Changing the definition of Time

Revised August 12, 2019.  Original draft September 9, 2016

First of all, I’m not a scientist.   I have no letters after my name or any scientific training, except my own layman’s study in mysteries of science and math that have always intrigued me.    My best friend knows me as a person whose mind seems to never rest but I ponder the imponderable all the time.   My daughter says that I am always seeking answers to things that other people don’t even think of the question.  I don’t think of myself as a brilliant person, though my IQ is above average I suppose. I am 67 years old, have achieved a measure of success as a builder and developer and hotelier.  And I have always had a tendency towards skepticism and not taking the status quo as being fact.      All that being said, I’m not some crackpot that just jumped out of an H.G. Wells novel, and I’ve never believed in Ouija boards, etc.  I am just a man with an idea here, that I think merits serious consideration by others who are more learned than myself.

The idea that has puzzled me for a long time is the limitations posed on me personally, and science collectively, of Time.   However, in the past year, I came to the conclusion that perhaps much of what I believe about Time is incorrect.   My father always told me as a child that it wasn’t what you know that gets you in trouble but what you know that’s wrong that gets you hurt.   I’ve read books on Space and Time.   I remember from college and high school math and science classes the manner in which time was factored into equations.   But everything I have been taught about time is that time is “some thing”.  

What is a thing?  Things have matter.   Things have dimensions.  Things have mass.  Things have definition.  Things are describable.   I suppose, in a sense, things can be touched.  While some might say that space cannot be touched, I’d have to disagree.   If I were an astronaut on a space walk outside of ISS I could reach my hand into space and my hand would be there in space.   It would be “at” a particular point in space, and though it would have no sensation, I would still be “touching”.    The same could be said for hydrogen.  Gas is a thing.   Though it would be without sensation, I could still put my hand into a container of hydrogen and I would be “touching” the gas.   I can touch a wall.  I can touch a car door.  I can even touch a ruler.    However, I cannot touch a foot (12 inches).   I cannot touch a meter.   I cannot touch an inch.   Nor can I touch a minute or a moment or an hour.

A foot or a meter or an inch can be measured, with a ruler.    And a minute can be measured with a stop watch.    But that’s all a minute is.  And it is a called a minute just because someone calculated how long it took for the earth to go around the sun and divided that by 24 and divided that by 60 and they called that a minute.    It is just a passing between one point in the plane of existence to another point in that same plane of existence.  And I offer that description of points on the same plane, because that is the way we imagine life and time goes on, in a linear time line fashion.   What if it doesn’t necessarily have to though?

I have told my friend that only things or physical conditions can limit us.   I can sit in my living room and not be able to throw a rock from my chair and hit my neighbor’s house.  In that case, the three walls of my three rooms, plus the brick exterior my house are certainly sufficient resistance to render that feat impossible.   I could however overcome the resistance of those walls, and bricks, and even distance with a 44 caliber hand gun and bullet.   Those mechanical advantages would help me overcome the physical limitations of the “things” that stand between my neighbor and myself.

I could put a pair of handcuffs on my wrists behind my back and I’d certainly be unable to brush my teeth.   Certainly, the man I am still has the capacity within myself to brush my teeth, but a thing has made limited my possibilities.

In his interesting, and fun to read book How to think like Einstein, by Daniel Smith, the author makes the point that one thing that distinguished Einstein from others was that he believed if you wanted to do something that others thought impossible, you should start with the assumption that it is possible and then work the problem backwards from the objective.   So in this example I might say, “I can brush my teeth with my wrists in handcuffs behind my back”.  And then design a remote control, that could be held behind my back, and keyed from memory, for my robot to brush my teeth for me, and thereby overcome even the limitations of handcuffs.   My point is still the same.  The “thingness” is what meant I could not do it and I was forced to find a way around the limitation of the “thing”.

Since things have all of the characteristics I described above, then I can only reason that Time is NOT a thing any more than a centimeter is a thing.  Time and a centimeter are measureable.  Time and a centimeter are A measure.   Time does not have mass.  It cannot be touched.  I can’t ask you to bring me a pound of time or a pound of meter.  

I theorize then that only things or the properties of things, can cause limits (The lack of oxygen in my air will cause me to die.   It’s not negative-oxygen killed me, but the properties of my physical body that demand oxygen).  Certainly gravity can limit me.   Wind can limit me.  Water can limit me.  The walls of my home can limit me.  Handcuffs can limit me.  But can a thought limit me?   I say no.   Can a theory limit me?  I say no.   Can a happy smile limit me?  I say no.  Can a centimeter limit me?  I say no.   And I say then that there should be no limitation on me by time, which does not in fact EXIST.   Matter and Energy exist.  Time does not.

