A New Theory of Time - Lee Smolin 

I see time as a sequence of states that make it appear to our minds as time. ...and that is why rewinding of time is not possible. If motion is frozen(all vectors of forces still in force) then 'time' also freezes. Thus time is a perception not an entity. Time is absolute. but he says moment to moment!?

I see a lot of folks here giving grief to Smolin for his ideas, to those of you I say this - read his books. His public speaking is a 5, but his writing is a 10. I havent yet read his latest book, but "the trouble with physics", and his postulate of cosmic natural selection through black hole formation are some of the most brilliant and original musings on theoretical physics you will find anywhere. There is no circular reasoning in anything this man comes up with. Everything he promotes makes firm predictions, follows irrefutable logic, and most importantly, is 100% falsifiable. He gets shunned as a charlatan by some string thoerists, as if he were insulting their religion, when all he has done is correctly assert that strong theory is unfalsifiable, messy, and hasnt produced any new breakthroughs on its own merit, for the past 25 years, despite having garnered the vast majority of grants, doctorates, and public attention during that time. I understand that string theory is beautiful, but so was the copernican sacred geometry, and all that did was suck in great minds for a hundred years until it was finally proven to be false. String thoery shouldnt be abandoned, nobody is saying that, but we've hit the limit of what good we can draw from it, which is essentially nothing but self assured circular math. Its time to stop ignoring other promising theories in favor of what essentially amounts to scientific dogma. There are huge problems with our best theories right now. Quantum mechanics is brilliant, but messy, and doesnt account for time or gravity, and relativity is also brilliant, but has holes. Its predictions on the grandest scales, requiring the addition of exotic and invisible "dark" matter and energy to fit your observations with our math. Math which also breaks down into incomprehensible infinities at quantum scales. Im not sure many will make this connection, but in his opening, Smolin noted that expanding a fixed frame model into the infinity of the universe is a methid that has been proven unreliable. Like string theorists of today, newtons math works well on small scales, being the logical fellow he was, he rationalized that his flat geometry of space could be expanded to any frame of reference, and his predictions would hold. They didnt. Scientists observed strange patterns in the orbit of mercury, which didnt fit with newtons predictions, so they invented complicated "fixes" to force observation to match newtonian mechanics. Until Einstein came along and uprooted newtonian mechanics by showing that flat geometry only works up to a certain scale, and replaced it with a new outlandish theory, curved spacetime geometry, that worked on scales so large that newton couldnt have even imagined them, and in which his physics fell apart. All smolin is saying is that we find ourselves on the brink of just such a transformative epoch. The predictions of relativity are breaking down on scales much larger than einstein had access to, as well as on the tiniest of scales, and quantum mechanics is incredible but has too many working parts, and the forces involved are inexplicably arbitrary. String theory is an attempt to unify two incomplete theories, and as such it inherits the problems of both, along with the added bonus of being impossible to disprove, and of not making any predictions which cant already be made and explained using current theories. It might be true, its a really clever idea, but in its current form, its only a little more useful to science than the bible, and is proving to be defended by its propinents in a similarly dogmatic way.

"paradigm shift in cosmology"..... the entertwining of politics/social theory and physics strikes me as one of the most dangerous notions possible.

It took me two hours to sit through this 24 minute video.

I once knew a physicist that was working on the idea that time is our awareness of the expansion of space. He passed away before publishing anything. I didn't understand his explanations, but I remember him saying that Einsteins space time is incomplete. That in fact it's "expanding space time". Space and time are different sides of the same thing because space is expanding and creates "quantum holes" which must be filled. The holes being filled created by space expanding is what we feel as time because these "quantum holes" allow us to go from point A to point B in space, or some such craziness that I don't understand. I also remember him saying something about if space didn't expand we could not travel through it. It would be like a solid and there could be no motion, energy or time. He claimed to have the math, but it sounds crazy to me.

How much we want something to be true has no bearing on whether it actually is true.

"Laws of nature evolving" see Rupert Sheldrake, already had this idea, Nature is habitual, not law like

Its time for the rebirth of common sense.

I recently viewed Brian Greene's B-Theory of Time. In it, he claims that time does not flow moment by moment from the future through the present and into the past, but that each moment eternally exists in the universe around us as does space. For instance, a particular one occurring on the night of December 31, 1999. Now my question is this: If this is true, doesn't the audience think we could use an observatory computer to calculate the exact coordinates in the Milky Way of the Earth on a given moment on that date, and venture there, and thereafter revisit it? Of course. But in reality, when we get there, it's not there. Why not? We arrived at the planet's correct spatial coordinates--but not its right TEMPORAL coordinates! To do so, we need to GO BACK IN TIME to that desired moment. That proves the moment we desire to relive resides in the PAST. In conclusion, what we must do from this time forward is no longer philosophize that the flow of time is an illusion, but search with devices like the LHC at CERN for a particle whose function constitutes the physical basis for time.

I really respect Lee Smolin, he's one of the most unique and insightful minds in theoretical and philosophical physics.

I lol'ed at this. There is no hope for modern physics. :(

The idea is that time is a construct of our consciousness should not be avoided because of fear. The idea has great implications yes but none that would affect us in our experience of our physical world because it exists for us in this existence and has great implications for us regardless of if time is just a limitation/ability of our consciousness. Our world and universe is ours regardless of if it has any implications for anyone else.

Uncertain future - nature solved this problem very elegant. Nature maintains highest possible diversity at any given time. This ensures, regardless what the future holds, that existence continues. Unless we adapt this highest principle for our civilization - it's only a matter of time when we'll extinct.

