Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Three-Dimensional Time


The Three Dimensions of Time

“Time not only goes backward and forward,
 but inward and outward.”
~ J. Roberts


Fig. 1
An early doodle of the Three Dimensional Time Coordinate System 

If we want to understand and describe space-time more fundamentally than we currently do, I propose that we in addition as well as analogous to Descartes’ Three Dimensional Space Coordinate System, introduce a

Three Dimensional Time Coordinate System.

Among other things, I contend that one of the results is, that this will enable us to understand entropy in a different manner than we have been doing up to now.
Such a '3D time coordinate system' has not been brought forward yet, and this article presents my first inklings about the existence (even if hidden from acute awareness) of such a system.
The way I so far envision this, is that, instead of with points, lines, curves, etc., that it is populated with three cone-like shaped, mutually interfering time wave-forms, each one of all three with three-dimensional wave configurat-ions that flow through this system as they pass through three time planes:
t', t'', t'''
(Their depths and shapes differing much though from water waves that show up on the surface of a pond).

Initially, when I was doodling the above drawing, especially the small cubic depiction at the bottom right, I was considering interfering circular waves somewhat like the disks in Pauli's Dream:

Fig.2 
Pauli's Dream 
Detail of Fig. 4. 
(See note 4 for the internet link.)

As I later realized, the three arrows as shown in the small cubic depiction of Fig. 1 above, should have been double-arrowed, as all three of them pass both into and out-off their planes relative to the center (O) of this coordinate time system.

As to O, instead of it denoting Origin as in Cartesian Space, O in this time-coordinate system would refer to NOW, and - as the space and time coordinates are in ‘inseparable embrace’ - also HERE and NOW.

Subsequently, after a more in-depth exploration of these new ideas, I redrew my first doodle, labelled the plane elements and identified them with labels that I borrowed from plane nomenclature used in anatomy and biology. 

Fig. 3
Three Dimensional Time 
     1.      t’   - Transverse time plane (blue), operating in the 'past/future' dynamic, 
     2.      t’’  - Coronal time plane (pink), operating in the 'representing/cataloguing/storing' dynamic, 
     3.      t’’’ - Sagittal time plane (green), operating in the 'entropy/negentropy' dynamic.

In spite of our apparent lack of awareness of them, I suggest that we

actually already practice, experience and apply
these three temporal dimensions all the time,
 just like 'normal' day to day actions and experiences.

The question is... can we become more conscious of them?

Indeed we can, and it would not require much more than attentively considering and understanding the actions we are doing and the experiences we are having with the above ideas in mind.

Let me list some of them:
  • memory,
  • storing,
  • preparing,
  • fixing, restoring,  
  • procrastinating,
  • saving things for later,
  • letting things get into disrepair,
  • getting things from the fridge,
  • telling stories about the past or about the future,
  • playing in a TV episode,
  • recording it,
  • watching it, remembering it,
  • later talking about it,
  • etc.
Let’s use an example that happens daily:

When we intend not to use something just yet, we decide to NOT use it RIGHT THIS MOMENT, but instead, we set it aside for use in the FUTURE. (See note 1)

When we do that (putting things aside for future use): we put them 
  • physically in temporary storage
while we  
  • mentally simultaneously register them as 'labels in our brain's memory bank'.
    In programming terms: 'They go on a memory stack' or 'We populate a database table'.
How are those physical, mental and digital storing, stacking or populating methods related? 
Hmm… the question is of course: "Are they, and if so… how?" 
The intent here is to show that they are:

intricately and integrally

...but not just through some superficial associative mental process, but physically mutually interdependent, and controlled by the laws of physics.

So, while we are putting things in storage for later use, what is actually 'taking place time-wise' in that storage operation?

We know from experience that, as time PROgresses (the object's and observer's transverse time moving forward) that whatever physical item is at some point in physical storage (the object's transverse, coronal and sagittal time coordinates) that, however nicely stored, stacked or stashed it may be, that - due to entropy - that it deteriorates unless we maintain its qualitative state continuously… which is the application of  negentropy!

Let's consider this example (putting things aside for later use) with this new view in mind.
What actually happens? Could it be that this involves an accumulation of RE-gressing time?

Perhaps we can find out more about how and why, and it may well lead us to a better and more fundamental understanding of entropy and negentropy. (See notes 1 and 2.)

Let's think more deeply about these novel time notions by considering the process of building a brick wall, paying special attention to:
  • how things (in this example ‘bricks’) are undergoing it, 
  • how we humans are experiencing it  - most likely quite unaware of these three different time dimensions.
Try to see this for yourself, in the example that follows, and also see if you can identify the time planes that are involved in each step or action...

