What is “Now”?

PSI Blog 20210315 What is “Now”?

 

A question from George Coyne:

 

“The past refers to motion that has occurred, and the future represents motion that has not yet occurred. If "now" is considered in terms of nuclear rotations in an atom, then how many, if any, transpire in the period that is considered now. There are 5 billion trillion nuclear rotations per second. Some presentists would argue that there are no nuclear rotations in the now because the present has a duration of zero. That requires the absence of motion because time is the motion of matter. Without motion there can be no matter. Thus, this leads to the conclusion that in the present there is no matter. Without matter there is no universe. So, for the present to be a reality, there can be no universe and no reality, which means there is no possibility of a present that exists or occurs. My question is: Does the concept of “now” have any reality apart from our thought? If it does, how would you define it?”

 

[GB: Thanks George. You raise a philosophical question easily answered by Infinite Universe Theory. You guessed right that there is no possibility of a present that exists. “Now” does not exist. Only XYZ portions of the universe have existence and time does not exist, it occurs. All portions have motion, however, and that is why we have existence. Philosophers have struggled with this for centuries without a satisfactory conclusion. That is because most of them were religious and assumed immaterialism. That is the  indeterministic opposite of the scientific assumption of materialism, which assumes the universe has only two fundamental phenomena: matter and the motion of matter.

 

The Infinite Universe has an infinity of microcosms in motion, with each motion having a beginning and an end with respect to all others. In other words, we can define the “now” of the universe as the motion of all things with respect to all other things. This must forever be an assumption, for we cannot prove it with any experiment whatsoever as Einstein and other positivists have pointed out. One cannot even prove the Sun exists now, because it takes 8 minutes for the light that creates its image to arrive on Earth. Thus, if I should ask you to come to my house now, I would not expect you to be here instantaneously. That would take a while.

 

Now for the resolution of the paradox you present in this statement:

 

“Some presentists would argue that there are no nuclear rotations in the now because the present has a duration of zero. That requires the absence of motion because time is the motion of matter. Without motion there can be no matter. Thus, this leads to the conclusion that in the present there is no matter. Without matter there is no universe. … and no reality.”

 

As with all paradoxes, this one has a false assumption. It is the belief that there could be a duration of zero. Math is wonderful in many ways, but this is one of its many failures as I pointed out in my first philosophically oriented comment on a scientific paper.[1] 

Catastrophe theorists were essentially proclaiming extinction could occur in zero time. Shortly after publishing that, I also became extremely skeptical of the Big Bang Theory. Something about things popping out of nothing in zero time… Now, I think I will get back to work.]

 

 

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[1] Borchardt, Glenn, 1978, Catastrophe theory: Application to the Permian mass extinction: Comments and reply: COMMENT: Geology, v. 6, no. 8, p. 453. [https://go.glennborchardt.com/catheory].