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#2160 by Mulletron on 14 Oct, 2017 22:07
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Integrate the product of the energy density and the adjacent element of the surface area over the whole inner surface. The NET result will be the force. Is it zero? If the walls are perfectly conducting, it should be. However, since there are asymmetrical non-zero losses in the warm copper, maybe not.
Alright, but how would that be inherently better than the collimated Photon Rocket?
Because a gravitational acceleration is created which is directly proportional to the time derivative of the power dissipation.
What exactly is being dissipated. This sounds a lot like saying gravity exists because of increasing entropy or energy disipation via matter.
I am inclined to think that the energy dissipation is with regards to the vacuum energy. That is the vacuum loses energy when acting on matter in free-fall. So energy conservation free falling matter accelerates and gains energy and the vacuum loses energy.
(Not sure how this fits in but when that matter impacts the planet surface it loses its kinetic energy to entropy or thermal aspects much of which can escape the planets surface and travels into the solar system away from the planet. )
However, this energy loss of the vacuum seems permanent while the matter is gathered, (reducing the dance of the matter in equilibrium with it) the more matter is gathered. If energy is given to the matter to allow it to escape the gravity well, the well dissipates, and the matter separated speeds up in time. Almost like the separation of the matter allows the energy to be given back to the vacuum. (Red shift of light escaping a gravity well is light giving some of its energy to the vacuum?)
It seems tempting to view the vacuum in a gravity well as being devoid of energy similar to the Casimir force where plates are attracted via an energy defecit between them. However, this Casimir force is supposed to be different from gravity is it not?
So how does this figure into your power dissipation? Is it power being dissipated from the vacuum, where this extra energy seems to be appearing via propellant-less acceleration? So if we keep harvesting it, creating our own black hole. Basically devoiding the vacuum of its energy? Dissipating the vacuum?
Dissipation of the internal energy of the EMdrive. Reducing its mass. Its mass isn't constant. Neither is its momentum. The way I'm thinking now is that the velocity is remaining constant, and it's the mass and the momentum that's changing. I'll see if that holds up over the course of a lot of thinking.
The wavelength spreading haunts me. I see the answer right in front of me. I've read about this, I've studied it, I've seen it in different contexts*, and yet it eludes me.
* http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42978.msg1735887#msg1735887
Why do I think that I need to accelerate in order to travel to the stars? I don't. I can get there by friction too. I can slow down in a particular direction and I can still go to places unseen. If that doesn't make any sense, research about how we all travel through spacetime at c. If I slow my passage through time, I increase my passage through space.
I'm beginning to think that the EMdrive isn't translationally invariant or temporally invariant, longitudinally. It is rotationally invariant as seen when spinning the drive around its longitudinal axis.
I see a contradiction in my post, and it is probably related to the mass defect that I believe must be there, so I know I'm not understanding yet.
Just for clarification, I'm treating the electromagnetic waves as the internal forces, and I'm treating the cavity losses as the external forces. The resultant is the partially standing wave.
I do understand how the unequal losses at each end set up the unequal amplitudes (and I showed the math for how that happens in a slide) of the counterpropagating waves, and which the sum of the two is a partial standing wave. That's internal and external forces at play. It conserves momentum.
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#2161 by sanman on 15 Oct, 2017 01:23
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I'm beginning to think that the EMdrive isn't translationally invariant or temporally invariant, longitudinally. It is rotationally invariant as seen when spinning the drive around its longitudinal axis.
That's an interesting idea - what if you were to spin the EMdrive around its longitudinal axis (since it is axisymmetric) - what would be the result of doing that?
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#2162 by Mulletron on 15 Oct, 2017 02:02
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I'm beginning to think that the EMdrive isn't translationally invariant or temporally invariant, longitudinally. It is rotationally invariant as seen when spinning the drive around its longitudinal axis.