Time is simply the term we have come up with for measuring the passing of moments in existence.   Just as we have come up with the term for an inch as being the amount of space between the 1 and the 2 or the 9 and the 10 on a ruler.  We can point to what 1 inch of a piece of wood is.   But we’d not be describing “inch”.  We’d be describing the wood, and that portion of the wood between the 1 and 2 marks.   When we hold up a stop watch and start it when the runner takes off and stop it when the runner crosses the finish line, we’re not looking down at stop watch that reads 42.12.14 seconds and saying “ah hah.  There is the race!”.  We’re not even looking at the stop watch and saying “there.   That’s the runners TIME.”    Because the stop watch is only showing us a reflection of the moments it too the runner to run the race.   We’re just pointing to the number on the stop watch and saying these numbers are the measurement, or record of the race.

I’m not sure what learned men could do with this idea in science if they would for a moment go back to all the myriad of equations that science uses that factor in time, and just take that out.    I’m only suggesting that they try.  I’m not speaking of time used as a factor or variable of a required measurement.  For instance, there are certain physical conditions by which the measurement of time is necessary to complete another action.  i.e.   You cannot write a mathematical equation for boiling an egg without a factor of time. If a rocket ship only will go 100,000 km then time is a factor in determining how long it would take to reach a destination.  

I wonder though why can’t we imagine what might be possible in certain experiments if somehow time was not limiting to us in a linear, forward direction?  Stephen Hawking has said that he believes that at some point in the future, the universe will collapse back within itself and all will be reversed.  As a man with more than a few regrets in my life, I look often at the figurative broken glasses on the floor of my life and long for the day, and even imagine in my mind, when the broken glass will reverse course and go back and up onto the piano and be restored. Science (so far) says this is impossible because it considers time a thing and that thing only moves forward.   Physics though tells me that if I can write out the breaking of the glass in a mathematic expression that I need only reverse the equation to reverse the results.      Maybe, the reason physics has not given me a way to restore my broken glass is because physics has told me that time is a limitation.  I am imagining that it is not.

In conclusion, and at the risk now of sounding like a crackpot, I would suggest for some learned consideration that maybe H.G. Wells was half right in his idea about time travel.   Where his traveler made a machine that took him first backward, and then forward in time, and then ultimately back, maybe the whimsical part of that is that it overlooks that man’s body is a thing, and our body does act as a limiting factor to certain things.    

We cannot go back in age.  We cannot go back to being a baby and into our mother’s womb.  Nor (at our present physical condition) do we have the ability to flap our appendages fast enough nor have the mass or feathers, to produce the lift required to fly as a bird.

But maybe there is a part of man that is without limitations.  And if time is simply a measurement of points on a plane of existence, perhaps it is possible to freely, outside the body, go from one point on that plane to another except not always forward?  As I said in the beginning of this paper, I am not a scientist.   And I’ve only recently learned that scientific “purists” deny that there is anything spiritual about man, but that mankind is simply biologic and a product of some evolutionary process that made us simply more advanced goo and gob than a lizard.   I guess those same purists must say that emotions are illusory?   I don’t know.   So I suppose for those that would think me just an organic biologic, accumulation of proteins and waters, they would not be able to step outside their orthodoxy to consider my own experience.   

But I learned many years ago, that a man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument.   

And in my own life experience, some (not myself) would say that I have been gifted with an extra sense of being included in a conversations or experiences, in other places other than my physical location.    The easiest example is in my continued experience of calling someone to confirm something that they had just been thinking or speaking with another about.   I often times hurt emotionally when I am “knowing” that someone is saying some about me unflattering, even to the point of seeing in my mind the people having the conversation.    So what is that?  Half of Wellsian time travel?   Am I moving back and forth between points on a level and present time plane?   If that is possible, why wouldn’t it be possible for someone to go backward to a point or forward even?

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a strong advocate of the 2nd Amendment and free speech.   But that advocacy does still have limits.  I do not believe, for instance, that a person has the right to stand up in the middle of a dark auditorium and yell "Fire".   While I do believe that I should have a right to say I simply don't like someone, or some group, for any reason I might have, I don't believe I have a right to express that dislike in threats or narratives of harm toward that person or group.   

