## Time and Boundaries

• 621
Time Viewed Through The Lens of Cause and Effect

The parachutist jumps from the airplane at ten thousand feet and plummets to earth at the speed of acceleration due to gravity.

What’s causing precise acceleration? Is it the jump? Is it the air? Is it the man?

We know air in a weightless chamber doesn’t cause acceleration.

We know man in a weightless chamber involves no accelerating earth plummet.

Introduce gravity into a formerly weightless chamber and acceleration occurs.

Gravity is causing precise acceleration.

Gravity and acceleration-due-to-gravity are, in a certain sense, as one. They are conjoined as a unified concept: gravity-and-acceleration. Thus cause and effect are, in the same sense, as one, save one stipulation: temporal sequencing.

Cause and effect are separated temporally. However, in our scheme of conceptual unification of cause and effect, elapsing time counting down to zero links them. After all, when we look at a cause we don’t see an effect, and vice-versa until after we do some thinking. Just add thinking to temporally separated cause and effect and voila! Abstraction counts time down to zero as unified concept: cause-and-effect.

This is the sleight-of-hand of abstract thinking; it’s an example of change over time reduced to a set of examples at time-zero. “Of a world of changes I sing.”*

By utilizing John von Neuman’s empty set expansion to derive all numbers, we can derive, in a parallel process, all cause-and-effect relationships. We start with the empty set. Since the empty set contains nothing, not even the number zero, it is zero.**

The set of historical time tracks the-motion-of-material objects. It’s the set of all cause-and-effect relationships. It’s our material world of phenomena coupled with experience.

If we identify the empty set with the set of time abstracted from matter, as with all numbers derived from nothing, we can derive all cause-and-effect relationships derived from nothing. It’s a kind of cognitive singularity, the infinitesimal nothing from which all phenomena derive.

So we start with { }. We go from here to { { } }. This is the set that contains one element: the empty set. It contains one element, so we identify it with the number one. Next step in our progression is { { }, { { } } }: this is the set containing our zero and one. It contains two elements, so we identify it with number two. The progression continues forward with each new set containing all of the previous sets. Each new set is thus an identification with the next natural number.

Proceeding from the naturals, we go on to establish the negatives, the fractions, the reals and the imaginaries. In our one-to-one correspondence, all numbers equal all cause and effect relationships.

We see now that cause and effect the logical conjunction: ${a ⇒ b}$ morphs into
${a ⇒ b} - t ⇒ {a ⇔ b}^n .$

Time in our narrative is both separator and unifier of cause-and-effect: just add (or subtract) thinking.

There’s no question cause and effect, before unification, are temporally separate.

Also, there’s no question cause and effect, once unified, post-date cause.

The big variable herein is the diversification/unification of the material creation, via cause and effect, along the invisible connective tissue: time.

What’s the critical operation between cause and effect when considered as conjunction: time-positive? Yes.

What’s the obverse critical operation between cause and effect when considered as a unified whole: time-zero? Yes.

The critical operation is time elapsing down to zero, thus merging two different things into one.

This is the magic of nature’s stunning variety: e pluribus unum.

Questions

Is time active?
• Time as an active verb is the unidirectionally forward flowing of history
• Time as forward flowing history takes presence as its object; flowing time makes all presence unstable; time regulates metabolism/catabolism_order/disorder; forward flowing time actuates the increase of entropy; time is the arbiter of death ⇒ time mediates the ultimately transcendent boundary: life
• Time controls the morphology of forward-flowing history

Are there any observable boundaries time cannot merge?
• Consider the ranking ordinal. It’s timeless regarding the ranking differential. Time is, however, essential to sequencing. With regard to sequencing, there are no atemporal physical continuums.
• Regarding coincidence, time mediates herein the boundaries of individuality as superimposed coordinates. There is no individuality in absolute isolation. Humanoid sentience is thus implicit in God

Does time mediate all boundaries? Yes.

Does time, via the forward flowing of history, actualize and regulate both equivalence and identity? Yes. If so, does that mean time is arbiter of truth? Yes.

Is time a force? Yes. Time mediates presence* as forward-flowing history, a transitive verb that blossoms the scope and diversity of nature.

*Time is a metric of total history as it is abstracted in the mind as a unified concept. Invididual moments of time are subsets of total history. Time expanding as motion into history unfolding forwardly gives us our phenomenal universe of objects, subjects and experience.

* Ovid, Metamorphosis
** Robert Kaplan, The Nothing That Is
• 2.8k
he parachutist jumps from the airplane at ten thousand feet and plummets to earth at the speed of acceleration due to gravity.

What’s causing precise acceleration?