That's an interesting idea - what if you were to spin the EMdrive around its longitudinal axis (since it is axisymmetric) - what would be the result of doing that?
Nothing different. -
#2163 by sanman on 15 Oct, 2017 02:21
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Because a gravitational acceleration is created which is directly proportional to the time derivative of the power dissipation.
So the longer that field takes to dissipate without further power input into the cavity, the more propulsive this thing is?
No, it's a time derivative (a rate), not an integral. The higher the rate of change in power, the greater the acceleration, and thrust.
So how do you maintain the rate of change in the power, in order to produce/sustain the acceleration?
You can't just keep jacking up the power forever - presumably that's just happening at startup, and then after that your power feed level is steady. Can you just cycle the power? If the rate of change of power is negative (ie. power level is dropping) then is the thrust or acceleration negative?
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#2164 by WarpTech on 15 Oct, 2017 02:27
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Because a gravitational acceleration is created which is directly proportional to the time derivative of the power dissipation.
So the longer that field takes to dissipate without further power input into the cavity, the more propulsive this thing is?
No, it's a time derivative (a rate), not an integral. The higher the rate of change in power, the greater the acceleration, and thrust.
So how do you maintain the rate of change in the power, in order to produce/sustain the acceleration?
You can't just keep jacking up the power forever - presumably that's just happening at startup, and then after that your power feed level is steady. Can you just cycle the power? If the rate of change of power is negative (ie. power level is dropping) then is the thrust or acceleration negative?
All good questions. I suggest you read up on Dr. Rodal's paper and Prof. Tajmar's paper on the MEGA Drive. All the math and explanations are there, on how to make a thruster.
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#2165 by sanman on 15 Oct, 2017 03:51
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There are ultra-short pulse lasers, like Femtosecond-pulse Lasers. There are even long-wave versions of these. If this short-pulsed approach were taken using microwaves, then could that provide the high rate of change in power to give better acceleration?
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7442760/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrashort_pulse
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#2166 by Mulletron on 15 Oct, 2017 04:04
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There are ultra-short pulse lasers, like Femtosecond-pulse Lasers. There are even long-wave versions of these. If this short-pulsed approach were taken using microwaves, then could that provide the high rate of change in power to give better acceleration?
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7442760/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrashort_pulse
Like chirped pulse amplification? I made this post a month after I found some insight on YouTube (which I talked about in a recently moderated post).
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=41732.msg1653933#msg1653933 -
#2167 by Mulletron on 15 Oct, 2017 14:26
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This is an interesting visual.
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#2168 by sanman on 15 Oct, 2017 14:43
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Why do I think that I need to accelerate in order to travel to the stars? I don't. I can get there by friction too. I can slow down in a particular direction and I can still go to places unseen. If that doesn't make any sense, research about how we all travel through spacetime at c. If I slow my passage through time, I increase my passage through space.
I'm beginning to think that the EMdrive isn't translationally invariant or temporally invariant, longitudinally. It is rotationally invariant as seen when spinning the drive around its longitudinal axis.
I really think that Time is just a non-physical construct imagined by us, and that Entropy is the more representative and more physically meaningful concept. Time simply marks the changes in Entropy, and progression of Time is really just progression of Entropy. Relativistic effects on Time are actually just relativistic effects on Entropy and its rate of change. We define all Observation through our own mental process of Observation, which is simply based on a a sequence of Entropy-correlated states.
So when you say "if I slow my passage in time, then..." - I'd argue that it's better to think in terms of "if I slow my Entropy changes, then..." - ie. it's better to re-think and re-work everything temporally-related in terms of entropy instead.
Not trying to be metaphysical or philosphical here, just going with Occam's Razor. (It's actually Time which is metaphysical, while Entropy is physical) -
#2169 by dustinthewind on 15 Oct, 2017 15:39
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Integrate the product of the energy density and the adjacent element of the surface area over the whole inner surface. The NET result will be the force. Is it zero? If the walls are perfectly conducting, it should be. However, since there are asymmetrical non-zero losses in the warm copper, maybe not.
