Chapter 40 tries to explain the
inexplicable; Does time ever stop? Within this chapter not only the concept of
time stopping but the concepts of time moving in all directions are explained.
The chapter opens up multiple theories and viewpoints of time from different
famed physicists and then it settles down and attempts to explain the concepts.
Some concepts are explained through references to short stories and other
science fiction novellas related to time travel.
One of the
ideas related to time stopping in the chapter talks about the universe we live
in as being a part of normal time and that there is a realm outside of ours
that experiences hyper time. The book compared our time to hyper time by
explaining it in the following way: imagine that the realm we live in as being
a 3d movie being played at some point in the realm of hyper time. Now let us
say that the person watching the movie wanted to get up and get a snack. They
would pause the movie and then play it when they got back. To them, there was a
stoppage in time, but this stoppage of time was unnoticed to the people in the
movie because to them time was stopped and started in the same instant. So if
there is such a thing as hyper time then “for all we can know a billion years
of hyper time may have passed between my typing of the first and second word of
this sentence.”
Theories
involving this realm of hyper time commonly associate gods as the persons
living in it. This idea of gods or God living outside our realm of time begged
the question whether or not they could reverse and rewrite the past. The book
talks about numerous people being on either side of this argument. One of the
conclusions drawn was that a god cannot alter the past. This does not mean that
gods are bound by time but that there are laws of time that gods or hypertime
beings must adhere to. The book states it like this: “God can’t make a four
sided triangle, not because god can’t make four-sided shapes, but because a
triangle has 3 sides by definition.”
From the
article, “Time Without Change”, published the “Journal of Philosophy”, the
author should have included the concepts of Mctaggartian change over time and
Aristotelian change over time. The Mctaggartian change is a very literal,
explained as the idea that everything is constantly changing because atoms are
always moving; therefore, everything is always changing. The Aristotelian
viewpoint on change is that nothing changes until someone notices that it has
changed. Something that was left out for good reason is the idea of it being
impossible to be aware of a changeless interval of time during that interval of
time. it is possible to know of a changeless interval of time before or after
the interval however.
From the
book, “Confirmation and Confirmability” by Schlesinger, something that should
have been included were the different and opposing ideas of “time without
change” and “change without time”. These viewpoints offer separate ideas of the
relationship between time and change, and what it means for time or change to
be stopped. I am glad that the author excluded what it means for something to
be confirmable and the paradoxes behind confirmability.
Lastly, from
the Book “The Ambidextrous Universe”, by Martin Gardner himself, the author should
have included his own ideas about how traveling backwards in time isn’t an
impossibility but more of an improbability. I am glad that he did not include the
Solipsist point of view, which dictates never being completely sure of
anything.
I thoroughly
enjoyed this chapter. Concepts of time and space have always intrigued me. I liked
reading about the different theories of time travel and time stopping.
I thought you did a very good job explaining a very difficult subject. You used your references very well and did a good job relating them to your subject.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter was sort of hard to understand, so I really liked the summary it helped me better understand it. I thought the example with the 3D movie was cool. The ideas of God and their connection with time together was interesting to learn about.
ReplyDeleteI thought this chapter was really cool to read about. It made more interested into the topic of time and time travel. Your blog was a concise reiteration of was explained in the chapter.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter was very hard to grasp but you did a good job explaining it to us. good work
ReplyDeleteGreat job summarizing the chapter! I had a hard time understanding it at first but your summary really helped!
ReplyDeleteThe concept is very interesting and a larger portion of ideas being discussed are very clear and easy to understand. I liked the idea of the possibility but improbability of time travelling backwards you brought up as I also met in the discussion of "The Illusion of time" on the fabric of of the cosmos; interesting idea!!!
ReplyDeleteYou did a good job summarizing the chapter. Your summary of the chapter helped me to understand it better.
ReplyDeleteI feel like this chapter was a little more difficult to understand than some of the others. Although the topic was difficult I feel that you made an all encompassing summary. The references that you chose also aided in the understanding of this chapter.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter seemed to encompass a lot of theories that were hard to grasp due to the complexity of each one of them. However, it was rather fascinating as well because many of them can't be tested so they're just something to ponder... For now that is.
ReplyDeleteThe concept of time itself has been something that we as humans been curious about. I'd never thought about time ever stopping as it has continued for so long. Your summary made it much clearer to understand as the many theories people had about changing time were confusing at times.
ReplyDeleteThe concepts of time and space are not easy to understand at times, but you did a great job explaining the chapter. There seems to be a lot going on in this chapter but the way you summarized it made it a lot easier to grasp.
ReplyDeleteIt's very tough to think about time stopping when we've never thought it could stop. It's also tough because there are so many theories about this matter, and its tough to know which to believe in and which not to believe in. Hopefully in time we will be able to learn which theories we can trust.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter was really interesting. Never thought about time continuing to pass even when we think we paused a moment. It's interesting to see that there are many legends and different point on views on time.
ReplyDelete