I have also been known to support certain types of punishment that "fit the crime" regardless of whether it might be considered unusual.   I.e. for digital crimes of hacking someone's computer, just a simple sentencing of having a number of fingers removed corresponding to the seriousness of the crime, or number of hacks. In the case of rapists I'd have no issue whatsoever with chemical castration.   For crimes like the inhumane mass shootings this week, the perpetrator should know that punishment they will most certainly receive will be inhumane as possible and in a public format for any others who contemplate such things to know. 

In this morning's posting from Jim Geraghty, I read an interesting form of punishment for those who have supported, and encouraged, the efforts of the shooters this weekend in El Paso and Dayton.   

Shoehorning Multiple-Causation Shootings into Single-Cause Narratives

By Jim Geraghty National Review Magazine August 5, 2019

On Saturday afternoon, after the El Paso shooting but before the Dayton shooting, New York Daily News opinion editor Josh Greenman observed, “It’s never just guns. It’s never just mental health. It’s never just radical ideology. It’s never just sad manhood. It’s almost always a toxic combination.”

We keep hearing the same kinds of anecdotes after a mass shooting. The details change, but the gist is the same. Often but not always, there’s no father in the home. Often but not always, the shooter has few or no friends and nothing resembling a real support network. Often but not always, the shooter is unemployed or barely employed. Often but not always, the shooter has some mental-health issue, sometimes formally diagnosed, sometimes not. Often but not always, the shooter played violent video games. Often but not always, the shooter was active on extremist or Columbine-focused chat boards or had a noticeable interest in or obsession with previous mass shootings. Often but not always, the shooter has gotten in trouble in school or has been kicked out of school.

And then in every single case, when the shooter leaves some sort of message, it reveals he has convinced himself that he is the real victim of powerful forces beyond his control, and that the only remaining option he sees for defiance is shooting as many random people as possible in a public place. And in every single case, the shooter manages to get his hands on a gun — sometimes legally purchasing them, sometimes stealing them or taking them from someone else.

Only a handful of those who play violent video games become mass shooters, and the same is true for those without a father in the home, loners, the unemployed or under-employed, those with mental-health issues, those with discipline issues at school, or gun owners. But if enough of those traits are found in the same individual, we have a formula for trouble.

In the coming days, you’re going to hear a lot of fruitless arguments about which ideological side is responsible for these monsters.

The El Paso shooter’s manifesto describes America being taken over by “unchecked corporations,” “invaders who have close to the highest birthrate in America,” and “our lifestyle is destroying the environment of this country,” and describes his attack as “a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

The Dayton shooter’s social media history described himself as, “he/him / anime fan / metalhead / leftist / i’m going to hell and i’m not coming back.” He wrote on Twitter that he would happily vote for Democrat Elizabeth Warren, praised Satan, was upset about the 2016 presidential election results, and added, “I want socialism, and i’ll [sic] not wait for the idiots to finally come round to understanding.”

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Then again, his expression of support for Warren seems pretty immaterial in assessing his character compared to this:

Dayton 24/7 Now spoke with other classmates of [the shooter] who said he was expelled from school after officials found a notebook where he reportedly wrote a list of people who he wanted to rape, kill and skin their bodies. The classmate we spoke with said Betts was supposed to write a letter of apology to the people on the list. After being expelled, Betts was allowed back to school, according to the classmate.

(Really? This is how schools are handling a student who threatens to rape, kill, and skin the bodies of other students? Re-admittance after a letter of apology? How safe would you feel sending your children to that school knowing they handled this kind of a threat this way?)

The ideological leanings of the shooters don’t matter nearly as much as their conclusion that they are justified in trying to kill lots and lots of people. You’re free to believe whatever kooky stuff you want; you’re not allowed to conclude that your kooky beliefs justify violence to others.

Over the weekend, Twitter commentator Kilgore Trout offered an extreme option: Authorities can determine who posts on boards that celebrate mass shootings or troll about them, and they should charge them as accessories to the crime. (Profanity warning at the link; the term for posting memes and other messages celebrating, promoting, and encouraging mass shooters is a four-letter word.) Cleaning up his language a bit, his recommendation is. . .