It's nit-picking, but starting your lengthy presentation with an inaccurate statement can distract from your argument. The falling parachutist does not fall at a rate determined purely by gravity - air resistance must be taken into account and this slows the fall. Such an effect is frequently calculated as proportional to the square of the velocity when close to the ground, if I remember correctly.

We see now that cause and effect the logical conjunction: a⇒b morphs into
a⇒b−t⇒a⇔bn.

???

Well, at least you get a minimum of one reply this time around. :cool:
• 621
The falling parachutist does not fall at a rate determined purely by gravity - air resistance must be taken into account and this slows the fall. Such an effect is frequently calculated as proportional to the square of the velocity when close to the ground...

You're right, of course. I stand corrected for neglecting to mention air resistance.

We see how cause and effect the logical conjunction evolves: $a⇒b⇒$
$a⇒b−t ⇒{a⇔b}^n$

My symbolic logic statement is supposed to say: a leads to b (causal relationship) evolves into a leads to b minus time (abstraction) evolves into a and b are interwoven as a unified concept. The bi-directional a and b at the end needs to have a bracket so that the bi-directional is raised to the power of n. This final piece is supposed to represent all cause-and-effect relationships. I'm just learning mathjax and don't yet know how to get a polynomial raised to a power.

Well, at least you get a minimum of one reply this time around. :cool:

Yes! And I'm much obliged to you for supplying it. Thanks
• 11.6k
I don't see what "time" and "cause & effect" have to do with one another. IIRC, the equations of QFT lack time variables and those of GR, SR, etc are time-symmetric (suggesting a "block universe"), yet 'causal relationships' are described (or observed). Maybe I'm just missing the point of your post, ucarr.
• 11.1k
We know man in a weightless chamber doesn’t cause acceleration, not even when he jumps.

Here's another thing to add to what jgill said. I think that jumping, or more correctly pushing off, in a gravity-free space, actually would cause acceleration.

Gravity and acceleration-due-to-gravity are, in a certain sense, as one. They are conjoined as a unified concept: gravity-and-acceleration. Thus cause and effect are, in the same sense, as one, save one stipulation: temporal sequencing.

I don't think that this is correct either. Acceleration only occurs from the effects of gravitation when whatever is preventing acceleration is removed, or if an object is suddenly exposed to gravitation. So the man is exposed to gravitation, in the plane, before jumping, but is only caused to accelerate after removing himself from the plane. The plane being the thing which is preventing gravitational acceleration of the man. All things on earth are exposed to gravitation, and this has a great effect on the way that they rest, but they are not necessarily accelerating from gravitation.

So I don't really like the way you characterize causation, making cause and effect one. In principle (theory), cause and effect might be united as one, so that X necessitates Y, and Y could not have occurred without X, but this is simplistic and not properly representative of real events. In reality there is always a number of complicating factors such as prior conditions and other influencing activities. So the thing we isolate as the cause is really only a contributing factor. And in your example gravity is a contributing factor.
• 3
A mere series of events can never constitute a causal relationship. The frames within a film-strip precede & succeed each other but are neither the causes or effects of one another. So, in the series of events that's referenced in the O.P., neither causes nor effects are demonstrable, but only temporal predecessors & successors.
• 621
I don't see what "time" and "cause & effect" have to do with one another.

Is it your understanding cause and effect is not a temporal phenomenon?
• 621
Here's another thing to add to what jgill said. I think that jumping, or more correctly pushing off, in a gravity-free space, actually would cause acceleration.

Gravity and acceleration-due-to-gravity are, in a certain sense, as one. They are conjoined as a unified concept: gravity-and-acceleration. Thus cause and effect are, in the same sense, as one, save one stipulation: temporal sequencing.

Do you buy the notion gravity-and-acceleration are a unified concept within a restricted domain:

Acceleration only occurs from the effects of gravitation when whatever is preventing acceleration is removed, or if an object is suddenly exposed to gravitation.
• 621
...in that series of events that's referenced in the O.P., neither cause nor effect is demonstrable, but only temporal predecessors & successors.

The parachutist has jumped out of a plane airborne at ten thousand feet. What happens next and why?

A mere series of events can never constitute a causal relationship. The frames within a film strip precede & succeed each but aren't either the causes or effects of one another.

A film script is also known as a continuity. Characters behave and their behavior causes reactions in other characters. Action with emotional impact drives the story forward. As the story moves forward, characters change. This is the arc of the story. As we watch a film continuity, we feel and know the middle of the story is not the same as the beginning of the story because things have happened that have brought us to a new place in the story of people's lives. What Joey did to Cathy last night has made her become a more confident woman next morning.