Alright, but how would that be inherently better than the collimated Photon Rocket?
Because a gravitational acceleration is created which is directly proportional to the time derivative of the power dissipation.
What exactly is being dissipated. This sounds a lot like saying gravity exists because of increasing entropy or energy disipation via matter.
I am inclined to think that the energy dissipation is with regards to the vacuum energy. That is the vacuum loses energy when acting on matter in free-fall. So energy conservation free falling matter accelerates and gains energy and the vacuum loses energy.
(Not sure how this fits in but when that matter impacts the planet surface it loses its kinetic energy to entropy or thermal aspects much of which can escape the planets surface and travels into the solar system away from the planet. )
However, this energy loss of the vacuum seems permanent while the matter is gathered, (reducing the dance of the matter in equilibrium with it) the more matter is gathered. If energy is given to the matter to allow it to escape the gravity well, the well dissipates, and the matter separated speeds up in time. Almost like the separation of the matter allows the energy to be given back to the vacuum. (Red shift of light escaping a gravity well is light giving some of its energy to the vacuum?)
It seems tempting to view the vacuum in a gravity well as being devoid of energy similar to the Casimir force where plates are attracted via an energy defecit between them. However, this Casimir force is supposed to be different from gravity is it not?
So how does this figure into your power dissipation? Is it power being dissipated from the vacuum, where this extra energy seems to be appearing via propellant-less acceleration? So if we keep harvesting it, creating our own black hole. Basically devoiding the vacuum of its energy? Dissipating the vacuum?
Dissipation of the internal energy of the EMdrive. Reducing its mass. Its mass isn't constant. Neither is its momentum. The way I'm thinking now is that the velocity is remaining constant, and it's the mass and the momentum that's changing. I'll see if that holds up over the course of a lot of thinking.
The wavelength spreading haunts me. I see the answer right in front of me. I've read about this, I've studied it, I've seen it in different contexts*, and yet it eludes me.
* http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42978.msg1735887#msg1735887
Why do I think that I need to accelerate in order to travel to the stars? I don't. I can get there by friction too. I can slow down in a particular direction and I can still go to places unseen. If that doesn't make any sense, research about how we all travel through spacetime at c. If I slow my passage through time, I increase my passage through space.
I'm beginning to think that the EMdrive isn't translationally invariant or temporally invariant, longitudinally. It is rotationally invariant as seen when spinning the drive around its longitudinal axis.
I see a contradiction in my post, and it is probably related to the mass defect that I believe must be there, so I know I'm not understanding yet.
Just for clarification, I'm treating the electromagnetic waves as the internal forces, and I'm treating the cavity losses as the external forces. The resultant is the partially standing wave.
I do understand how the unequal losses at each end set up the unequal amplitudes (and I showed the math for how that happens in a slide) of the counterpropagating waves, and which the sum of the two is a partial standing wave. That's internal and external forces at play. It conserves momentum.
The lowering in amplitude being less photons. Pardon my earlier statement, I was not implying you thought photons lost frequency via conversion to heat The traveling wave part should increase with asymmetrical power loss at one end. Like throwing a superconductor on one end (or highly reflective) and something less reflective on the other. For a traveling wave in the direction you want antenna placement may be integral.
One reason it may be integral is because you would want the traveling magnetic part of the wave to act on as much of the frustum as possible before it dissipates (poor reflection). This would be similar to using eddy currents in the cavity with the traveling magnetic part to drag the EM drive along.
The trick would be to show this could be better than photon propulsion. I am inclined to think it just might be if the traveling wave some how acts on the sides of the frustum walls dragging, but if the light is truly dragging the frustum then we might have the effect that could red-shift the traveling wave via transference of energy. So the cavity would drag along in the direction of energy dissipation. I am not sure how Q factors in here.