Say, we are building a wall from bricks, and we have full-size and half-size bricks available.
Let's say that with the current course of bricks that we are laying, that we (at least for now) don't need the half-size bricks.
What will we do with those half-size bricks?
We stack them up in a safe place so that they are not in the way, and preferably we do that in a neat and tidy manner:
vertically and horizontally
length x depth x height
in a (from a human perspective) 3D spatial arrangement

The interesting thing is that in OUR MEMORY we ALSO stack them up, but VIRTUALLY... and thus in a temporal manner we keep them in a state of ’time suspension' which is really 'holding them in a 'past time state'.

We need to be careful though. If we wait too long and don't 'maintain' the qualitative state of the bricks, then a dynamic state of  'time regression' takes place: entropy starts showing its effects as the bricks slowly disintegrate back into grains of sand. (OK, it will take time...)

In any case, they will occupy space and will, in a manner of speaking, 'be processed by time'; they not only 'just don't get used yet'.
The way I see it, they are also ‘time processed', which 'affects their qualitative state’ until 'new work' is done on and with them.

When that happens (work) with energy input and time moving forward (in the transverse plane) it means that the state of the material is also simultaneously switching from a negative dynamic sagittal state of time (undergoing entropy) to a transverse AND a positive sagittal state (negentropy).

Let's say that the pile if bricks that we first moved aside, that it at some point and over time also lost its tidy arrangement (and some of its quality) and that we subsequently stack them properly again… In that case our interfering operation moves them from a state of entropy towards a state of negentropy, from a negative sagittal state to positive sagittal one.

I propose that one of the three time dimensions: the vertical one - sagittal - orthogonal to both the transverse and coronal ones, has to do with the opposite of entropy: meaning increase in order, value, quality, etc. negentropy


Notes:

1. Planck's time constant 'tP' denotes the time constant analogous to 'h' - Planck's constant (Note 3).
It (tP) fits (like h) as a natural unit of granular or discrete time in the system of units known as Planck Units. Time is granular or discrete: 'tP=5.391 06(32) × 10−44s (s is second)

Appropriate new functions and formulas (in progress) will include (also in progress):
·       'right-this-moment' as: t'O tP (O is origin)
·       use over time as: t'tP.t''tP
·       storing and quality maintenance as: t'tP.t'''tP
·       no use (ab-use) involving entropy) as: -t'tP.t''tP
·       enriching (value adding, curing) involves: t'tP.t''tP.t'''tP

2. I'm picking up on a modification of Feynman's theory in his paper on advanced and retarded waves, something that he was 'talked-out-of' by Einstein.
3. From Wikipedia:

The Planck constant was first described as the proportionality constant between the energy (E) of a photon and the frequency (ν) of its associated electro-magnetic wave. This relation between the energy and frequency is called the Planck relation or the Planck–Einstein equation: 

E = hv.

Since the frequency v, the wavelength λ, and speed of light c are related by λν = c, the Planck relation can also be expressed as

E = \frac{hc}{\lambda}.\,

4. Wolfgang Pauli's Dream


Pauli's Dream
Fig. 4
Pauli's Dream (Wolfgang Pauli of the Exclusion Principle)
(The four hooded figures are holding pendulums.)

When you visualize the bird as though it is also in a plane inside the area with the two circular planes, you may notice that its plane is orthogonal to the other ones, hence effectively: he was dreaming about three planes. 
In Pauli's dream, the vertical circle (note the clock-hand) rotated, and as it did that, the other disks also rotated in a ratio of 1:4:8. (Perhaps as though they were in a geared arrangement.)
(Notice that the ring is actually a hollow tube. I sometimes use a tube to demonstrate String Theory's hidden dimensions: from a distance the tube would show up as just a circle, but when one zooms in, one can see two more dimensions.
Does that perhaps anticipate the notion of String Theory's hidden or rolled-up dimensions?)

5. I foresee that we will arrive at a more comprehensive proof of the Law of Large Numbers, discovering that it also involves time coordinates. After all, the larger the sample with, say, coin tosses, the more time it takes.
For other reasons, in Probability Theory, the proposed three dimensions of time could also be included, enabling us to draw some surprising conclusions and make some daring predictions (the formulations of this I am also working on). These temporal dimensions are to be dealt with in a similar manner as space vectors are dealt with, in a similar manner as Feynman's ‘watch-hand vectors.

The term 'time vector' is not appropriate; I'm looking for a different term to replace 'time vector' - one that better expresses the temporal 'fluxes' of time:
  1.  linear - transverse (t')
  2. perpendicular to linear - coronal (the product of t'.t'')
  3. orthogonal to both linear and perpendicular - sagittal (the product of t'.t''.t''')
The word 'vector' (as in 'vehicle') means carrier and has clear spatial connotations. So far, for 'time vectors', I'm thinking in terms of 'inflection' (a grammatical term to do with auxiliary verbs) perhaps something like 'flector'. The terms ‘twistor’ and ‘spinor’ are also good candidates, but they are already taken by Roger Penrose. (In his Penrose Diagrams he deals with the flow of time but as far as I remember only in one dimension.)
In the context here, there is something very important to Penrose's spinors though, spin after all is not to be visualized as a spatial dynamic, although the problem with the term spinor is that it seems to connote continuous spinning which continuous-ness I exclude in my visualizations. I also hypothesize that this spin-continuousness is actually not applicable to particle spin. (But that needs more investigation.)