Dr. Smolin, like a symphony conductor, disciplines his orchestra of ideas to a cresendo but he forgot his conductor baton and he should have one to occupy his left hand. Regardless, his revelation is music to my ears. The symphony remains unfinished but with agency and novelty we face the danger and opportunity of today's red flag world with a modicum of encouragement. The future is not fixed, we have agency, creativity and force. We find courage in Dr. Smolin's resolve that we have agency over the emergent future, we can impact experience, one person makes a difference. Timeless truth mutates and reverses into the truth of evolution in time. It may be an evolving pattern set of fractal developments expanding previous patterns and rolling out constant variation in an expanding and changing reality. My intuition is that even our precious self is a process, a changing, moving fountain of waves, continually transcending past structure. Thank you Dr. Smolin!

I didn't get ANYTHING

So he says he'll explain what the new theory is plainly.. and basically just says he has a new theory of time.. But after 10 mins of plainly talking, I had to stop watching because there wasn't anything I could actually hear explains what this new version of time is. He's not the greatest communicator. He could've just explained how his version is different in three dot points.

Mr. Smolin, with respect your notion of time is conventional and limited in scope. Here is the proper definition of time which has extra-terrestrial origins. The closest translation available is: "Time is nothing more than an arbitrary and relative measure of the change in the physical state or set of coordinates of a given object to another physical state or another set of coordinates in three dimensional space". Basically every object that exists in the physical universe has its own relative time. This means that there is no such thing as the "present" and that an event which may have occurred at one set of coordinates in the past relative to one observer may have not yet occurred relative to another observer at another set of coordinates. In essence this is relativistic time. It also means that there is no such thing as a single homogeneous time in the universe where all events follow a single arrow of time. This is nothing but illusion.

Might the "now" moment be how decoherence is expressed in the time dimension of space-time? So, in space we experience solid matter (as opposed to the wave it emerged from) and in time we experience the "now". The implication would be that time is emergent from mass, not fundamental. Also, the arrow of time would therefore be the result of our continuously expanding universe, which in turn "stretches" all matter, which in turn generates a continuous flow of new "now" moments. Another implication of this way of thinking is that entropy is the result of our expanding universe.

Time is not 'real' may mean/imply it is complex, as Einstein realized. Perhaps its complex nature gives it a fractal nature.

Concepts can, at best, create an imperfect mirror of experience. The comforting concepts of entity and agency have been traditionally used to create man's conceptual universe. Since the symbol is not "that for which it stands", it is the usefulness of the pattern created by the concepts that matters more than the so-called objective truth of a concept. The relative merits of these patterns can be assessed by science. The Buddhists are right in that the only way to apprehend reality directly is "without thought-coverings" (without concepts).

His argument seems to be "I don't like the implications of physics", scientists should go away and remake reality till I'm happy with it. To paraphrase a great physicist "the universe doesn't require that you like it"

Here's a homework assignment for Bob Greene: (1) Determine where in the Galaxy our planet was 15 years ago, relative to its position at present; (2) point SETI equipment in that direction; and (3) listen for radio transmissions dating from Dec. 31, 1999 or thenabouts. If he receives such and verifies them as such, he might build a strong case for his belief that each moment in time exists eternally within Spacetime.

Time does not exist. What makes us to think about time existence is our limitation (ex:our size). If we were long enough we would touch mars just in a moment. And if we were more long enough we would touch objects at 14 billion light years distance just in a moment. Then, where is the time?

I really cant understand his point. Maybe if he described one of the testable hypothesies it would have been a focal point to concretely describe wtf hes talking about. Real shame no-one (neither speaker nor panel) spelled out any details of said experiments. Hell, id have settled for a thought experiment, starving for context here...

What I find refreshing about this new theory is it offers hope. The current mainstream model, that everything already exists ultimately leads to the absurd notion that everything is already fixed in place, which philosophically is fatalism. Fatalism really has no place for God or free will. The universe is living. Quantum mechanics shows us this. Bravo!

The first sentence contains two premises, and there are four possibilities. Either time is real or it is not. Either the laws of physics are fixed or they are not. By linking the premises, Smolin appears to have reduced the options to two. It seems to me there is no reason not to believe that time is real, and the laws of physics are fixed. That, as an aside, does not in any way imply the future is fixed. There is nothing in physics that disallows probabilities, and quantum mechanics, as an example, is full of them. If we allow probabilities, where, for example, a Higgs boson has more than one possible degradation route which it chooses at random but nevertheless according to a probability rule, then there dis no possibility that the future is absolutely fixed, nevertheless, if you make enough Higgs bosons today or in fifty years, you should still get the same distribution.

Nothing profound here, just false dichotomies and begging o' the question regarding the origin of "Laws" & "Time". For a genuine analysis of the properties of realty check out Chris Langan's CTMU. "...where the object is to describe the evolution of a system from a state in which there is no information or programming (information-processing syntax) at all, a new kind of feedback is required: telic feedback." & "spacetime evolves linguistically rather than geometrodynamically...the conspansive nesting of atemporal events puts all of time in “simultaneous self-contact” without compromising ordinality." CTMU.

