Time part 2

Time is the ability for things (matter and energy) to move, it is all the forms of energy that make things move, it is gravity, momentum, heat, radiation (light, radiation), mechanical energy (coiled springs and the like), chemical energy…think about it. If all these energies were to stop time would stop, many scientists have stated that there is no reason that time cannot go “backwards” and this is true all the forces of energy moving everything in the present “future” direction could be turned around and have them go back, but really is it realistic to stop the earth and make it turn the other way round? or the sun? the planets? or the stars?  

To really make time go backward it would literally take all the energy in the universe.

We perceive the “flow” of time as we experience the movement of all the “things” (matter and energy) around us. I see ourselves as stationary in a flowing river or a wind storm, people, events and things drift by us for a while only to perhaps leave and perhaps come back again. We are stationary in the present, we meet each other in the present, we experience events in the present. We’ve learned from past events how to predict the future (using the laws of physics that matter and energy must abide by) at least well enough to get along in our world. Of course there is no predicting some things…like the action and reaction of people. 

So a picture of time might look something like Dorothy’s house in the wizard of Oz when it was picked up by the cyclone and carried to the land of Oz. But we are not in a house and alone seeing people, places, things and events coming and going around us as we fly through life.  

Time for us stops if we die, all the futures…events and interactions we could have experienced would come to an end. Our experience in the physical world would be over and only our experience outside of the physical world, some might call spiritual world would remain.  

On Time

Let’s try a thought experiment and create an incredibly simple universe. This universe is a closed universe consisting of nothing but a board with squares marked on it and a token and we are in total control. The token starts in one corner of the board and (over time) moves toward the center (forward motion of time). This is our (very limited universe) and we have control over time. After 4 time segments the token has moved 4 squares. At any given point or segment in time how many tokens is there?…one.

Now let’s move time backwards, one segment at a time until T=0 equals T=*0…at any given point or segment in time how many tokens are there?…one. Is there any difference between T=0 and T=*0? It is the exact same board, the exact same token in the exact same position, in this simple universe it is as if no “time” has passed.

But what happened?... As time passed the token “moved”...time is the ability for things (matter and energy) to move. In order to “stop” time all energy must be stopped or frozen so that things cannot move and give us the impression of the passage of time. 

In our closed board and token universe, if the token never moves neither does time. The same is true for our more complicated world. If all movement stopped, if all the different kinds of energy were stopped, nothing would move and time would “stop”. 

To go back in time in our universe we would have to “move” everything backwards, reverse the forces of energy acting on everything and put everything back the way it was at the point in time we are trying to get to. It sounds pretty ridiculous and it is. So let’s try the alternative that some scientists propose.

The thought is that there at every instance that there are multiple futures and it is possible to go back in time and see for ourselves…Let’s try it with our board and token closed universe. We start at T=0 and go thru the same exercise but now our token meets itself.

What happened here? We had a closed universe but now out of no-where the amount of matter (tokens) in the universe doubled. 

But it doesn’t end there! Each moment in time is a possible past that we can go back to visit. Now our universe begins to look like this…

Now our supposedly closed universe in only four segments has five times as much matter in it. But time is infinitely divisible, so in reality there are now an infinite number of tokens in our supposedly closed universe. 

If this were the way the universe really is then we couldn’t backup without bumping into ourselves. 

Conclusion #1, Time as a dimension doesn’t exist, Einstein was able to treat time as a dimension to solve mathematical problems but that doesn’t prove the existence of time as a dimension or make it a dimension. 

Conclusion #2, a good definition of time is "the method by which people can keep track of the movement of things in the present" (by comparing the movement of some things, like clocks, against other things). 

The idea of time not as a reality but as a measure or concept was well known to the ancient Greeks (Antiphon, Parmenides and others) and Buddhist’s have thought of time as an illusion for thousands of years. Newton confused the concept of time by identifying it as an “absolute” and Einstein’s successful use of time as a dimension to solve physics problems ensured that the concept of time as a dimension will be a problem long into the future. 