6. As to the Law of Large Numbers, Probability Distribution, Quantum Probability, which gears, so to speak, are operating in that entire dynamic? (I am working at a Gedankenexperiment on this.)
Incidentally, it is not for nothing that I used the word gears in the above paragraph, as gears are able to change the direction and speed of motion: bevel gears especially!

I first visualized how a time dynamic analogous to how gears operate in space can change the direction of time: along the same lines as how bevel, helical, worm, screw, rack & pinion gears, etc. do that in space.
This first visualization also included the inkling that 'particle spin' is involved with a possible change in the direction of the flow of time, not just linearly or involving time reversal, but also affecting or being affected by the flow of time in 3 different axial directions.

Which gears, so to speak, are operating in that whole dynamic?
  • Instead of Penrose's spinors (too much of a connotation of continuous spinning tops) I would have loved to use the term twistor. But prior to spinors, Penrose already used the term twistors, and again with different connotations (used in Minkowski space). So I am still looking for a word in lieu of flectors or flector time to describe a 3-fold time coordinate system. The idea of the 'deflection' of temporal directions is analogous to how direction-changing gears operate in physical space, e.g. bevel gears.
  • Descriptions of particle spin should always include this time deflection, including a discrete granular time constant ala Planck's constant 'h'.
  • Terms like "random stack", "ordered stack" and "category stacks" will feature in still upcoming descriptions that deal with 'memory' in the context of this article.


Facebook exchanges between Ravindra and myself: 

-I-

Ravindra, responding to your question: "Why do we perceive only one dimension of time & not 3?..."

Quoting myself:
"In spite of our apparent lack of awareness of them, I suggest that we actually already practice, experience and apply these three temporal dimensions all the time, just like 'normal' day to day actions and experiences.
The question is... can we become more conscious of them?"

The point I'm making (and illustrating) is that we DO experience all three, we are actually working with them...all the time... it's impossible not to. It is just that we are not acutely aware that we do, 
I'm attempting to have ppl become attentive to that. That's what the example (Okay, a bit clumsy perhaps) of 'building that brick wall' is illustrating...  
The extra two temporal dimensions (t''' and t''') seem not as obvious as the t' dimension: 
t' - Transverse: (a) past and (b) future. It is probably because of our modern culture that this t' dimension sticks out so much -- we are so time oriented, which is so different in previous, prehistoric cultures or still in some aboriginal ones.
But the other two dimensions, the ones I identify as the 'coronal' and 'sagittal' time planes, are actually more productive and functional. (But it's like we can't see the woods for the trees!) 
t''' - Sagittal: we actually have a handle on (a) entropy and (b) negentropy, it is useful, practical, functional.
t'' - Coronal: we can hold things in storage (a) 'physically' and (b) 'symbolically' - database-like ... even digitally now. (Which, incidentally, opened up the field of 3D printing... which BTW almost sixty years ago my father and myself  predicted. Elsewhere in a group comment I reminisced about that.)

All three planes intersecting at what Descartes labelled O for Origin... "Hic et nunc"!

Once you see this intersecting planar layout clearly, the clarity comes to some as an epiphany... all falling in place.

With this system we can set up space/time functions (like wave function equations) that map out probabilities as "probability fields" (spherical!) AND even predict (I foresee with 100% certainly) exactly where and when and how things will actually happen... It is much much more than foreseeing possibilities,  it will enable us to predict factual actualities... 

It will take some time, but potentially we can be even more accurate then our current weather predictions which over the last years has tremendously improved... and which uses a methodology that is akin to what I'm describing: 
- The coronal plane is represented by (a) massive catalogued historical weather-data gathering and (b) knowing actual past positions of systems (were they were 'stored' and what they have 'in store'),
- The sagittal plane representing the entropy and negentropy of weather systems as exemplified by the alternations between (a) highs and (b) lows,
- The transverse plane detailing (a) how the weather was (history, hindsight) and (b) will be (prognosis).

-II-

Considering your: "Have you applied it to even any classical field theory will have consequences... "[sic]

Well no, classical field theory - in light of this - is just not complete, it would be enriched by it..., 

String theory would or could be affected, I would have to think about that... 
At least QFT allows 'things' to undergo time reversal... so that helps... 
Hmm... that opens up new vistas though... it could explain some enigmas...  virtual particles or so, ah, and the the photon electron relationship (bosons / fermions). 
"Fermions are the diffraction patterns of the bosons in such a way that they are both sides of the same thing."
and:
"You can think about the photon as a virtual electron-positron pair: obtaining the necessary virtual mass for gravity."



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