I haven't watched the whole video yet, but my first impression is that it is dangerous to include human social needs into the basis for physical theorizing. Who says the universe cares about human social needs. Anyway, I don't see the need to consider time as real in any absolute sense in order to understand that from the human perspective and in terms of solving human problems it IS real. I'm neither a physicist nor a philosopher, except of the armchair variety, but I solve a lot of these kinds of problems in my own mind with "dual aspect" thinking. Sure, if I were "God", then I could look at the universe as an eternally existing four dimensional space-time block, which of perhaps eliminates the need for me as Creator, but I'm not God. I am stuck here inside the space-time block universe and for all intents and purpose, time is real, only the present exist, the past no longer exists except in terms of the effects past event have in the present, and the future does not yet exist, and hence I need to consider the consequences of my actions to whatever extent I can anticipate them. Where's the problem?

I have not read the book, but what I understood from this short introduction is not that Truths are transient, but rather that Truth evolves (i.e., grows) in the presence of time. An example is the idea that the laws of Newtonian physics are eternally true, yet the passage of time has revealed a contradictory set of atomic Truths - which are also eternal. More simply, in a relativistic universe a thing may at the same time be both infinitely large AND infinitely small, depending on your measuring reference. The passage of time reveals new measuring references - and therefore there can be no timeless truths.

Our understanding of physics as timeless resides in the brains of temporal human beings. Its the ancient misguided argument concerning determination--that if its all determined then I don't have to do anything. Well, try that and see how it goes.

You can measure time by rate of decay or entropy. The earth spinning around the sun is a measure of the force of gravity in a vacuum.

Insanity is a horrible thing ,,, typically caused from to much in-depth thinking..

Nature has no laws. We humans are just good at recognizing patterns.

There's a paradox in Lee Smolin's thinking: if the laws are subject to change and there's no law that is timeless then this law is subject to change too. In other words the law that laws are not timeless should not be timeless too. And that means that the law that laws are not timeless may be timeless which is contradiction.

i really want to ask scientists:: "what do you mean with 'time begins at moment x'. Do you think that you understand your own gibberish nonsense wordsalad? An infinitiely dense and infinitely small ball with nothing around it, expanding in nothing? (singularity) Please, don't tell me that you understand your own wordsalad. The math is leading you beyond human understanding. Socrates would say: you don't know that you do not know. The universe is beyond our comprehension.

time is the presence of the sun...the absence then return..it shows.this is the morning...it leaves...this is the night...it returns...this is the morning. the sun moves in one direction...therefore...time moves in one direction

Could the mathematics of quantum mechanics represent the physics of ‘time’ as a geometrical process with classical physics representing processes over a period of time as in Newton’s differential equations? What we see and feel as ‘time’ is formed by the spontaneous absorption and emission of photon energy. In such a theory we would have an emergent future unfolding with each photon electron coupling or dipole moment. The wave-particle duality of light and matter in the form of electrons is forming a blank canvas that we can interact with! We are always in ‘the moment of now’ in the centre of our own reference frame as an interactive part of this process!

It triggers me when people use that Einstein quote "past, present and future are a persistent illusion." to support the bizarre claim that time itself is an illusion and that Einstein said so. The only thing meant by that is with respect to the remarkably small differential in speeds we experience, there by placing all of us within the same frame of reference by common measures / perceptions with respect to past, present and future. He WAS NOT saying that past, present and future are actually illusions themselves, but that the idea them being invariant is an "illusion", and add nothing physically in the "playing out" of causation. Only sentiment beings have concern of compared measures, physics itself not so much :/ Note also this quote of his is from a letter of condolence he wrote regarding the passing of someone.

"We have to remove consciousness from the equations to truely understand how the universe works". Human perception gives us time, 'the conscious measurement of motion'. Without motion there would be no time, without a mind, there would be no time. Think if thing from an inanimate objects point if view, a ball! A ball has no front or back, so no forwards or backwards, it only exists as a constant thing, which happens to move, it has no memory so no past, it has no foresight so has no future, it's just moves, with movement comes change. And we the observer measure that change to create a time. We count. To remove ourselves we must remove our skin 'heat', eyes 'light', ears, 'sound'. Then you are ready to imagine the universe how it truely is.

the universe is timeless, nature knows no time, no math, no tilt of the earth. nature just happens, we observe and give meaning. we want order out of what we think is natural chaos. chaos because the lack of understanding. any movement from a point of origin, over any axis takes time (deviation from a perfect orbit is experienced as time dilation). without movement we can not experience time. time needs 2 objects or 1 object and a background to make the movement visible. we put happenings in the concept of our time, our hours our minutes our seconds are all concepts we defined. all are lengths, moments, durations we defined and agreed upon. we can only experience movement with our eyes, not anything else, and light transport all information to us and our eyes, and light is influenced by matter. we try to do astrophysics, on electromagnetic signals coming to us, that travel here over long distances, thus equals time of influence on the signal. no orbit seen from close is elliptical, only perfectly round. light is the one thing that connects the earth to all other happenings and movement in the universe. all above our horizon is made of light that we can only capture on 2d flat surfaces, and only represent on 2d flat surfaces. light like reflections and shadows need surfaces to fall onto first to become visible. no surfaces exist in between events. light is local to objects surfaces only, not in between. light is only an illusion to he who is not the illusionist, or to he that does not understands it. time is a technology, time is the extrapolation of calendars, it is based on the movement around our sun. time is relative to the one experiencing it, following him like a shadow on his wrist, going where he goes. we agreed on math and time, this is why it works. time is additive by concept, only in the mind can we rewind time, not in reality will it ever slow down or speed up. a super fast ship can also return super fast, and only minutes will have passed for both over gigantic distances. if a fast ship flies around earth, its pilots watch will keep ticking normally, and the pilot will experience on off on off by flying through the earths shadow/night side. a few times then landing in its own country with its own concept of time. nature can not see any time zones or coutry names. no earths tilt even. tilted against what? geographic lines? come on... other life will have a different concept of time and durations for their units based on the movement of their own planet around their own sun. math principle are ratio's other can find but will name differently. just like there is no multiverse, only other planets that might contain life that will discover universal truths like we try to discover. evolution, all we have going for it, is one adaptation of a beak of a finch, some drawings and a prediction never observed. no kind change and many missing links.

