sense of time, but they do recognize motion and changes within their environment which may make one think that they can sense the changes in time. Therefore it is only humans, and their consciousness, which can perceive time, in a way where they might think that time is moving, but depending on the individual and their mind's ability to recognize change, based on their ability to remember or recall past-present information and compare with present reality and current events, might be considered as delusional thinking. Therefore, for those who seem to recognize time's movement in various directions may not be willing to be forthcoming as to its reality.

The following quotes come from a book which has presented an interesting viewpoint on this subject of time, which you might find informative.

130:7.5 Animals do not sense time as does man, and even to man, because of his sectional and circumscribed view, time appears as a succession of events; but as man ascends, as he progresses inward, the enlarging view of this event procession is such that it is discerned more and more in its wholeness. That which formerly appeared as a succession of events then will be viewed as a whole and perfectly related cycle; in this way will circular simultaneity increasingly displace the onetime consciousness of the linear sequence of events.

130:7.6 There are seven different conceptions of space as it is conditioned by time. Space is measured by time, not time by space. The confusion of the scientist grows out of failure to recognize the reality of space. Space is not merely an intellectual concept of the variation in relatedness of universe objects. Space is not empty, and the only thing man knows which can even partially transcend space is mind. Mind can function independently of the concept of the space-relatedness of material objects. Space is relatively and comparatively finite to all beings of creature status. The nearer consciousness approaches the awareness of seven cosmic dimensions, the more does the concept of potential space approach ultimacy. But the space potential is truly ultimate only on the absolute level.