Time one or many things?

When we think of time we think of it as just one thing, the ticking of the clock. But time has a number of properties and not all of them vary together, nor are all of the properties of time necessarily continuously present. Some properties can be at zero, null, indeterminate or absent altogether.

Let’s start with an example of a property that has actually been dropped from the concept of time, that of ‘Cyclic Time’. Jump back even a few hundred years and this would not only have been considered a natural property of time but an essential or even fundamental property. Everything in the ancient observable world is cyclic.

Indeed, ‘Simple Harmonic Motion’ is still one of the cornerstones of physics and SHM is seen throughout the physical world. SHM can not exist independently of time, but time can exist without SHM as far as we can tell.

If we can drop SHM from time simply because time can exist without it then what of the other properties that time can live without, at least under some conditions?

At the quantum scale when considering single quantum events we note that there are no components of entropy present. The test for the absence of this property is a hypothetical video of a single interaction or an animation based on the data: could we or anyone else tell if the video clip was being played forward or backward? If not then the entropy property is absent. But what of a spatial extension that contains nothing above the quantum scale? Time is still present in the form of spacetime ~ space isn’t completely flat anywhere so the bit of curvature present needs the temporal dimension to describe it. But there is no entropy. Even the virtual particle, the quantum noise, can proceed in either direction.

So there we have two examples of where entropy, and therefore the arrow of time and even the time line are not present. As with cyclic time, each of those concepts can not exist independently of time, that is, entropy can not proceed independently of time.

The interval is another example, as is change and relative time. So what property of time is essential? There must be at least one property of time present for time to be said to be present, but it doesn’t matter which one. A photon can flit across the universe without accumulating an interval of any duration at all, so change can occur without a local interval.

In our usual experience, all the properties of time, including the cyclic component, are present and so it is an effort to imagine time without even one of the properties. As we probe into the physical world, some properties can be dropped or minimised but no property is always present in all conditions, the closest would be relative time as the observer’s clock ticks on regardless of any philosophical musings and so is readily compared to all other clocks in real and hypothetical conditions.

String Theory assumes we live in a Universe with at least 10 dimensions!

The first dimension  is length, a good description of a one-dimensional object is a straight line.

Second dimension, the y-axis (or height), and you get an object that becomes a 2-dimensional shape (like a square).

The third dimension involves depth (the z-axis), and gives all objects a sense of area and a cross-section. The perfect example of this is a cube.

Fourth dimension, Scientists believe that the fourth dimension is time, which governs the properties of all known matter at any given point.

Fifth dimension, we would see a world slightly different from our own that would give us a means of measuring the similarity and differences between our world and other possible ones.

In the sixth, we would see a plane of possible worlds, where we could compare and position all the possible universes that start with the same initial conditions as this one (i.e. the Big Bang). 

In the seventh dimension, you have access to the possible worlds that start with different initial conditions. Whereas in the fifth and sixth, the initial conditions were the same and subsequent actions were different, here, everything is different from the very beginning of time. 

The eighth dimension again gives us a plane of such possible universe histories, each of which begins with different initial conditions and branches out infinitely (hence why they are called infinities).

In the ninth dimension, we can compare all the possible universe histories, starting with all the different possible laws of physics and initial conditions. 

In the tenth and final dimension, we arrive at the point in which everything possible and imaginable is covered. Beyond this, nothing can be imagined by us lowly mortals, which makes it the natural limitation of what we can conceive in terms of dimensions.

Naturally Occurring Entanglement

Imagine beings from another dimension finally producing the first three dimensional chemical reaction in their dimension.  Considering all the trouble they have to go through to produce just the right conditions for this reaction to occur would they consider that chemical reactions occur spontaneously all on their own? Would they anticipate from this first chemical event the phenomena of life and even sentient beings like us??

In recent years we have broken through ever more into another dimension, so to speak, and realised the first entanglement of remotely located particles.  Although these entanglement examples are our creation, is it possible that entanglement, like superposition, occurs spontaneously ‘in the wild’?

In this essay I will explore an extrapolation of Naturally Occurring Entanglement and associated phenomena.  Experiment may establish that none of it actually happens within the scope of observability, but until then all cards are on the table.

We can array the possibilities using a pseudo dimensional model with the first two dimensions already known to exist in physics:

Zeroth Dimension: Superposition

The zeroth dimension is any example of superposition, that is, any isolated particle, boson, location in space or sequence of events that has one or more properties that have two or more possible values that exist simultaneously.

These properties are set retrospectively, that is, in the reverse to our normal perception of time.

By analogy, using the Schrödinger Cat analogy, the opening of the box event collapses the wave function so that we find the cat to be either dead or alive, but the cat may have died some time previously in the cat’s own inertial frame.  Thus the event at the end (the opening of the box) fixes events that occurred previously (the breaking of the vile of poison that killed the cat) even though, right up to the point just prior to the opening of the box, either outcome was possible, that is, both conditions were in superposition. 

Superposed particles can be considered to be like, by analogy, a very thin needle standing vertically with a heavy metal ball finely balanced on top.  Any disturbance at all will cause the ball to fall in some direction.  The ball is so finely balanced that all that is needed for the ball to fall is information.  Information weighs nothing and has no energy but it must come from outside.  So any interaction will cause the ball to fall.

This analogy may help to imagine entanglement when two such balls on pins are connected by information alone but where the information is in superposition until a decision (interaction with an entity beyond the entangled pair) is made, then both balls fall simultaneously.  Such an analogy also allows for information alone to sweep through an area and set all the balls in motion (collapse all wave functions) in a particular way.

