Anthony Aguirre - Events and the Nature of Time

Are events measured by time? Or is time created by sequences of events? Which is more fundamental, events or time? Worse, we may get different answers from quantum mechanics and general relativity.



Anthony Aguirre is Associate Professor of Physics at UC, Santa Cruz. He is Co-Founder and Associate Scientific Director of The Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi). Aguirre received his PhD in Astronomy in 2000 from Harvard.


Closer to Truth presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[Jonnygurudesigns]

Quality conversations.. This is why I just love this channel.. Every time, it makes me deeply think.. That's priceless.. Against the whole iPhone media trap, this is a legitimate reason for needing information at my fingertips.. Learning.. Growth.. Challenges of your life learned ideas.. What a great concept.. Love it, love it! I wish I was rich.. Id pay the next 10 years of questions for this team.!!!

[HawthorneHillNaturePreserve]

I have become such an admirer and fan of this Channel and Dr. Kuhn! At first I was like, who is this guy and what makes him qualified to have this series? I learned pretty quickly that Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn is a genius who’s insight and deep probing questions passionately tease information from the amazing guests he has on and present information and knowledge I never even considered. Dr. Kuhn has helped open my mind further than before and I now love all of his work and can’t get enough of his content.

[freshbits]

That's very funny spot and position you guys have picked for this conversation.

[yasfi]

Please stay healthy and live forever, Robert.

[Robinson]

This is the best exposition of the current problem of time in 9 mins

[md.fazlulkarim]

Anthony rightly pointed out. Brave Man. Getting closure to truth.

[francesco]

Soooo many questions ... But at least a good explanation of them !!

[david.thomas.]

Very lucid and interesting interview on the nature of time. It’s interesting to think about time on the quantum level and how it might relate to gravity.

[davidwhitney]

I always found Einstein's idea of "block time, " time and space being interconnected, all events past, present and future all having been created at the beginning, the "Big Bang, ' oh so comforting: he said "the (perceived) difference between past, present, and future is merely qn illusion, albeit a stubborn one." Quantum physics knocking this out just breaks my heart- everything in human existence then truly seems totally random and undetermined, a truly scary thought...

[DestroManiak]

I wish the date of the conversation was mentioned in the about section

[Yzjoshuwave]

The notion that the Event is more foundational than Time and that Time is a derivative phenomenon is an emergence from French Philosophy — Deleuze, Foucault and Badiou all explored this notion extensively. Continental philosophers of the 20th century were tremendously creative, but analytic philosophers and scientists have a much greater ability to render an idea clearly. I think it’s valuable to realize that the earliest expressions of a brilliant idea are necessarily more protean and have layers of error and misconception welded to them until they’ve been carefully combed through and brought to refined clarity. There’s still a lot of value in their thoughts — it just needs to be whittled through with thought tools of modern science, logic and math.

[mehdibaghbadran]

The most important thing about the time is that, if you’re working, globally, then you have to understand, that, we have, different time’s zones on earth, which is based on, future, present, past, and in the maximum 12 hours, to focus on the time’s, on earth, you should focus on yourself, only, and when your minds, readying for creating your best !

[Gregor_]

Some languages define time not as sequence, not as tense, but as inclinations and declensions. Tense in English is related to Inclinations in some other languages. Past means tense of running, present means tense of sitting, and the future means tense of walking. This is how passage of time was understood in some way.

[catherinemoore]

😊 It always feel good to hear top brains say they don't understand how our the reality show works. But don't worry Physicists: it's all to your credit! 👍👏🎯

[vyt]

From the beginning time is associated with change and cannot be separated from motion. Aristotle in his "Physics" - "But as time is most usually supposed to be motion and kind of change, we must consider this view (Aristotle, "Physics", Book IV, Part 10)". Time is a secondary, technical concept, derived from motion as primary notion, is dimensionless ratio of velocities of motion.

[REDPUMPERNICKEL]

I think it's absolutely fascinating that, no matter in what direction we look, we see the distant galaxies fleeing away from us giving us the illusion that we are at the center of all visible existents.

[jamesruscheinski]

What is the description of causation / events in quantum field mechanics? Could causation / events emerge from time in quantum fields?

[MrSanford]

The interesting thing is, between the past present and future, the present seems to be the shortest of the two. We can indulge the past, anticipate the future but the present is intangible . Perhaps time is simply in the structure of the brain because our memories modify it by our subjective experiences. I also have a feeling that if time were outside of us somehow we would all share the same memories. Also with eternity and motion on both ends it’s hard to say which is the cause and which is the effect. Does the ball hit you in the head, or does the head hit the ball ?

[kallianpublico]

According to his proposition that events are fundamental and that time emerges from them then 2 questions come to mind.
One. What do physicists mean when they tell us that time slows down near a large mass?
Two. From what does space emerge from?

[jamesruscheinski]

gravity waves (space - time) from interaction of classic physical objects, which are measured into existence by quantum waves?