What's going on inside of Cathy?
• 2.8k
↪ucarr
I don't see what "time" and "cause & effect" have to do with one another. IIRC, the equations of QFT lack time variables

A good point. However, much of Q-theory presupposes spacetime in one or another metric framework. When you see d^4 in a formula that probably indicates space and time. But all of that is way beyond me.

A simple example: You have a cylindrical container having base area, A. The volume of liquid in the container is given by V=hA, where h is the depth of the liquid. A causal change in V is the result of draining the liquid to a lower value of h. dV/dh =A, which gives a change of V corresponding to a change of h. No time is involved in the equation, only change. But if h=h(t), then dV/dt=(dh/dt)A, and we have change associated with a passage of time.

I usually think of change as taking place over an interval of time.
• 621
I don't see what "time" and "cause & effect" have to do with one another. IIRC, the equations of QFT lack time variables

A good point. However, much of Q-theory presupposes spacetime in one or another metric framework. When you see d^4 in a formula that probably indicates space and time.

Are you guys telling me time and cause and effect are either: a) separable; b) separate?

A causal change in V is the result of draining the liquid to a lower value of h. dV/dh =A, which gives a change of V corresponding to a change of h. No time is involved in the equation, only change. But if h=h(t), then dV/dt=(dh/dt)A, and we have change associated with a passage of time.

No time is involved in the equation, only change.

Is this an example of the difference between an abstract idea (equation) and its everyday expression as a physical event?
• 11.6k
Are you guys telling me time and cause and effect are either: a) separable; b) separate?
With respect to contemporary fundamental physics, I don't see what one has to do with the other. Even in Kant, these concepts are not directly related.
• 2.8k
Is this an example of the difference between an abstract idea (equation) and its everyday expression as a physical event?

dV/dh=A is not abstract. If you measure a change in depth, then dV=Adh gives the corresponding change in volume.

Suppose it were possible for that change in h to happen instantly. Then so would the change in V. That would be unrealistic, however.
• 621
dV/dh=A is not abstract. If you measure a change in depth, then dV=Adh gives the corresponding change in volume.

So d = depth? A variable is not abstract?
• 621
Are you guys telling me time and cause and effect are either: a) separable; b) separate?

With respect to contemporary fundamental physics, I don't see what one has to do with the other. Even in Kant, these concepts are not directly related.

As I understand you, you're telling me cause and effect is not a temporal phenomenon. Am I reading you correctly?
• 2.8k
dV/dh=A is not abstract. If you measure a change in depth, then dV=Adh gives the corresponding change in volume. — jgill

So d = depth? A variable is not abstract?

Language of calculus. dV means "change in V", etc.
• 11.6k
As I understand you, you're telling me cause and effect is not a temporal phenomenon. Am I reading you correctly?
Yeah; also that "time" is neither "temporal" nor a "phenomenon". (I think you're confusing (your) maps with the territory.)
• 11.1k
Do you buy the notion gravity-and-acceleration are a unified concept within a restricted domain:

Not really, because acceleration can be caused by things other than gravity. So for example, a rocket blasts off and it accelerates in breaking away from gravity, as a sort of reverse relation to gravity. There is still a relation with gravity involved here, but since it is a reversal, we see that it is not a direct relation because there must be something else involved. Since there is something else involve we can't restrict the domain.

Likewise, with your example of the parachutist. You refer to the effects after jumping, as "acceleration".
But what is required prior to this, and is a necessary condition, is that the person takes off in a plane (gravity reversal), and then jumps from the plane. That particular prior condition is the one required for your specific description, but it could be replaced with all sorts of others. So even the prior condition is not in the strict sense "necessary", but there is a whole class of possible prior conditions. But since one of these many possible conditions is necessary, for the acceleration described, we cannot restrict the domain in the way you propose.
• 7.4k
Cause and effect are kind of old physics terms. We used to talk about acceleration due to gravity, as though the word was an explanation of the observation. But Newton's laws describe the evolution of motion of objects through time and space with no reference to cause and effect.

One can say that footprints are caused by feet, or that they are caused by gravity, or both. Or one could talk about the relative hardness and resilience of feet and wet sand... But physicists talk more about interaction and the limits of interaction being the light cone. An interaction changes two things at once - an atom absorbs a photon and its energy is increased. one does not wish to say that the photon caused the increase in energy more so than the atom caused the absorption of the photon - it is a single event - a single interaction, and the observation thereof is another interaction.

