On the Nature of Time

So, I'm reading Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman. It's a very interesting book and has some cool stories that have to do with the nature of time. Anyway, it got me thinking about time. We assume time has a constant flow. And this makes sense, since that's how we perceive it. Nothing slows, nothing stops, nothing speeds up, things just seem to happen at a constant rate. But does time really flow at a constant rate?

Let's say for a moment that the flow of time is not constant, but that time is dynamic. Time in the universe slows down, speeds up, even stops randomly and resumes. Maybe something determines the cycle with which this happens, maybe it's not a cycle but random forces push it faster or slower, or maybe it's just totally random and arbitrary. Whatever the case is, I postulate that we would not notice any difference.

Why do I say this? Well, let's say for a minute that right now, time slowed down to 1/10 of its speed. A second ticks by in what we know as 10 seconds. People are now moving a lot slower, it takes longer in the oven for a chicken to cook fully, ice takes longer to melt into a puddle, etc. However, this statement is not exactly accurate. After all, rate is the amount of a process that has been finished over time. For example, velocity is distance traveled over time. So in what we knew as 1 minute, a person can walk, maybe, 16 feet instead of 160 feet. However, what we knew as 1 minute is really 1/10 of a minute. The person's velocity is (16 feet/.1 minutes), or 160 feet per minute, the original rate. This goes for the rate of melting of the ice cube, the rate of cooking the chicken, the rate of everything. The slowing of time does not really slow anything else.

So why is this important? Well, we are biological creatures. Our bodies are run by chemical and electrical impulses. If time is slowed, then we can say these processes are slowed. But our body processes are "slowed" in the same way the man walking is "slowed," that is to say, the rate at which they happen is still the same. Regardless of how long a second actually is, if it took 300 milliseconds for an electrical impulse to reach your brain before time was slowed, it will also take 300 of these slowed milliseconds for the impulse to reach your brain. This also means that if you had, say 60 thoughts per second, you will have 60 slower thoughts in one slowed second, still. And this is the crux of what I'm getting at. If our thoughts are really moving at the same rate, the rate at which we perceive information is the same. If this rate flows with time, then we would never actually perceive the changing of the rate of time. Nothing would look different to us. A second is longer, but we still perceive the same amount of information in a second. So what exactly would seem different to us? I postulate that nothing would.

This also holds for if time is sped up or stopped. This is easy to see for time being sped up, but let's take a closer look at if time is stopped. When time is stopped, nothing happens. Nothing moves, not even an air molecule. A timeless world is a lifeless world. But no force is actually stopping the processes that are happening throughout our world; they just can't occur without some time over which to occur. But once time is started again, things should occur in the way they were meant to. For example, if a rock is thrown in the air, such that it travels in parabolic motion, freezing time would effectively freeze the rock (as well as our perception of it, etc). But when time restarted, the rock would not just fall straight down to the ground, because there was no force that stopped its horizontal motion. So the rock would travel along the same path as it would have if time had stayed constant. Since freezing and restarting time would change nothing about the world and how it acts, we would have no way of knowing that time was stopped briefly. There is just no way for our brains to process that information. So, again, nothing would change, so we would never know that time did not move in a constant fashion.

We know from general relativity that time moves at different rates in different places (the stronger the gravitational force in an area, the slower the passage of time in that area). If time is actually dynamic, we have two possibilities. If time slows and speeds up by the same percentage in every area of the universe, there would be no way of determining that time is dynamic (that I can think of), since everything would seem to be happening at the same rate as it was before. However, if this change is different in different parts of the universe (maybe time changes by an absolute value rather than a percentage), we have a way to measure this. Just put some sort of timer (eg. a chemical species with a known half-life) in a bunch of different places in the universe. If time seems to be flowing at different rates at different times (after taking into account changes in gravitational forces in the areas, the rates of motions of the timers, and such things), then we could probably assume time is dynamic.

My major point is this. For those of you hoping to slow or freeze time so you can spend eternity with the one(s) you love, just know that it will not feel like eternity to any of you. It will still feel like the same 5 minutes it would have been if you just let time do its own thing. Ain't physics great?