Long ago I read some thing like this in a Sc Am article "Can Time Go Backwards": Time goes on you say, oh no! Time stays on, we go!!

Whether predetermined or not, the future is only available to us when it is in the past.

This nigga remind me of Dr. Cortex

Time t², ψ², c², e² and velocity Eₖ=½mv² geometrical similarity formed out of spherical symmetry

I read a lot of books on cosmology, quantum mechanics, time, etc,. and have seen Lee Smolin"s name crop up often as a very respected physicist/cosmologist, but this is just a bunch of gibberish!

The answer to the question " is there time when there is no activity?" will answer this question. Since we measure time by activity, time just a relative measure of one activity over the other. SO TIME DOES NOT EXIST.

I listened to this about 3 months ago and I got lost and abandoned it; here I am again and I just got the central tenant of his proposition which is around 12:35 in the video. For a lay-person that is very satisfying to grasp; mathematics is not sufficient in modelling reality and therefore has to make concessions one of which is that time, in the human-experience-sense is a fallacy. What makes this proposition even more interesting is the propensity for humans for: Dogma, and acceptance of Approximations or indeed complete exclusion, to make theories fit et. al.

dude..... put your hand in your pocket or something

As a layman, I found Mr Smolin' speech to be very interesting but his constant gesturing was very distracting... Probably a nervous impulse or bad habit, but either way I had to watch the video twice to get the gist of what he was talking about.

Q: when is a new theory not a new theory? A: when it's a pre-Einsteinian theory. it just happens to be right.... because Einstein was wrong. That's the trouble with maths; when the equations come out, and even worse when they seem to accord with experiment, there is the tendency to imagine they are correct. But they may just be good approximate models. So does Smolin's rediscovery of the (probable) truth about the reality of the physical world and the nature of time have implications for poitical and economic governance? No. Not a single iota, sorry. But he is to be admired for being able to make a living out of talking, so less fatiguing than doing physical work.

I think Heraclitus already said this ..... “τὰ πάντα ῥεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει”

Brilliant! This is called living in the Moment or "CIRCULAR TIME is the First Nations" way. Finally science is getting it! Enjoyed this and to those who are critical of the presenter, "you missed the point,". m

"Mathematical models are timeless " is in fact a questionable statement, in the sense that time dependent models can explain what exist outside the universe ! A theory of everything will need a mathematics with an algorithm of infinite axioms. His" theory of small changes", explained masterfully in "Life of the Cosmos" is the most likely scenario for us to understand reality !!!. It did not even need any mathematical model !!!

Another means occurred to me as to how the Bob Greene entourage might prove a given moment they wish to revisit still exists somewhere across the spatiotemporal fabric of the Galaxy--say, Dec. 1, 1999: (1) determine which direction our Galaxy spins; (2) locate in a position within it that's "bejind" us--say, where in the Galaxy the planet was fifteen years ago--; and then (3) using powerful enough space telescopes detect images of the planet in that position. We'd need to detect inferential data such as exoplanet hunters use now when searching for other earth, or radio communications emanating from it from that location and time. The best would be to directly image the planet as it existed there and then--or build an FTL ship and visit it in person. If the Greene could accomplish any of these, we might believe that time does not really flow, but that each moment exists eternally in the Spacetime.

It felt Lee has touched on what is newly emerging as - The Arrow of Energy: "No energy system can produce sum useful energy in excess of the total energy put into constructing it. This universal truth applies to all energy systems. Energy, like time, flows from past to future."

"Human-caused climate change"? I would rather Smolin take on the exceptions to this computer climate modeling propaganda. That would be 24 min. well spent.

time=expansion, time perception is other question related to live kingdom, just subjective matter that robots like us can experience the "Now" which is the expansion's continuous next step. The only valid stage of the "reality", the continuous nows because the expansion. without expansion there is not now. "time" or next step of now is flowing differently depending the expansion speed. The mass is pulling back the expansion. So, slower expansion= slower now. So what we could say about gravity could be the different speed of expansion The expansion of the around the mass is slower than expansion without mass. Two expansion speeds which makes the objects suffer the effect that we call gravity. I do not want to see the space bending, I prefer to see different expansion speeds due to the mass.

Can anyone who's read the book tell me if this just completely subverts his previous claims that time (and space) are emergent properties of a fundamental theory that takes neither as dependents? I'm not sure what he means by real. Has he just done a complete 180? Or is this still consistent with loop theory and junk?

You cannot claim "There are no timeless TRUTHS" without making a truth claim. This is simple logic.

The present is a continuous but fleeting moment, that allows the future to flow into the past, , ,so does the past and future push and pull the present ?, , , SPOOKY !!

Many of the truths of history can be known to within an absolute certainty, the Hitler invaded Poland in September 1, 1939 is an absolute fact that can be known to within 100% certainty. You can deny that or choose not to believe it but that doesn't make the fact any less than a fact. It's the more attenuated aspects of reality, including the topics that the hard sciences cover that are problematic. It is ironic that the quest for mathematical certainty, the basis of real science and the pretense of less scientific sciences exposes the insecurity of such knowledge in so many things. Though there are some things that are pretty well founded.

