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The Nature of Reality - Part V

Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 4/3/2007

An Epistolary Dialogue Between Roberto Calvo Macias and Sam Vaknin

Dear RCM,

As letters go, I will try and make this one my last excursion into theory (though I cannot promise not to pepper my next ones with more). I will deal with fractals in the "practical" group of letters. Today I will write to you about time.

The first thing about time is that it is an impossible thing. For instance, it is asymmetric. It flows in only one direction. Yet, no other "dimension" (=language element) has this property. Another thing, it does not appear to matter to particles. They do very well without it, at least as far as their equations are concerned. Quantum dynamic, electromagnetic and particle-wave equations are all time-indifferent. You can introduce +T or -T (positive or negative time) to them and it will make no difference. The results are the same whether time flows forward or backwards. But macro entities cannot do without it. All macro-bodies have histories. They cannot be described or manipulated with stipulating an unequivocal direction of the arrow of time. It would seem that time emerges with complexity. In other words, time seems to be an epiphenomenon.

But if time IS an epiphenomenon - it is, ex definitio, a property of the complex (macro) body. Thinking is a property of the brain as well as an activity taking place in it. Fluidity is a property of water, pressure is a property of gas - all these are epiphenomena AND properties of the complex. If we give time an equal treatment we must deduce that time is a property of complex bodies. It is an extensive property. In other words, no part or region of the complex body is "exempt" from it, they all under its "spell". We all age and all our parts age. This leads to a mind boggling conclusion. Properties are carried by bodies. When we walk from point A to point B and carry our brain with us, it does not leave its thinking behind. A gas transferred from one container to another carries with it its pressure, temperature and volume. We are forced to conclude, therefore, that bodies carry their time with them. This is another way of arriving at Einstein's special relativity's conclusions. Einstein did say that there is no such thing as a "universal" time, there is no privileged system of measurement. In effect, each system (=each observer) carries "its" time with it. Time dilates with speed. It is a real effect. People travelling at next to the speed of light age much more slowly. All I add is that people (and spacecraft and suns) GENERATE their time, it is a property of theirs, the result of their complexity.

And exactly as a gas needs a container to exert pressure - so do bodies need to interact with each other to generate space-time. The interaction between all the time properties of all the bodies generates space-time as we know it. This interaction must be effected through the exchange of particles. All known interactions in nature require the exchange of particles. I proposed the existence of such a particle and christened it "chronon". Because particles are largely theoretical constructs, functions, language elements - it is not very surprising that time has no "objective" existence "out there" - that it is, in itself, a mere language element.

Or is it?

After all, we do observe the effects of time on physical bodies. Try re-assembling a broken vase and you will grasp the very essence of time. But does the undisputed existence of its effects prove the existence of time itself? This is a logical fallacy, the result of the application of rigid, linear causation to non-linear issues. For instance: both time and its effects can be caused by a third factor (or related to it). Or time can be a lingual convention used to describe the assemblage of asymmetric processes we observe. Or maybe there is no asymmetry and we observe it due to the limitations of our hardware and software. If our brains are programmed to apply asymmetry where none exists (because it is conducive to survival) - it does mean that asymmetry does exist except in our heads. And if it does not exist then the concept of "time" is useless. Or... you get my drift.

So, it seems that time is much closer to a Law of Physics than to a Law of Nature. It is part of the huge simulation we call science. It is a syntactical rule in the formal logical system we call the natural sciences. But this would seem to contradict the first law we proposed: that simulations will not effect artifices or first order phenomena. Yet, time - a figment of a simulation - does effect us, first order phenomena par excellence. The only way this can happen is through the intermediation of intelligence. In other words, I am proposing that time asymmetry is the result of observations and data processing by an intelligence (possibly ours). If all intelligence were to vanish tomorrow, time would have vanished with it.

This is not as far fetched as it sounds. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics opened the possibility of the generation of the physical world (at least in the realm of particles) through observation (intelligent observation, I might - no, I must - add). The competing interpretations - including the one in fashion today, the Many worlds interpretation - assign an even greater role to conscious, intelligent decisions. Each such decision is supposed to replicate the universe. True: decisions not involving an intelligence are supposed to have the same effect and replicate the Universe. Yet, it is easy to demonstrate how intelligent decisions are dominant and non-intelligent ones recessive and how "natural selection" - assuming it is a truly universal principle - will favour the former over the latter. In other words, there is a possible Universe in which there are NO decisions which do not involve an intelligence. The Many Worlds interpretation talks about an infinite number of coexistent worlds among which surely there are universes wherein EVERYTHING is endowed with intelligence.

