Koichiro Matsuno (kmatsuno@vos.nagaokaut.ac.jp)
Tue, 30 Nov 1999 19:50:47 +0900
Folks:
Since I did the key handling incorrectly, Stephen's reply to my [time
1063] was sent only to me. The following is what Stephen said. At the very
end, I shall add my stuff.
>Dear Prof. Matsuno,
>
> Could you post your reply to the Time List?
>
>Koichiro Matsuno wrote:
>>
>> Dear Stephen an All,
>>
>> Stephen Paul King <stephenk1@home.com> wrote:
>>
>> >> May I add one more to the list? That is thermodynamics taking note
of
>> >> the
>> >> presence of heat sinks. Heat sinks are and have to be concrete in
what
>> >> they have absorbed so far.
>[SPK]
>> > Umm, but would you not agree that this thought of "heat sinks have to
>> >be concrete in what they have absorbed so far" as implying a temporal
>> >duration?
>[KM]
>> You have just hit right at the mark. This is exactly the point!
>> Thermodynamics is already implicit in what globally synchronous time
looks
>> like. But, its recipe is quite different from Newton's. In addition, if
we
>> can say something sensible about time, it would have to be circular or
even
>> tautological in the very good sense of the words.
>
> So would you agree that the traditional methodologies used to study
>thermodynamics needs to be updated as to be able to model asynchronous
>interactions? Are you familiar with Ilya Prigogine's work?
>
>> > If the "agency of making distinctions in progress" is a material body
>> >capable of acting as a heat sink, could we see the convergence of the
>> >"present progressive" to a "present perfect"?
>>
>> Once the present progressive converges to a present perfect, it may
lead
>> to the end of time. All of the movements have been completed, and the
future
>> has been frozen. The future sun eclipses have been completed in mechanics
>> because the movement in mechanistic dynamics is upon the equality between
>> the present progressive and the present perfect expressed in the present
>> tense. However, the future earthquake which may hit near Tokyo area must
be
>> a time phenomenon par excellence because it has literally not yet been
>> completed.
>
> I agree.
>
>> >> Time conceived in this way is locally relational and not absolute in
the
>> >> Newtonian sense.
>> >
>> > Yes! But, does this give us a way of creating the "illusion" of
>> >absolute time for finite neighborhoods ("nebula") of interacting clocks?
>> >I think so! :-)
>>
>> This is a matter of choice. We have at least two different
alternatives
>> for getting illusive synchronous time, either Newtonian illusion or
>> thermodynamic. I am currently bidding for the thermodynamic one.
>
> I like it also!
>
>> > Here I see a heat sink as a material body or system that is capable of
>> >or the potential for "tending toward equilibrium". Once it is "at"
>> >equilibrium" (present perfect?) it would be unable to be a heat sink any
>> >more. It is interesting that the notion of open "Hubble expansion" of a
>> >space-time acts like a perpetually cold heat sink, except at the Big
>> >Bong singularity! :-)
>>
>> If our cosmological heat sink is already full of garbage and cannot
take
>> in any more, this must be the end of the brief history of time.
>
> Yes.
>
>> Cheers,
>> Koichiro
>
>Later,
>
>Stephen
Just a small remark on Ilya Prigogine's. I have read some of his previous
papers and those by his colleagues. With regard to the specific issue of
whether or not time is taken to be synchronous, I have failed in finding his
explicit reference to the asynchronicity of time. His microscopic
irreversibility is derived from a particular choice of initial conditions.
The underlying dynamics is mechanics, and the intensity driving it in an
irreversible manner is exclusively from the boundary conditions. Once the
intensity was fixed, it has been kept invariant since then. The invariance
of the once fixed intensity is completely consonant with the synchronicity
of time which the underlying mechanistic equation of motion necessarily
assumes even if an irreversible outcome is squeezed out.
Cheers,
Koichiro
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Wed Dec 01 1999 - 01:15:41 JST