This also reminds me of plasmon polariton resonance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_plasmon_polariton .
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42978.msg1735700#msg1735700
Manipulation of light in MIM plasmonic waveguide systemsQuote from: Manipulation of light in MIM plasmonic waveguide systems LU Hua† , WANG GuoXi†The results reveal that the cutoff frequency has a red-shift with the increase of the grating depth. Figure 6(c) depicts the group index c/vg as a function of the incident frequency at a given grating depth. It is found that the group velocity vg (≡∂ω/∂β) can be slowed down significantly when the incident frequency approaches the cutoff frequency. The quasi-period-stub structure is introduced to enlarge the slow light frequency range.
In a research paper they were noting the broadening of light pulses they were sending into what I though was asymmetrical cavities in one paper I was reading. There seems to be some cases where it is advantageous to put in dielectrics to increase the momentum of the light to better couple the light for plasmon polariton resonance. Not sure exactly of the significance. -
#2170 by meberbs on 15 Oct, 2017 16:17
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Why do I think that I need to accelerate in order to travel to the stars? I don't. I can get there by friction too. I can slow down in a particular direction and I can still go to places unseen.
You seem to be confused. Slowing down is still accelerating. The same relativistic effects happen. Also, if you are going to talk about friction, it needs to be friction on some external medium. This may sound a bit pedantic, but it is important to be clear when discussing things like this.I really think that Time is just a non-physical construct imagined by us, and that Entropy is the more representative and more physically meaningful concept. Time simply marks the changes in Entropy, and progression of Time is really just progression of Entropy. Relativistic effects on Time are actually just relativistic effects on Entropy and its rate of change. We define all Observation through our own mental process of Observation, which is simply based on a a sequence of Entropy-correlated states.
Your description quite trivially does not match reality, so it fails Occam's Razor. The only correlation between entropy and time is that as time progresses forward, the rate of change of entropy is greater than or equal to 0. As a very explicit example, if you have a block of wood sitting somewhere, entropy is increasing very slowly. If you then light the wood on fire, entropy is increasing many orders of magnitude faster, yet no clocks nearby will run at a different rate. Time is therefore quite real and distinct from entropy.
So when you say "if I slow my passage in time, then..." - I'd argue that it's better to think in terms of "if I slow my Entropy changes, then..." - ie. it's better to re-think and re-work everything temporally-related in terms of entropy instead.
Not trying to be metaphysical or philosphical here, just going with Occam's Razor. (It's actually Time which is metaphysical, while Entropy is physical)
There have been a lot of theories I have seen posted recently, and I have just skimmed most of them. Generally there are a lot of suggestions like this one for radical changes to physics, yet no attempt to even check if basic mechanics is still consistent under them. I get some people are just brainstorming or thinking out loud, but this seems to be significantly adding to the noise floor in the thread. -
#2171 by Mulletron on 15 Oct, 2017 16:23
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Why do I think that I need to accelerate in order to travel to the stars? I don't. I can get there by friction too. I can slow down in a particular direction and I can still go to places unseen.
You seem to be confused. Slowing down is still accelerating. The same relativistic effects happen. Also, if you are going to talk about friction, it needs to be friction on some external medium. This may sound a bit pedantic, but it is important to be clear when discussing things like this.
Yeah you're right, I should have said decelerate. -
#2172 by dustinthewind on 15 Oct, 2017 16:40
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...
I suppose if a traveling wave in a waveguide red-shifted, the wave guide would have to accelerate or (the circling current may accelerate, causing a change in charge or undesired modes.) I do vaguely remember some problem in waveguide mechanics (Maybe TT stated it) where they choose waveguides well beyond cutoff because of increased resistance if the waveguide is too small. Wondering if there could be an Eddy current braking effect acting on the wave guide with a traveling wave that is close to cutoff.