Upon taking the "time" to watch a video on RU-vid by a professor in mathematics (Julian Barbour) who took up nearly an hour of my "time" trying answer the question does time exist. The need was felt to make some remarks. does time exist ? a straight forward simple question ? well, no it isn't. one must clarify the question to exact verifiable details before one can comprehend the task at hand and begin to contemplate through logical deduction the answer. the common mistake made by nearly all that attempt to answer this question is the immediate assumption that the question is clear and concise. Science is an exact art 1+2=3, in reply to where is the nearest post office, the answer I believe or I think it's so and so is not science. So a professor that used so much "time" with I think and believe doesn’t paint a great picture of man's understanding of his existence. The basic problem is that one normally doesn’t have an objective view neither of his internal or external existence. So before we can ask does time exist? We must ask what we mean by exist. If for example exist to us means anything one experiences, and by one we mean man in his common state of consciousness, then time exists. But this in turn establishes the several questions. Like , what is consciousness ? and is mans common state of consciousness objective. Do we consider that ,everything that one experiences , exists etc . What should be obvious is that using words as a tool for the transfer of knowledge dictates that the exact meaning of each word is shared and understood by both sides of the transfer. Other wise if what is indicated by a word is different between the two, imagine the case in a sentence, paragraph, chapter. We end up in the subjective realm especially when discussing delicate matters...more to follow

How on earth do these guys make a really interesting subject into something so drab

Everybody talks about Plato but nobody does anything to find out what he turly is about. Plato actually has a position closer to Smolin than the one Grayling states that Plato has. Plato writes dialogues. He doesn't write treatises. When Plato brings in the thoughts and even the characters when appropriate of Heraclitus, Pythagoras, and Parmenides into the form of his dialogue, he again and again comes to points where two of these "opposing" pointviews has no winner. Plato believes in the timeless but he also believes in time as does Smolin. He wouldn't be so focused on how learning and growth takes place in the dialectic process if he didn't. These three speakers in the video could well be part of a fragment of a Platonic dialogue. Schopenhauer told students don't let your teachers read your Kant for you. Similarly, don't let others read your Plato for you.

Time is a compact dimension. There are not some possible closed timeline loops. Time is a closed timeline loop. We move from past onto the cusp of the future only to constantly have the carpet pulled out from beneath our feet and here we are in the present again. Time is a eternal 5.34 x 10^-44 seconds long.

Jesus is God & He loves you Jesus will soon be seen by all men, women, and children up in the clouds. Jesus is returning now! Believe and be saved. Exodus 3:14 (God speaking) And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. John 8:58 (Jesus speaking) Jesus said unto them: Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. John 10:30 (Jesus speaking) I and my Father are one. Isaiah 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder. and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, *The everlasting Father,* The Prince of Peace. Matthew 1:23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, *God with us;* John 1:1 and 14 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 14 And the Word was made flesh (Lord Jesus), and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory: the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth. John 8:24 (Jesus speaking) I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. John 14:9 (Jesus speaking) Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? Hebrews 1:1-3, & 8 (God calls His Son "O God" because Jesus IS God in the flesh) 1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, 2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; 3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power. when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; 8 But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. 1 John 5:7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. Titus 2:13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Revelation 1:7 Behold, he cometh with clouds; *and every eye shall see him,* and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen. Isaiah 44:6 (God speaking) Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God. Revelation 1:8 (Jesus speaking) I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, *the Almighty.* Revelation 22:13 (Jesus speaking) I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. --- There Are None Righteous / How To Be Saved Romans 3:10 & 23 10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: 23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Luke 5:31-32 (Jesus speaking) 31 And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. 32 I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. 1 Peter 3:18 (The word “quicken” means “to make alive”) For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: Romans 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Acts 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Ephesians 2:8-9 8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

better to read his books..great writer, interesting thinker

Elementary particles can move from A to B and immediately back to position A without violating the laws of physics. The problem is, at the macro level, the probability that all the extremely huge number of particles will move back to A at the same time is basically 0. Hence time only moves forward for us.

Hmmm...this is not really any sort of "A New Theory of time" but, is just some meandering thoughts about what may or may not be some sort of generalizations of events as they occur as the flow of time progresses.

Based on this very brief summary of the book, I take it the proposition put forth is that we must not believe in causal determinism because that will induce hopelessness and inaction regarding the ecological future of the planet. First, a type of relativism seems to be proposed: the physical laws are not timeless, but only valid for a given time (span) and place. This contains the same fallacy as any other relativist position, namely, if there are no absolute laws, then "There are no absolute laws," is not an absolute law either. More importantly, a belief in determinism does not cause a person to stop functioning the way anyone else functions. One does not become will-paralyzed upon adopting belief in determinism. But if we assume the laws of physics will not hold, then how exactly do we plan our strategies and actions to bring about a desired end? If we assume impermanent laws, that would seem to induce the greater feeling of hopelessness and inability to cope. Further, though an academician may be a determinist (Naturalist 1), he will be aware of the problem of induction ("grue" and "bleen") which will prevent him from acting as though he knows absolute laws. I think the basic flaws here are the suggestion that a determinist view of the universe prevents exercise of will, and the failure to recognize that belief in determinism is tempered, as it were, by a good healthy sense of doubt about whether it is true and if so, what its implications are for the individual and collective mind. I also think that lack of action for the environment is based on a too-great faith in science, which is seen as a force so powerful that it will be a sort of deus ex machina which will step in and save the day regardless what we do in the present.

my favourite thing in the world is to smoke a spliff and watcvh a lee smolin video. Mind=blown. Man.

