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.]
[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].