Maybe elongating the EM drive to be as long as possible near cutoff for a traveling wave might have some interesting results? -
#2173 by sanman on 15 Oct, 2017 17:15
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Your description quite trivially does not match reality, so it fails Occam's Razor. The only correlation between entropy and time is that as time progresses forward, the rate of change of entropy is greater than or equal to 0. As a very explicit example, if you have a block of wood sitting somewhere, entropy is increasing very slowly. If you then light the wood on fire, entropy is increasing many orders of magnitude faster, yet no clocks nearby will run at a different rate. Time is therefore quite real and distinct from entropy.
The Entropy state of our brain is what I was referring to when I said our "mental process of observation" - that is what allows us to note the passage of Time. The block of wood has its own entropy state independent of our brain - so yes, it can vary for the block of wood (catches on fire or doesn't), and that doesn't affect the entropy state of our brain.
But there is the Overall Entropy state of Our Local Universe - and the entropy state of a clock is more correlated to this Overall Entropy state of Our Local Universe than it is to the entropy state of the block of wood (burning or not), or the entropy state of our brain. That's the reason why we have devised the clock and its mechanisms to help us mark the passage of time - because our own brains are not as reliably correlated to the Overall Entropy state of Our Local Universe, but the clock and its underlying mechanisms are. One human being will feel "time flies very fast" while another will simultaneously feel "time is passing very slowly", because our brains are independent of each other, and our brains are not reliably uniform in marking the Overall Entropy state of Our Local Universe.
The forward progression of Time, as we perceive it, is because of the Arrow of Entropy, and the Arrow of Entropy is because our mental process - the thinking and remembering, the means by which we Observe - is itself a sequence of entropy-correlated states reflecting progressive increase in Entropy.
Sorry to divert conversation with discussion of Physical-vs-Metaphysical. But Time is metaphysical, while Entropy is physical. We are only able to mark time due to changes in Entropy - because we are only able to think/remember/Observe due to changes in Entropy (inside our brains). -
#2174 by RERT on 15 Oct, 2017 17:20
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From the little I understand of Warptech’s theory, dissipation is closely linked to the rate of flow of time. As mentioned a few times here, manipulating the rate of flow of time leads directly to gravitational forces by direct application of GR.
If you take this step further, one can generate an exact solution of the free space field equations which corresponds to a plane wave in the x,t plane. Remarkably *any* waveform travelling at c is a solution.
Lastly, if a symmetrical pulse passes a test particle, the test particle does *not* seem to return to its original position. The geodesic equations are non-linear and I believe induce Coriolis-like terms which cause the particle to experience a net movement.
I don’t know how you would generate such plane waves, or if that might occur in the EMdrive. -
#2175 by OnlyMe on 15 Oct, 2017 17:20
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...
Your description quite trivially does not match reality, so it fails Occam's Razor. The only correlation between entropy and time is that as time progresses forward, the rate of change of entropy is greater than or equal to 0. As a very explicit example, if you have a block of wood sitting somewhere, entropy is increasing very slowly. If you then light the wood on fire, entropy is increasing many orders of magnitude faster, yet no clocks nearby will run at a different rate. Time is therefore quite real and distinct from entropy.
...
While I agree with your intent above or at least the bulk of it, in this last.., "yet no clocks nearby will run at a different rate. Time is therefore quite real and distinct from entropy.", I question the logic.
Clocks are not time. Clocks measure/record change, within an agreed upon rate. I agree that entropy as you describe above, does not change the way clocks measure/record any rate of change... But clocks are not time. Time is a construct of the mind we use to communicate how we observe and experience change. A construct for which we use clocks as descriptive rulers. IOW Change is real and time is a construct of the mind used to communicate, the measurement, observation and experience of change.