He mentioned Leibniz and Newton, but he could/should have mentioned Kant. Time and space are a priori categories of the mind: They are "in here," not "out there." Kant writes, e.g, "Space is not something objective and real, nor a substance, nor an accident, nor a relation; instead, it is subjective and ideal, and originates from the mind’s nature in accord with a stable law as a scheme, as it were, for coordinating everything sensed externally" (Ak 2: 403).

Space and time are real but variable by time and location. Constants are only constant within their relationships within their space time frame. Their relationships to other space-time frames are transformed to match but only at the space and time they are linked. Just like light is a wave OR a particle ........I have read Lee Smolin's books and found him to be an honest theoreticist and a very entertaining author, read them you won't regret it !

An obvious comeback seems to me to be the following-time may be "real", novelty may be real, the future may not be given IN THE GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS, but at the scale at which we humans live, we might as well be meat puppet robots, sans free will. At our scale and at our lifespan and perspective, that is precisely what we are. He claims elsewhere to not understand the Libet experiments, which is beyond strange. Their implications are very straightforward.

It is not that difficult to understand.. TIME is the effect of Gravity in SPACE and therefore it is very real.. but gravity is different in each region of space and therefore what we call NOW is not the same here in Earth than in Mars or in another Galaxy and that also implies that each region in Space has its own cycles and therefore its own Time.. so if Time is the effect of Gravity in Space that means that TIME IS SPACE MOVING and therefore EVOLVING.

Blah-blah-blah:) Too much talk about time, let’s talk about much more important things to Humanity: dentist insurance, or expensive education:) or people die because of the simplest diagnoses. I’m totally confused, we have more and more unsolved problems here on the Earth, but invest billions of dollars in studying space:)

These people seem self-amazed and unaware of the ancient history of Naturalism A and Naturalism B. Sophomoric. Please refer to 14th century "The Cloud Of Unknowing" by an anonymous monk for Naturalism B. Quote: "Time is made for us ; we are not made for time".

There is no time, of course. Something such intangible as the concept of "time" cannot just emerge or be created. Because, what is it really?!? The answer is that it doesn't exist. All there is, is variability of matter/energy in an eternal NOW, which our brains interpret as "time". As you know, you MUST refer to matter/energy to describe time! "Yesterday" is planet rotation, "last year" is the planet orbit the sun, watches and clocks are mechanic or electronic, and so on. Change and variation. And evolution.

Whenever I hear people debating one polarised idea or ideal over its opposite, I think the effort is wasteful. Thesis, antitheses,, synthesis bares its timeless wisdom for me. The Loop Quantum Gravity research with their synthesis of determinism and freewill through the E8 polytope quassi crystal model ticks all the boxes. Freewill and determinism are both valid in their place. The concept of 'two' or duality is essentially conflict. It does eventually lead to the concept of the numeral three which is the sum - synthesis - of the previous two concepts: the numeral one and the numeral two. Pythagoras found this truth enlightening. So did many other ancient scholars. The concept of 'three' in numerology is thought as completion. It is also the universal model of godly creation.The court enquires... Guilty? or innocent? What about... guilty but has suffered sufficiently and appropriately to have learnt the necessary lesson and can now lawfully be released. This is wisdom. It is also called mercy.

I like Lee Smolin, his honesty, clarity and kindness. But I don't agree with his philosophical views. He confounds naturalism with physicalism and limits nature by imposing his philosophy on it. He does the same with the word realism and that's a sloppy use of words. It's like trying to win a debate by calling your approach rightism or truthism. Whatever exists and however it operates is nature and reality and you cannot know what it is and define it in advance.

My view is that there are two types of time. 1. Periodic (clock)time which has at its base a circular argument which cannot be usefully extrapolated on beyond a certain technological point and is a social construct. 2. "Lived time" which encapsulates aging, memory, and history, which animals experience too. Other than that there is the present and a succession of the present. My present is someone else's history (maybe), Seemingly cosmology which contains any assumptions is merely the extrapolation on the effects of radiation encountering reflective surfaces.

Time is a human construct which has been determined by the our unique position in the universe. Day/Night, phases of the moon, the seasons, tides, growth, etc. Outside of our world Time does Not Exist. Only Change. So Time is Change!

Dr Gillian Tett, (the blonde) said nothing worth hearing. And A.C. Grayling's comments were much more intelligent, however his example of a timeless truth was tautological and therefore meaningless (non-contingent). "Blue is blue" is a vacuous truth. Smolin is talking about meaningful truths, i.e. discoveries that affect the world. It may very well be that time is not "timeless" in it's behavior, as time and space are inextricably intertwined, and the geometry of space is changing on a cosmological scale and has always been changing since the origin of space-time. I figured the "new theory of time" he was talking about was the theory that time is required for energy to exist. That is, matter and energy propagates at constant c. When that matter is "at rest" (relatively speaking), then it's traveling through time at constant c. When energy is traveling at the speed of light, it's traveling through space at constant c, and time is standing still. For any real speed in between these two extremes, time multiplied by velocity gives us c as a product. The faster one physically travels, the slower time goes, and vise versa. In the velocity dimension, momentum is conserved, and in the time dimension energy is conserved.

