rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (03/01/84)
...has become rather confusing. I think I have a model which may (or may not) offer a new perspective. Imagine Flatland, the world consisting only of two dimensions. (I have yet to read the book, so purists please forgive any misquotings here.) Now imagine a long flowing circular pipe, where each infinitesimally small circular slice of the pipe is a moment in Flatland time. Now imagine the creation of this pipe at some point in "time". Is it relevant for someone in Flatland to ask "when was our universe created" in terms of his/her own view of time, which is the linear flow through the pipe? If the whole pipe was created "at once" in the "timeline" of the three-dimensional world, doesn't that mean that all of the "now"s in the Flatland world, past, present, and future, were created at the same "time"? The problem here is whose "time" is being referred to. The word time when applied to a deity (of our known universe) refers to, not our own flow through a four-dimensional pipe where each moment in time is a three-dimensional "slice", but rather something external to it, analogous to the moment in three-dimensional time when the Flatland pipe was created. The use of finite dimensions (fixed radius pipe of fixed length) is for simplification only. If this model is correct, it implies some things but does not imply others: 1) There's clearly no such thing as free will. All things are clearly predetermined AS LONG AS the pipe is not altered by someone/something in the 3-d timeline. (by sticking wires in at specific points, e.g.) The term "pre"determined is applicable "inside" the pipe, but determined is the better word. If cause and effect apply fully in such a pipe universe, the free will would have to come from an agent or agents outside of the physical flow of the pipe who could alter its structure. This would be some trick! :-) 2) A deity could create the pipe all at once, and thus be "omniscient" about everything in it throughout the flow of 2-d time. It could be "omnipotent" from the point of view of onlookers in two-space, if it had the ability to somehow remove a slice of the pie and make some alteration to it that differed from the normal flow of what would be expected in 2-d time space (cause and effect) that would in turn affect all "future" slices (why not past slices as well???) owing to the flow of particles between slices in the pipe. Of course, the model may be wrong. I tend to think it is somewhat correct in principle, but there is nothing to prove 1) that once an n-dimensional "universe" is created in n+1 dimensional space-time, it is fixed and unchanged, 2) that each slice of the n-dimensional "pipe" flows directly from a single prior slice into a single succeeding slice [although cause and effect as we understand it would imply this---is cause and effect simply the set of rules determining how contiguous slices "behave"?????], and 3) that anyone/anything performed the n+1 dimensional act of "creation", or that if such a thing existed it would know what it was doing with its creation (omniscience or omnipotence). I hope this served to clear up some unclear misuses of the word time, and I'm anxious to hear comments about this model. It may actually be more applicable to other newsgroups, so use your judgment. -- Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway oh, god, I'm so depressed... Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr
speaker@umcp-cs.UUCP (03/06/84)
Its interesting to look at time according to this model. A person (or deity) could coceivably run the flatland plane forwards and backwards in flatland time (along his 3rd dimension) and view the flatland Universe at any point in space and any instant in time as a static state. Time in the intuitive sense doesn't exist in this model. There is no 'flow' or causality... only a series of states that are given an instant of reality. Problem I have with this model is... How do the flatlanders perceive time... or anything if existance is merely a set of states? How are these states (intersections of the flatland with the tube) enabled to give them any sense of awareness? That is to say... what distinguishes the flatland plane from the rest of the already-created series of states? Without this mechanism... everything would actually exist all at once... that is to say, all times existing at once. To the flatlanders this would not be true, since they percieve only one plane of time at a time. Right... got that? - Speaker