Philosophers are prone to try and understand modern physics in the terms of mediaeval or even classical cosmology, and it doesn't really work. We might mention the architect's drawings as an indirect cause of the building, whereas Aristotle would suggest that the building was the final cause of the architect's plans. Physics dismisses final causes that work backwards in time, but then has to admit something like an imaginary building as the (prior) cause of the plans and thus the real building.

And then there is the matter of origins: we extrapolate the expanding observable universe backwards in time and come to a singularity, that we call the Big Bang - the beginning of space, time, and energy. And because of the physicists demand that cause must precede effect in time, there can be no cause of the beginning. The story has to stop at the limits of the equations. To speak of a cause of time and space in this sense is to reject the physicists meaning such as it is, and resort to Prime Mover type talk.
• 621
Not really, because acceleration can be caused by things other than gravity. So for example, a rocket blasts off and it accelerates in breaking away from gravity, as a sort of reverse relation to gravity. There is still a relation with gravity involved here, but since it is a reversal, we see that it is not a direct relation because there must be something else involved. Since there is something else involve we can't restrict the domain.

Likewise, with your example of the parachutist. You refer to the effects after jumping, as "acceleration". But what is required prior to this, and is a necessary condition, is that the person takes off in a plane (gravity reversal), and then jumps from the plane. That particular prior condition is the one required for your specific description, but it could be replaced with all sorts of others. So even the prior condition is not in the strict sense "necessary", but there is a whole class of possible prior conditions. But since one of these many possible conditions is necessary, for the acceleration described, we cannot restrict the domain in the way you propose.

The restriction stipulates causes of acceleration of a material object. This set contains gravity-caused acceleration scenarios, but the domain of this set need not exclude other scenarios, such as rocket-propulsion caused acceleration as a unified concept. However, a legitimate sub-set includes the set of gravity-caused acceleration: a one member set.
• 621
One can say that footprints are caused by feet, or that they are caused by gravity, or both. Or one could talk about the relative hardness and resilience of feet and wet sand... But physicists talk more about interaction and the limits of interaction being the light cone. An interaction changes two things at once - an atom absorbs a photon and its energy is increased. one does not wish to say that the photon caused the increase in energy more so than the atom caused the absorption of the photon - it is a single event - a single interaction, and the observation thereof is another interaction.

In this conversation two schools of thought are present: a) temporal cause and effect; b) atemporal cause and effect

And then there is the matter of origins: we extrapolate the expanding observable universe backwards in time and come to a singularity, that we call the Big Bang - the beginning of space, time, and energy. And because of the physicists demand that cause must precede effect in time, there can be no cause of the beginning. The story has to stop at the limits of the equations. To speak of a cause of time and space in this sense is to reject the physicists meaning such as it is, and resort to Prime Mover type talk.

I'm getting the impression post-Newtonian physics is moving away from temporal cause and effect towards atemporal cause and effect.
• 621
Maybe I'm just missing the point of your post, ucarr.

Do you find the general structure of the OP too muddled to allow discernment of a central theme?

Do you find my prose sometimes waxing poetic at the expense of scientific and logical merit?

Do you think my notion of time's relationship to unfolding history fatally flawed?
• 7.4k
I'm getting the impression post-Newtonian physics is moving away from temporal cause and effect towards atemporal cause and effect.

I don't know what atemporal cause and effect would be. I'm suggesting that temporal cause and effect are the 19th century paradigm of billiard ball physics which is in turn and adaptation and restriction of the notion of cause (or four kinds of cause) in Aristotle. both are not much talked about in modern physics; it's a conceptual relic of a deteriminist science.
• 11.6k
I can't say because I reject your premise (for reasons I've already given) so the rest of the OP doesn't matter to me.
• 621
I don't know what atemporal cause and effect would be.

So the quote below is not your intended example of an atemporal cause and effect?

An interaction changes two things at once - an atom absorbs a photon and its energy is increased. one does not wish to say that the photon caused the increase in energy more so than the atom caused the absorption of the photon - it is a single event - a single interaction, and the observation thereof is another interaction.
• 7.4k
No, not really. What is the cause, and what is the effect? I suppose you could say that the cause is a photon and and an atom. and the effect is no photon and an energised atom. But then the temporal aspect is there, but the thing is contrived. An interaction just seems a more natural way of thinking...
• 768

I'll be honest, I couldn't totally follow this. I would caution against any model where time "flows." Time is the dimension in which change occurs. Without time change is meaningless.

I think Aristotle's response to Zeno's Arrow is instructive here. Zeno asks us to imagine an arrow shot from a bow in flight. Imagine it frozen for an instant. Is it moving? No. At any one frozen instant the arrow is never moving. So where are change and motion in the world?