This is most times a nit picking distinction (almost certainly in this case), because the concept is critical to our understanding of everything else, "under the sun" and to communication itself. However sometimes in these discussions the tendency to attribute to "Time" some sort of inherent independent reality, as if it were causative rather than a descriptive construct, seems to confuse at least to some extent, many of the other concepts and possible mechanisms being discussed. -
#2176 by Mulletron on 15 Oct, 2017 17:36
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There have been a lot of theories I have seen posted recently, and I have just skimmed most of them. Generally there are a lot of suggestions like this one for radical changes to physics, yet no attempt to even check if basic mechanics is still consistent under them. I get some people are just brainstorming or thinking out loud, but this seems to be significantly adding to the noise floor in the thread.
There's only one thing that an EMdrive does well (certainly not thrusting), it's getting people to think. That's why I replaced the Monolith with an EMdrive in my display pic. -
#2177 by meberbs on 15 Oct, 2017 18:42
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The Entropy state of our brain is what I was referring to when I said our "mental process of observation" - that is what allows us to note the passage of Time. The block of wood has its own entropy state independent of our brain - so yes, it can vary for the block of wood (catches on fire or doesn't), and that doesn't affect the entropy state of our brain.
The passage of time is independent of entropy. entropy cannot measure the passage of time, only the direction.But there is the Overall Entropy state of Our Local Universe - and the entropy state of a clock is more correlated to this Overall Entropy state of Our Local Universe than it is to the entropy state of the block of wood (burning or not), or the entropy state of our brain.
No. The entropy change in our bodies, in the block of wood, etc. affect the local entropy of the universe, so burning a block of wood increases the rate at which entropy increases, and if entropy could be used instead of time, that means a nearby clock (with a mechanical mechanism electrical mechanism, or any other principle of operation) should run faster.Sorry to divert conversation with discussion of Physical-vs-Metaphysical. But Time is metaphysical, while Entropy is physical.
Completely false. Time is physical. You cannot write the laws of physics without time. You cannot use entropy to fully describe an elastic collision between 2 balls, but you do need to use time to do so.We are only able to mark time due to changes in Entropy - because we are only able to think/remember/Observe due to changes in Entropy (inside our brains).
I skipped most of the stuff you talked about observation and brains because it is quite obvious that the chemical balance inside our brains does not actually affect the rate that time passes. This sentence though goes a step further into utter contradictory nonsense. Remembering stuff inside our brains would mean an increase in order, and a local decrease in entropy (enabled by the increase in entropy caused by digestion and metabolic processes, our bodies maintain an internal equilibrium, so the positive entropy change ends up generally leaving our bodies along with the waste heat.). -
#2178 by Rodal on 15 Oct, 2017 19:54
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The forgotten mystery of inertia
https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-forgotten-mystery-of-inertia -
#2179 by sanman on 15 Oct, 2017 19:58
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The passage of time is independent of entropy. entropy cannot measure the passage of time, only the direction.
Sir, I'm saying the importance of Entropy is greater than the importance of Time.
Sir, I'm not trying to mindlessly/stubbornly quarrel with you or provoke you. I'm happy to continue this chat in Private Message to avoid raising the noise floor as you've pointed out.
QuoteNo. The entropy change in our bodies, in the block of wood, etc. affect the local entropy of the universe, so burning a block of wood increases the rate at which entropy increases, and if entropy could be used instead of time, that means a nearby clock (with a mechanical mechanism electrical mechanism, or any other principle of operation) should run faster.
Sir, I understand and completely agree with you that entropy of the component objects of the universe affect the total entropy of the universe. However, my point was that the rate of entropy increase of the burning block of wood (vs non-burning block) does not reflect the overall rate of entropy increase of the universe. (Because the universe is comprised of a lot more than just that block of wood. Therefore your invoking of the block of wood as a counter-argument to me was a Straw Man)QuoteCompletely false. Time is physical. You cannot write the laws of physics without time. You cannot use entropy to fully describe an elastic collision between 2 balls, but you do need to use time to do so.