So, there is no way around the fact that the formalism of quantum mechanics - the best that physics ever produced - is subjective and observer dependent, one way or the other. Physics has all but eliminated the distinction between subjective and objective. Not in the trivial and solipsistic sense that there everything exists only in our mind but with the more profound realization that nothing can exist WITHOUT our minds.

It therefore surprised me little that physical "reality", virtual "reality" and mental "reality" began converging. Our mind always regarded the tangible universe around us as a representation, a set of symbols with its own formal logic. It applied conventions and syntax to it. This syntax included rules such as "time", "space", "dimensions". The manipulation of these syntactical rules had real life results and real life results resulted in the re-definition of the language our mind used. What we achieved in this cursed century was the first glimpse of the principles which underlie BOTH language and reality. Quantum mechanics was the sudden, shocking, traumatic realization that distinguishing between language and reality, denotates and connotates, symbols and objects, interactions and participating entities - is all artificial and wrong. That in the basis they are all one and the same.

And yet it is a measure of our denial as a species that this should have surprised us. We tried to assume a superior position as "observers". But this position was not tenable. Our brain are as much part of the "observed", "external" reality as this reality is part (and influences) our brains. The dividing line was tenuous and indefensible. It inevitably crumbled.

This is the arena of the future - our brain. It is there that the treasure trove lies. And finally - finally - after millions of years, we have a key. Maybe not THE key - but A key. Maybe not the BEST key - but a key althesame. Locked in our brain is the code that translates information to objective entities and reality into information. This is what computers and virtual reality and artificial intelligence and quantum computing and crazy experiments at teleportation are all about. It is a voyage of 10,000 years. But with absolute certainty I can tell you that we have begun.

Your friend,

Sam


Dear Sam,

Thanks for your great resume of the last trends in "physics" (ignoring for a minute the fact that you succumbed to some contradictions: if every "body" carries its time all things are intelligent, aren't they? If every "body" carries its time then, when men have gone time will keep going, isn't it? On the other hand, the reversibility of quantum mechanics is, after the introduction of operators and complexity, debatable, see Bohr, Rosenfeld, Prigogine, etc.).

But, these are nothing new. The union of "saying" and "reality" was public knowledge as early as 600 B.C., with the pre-Socratic philosophers (Anaximander, Heráclitos, Parménides, etc.), who are, curiously, being revisited by the modern researchers of complexity. And it is also revealing that those pre-Socratics called the "thing" ("saying" and reality at same time): physis.

In fact, the union of thought (intelligence) and reality is the basis of Poetry, and it is not surprising that poesis means creation. This transcendent union is also the basis of prophets and their function in history (this matter was advanced by me in the PD of one of my letters). And finally, every "true" artist is "quantic" by his very essence.

That intelligence determines reality to a large extent is something that appears revealing to all good historians (the Middle Ages are a great example of how reality can change, even surprisingly.) This is precisely the motive of my interest in technology, that is, in the intelligent mechanism used by ......... to change our world. And again, questions: what kind of intelligent is changing reality by technology? Cui bono?

And so, clear to the new eyes, appears the great breakpoint: the enormous difference between the poet (creation) and the techno-homos (will to power). For it was never in a poet's heart to change reality (as so reality) but only to enchant it, to accept reality (happiness and pain united in an indestructible knot). By comparison, the techno-homos does not accept pain, he is against nature, he denies it and with blind fury wants to change it. But, he, poor devil!, is blind, incapable of understanding that there is nothing to win. You say that "searching" is a voyage of 10000 years, yes, but it is a 10000 years voyage to "le neant" (by the way, such figures always remind me of utopias, ughh! What about us, the people of this time, shall we suffer for them, shall we be the slaves of such an "ideology"?). The same applies to "matter", there is no end! Never, never, will we decipher such "a code" for we (MAN) are PRECISELY THAT CODE (and a code never can decipher itself).

This is the kind of thought of Western men, with their will to power (voglio fare miracoli!!!), but is not a universal thought! The Chinese sages smiled ironically when they were introduced to Darwin's theory.

There is nothing new about thought interacting with reality. What is new, and worrying indeed, is that we want to make such a spiritual effort, in just the worst way: from matter to spirit! What nonsense! Is it, perhaps, that the "technique" ignores that the interactions of elementary forces in the elementary realm only produces more elementarity? But, finally, it's our world, we must accept it.

Deliberately, I obviated one of the clocks in my little story about time (which dealt with the same: how (time) thoughts and techniques change the concept of reality): the HOUR-GLASS.

A quiet, slow meditation about it will surely give our readers (and you) another fascinating concept of time, which is, in some way, metaphysically consoling. It's little "quicksand maelstroms", its reversibility, its equilibrium, its smooth sound (of the sand flowing with happiness)... Poetry Time.

wishing you the best
roberto

(continued)