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ismnotwasm

(41,921 posts)
Sat Apr 27, 2013, 02:12 PM Apr 2013

Article: Controversially, Physicist Argues Time Is Real

(I found this debate interesting, and applicable to philosophy)




Most physicists think time is a subjective illusion, but what if time is real?

NEW YORK — Is time real, or the ultimate illusion?

Most physicists would say the latter, but Lee Smolin challenges this orthodoxy in his new book, "Time Reborn" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, April 2013), which he discussed here Wednesday (April 24) at the Rubin Museum of Art.

In a conversation with Duke University neuroscientist Warren Meck, theoretical physicist Smolin, who's based at Canada's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, argued for the controversial idea that time is real. "Time is paramount," he said, "and the experience we all have of reality being in the present moment is not an illusion, but the deepest clue we have to the fundamental nature of reality."

Smolin said he hadn't come to this concept lightly. He started out thinking, as most physicists do, that time is subjective and illusory. According to Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, time is just another dimension in space, traversable in either direction, and our human perception of moments passing steadily and sequentially is all in our heads.

Over time, though, Smolin became convinced not only that time was real, but that this notion could be the key to understanding the laws of nature.


http://www.livescience.com/29081-time-real-illusion-smolin.html?cmpid=514645

What do you think?
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Article: Controversially, Physicist Argues Time Is Real (Original Post) ismnotwasm Apr 2013 OP
Sorry, but all I see is metaphysics. defacto7 Apr 2013 #1
I always assumed time was simply our perception of motion in... TreasonousBastard Apr 2013 #2
The video at the Perimeter Institute was good bananas Apr 2013 #3
to me Time is as Real as it gets and, everything else is the illusion. Tuesday Afternoon Apr 2013 #4

defacto7

(13,485 posts)
1. Sorry, but all I see is metaphysics.
Sun Apr 28, 2013, 01:27 AM
Apr 2013

He sounds to me as if he is defending a hidden agenda because his arguments are pulled out of a set of his own predetermined assumptions. Then it circles through a maze until time is almost a mystical apparition. I have no interest in a process that creates scientific theory with idea-surfing. That's for Si-fi.

TreasonousBastard

(43,049 posts)
2. I always assumed time was simply our perception of motion in...
Sun Apr 28, 2013, 04:54 PM
Apr 2013

higher dimensions. If that is the case, "time" would have some aspect of reality, although we couldn't know exactly what that reality is.

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