Sure you can, because the person observing the collision (or the universe inside which the collision is occurring) is undergoing entropy progression which you call passage of Time. Time is a representation of Entropy (with Entropy being the more meaningful property)
Why don't we continue in Private Message chat? As you say, this can avoid raising Noise Floor.QuoteI skipped most of the stuff you talked about observation and brains because it is quite obvious that the chemical balance inside our brains does not actually affect the rate that time passes. This sentence though goes a step further into utter contradictory nonsense. Remembering stuff inside our brains would mean an increase in order, and a local decrease in entropy (enabled by the increase in entropy caused by digestion and metabolic processes, our bodies maintain an internal equilibrium, so the positive entropy change ends up generally leaving our bodies along with the waste heat.).
Sir, the salient actions of thinking and remembering (ie. the basis of Observing) are electrochemical actions which occur with entropy increase. The supporting actions that you describe - digesting, metabolizing, etc, while also being chemical processes which also correlate with entropy increase of the universe, are still nevertheless not the thinking/remembering/Observing actions (mental process) themselves.
I'm saying that the physical basis for our mental process of thinking/remembering/Observing is the fundamental reason for our sense of passage of time, which we have adopted as a convention in analyzing physics. This is why time passes for us, this is why we experience passage of T in a way that we do not experience passage of X, Y, Z. Mathematically, we should be able to treat T as just another dimensional axis, like X, Y, Z. So then in real life, why don't we experience T in the same way that we experience X, Y, Z? Why do we instead experience T uniquely as our ordinal axis, which does not happen for X, Y, Z?
This ordinal axis (euphemistically referred to as T) is the result of a chain of entropy-correlated states in our brains, which is what enables us to be conscious, to think, to remember, to know there was a past as opposed to just experiencing the present - ie. the basis for our ability to be Observers, the convention by which we define Observation in physics.
It's because our mental process is correlated to Entropy progression, that we even have a sense of an ordinal dimension (Time). This is what fundamentally differentiates T from X,Y,Z in our perception. Entropy is the reason why we take T as our ordinal axis - specifically, because entropy progression correlates to a sequence of thought/memory states that are the basis for our Observation.
If the universe is deterministic and all the other "future" states of the universe exist in a determinate way, the reason that we progress through these states is rooted in the physical nature of our mental process.
I apologize to everyone for raising the Noise Floor in this thread, I will discontinue discussion here and I'm happy to continue in Private Message chat.While I agree with your intent above or at least the bulk of it, in this last.., "yet no clocks nearby will run at a different rate. Time is therefore quite real and distinct from entropy.", I question the logic.
Clocks are not time. Clocks measure/record change, within an agreed upon rate. I agree that entropy as you describe above, does not change the way clocks measure/record any rate of change... But clocks are not time. Time is a construct of the mind we use to communicate how we observe and experience change. A construct for which we use clocks as descriptive rulers. IOW Change is real and time is a construct of the mind used to communicate, the measurement, observation and experience of change.
This is most times a nit picking distinction (almost certainly in this case), because the concept is critical to our understanding of everything else, "under the sun" and to communication itself. However sometimes in these discussions the tendency to attribute to "Time" some sort of inherent independent reality, as if it were causative rather than a descriptive construct, seems to confuse at least to some extent, many of the other concepts and possible mechanisms being discussed.
Thanks for this - I too am trying to say that Time is just a euphemism or descriptor, and not some required property to describe the universe. Entropy is an alternative descriptor, and a more meaningful one, imho. There is no fundamental compulsion that compels "passage of Time" - it's our mental process that creates the perception of passage of time. And the direction of that Time axis is determined by Entropy, which connects each mental state (ie. each observational state) to the next.
Think of a Connect-The-Dots puzzle. The dots are the observed states of the universe, and are numbered by the entropy level. No dot has a true chonological precedence over others - the order of precedence is defined by the adjacent entropy states that form our thinking/remembering process. It's from that, that our convention of chronology arises.