Such speculation is unproductive. If the "laws of physics" change, then we will be looking for meta-laws that govern those changes. However, these meta-laws could themselves be changing. The whole notion is simply begging the principle. And who says that our science must be the search for laws in the first place? It is a uniquely Western European idea that may have outlived its usefulness. There are other ways of conceiving nature. Throughout most of history, physical science has been based on notions like matter and form, substance and accident. Who is to say that we will not return to those notions, or some synthesis of the,m with modern physics?

1 + 1 = 2 is a chosen truth, originated in the human skill to objectify, structure and divide phenomena in nature through the use of linear language. This human skill is, in its root, a tool. A rather practical tool, a temporal projection onto an isolated part of reality, so it can be given meaning and be dealt with in a practical way from one human to the other. The question would be, if for Nature to exist, Nature would have to imply, express and apply this tool onto itself to manifest truth into its own reality. So, would there be something embedded in Nature, that interacts with itself and a socalled mathematical truth through a tool like 1 + 1 = 2, to support the manifestation of reality. Or could the manifestation of reality simply be that, a unitary manifestation of its own deepest expression, where nothing begins nor ends and operates as one interconnected whole through every present moment? Nature might operate through supported systems that translate mathematical truths through it's deepest operating system, but it might as well use any chosen truth at any given moment to express anything that needs to be expressed on whatever level. This continuous evolving of chosen truth's might be very hard to conceive (imagine 1+1=2 being true and at the same time 1+1=1 being true, Nature could even have a synesthetic approach, where code of one colour, say green, expresses the truth that 1+1=2 and red code, expresses 1+1=1, for the subdivision of reality it wishes to express, it could add any synestethic, non-linear traits to it's code for programming reality on all levels) I guess my point is, from stating 1 + 1 = 2 as a Universal truth, to the possible tricks Nature itself might play with chosen truths at all, we might be many paradigm shifts away of understanding how and even if Natures codes itself to express itself through laws, algorithms and information in general.

Time Doe Not Exist. For us reality is presence of objects in space. In fact, we are objects in space dependent on presence of other objects (planet(s), stars...etc). If there are no objects in space we don't exist. Therefore, the universe is objects in space. Width, length and height are directly associated with objects, and indirectly associated with space. That is if we are measuring distance in space we are indirectly assuming 'if there was an object in that space then its one side equals that distance(length'). If we have no objects in space we would have no length width, height and even the ideal time; because we don't even exist. If all the objects in space are removed we would have only space, which is nothing. Inside nothing time (or any thing) does not exist. Therefore, time does not exist inside space; time does not exist inside any thing. We are using our mind born time as a reference for objects, motion, change of state ....etc. in objects. Therefore, time is not real not natural, and does not exist as real. Right? Thanks.

I like Lee Smolin. I think he's contributed a great deal to theoretical physics. But listening to him here, I think there's a logical flaw in his thinking. He posits that the laws of nature are evolving and changing, and that physics must acknowledge, and inquire into "how" the laws of nature are changing, and "why" the laws of nature are changing. Philosophically, this position is tenuous at best. First it assumes that if we want to understand nature, we must accept that the laws of nature are changing. But if the laws of nature are changing, and evolving, how can one assume that the mechanisms by which the laws of nature are changing, are not also, in fact, changing? The argument that Smolin is making here is akin to, "We want to have our cake (i.e., understand nature), and eat it too (i.e., accept that nature rejects the law of identify.)" That is, we want to understand nature at a very deep level, but we're going to assume the laws of nature can change. So instead of focusing on nature itself, we need to focus on those mechanisms by which the laws of nature change, thus making the assumption that the mechanisms themselves are unchanging - that these mechanisms have some immutable identity, that we can discover, and understand, given enough study. But by the very argument that Smolin makes, those mechanism of change may themselves be evolving, so instead, we must now focus on how and why such mechanisms - that are changing the laws of nature - are themselves evolving and changing. In other words, by saying the laws of nature change, Smolin has opened the door to an infinite recursion of the changing nature of reality. This kind of thinking rejects the law of identity. It rejects the idea that nature can be understood at all - because at any moment, the rules can change, and the rules governing how nature's laws can change, can also evolve, and so on. It posits that objects and entities that exist do not need to respect their own identity in relationship to other objects and entities in the cosmos. In traditional physics, to understand nature, one has to accept what is called the law of identity - otherwise, any claimed knowledge can be challenged by positing a change to the rules that govern reality. In the final analysis, the argument really comes down to whether or not one accepts the objective nature of reality. That is, the primacy of existence - an objective reality, that exists, with or without a human consciousness to observe it. The corollary of the primacy of existence is the law of identity - a thing is itself, and has certain properties that defines its nature - all of which make science possible because it allows for the testing ideas against an objective background. Without an objective background, without the law of identity, any claim can be challenged by substituting whatever background reality we care to dream up, or merely stating that the object in question has no specific identity, and therefore, any test using this object is inconclusive. To put it more simply, a thing is either what it is - or it is not what it is. Only the former perspective gives hope that human knowledge is possible. Ask yourself this: Does reality exist independently of human consciousness, and if so, does it possess a specific identity, that allows a consciousness to discover facts that are true? If there is no reality independent of consciousness, and if there is no law of identity governing how objects behave in nature, then I suggest we have a serious problem with any claim of knowledge. All such claims can be undercut because when the law of identity is rejected, there's no longer an objective standard by which to test knowledge. My apologies for rambling on far too long here. My hope is to add something to this discussion. Perhaps someone here can point out how Smolin's ideas do not negate the law of identity - and what, if anything, is considered immutable in Smolin's world view.