Time travel is an interesting fantasy and makes for great movies but time travel is only one way…forward, even if moving in a backward direction. :)

(Note, there is a true “force” of time (not dimension) but it deals with decay of sub atomic particles. But that is another story).

Being

What makes an individual (being) unique is a combination of knowledge, experiences and body. Given the same knowledge, the same experiences and the same body, any two persons would be the same. This has significant and dramatic consequences. It means that all people are the same. Each person if born into another person’s body, and having the same experiences, and gaining the same knowledge, would be that other person. This means that one person looking into the eyes of another person, should be able to see themselves. Had it not been for fate or the act of some divine being, each person could have been the other. The adage that People should treat each other as they would treat themselves gains new relevance because all beings really are the same.

Dimensions

To put together a universe (or anything else) you need building blocks, the most basic of which are dimensions. How many dimensions are needed depends on who you ask. Some might say seven; others would say that it cannot be done without twenty-seven. The preferred number is of course the lowest number that gets the job done, and this (hopefully) is the number that corresponds to reality.

There are the common dimensions that we deal with every day. We know them as “3D” or length, width, and breadth and most add a forth dimension time. There have been many debates about whether time is a dimension or not. To judge whether time is a dimension or not, we must first set some criteria for our definition of a dimension.

True dimensions are interchangeable, length is interchangeable with height and width. All that needs to be done is change the orientation and there you have another length. No matter what orientation is chosen time does not change into length.

Dimensions can be measured often, repeatedly if desired. We can measure time, but once we have measured an event we cannot measure the same event again. For example, we can measure the length of a yard stick repeatedly, but we cannot measure the length of time of an Olympic race but once. We can run the race again, but for any given race we can only measure it once. Of course we can make a film or video recording of the event, but we would then be measuring the length of the recording on a tape, not the event itself.

 
Dimensions have a connection with one another. Our 3D world meets at right angles with one another and at any given point contacts or intersects each of the other dimensions. Time coexists with 3D, but 3D is oblivious to time. Nowhere can time be found to intersect or to meet with 3D.
Dimensions can be traveled in, forward, and back. There is no place in 3D that we can go, travel, or stand still (under normal circumstances ) that influences time. Try as we may, time has proven itself impossible to travel forward and backward in. There is no way to travel in time the same way we travel in 3D. Time treads on oblivious to what is going on in 3D.

Given these definitions of a dimension, time looses out.

Knowledge

There are different kinds of knowledge, knowledge is and encompasses a whole world to explore in the universe of thought. There is knowledge gained from books which is limited to a linear presentation (straight line, word after word) and is shaded and colored by linguistics (the meanings of words and their presentation). Book knowledge and written knowledge is like a string which can be colored, twisted, turned, manipulated and is frequently misunderstood. We are limited greatly in using the written form of communication, however with patience and understanding and cooperation we can take this string and knit it into objects, thoughts, feelings, connections, friends, groups, actions, creations, beauty, understanding, peace, love… 

Truth

Truth is relative; it is dependent on the individual and their perspective. Truth is like the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (being the spectrum of light off of water droplets in the air as you move closer it will change position or disappear) those seeking an ultimate truth are either leprechauns or the poor fools looking for pots of gold. It is far better to understand the relativeness of truth and respect it in other people; each person has a truth for themselves and is a possession that should not be robbed from them.

On Publishing

There are many tens of thousands of writers, many of them have books. I’m one of them, I thought I had a great book until I tried to get someone to take notice. Then I discovered that I was one among a vast ocean of writers trying to get someone to notice their work. 
After failing to get a publisher to respond to my requests (probably far few attempts) I researched the publishing business. 

The numbers of books writers are trying to get published far out numbers the capacity of the publishing companies to get them into print. This is not the fault of the publishers but a fact of life. Publishers all have a finite capacity; some publish hundreds of titles and have many divisions. Most publish much fewer, all publishers have to balance what they publish, say 10 novels 3 cook books, 5 nonfiction, 5 photo collections…you get the idea, they have a menu or shopping list that they work from. 

