Time is an illusion?

[evolvedForm]

I'm fairly (hell, completely) ignorant of the physical sciences. Recently I read an article about Block Universe; the model that physicists use instead of the conventional one, which views time as a unidirectional vertex. Block time, on the other hand, sees all times (past, present and future) as equally real. This revelation was made possible because of Einstein's Relativity, so I read.

Help me understand this concept, which is so contrary to human experience. We experince time flowing; but, this may be due to a) the thermodynamic distinction between past and future, OR b) our perception of the flow of time is linked in some way to quantum mechanics.

So far, the article says, such a "time organ" in the brain has not yet been found.

However, the writer makes a strong argument that clocks, after all, do not measure time as a flow -- but rather distances between events much like a measuring tape between places. I can elaborate on this if anyone wants.

From the article:

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Physicists think of time as laid out in its entirety -- a timescape, analagous to a landscape.

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Is is true that most physicists now agree with this? What about other scientists or philosophers? I am blown away trying to fit my mind around this concept. Any illuminating discussion would be great.

BTW it's an article in Scientific American, by Paul Davies

[Metric]

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Help me understand this concept, which is so contrary to human experience. We experince time flowing; but, this may be due to a) the thermodynamic distinction between past and future, OR b) our perception of the flow of time is linked in some way to quantum mechanics.

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Yes, this is somewhat mysterious -- in fact, I do a lot of thinking about this. In generally covariant theories (like GR), there is no "external" time in terms of which the whole theory evolves. Instead, you have to pick some variable that looks as though it is behaving roughly like time, and parameterize the theory in terms of this. Even once this is done, there is no guarantee that your choice will behave like a good time variable everywhere. The theory itsself does not pick out any preferred notion of time -- all variables are on an equal footing.

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"Physicists think of time as laid out in its entirety -- a timescape, analagous to a landscape."
Is is true that most physicists now agree with this? What about other scientists or philosophers? I am blown away trying to fit my mind around this concept. Any illuminating discussion would be great.

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Solutions to GR are not just states at a given time, they include the future, the past, etc. When you think about it in this way, one very naturally adopts the point of view that a given solution lays out the configuration of spacetime (and all the matter in spacetime) for all of time. So to answer your question, I'd say that the vast majority of relativists think in this way (at least when it's useful), but there are a lot of physicists that don't really think about such things -- they might be really into solid-state physics or something and not really care much about relativity.

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BTW it's an article in Scientific American, by Paul Davies

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I will have to read this -- if it is the same "Davies" I'm thinking about, he's a pioneer of quantum field theory in curved spacetime.

[Copernicus]

I'm not so sure that its correct to say most physicists "agree" with the block universe as much as they accept that its a Occam's razor view of time that is as good as any other theory for the moment.

Entropy is seen as possibly giving a real direction for time, since without the expenditure of energy things do not move from less ordered to more ordered. However, the block universe model would say that the linkage in space time of what is being observed is a matter of perception, not reality.

The problem with any model of time is that it cannot be observed from a distance...we are inextricably bound up inside space time and cant step outside it to observe its true nature. (Contrasted with observing events that occur in 3 dimensional space where we can be spatially separated).

[_TKO_]

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However, the writer makes a strong argument that clocks, after all, do not measure time as a flow -- but rather distances between events much like a measuring tape between places.

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I don't see what's so hard to believe about this. Time is merely a measure of the rate of change between events. The human perception of time is related to the frequency of the sunrise. There's nothing incredibly special about time when compared to other measurements of rates.

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Time is an illusion?

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Search for "time is an illusion" on this page (http://www.aboutfilm.com/movies/w/wakinglife3.htm). A famous science fiction writer (http://www.philipkdick.com/) believed the same thing.

[sekrah]

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