First Dimension: Entanglement

This occurs when two or more superposed points are remotely correlated with each other.  The two points remain correlated until the wave equation collapses, that is, until one of the entangled partners interacts with another system at which time they take on discrete correlated properties (no longer superposed or freshly re-superposed from that point in time).  The correlation is described by a single wave equation and so physics considers the condition to represent one system and not two discrete particles, points or properties that are connected by some kind of boson.  However just as the reality of particles and light have a wave and particle property, perhaps there is a wave and particle property of entanglement and perhaps both the single wave and two particles + boson models are valid.

Second Dimension: Oscillatory Entanglement and Superposition

This is where entangled pairs oscillate between being entangled and individually taking on discrete properties.

There are many possible variations of this hypothetical phenomenon, for instance

* A particle may be in superposition between two possible locations in space, then take on a discrete position, and then be in superposition between two other points then continuously repeat the process; could be an alternative explanation of motion at the quantum scale thus averting the need for Planck time and length as the ultimate quantum of nature;

* Particles A & B in superposition could switch to B & C and then back to A & B, thus relaying information of some kind;

* Two or more Time crystals, for instance, could be in superposition.  

Basically, Oscillatory Entanglement and Superposition allows for the superposition equivalent of a sequence of events.  A further form of Oscillatory phenomena is where there is only one cycle so that entanglement and wave collapse occur just once, perhaps with an interval as short as zero.  In an array condition such entanglement could sweep through a field of particles aligning any in superposition to a particular orientation (by some property).

We do not know what physically connects two entangled particles but assume it is something.  Let’s call it a Probability Flux.  For the above example we could say that a Meaningful Flux of Probability can propagate in any field of superposed particles (this leads to Three Dimensional Phenomenon see below).  In this we are considering the connecting medium, the boson of entanglement, to have an existence independent of the particles it entangles, just like other Bosons.  Nobody knows if this is true or even if it is physically possible…

Third Dimension: Structured Entanglement

This is where entangled pairs are entangled with other entangled pairs, one assumes scale invariance providing suitable isolation conditions can be met (the observer collapses the wave function).

Here we consider that just as a point can have superposed properties, a pair or more can have simultaneous superposed properties and those collections of entangled particles can be a point in subsequent pairs and the result of that broader entangled coalition can in turn be a point in an even larger scale collection.

The important thing to note here is that we are considering that any property at all can be the subject of entanglement.  We might even postulate the high probability that there is always some property of a thing or phenomena in superposition and consequently that not all properties of a thing or phenomena can have discrete properties all the time.  We are reminded of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.

We may then postulate that any property in superposition is also a potential partner in an entangled pair or array.

Such structures could have semi-permanence, as mentioned in the fourth dimension below, be oscillatory, serially (part of a chain of entanglement events) or be a one off correlation event.

Fourth Dimension: a ‘Meaningful Flux of Probability’

Top Down systems such as governments, homeostasis, life and many other systems we are familiar with are made up of their constituents but are subsequently responsible for governing them.  We name the top of the cycle thus giving a top-down appearance to what is essentially a cyclic system.

Governments are created by the individual people, elected by the individual people, but then form a corpus (the legislature) which governs the behaviour of the constituents that created it.

In homeostasis a set of chemical reactions result in a single governing body that regulates those same reactions via negative feedback mediated by catalysts.  It is this control over the underlying chemical reactions that allows life to be possible and is what differentiates life from other life-like phenomena such as fire which will consume all available resources as soon as possible until those resources are exhausted.

Homeostasis analogues appear in animals through the endocrine system and above that (evolutionarily) is the brain and we may consider consciousness to be an additional extension able to govern on a broader scale.  Functionally, there is a consciousness governing behaviour but upon close examination we can only identify the constituent cognitive processes just as in the case of homeostasis where the underlying chemical reactions are all that can be discretely identified and yet behaviourally, central control is clearly in evidence.

It is here we find talk of quantum consciousness which is basically an organised version of the first four dimensions mentioned above.  Is there a possibility of an organised nature to entanglement?  In this we would consider (to avoid magic!!) that the organising element, like the examples above, is the emergent result of the behaviour of the underlying constituents that form a kind of corpus that governs those same underlying processes.  Remembering the extra trick up the sleeve of entanglement, the reverse causation ability (by the measure of the observer), there is unlimited potential for such cyclic negative feedback systems with an apparent top-down function.

To return to a more physical analogy which potentially could also be an example: if any particle in space has uncertainty of position on some scale which we can describe as an array or field of possible positions in superposition, then any two particles in space where the position property is entangled will correlate this property.  Let’s assume a cyclic (Second Dimensional) property so that the particles oscillate between being entangled and being independent.  If the result of entanglement is that each particle takes a position within the possible field of positions closer to the entangled partner then the particles will move toward each other with the frequency of the oscillation correlating (or causing) the temporal environment, the association between gravity and time being already well established.

This would result in an entanglement version of gravity requiring no boson or only requiring whatever boson is responsible for entanglement generally.

===

So, does entanglement exist in the wild at all?  There is some debate on that.  But if it does exist, can entangled arrays form a kind of organised behaviour?  Was some kind of long since evolved entangled background responsible for the genesis of life?  …for consciousness?  …for the nature of time itself?  Can a ‘Meaningful Flux of Probability’ propagate into any field of superposed phenomena?  If Quantum Consciousness is true, where is the real locus of the conscious individual’s consciousness?