[Paper Review] On the Nature of Time

Mario Radovan|arXiv (Cornell University)|Sep 2, 2015

History and Developments in Astronomy4 citations

TL;DR

This paper argues that time is not a fundamental feature of physical reality but an abstract construct created by the human mind to measure change. Drawing on philosophical analysis and reinterpretation of physical formalism, it contends that change is ontologically primary, and time—while useful as a measure of change—is an epistemological tool, not a physical entity, thus resolving apparent paradoxes in relativity and quantum mechanics by distinguishing physical reality from linguistic and formal descriptions.

ABSTRACT

The paper puts forward a conceptual framework in which the phenomenon of time can be presented and discussed in a proper way. We argue that change is ontologically and epistemologically a more basic phenomenon than time. Time is an abstract entity created by the human mind on the basis of the experience of change. Physical reality is a process of ceaseless becoming and vanishing; time is not a part of that process. Time is the abstract bank in relation to which we measure the intensity and amount of the flow (change) of physical reality. We must differentiate physical reality from abstract entities (language) by means of which we speak about this reality. It is necessary to differentiate a formal description (formulas) from its interpretation: a correct formal description can be interpreted in a logically inconsistent and factually wrong way. We argue that the discourse about the relativity of time joins (mixes) physical reality and language, and gives an inconsistent interpretation of correct formulas. Regarding the future of time, it has been said that physicists are divided between two options: (1) to pin down a "master time", as a measure of change of physical reality, and (2) to proclaim time "out of existence". We argue that both options must be adopted, because time is (1) a measure of change, created by the human mind, (2) and time is an abstract entity that does not exist in physical reality.

Motivation & Objective

• To challenge the conventional view of time as a fundamental physical dimension.
• To argue that change is more ontologically and epistemologically fundamental than time.
• To clarify the distinction between physical reality and the abstract language used to describe it.
• To resolve interpretive inconsistencies in relativity and quantum mechanics by separating formalism from interpretation.
• To advocate for a dual perspective: time as a mental measure of change and as an abstract entity not existing in physical reality.

Proposed method

• Conceptual analysis of the nature of change and its relationship to time.
• Differentiation between physical reality (process of becoming) and abstract representations (language, formalism).
• Critique of interpretations that conflate physical reality with mathematical formalism.
• Reinterpretation of relativistic and quantum mechanical formulas by emphasizing their formal structure versus their physical meaning.
• Use of philosophical reasoning to argue that time is a human-constructed measure, not a component of physical processes.
• Application of the distinction between formal description and interpretation to resolve paradoxes in time-related physics.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 What is the ontological status of time in physical reality?
• RQ2 Why do interpretations of relativity and quantum mechanics lead to contradictions about time?
• RQ3 How can we distinguish between physical reality and the abstract language used to describe it?
• RQ4 Can time be understood as a measure of change rather than a fundamental dimension?
• RQ5 What role does human cognition play in the conceptualization of time?

Key findings

• Time is not a physical entity but an abstract construct created by the human mind to quantify the flow of change.
• Physical reality is fundamentally a process of ceaseless becoming and vanishing, not a static block universe.
• The experience of change is ontologically prior to the concept of time.
• Mixing physical reality with linguistic or formal descriptions leads to logically inconsistent interpretations of correct equations.
• The distinction between formal description and interpretation resolves apparent contradictions in relativity and quantum mechanics.
• Both the 'master time' and 'time out of existence' views are valid in their respective domains: time as a measure (pragmatic) and time as non-existent (ontological).