If we've made the assertion that physics is the science of measurement by sensory processes, and therefore all of what you see is what you get statistically, then the declaration of measurement-timing from the ground state now to a relative eternal position, is an assumption that time=distance, which gives the results that the observed Universe is functionally, cause-effect probability, in possibility phase-states deduced mathematically, and the sum of histories is one, =time-timing observations of existence, =measurement of eternity-now across the infinite-eternal universe-now, in the principle of QM-TIME. Because all perceptions are direct, continuous and qualified quantities of temporal vectors in this context. This wording is different from the ancient experience of direct time read from the continuum in cyclical events, because technology has come between the observable and possible dimensions brought to perception. Eg the measurement of timing events is not the natural days and nights as the fundamental metric, it's these devices like Atomic Clocks, so the perception of the Universal event as the natural Timer is obscured by finely tuned technology. What is real is the sum of cause-effect histories in the universal wave-package event to be this one active-image, the singularity now. Ie the image seen on the screen of a device is not a separate part of Time, it's a fully integrated component of the multiverse event. The Universe mirrors itself, that's the potential activity of self defined existence of self measurement and continuous quantization as a continuum of resonant structures of QM-TIME Phys-Chem. Whatever may be novel to us is not novel to eternal possibilities, or we wouldn't exist. Ie we are composed of variations on a theme and unique, but not impossible or improbable. It's unlikely that we can predict specific states of complexity, but whatever exists does so in infinity.

I like how the other guy summarized it all at the end for us laymen

Mouran, Lora, Lord, Zouran, there is another place here even it was later: Lora on hubpages.com/religion-philosophy/Good-and-evil-are-human-concepts and Anonymous on which wrote lately: Would Aliens Debunk Religion?, page3 you can see manyu old men became smart suddenly with a new theories!

Why. don't you contact John Horton Conway at Princeton to get your talk tested of validity. I myself can not follow your boring speech. You are in no way scientific !Richard Feynman remarked, that philosophers are ineptly.

Someone must have informed Prof, Smolin that he's dying and he's given thought to a cosmological theory of heaven and hell and so wants to hedge his bet. Oh how the mighty do ...smash and burn! Consider though in contrast ,Feynman and his final struggle with Cancer, he went about his own life in his own way, he didn't pander to global socialist Feminism and metalogical capitalism, to try and take the world down with him.

Time is a function of consciousness (whatever that is, call it "pre-reflective cogito" ). Time is "built into" language such that it's impossible to think or speak without implying time as a component. Verbs for example.Time does not exist as a phenomenon separate from consciousness. Events unfold in the universe, but only conscious beings "experience" events from onset to outcome. And btw, there will never be time travel because time is not a thing. It's more akin to an emotion.

This is simular to morphic resonance thoery. In some models of string theory the universe both time, space and it's laws evolve or stitche it's self together, so it may be like a computational evolutionary algorithm. We should realize that quantum mechanics has shown us that reality is probability waves of infinite potentiality and that consciousness may be a fundamental property of existence. it's as if the super-universe is alive i.e. the cosmoqauntum supra-consciousness. All perspectives of time may be valid to conscious observers and influenced by beliefs. Resonance universe theory and peculiar velosity may be an expression of a thermodynamic drive of constant quantum fluctuations.

Naturalism, "all that exists is in the physical world". So concepts don't exist? It sounds like Naturalism's definition of existence is things that physically exist. It smells tautological to me. The fact that we think of concepts means they exist, no?

My theory of time is very simple: time is what clocks measure.

What the heck is Gillian Tett doing there, with that madman physicist Smolin? She sure looks uncomfortable.

I don't get why this is so hard to understand. The forward flow of time creates information, the backward flow of time destroys it. However, the conscious experience of time can only be forward as conscious experience involves forming new memories, a new memory is new information and therefore it can only be experienced with the forward flow of time. We can only "see" the backward flow of time in experiments which create information but do not disseminate it before it can be lost, such as in the quantum eraser experiments. Time likely flows back and forth constantly, but we are simply unaware, as all the information about the "previous" future has been erased from existence. I know this sounds like heresy of one of the most fundamental laws of nature, the conservation of information, but it, in fact, is governed by it. by viewing time as intrinsically linked to the creation and dissemination of information it is easier to see why information can not be destroyed; information is a property of time, which from our perspective will only ever move forward. Another consequence of this fact, backward flow is probably very uncommon at large scale as the two flows do not have equal odds of occurring from any given situation. The conditions for backward flow are far less probable than for forward as flow direction depends on the number of interdependent particle states. The greater the interdependence of a current field or particle state on other field or particle states, the less likely it is that sufficient information can be lost to successfully reverse time on a large scale. any small quantum fluctuation will quickly be undone and as it regains information from addition interactions. Moreover, time is not static or predetermined but is a constantly changing, relative and dynamic property of existence. The moment is the only thing that exists, but that moment may not be the same everywhere, but it becomes the same moment should those realities interact, changing their current states and settling on the most probable outcome given the previous states of both groups, effectively re-writing the past such that it aligns with the new present moment. in short; existence is made up of moments of interdependent quantum states. It is the interplay between the conservation of information, conservation of energy, and varying degrees of interconnected and entangled states that creates the probabilistic framework for this thing we call time.

Such a waste of time! Lots of talk, but really no content. Only speculations. I can also write this kind of books. These people could easily be politicians! The'd likely make more money...

He's a dreadful communicator, which is a shame. That coupled with a whiny, monotonous voice makes it very difficult to stay awake. I'm hoping his book is a better medium for him to put forward his ideas.