The Difference Between Men and Women

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-saMXpmp0Ls&feature=player_embedded

Obama Speech

I'm going to show you guys a little-known Obama speech that was given during the holidays. Don't worry if you hadn't seen it; most of the country glossed over this without so much as a second look.

"When it gets to be the holiday season, I get to thinking about those that are less fortunate than myself. We have an unemployment rate that we should not have to see in the U.S. People are losing their jobs left and right, and in many cases they are the sole bread-winner in their household. Think of all these children that will not get to celebrate Christmas in the traditional way this year. They will receive no presents because their families simply cannot afford to bring a glimmer of hope into their lives on this beloved holiday.

"Then there are the children of migrant workers. These people work for about 25 cents an hour, and their children are usually working too, just to pay the bills. To these people, the greatest Christmas present would be the ability to hold down a regular job and send their children to school. Sadly, we look down upon the migrant worker in this country. We say that just because he is an illegal immigrant that he should not be subject to the same rights that we believe everyone in this country - no, in the world - should receive. So they keep working. These children will never see that glimmer of hope in their lives. The greatest gift we can give them is freedom from the shackles which they are bound to.

"Now we can go overseas. There are many countries all around the world that force their people into slavery. Some do this by force, others with their economic policies. People are struggling just to make enough to eat, and they have to live with the fear of death by disease, natural disaster, or man. These people will not be able to provide for their children during this holiday season, and if they do, it will be at the expense of themselves.

"Then there are those children that are on their own. Some are sold into slavery or prostitution, some are fighting in wars, and still others were orphaned for one of many reasons. These children cannot even afford to observe the holiday season. Every single day is a struggle for them. Will they be shot? Will they be beaten by their pimp? Will they be able to eat a meal? They have to answer these questions for themselves every day, and the holiday season is no exception. They will never be given a glimmer of hope by anyone, because they have no one left to give them that.

"There are children all over the world that are struggling; that will not get to see the joy the holiday season can bring. During these times, we must be thinking about these people. We cannot afford to be thinking about ourselves at the expense of those less fortunate. They cannot afford it. We must band together and give them what they thought they could never have: hope, joy, and a release from their personal hell. And that is why, Malia, Sasha, I have no gotten you any Christmas presents this year. You selfish bitches."

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

I know it's not a hot issue anymore, but there's an issue that's pretty important to me personally. It's called the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. The idea behind this policy is that keeping certain things a secret makes the whole experience more enjoyable for everyone involved. You start divulging information to others and discomfort arises. And if you're going to be in that close contact with someone, do you really want to make them uncomfortable? After all, people can make their own life decisions, I just don't want to know the details of them.

Also, do we really want the government getting involved in these matters? We've been doing things this way for centuries, maybe even millennia. We know it's been working so far for us so far. Without that knowledge, there's no reason to vilify anyone for their lifestyle choices; well, unless you get found out. But people who let themselves be known are taking a calculated risk, so they know what they're getting into. Well, unless they're outed by someone else. But they knew the dangers of their actions before they committed, so there's no reason to feel bad for them.

Some say we shouldn't have to make them hide their lifestyle choices. After all, it's natural to feel the way they do; many of us have had the same urges at one time or another or at least wondered what it would be like. So if it's so natural, why do we make people hide it? But we make people hide urges all the time in this country. If you have the urge to steal a car, you should at least wait until no one is watching to do it. You want to eat that whole cake, but maybe you shouldn't do it at that Bulimics Anonymous meeting. The fact is, we all have to hide our primal urges, and this is no different. Just because this urge relates to sex doesn't make it any more okay to do in inappropriate areas.

So that's why I think Don't Ask, Don't Tell plays a vital function in our society. I know some of you may not agree with me, but a person's private life should stay just that: private. So if I meet a girl out, I won't have to fear any kind of vilification for bringing her back to my place. That's why I like to implement my Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. I don't ask how old she is, and she doesn't tell anyone what happened. No legal complications, no vilifications from others, nothing but pure lust and pleasure. Why would anyone want to mess with this policy that has worked so well for so many people?

Sexual Inertia