Aristotle's response is that this is simply a fallacy of composition. Time is the dimension in which the arrow changes its position relative to other objects. Looking for motion in frozen instants is obviously doomed, but it's because the example defines its topic wrong.

I point out this old example because it is astounding how many arguments against the reality of time's passage are essentially Zeno's Arrow dressed up with references to the natural sciences and mathematics that don't play any direct role in the issue at hand, the biggest red herring being appealing to Cantor re: the denseness problem, which isn't actually a problem and is simply Achilles and the Hare dressed up in imposing mathematics.

Time cannot flow because for time to move in any direction results in a paradox. If time is flowing, you need a second time dimension through which the flow of time can occur, and then a third dimension for that second time's passage, and so on (See the "A and B series" arguments for more on this).

Some philosophers have bitten the bullet and accepted either the non-existence of time, change, and motion based on this problem, or infinitely regressing time dimensions, but there is actually no need to do this. I would recommend R.T.W. Arthur's "The Reality of Time Flow - Local Becoming in Modern Physics," on this point.

One can say that footprints are caused by feet, or that they are caused by gravity, or both. Or one could talk about the relative hardness and resilience of feet and wet sand... But physicists talk more about interaction and the limits of interaction being the light cone. An interaction changes two things at once - an atom absorbs a photon and its energy is increased. one does not wish to say that the photon caused the increase in energy more so than the atom caused the absorption of the photon - it is a single event - a single interaction, and the observation thereof is another interaction.

Do they? It seems like I come across references to "causes" regularly in physics. Seeming violations of SR/GR are often presumed to have some sort of explanation precisely because they "violate causality."

You see such references all the time, e.g., "what is causing galaxies to deviate from the predictions of our models?" Such causes get posited as new elements of a model a in many subfields uncovering the nature of these causes becomes a major, or the major topic of research, e.g. dark matter and dark energy.

The arguments against causation in physics I can recall have all tended to be in the context of arguments for the block universe view.

And then there is the matter of origins: we extrapolate the expanding observable universe backwards in time and come to a singularity, that we call the Big Bang - the beginning of space, time, and energy. And because of the physicists demand that cause must precede effect in time, there can be no cause of the beginning. The story has to stop at the limits of the equations. To speak of a cause of time and space in this sense is to reject the physicists meaning such as it is, and resort to Prime Mover type talk.

I don't know if this is necessarily the case. Black Hole Cosmology, while speculative, posits a cause of the Big Bangs, and of many Big Bangs for that matter. Discussion of the Past Hypothesis in particular seems to center around cause.

I'm somewhat skeptical of block universe models, not the least because very sloppy thought experiments that misunderstand proper time in SR seem to be extremely influential based on how a number of physicists have decided to argue for the idea in popular science texts.

Becoming being a local phenomena is not a refutation of becoming though. Areas of physics are time reversible, physics as a whole is not. You will never see ripples converge on a puddle and a rock shoot out of it, nor will you see radiation converge on source of radiation to be absorbed, billiard balls leap from their pockets and rearrange themselves into a triangle, etc.
• 621
But then the temporal aspect is there, but the thing is contrived.

Okay. I understand you to be making a comparison. You're telling me the concept of interaction hews to more naturally occurring situations; the concept of before and after hews to more contrived situations.
• 621
I would caution against any model where time "flows."

You imply time is a metric: a standard of measurement?

Time is the dimension in which change occurs. Without
time change is meaningless.

Change specified as boundary crossings, boundary mergers, Venn Diagram overlapping and transcendence of boundaries is what interests me and what motivated my OP.

Time is the dimension in which change occurs. Without time change is meaningless.

Are you making reference to spacetime?

Some philosophers have bitten the bullet and accepted either the non-existence of time, change, and motion based on this problem, or infinitely regressing time dimensions, but there is actually no need to do this. I would recommend R.T.W. Arthur's "The Reality of Time Flow - Local Becoming in Modern Physics," on this point.

Thanks for the book reference.

Becoming suggests crossing a threshold. Is this a topic of the book?
• 20.4k
Gravity is causing precise acceleration.

This is all arse-about. In newtonian physics, Gravity is just a name for the acceleration of any two masses towards each other. Nothing more. Saying gravity causes acceleration is just saying the acceleration between two masses causes the acceleration between two masses.
• 768

In respect to "why does this sky diver fall down?" I feel like "there is a universal law such that... and as you can see, this is just one such example of said law," explains more than "the acceleration causes acceleration." That maybe gets lost in some formulations though.

When I was a kid I thought Newton just got hit with an apple one day and realized that things fall down and thought, "did these jokers really not pick that up earlier?'
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