You’re not going to fix the problem one white nationalist ****poster at a time. their networks need to be destroyed by putting them in constant fear that their next ****post body count meme is going to be the one that sends the feds to their door. Yes, this is a government action deliberately designed to suppress speech, and no, slyly conspiring to commit acts of terror in broad daylight on 8chan is not protected speech after the acts of terror are no longer hypotheticals. This is what we’d advocate for if ISIS set up shop in America and created a bunch of one-man splinter cells ready to activate at any moment. No one would bat an eye at arresting the accomplices – it’s just less recognizable as white nationalist ****posting. if you want to share ****posts about shooting the [offensive term for Latinos] and gassing the Jews, go right ahead, no one’s stopping you. But if one of your ****post buddies you go back and forth with on 8chan then goes out and does it, yeah, you should be good and[in deep trouble].

Earlier this year, Michelle Carter was sentenced to 15 months in jail for involuntary manslaughter charges, brought after she sent “hundreds” of texts to her boyfriend encouraging him to kill himself. She was 17 when her 18-year-old boyfriend killed himself through carbon monoxide poisoning.

In this particular case, an effort to shut down the message boards may be moot: “A San Francisco-based Web company announced Sunday it would no longer provide services to 8chan, a website notorious for hosting lawless message boards where manifestos have appeared before mass shootings.” Those who want to post and read these sorts of messages will probably find some other one.

I find the idea of pressing charges against those who encourage mass shootings uncomfortably appealing, even though it amounts to the government arresting people and charging them with crimes for what they write on the Internet. Maybe this just reflects an exhaustion with “trolling” culture. If you spend a significant amount of time online — particularly on Twitter — you’ve probably put up with more abuse than your ever imagined, often racist or anti-Semitic and more than vaguely threatening. The vast majority of us think of ourselves as a First Amendment supporters, but perhaps you can only be sent “Trump’s gonna put you in the ovens” memes so many times before you start thinking, “to hell with this, if this guy sending me this message is such a big fan of fascism, let’s have the government throw his butt in jail for what he posts and see if he likes it so much then.”

Some folks hoped that after these stomach-turning abominable terrorist acts, President Trump would “call out white supremacist terrorism by name. He needs to take a break from Twitter trolling for several days at least. We need unifying, determined, presidential leadership from him.”

This morning, Trump offered to support universal background checks if they’re attached to immigration reform.

The president also contended that the shooters were driven by outrage over news coverage, and that it was the responsibility of the media to watch what it says, lest it drive someone to commit mass murder in the name of stopping an invasion by immigrants: “The Media has a big responsibility to life and safety in our Country. Fake News has contributed greatly to the anger and rage that has built up over many years. News coverage has got to start being fair, balanced and unbiased, or these terrible problems will only get worse!”

It is August 2019. I think it’s long overdue for people to give up on the hope that Donald Trump is going to become a different person or act differently than he has before.   

As the president attempts to negotiate his preferred immigration policies in exchange for “background checks,” it is worth recalling that neither of these shooters had a criminal record that barred them from purchasing firearms. We can fairly ask whether one of the shooter’s threats to rape, kill, and wear the skin of his high school classmates should have generated some sort of criminal charge or an involuntary stay at a mental health facility that would have barred him from legally purchasing a firearm.

A letter to America from Osama Bin Laden

On June 1, 2016, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a letter written by Osama bin Laden to the American people that was found in his compound in Abbottabad. The letter is undated but appears to have been written early in Barack Obama’s presidency. Despite the letter’s surprising content, reporting about the letter never really broke through the endless news cycle.

The translated version makes it sound like bin Laden followed American political debates quite closely and had started to rewrite his arguments to make them more persuasive to Americans, or at least some groups of Americans.  

To the American people, Peace be upon those who follow the righteous track. Hereafter, The subject of my talk to you is the overwhelming control of capital (Var.: money) and its effect on the ongoing war between us. I direct my talk specifically to those who support real change, especially the youth.

Your current president [Obama] warns you now about the enormity of capital control and it has a cycle whereby it devours humanity when it is devoid of the precepts of God’s law (Shari’a). The tyranny of the control of capital by large companies has harmed your economy, as it did ours, and that was my motivation for this talk.  Tens of millions of you are below the poverty line, millions have lost their homes, and millions have lost their jobs to mark the highest average unemployment in 60 years. Your financial system in its totality was about to collapse within 48 hours had not the administration reverted to using taxpayer’s money to rescue the vultures by using the assets of the victims…

Whoever enters the White House, even with good intentions to safeguard the peoples’ interest, is no more than a train operator. His only task is to keep the train on the tracks that are laid down by the lobbyists in New York and Washington to serve their interests first, even if it is counter to your security and economy. Any president who tries to move the train from the lobbyist’s tracks to a track for the American people’s interests will confront very strong opposition and pressures from the lobbyists.