The publishers have a limited printing and marketing budget and have to choose carefully which titles to accept. Choosing which titles to accept may be influenced by what titles they already have accepted, for example the publisher would want to compete against themselves by publishing three or four novels around the same theme. And a publisher may have agreements with already published authors that they must honor. This results in many excellent books being turned away, not because the book is bad but because they just don’t have room on the menu or selection being offered by the publisher that year. 

Another consideration deals with gambling on the market. The publisher needs to predict what will be popular and guess how many books to print and when and how much to spend on marketing. It is a very risky business for the publisher and that risk gets put off onto the author, by way of how much the author gets in royalties. Using very rough numbers that vary year to year and publisher to publisher only 10% of the books that a publisher publishes makes any money. It is the money from the successful books that must pay for the money lost on the 90% of the books that lose money. When you consider that maybe only 1 percent or less of the books some publishers are offered by writers get sent to the printing presses to begin with it really begins to look dismal for the thousands of authors out there in the world. 

What are the writer’s options, there are vanity publishers or publishers that take really no risk and charge the author the cost of editing, typeset, printing and marketing. There are subsidiary publishers or publishers that share the above costs with the author and there are others that vary in the ways that they get around these obstacles.  

Then there are literary agents, which act as an intermediary between the publisher and the author. They help with editing, marketing keep track of publishers and what they need and when, literary agents can be a god send. They can help the author turn a lemon into a cherry, but agents are yet another limited resource and sometimes difficult to catch the notice and of course will want a portion of the earnings. 

Self publishing is a huge amount of work I’ve probably spent at least as much time publishing my own books as I have spent in writing them. There is so much to learn, typeset, fonts, layout, cover design, printing, pricing, all these things can impact each other and have to be worked out then sent to a printer. If you thought it ended when you have printed books, you’re wrong. Then comes distribution and marketing, publishers can spend more on distribution and marketing than on editing, typeset, layout and all the rest. It’s no wonder that often times the author only gets 10% royalties (sometimes on the net price and not the gross), a beginning author may only get much less than a dollar for a ten dollar retail book. And unless it’s a best seller the book might only sell few thousand copies. 

Now that I’ve got everyone depressed and I’m on the verge of being banned from the writing groups I’m member of, there is hope. Of course everyone thinks that their book is that 1 in 100 (or 1000) that will make it big and I hope you’re right. But for the rest of us first let me say this, I feel a true writer must write because they love it and would write even if their work never gets published. These are the writers I feel a special bond with. Next the good news, technology has now made it extremely easy to get into print and into a distribution system (some more limited than others). There are now companies that work with writers who want to self publish. These new companies exploit an on demand print system where no inventory is kept and each book is printed as it is ordered. This is relatively new to publishing and how I published my books. To find one do an internet search on “on demand book publishing” and you’ll find a dozen or more companies out there. They will vary but most will rely on the author doing most of the work, some will help but not for free. The company I chose to work with allowed me to have my own imprint, so my publishing company is the “publisher” I had to do my own editing, copy right, ISBN, cover design, layout, font selection, type set, and submit a high resolution pdf file that would get printed exactly how I created it. For me it was almost a dream come true, I had total control of everything and it cost me very little out of pocket. That said, my books have more type-oh’s and grammar problems than I care to admit. When I wrote them I didn’t have the editorial help or advice that I should have had, now I’m working on revisions where I plan on doubling the content of each and on the second try really turning out a fine product. It is part of learning the business. 

Back to publishing, now I’ve got books and they’re available on amazon.com ((shameless plug), feel free to buy them, please) but how do you get people to buy them? Marketing…marketing is becoming complicated, expensive, unpredictable and difficult. There are many books written on internet marketing and I won’t attempt to cover it all here, (I’m not an expert, yet). But a big part of it is getting acquainted with your peers, networking, learning and putting much work into it. I’ve added all this part of the business to my overall plan, I’ve learned to enjoy all the parts of this process so far and am beginning to think about publishing other people’s books. It might turn out to be a quicker way to generate income than from the books I’ve already written and published. Then with income coming in from helping other people that I can identify with, I’ll be able to get back to writing. Self publishing is a sure way of keeping you from writing, it is making a deal with the men in grey from Michael Ende's Momo.