Koichiro Matsuno (kmatsuno@vos.nagaokaut.ac.jp)
Mon, 29 Nov 1999 15:03:02 +0900
Dear Matti, Hitoshi, Robert, Stephen & All
At 21:35 on 28 Nov 99, Matti Pitkanen <matpitka@pcu.helsinki.fi> wrote:
>One must simply give up the idea about physics
>as evolution for geometry of single time=constant snapshot.
> In quantum jump between quantum histories picture (effectively
>quantum jumps between superpositions of macroscopically equivalent
>spacetimes) grandfather paradox disappears.
This is an important point, no doubt about it. The remaining problem must
be how to implement this picture in a nittygritty manner down to the earth.
>Just the keyworkds: classical nondeterminism
>of Kaehler action; cognitive and material spacetime sheets,
>localization in zero modes; psychological time as center of mass
>time coordinate for cognitive spacetime sheet and as zero mode:
>average increase of psychological time by 10^4 Planck times per
>quantum jump.
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.
In order to make any jump, the concerned party must make a decision or a
choice. That is quite concrete. Quantum mechanics is generous in allowing
whatever concretization by the name of measurement, but it is still not
specific enough about how such concretization could proceed in reality. A
supreme example of concretization is ticktocking of a clock. (A cesium clock
the physicist has invented is fine in itself. However, if the clock is left
unattended by the physicist who is supposed to do the job of exciting the
cesium atom to its excited state all through the time, no ticktocking.) The
underlying issue is operation and synchronization in the set of nested
interacting local clocks in which each clock is part of the others while
constantly reading and moving the others. Actually, any pair of interacting
bodies can serve as a clock to a third party since the clock is something
displaying a relative movement toward somebody else nearby. The act of
reading one clock in the form of an interaction constantly generates an
impetus for moving other clocks in the neighborhood. In this picture, time
is taken to be an attribute of the act of that somebody reading the clock.
Time conceived in this way is locally relational and not absolute in the
Newtonian sense.
However, if we fail in coming up with time that we can share among us, it
would be just a waste of time to muse on time. One of the loopholes I can
think of for escaping this stalemate might be to wishfully conceive of a
most encompassing clock out of the nebula of the nested local clocks, such
that it can be referred to by any others inside but it does not react upon
itself accordingly. The most encompassing clock, if conceivable, can be
referred to by any of the local clocks as a common reference. The
encompassing clock is a material system that can act upon or can be read out
by others but does not react upon itself in return. Of course, this must be
a very funny system.
Nonetheless, there seems to be at least one clue for giving this funny
story a legitimate treatment. Think about a heat sink conceived within
thermodynamics. The heat sink is something that can act upon others but does
not react upon itself accordingly. Heat sinks are heat sinks whatever they
may absorb. If one can associate the most encompassing clock with a heat
sink, there might be a possibility of imagining a common time to be referred
to and read by each of the nested local clocks in the nebula. This has been
a scenario of how to come up with a common time shared by all of the local
participants without recourse to Newtonian absolute time. If one wants to
talk about time in quantum mechanics without relying upon Newtonian time,
thermodynamics equipped with heat sinks must constitute its supporting
infra-structure. Of course, the fate of this funny scenario must be upon
what can we expect under the name of heat sinks in thermodynamics.
Cheers,
Koichiro
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