Re: Its about Time again
Walter Dejonghe (walterdejonghe@GLO.BE)
Tue, 18 May 1999 08:04:27 +0200
At 08:33 17-05-1999, Alexei Sharov wrote:
>Comments to the message of Gavin Ritz:
>
>It seems that you want to understand the essence of time, but
>there is no such essence. Why should we care about what time
>REALLY IS? It is sufficient to use various MODELS of time. For
>many purposes, it is sufficient to use the Newtonean time; but
>for other purposes it does not work and we can create other
>models that suit us.
>
>Apparently, most organisms have a model of time. But in simple
>organisms, models of time are very simple (e.g., a sequence of
>stages in a life-cycle). Humans are most advanced among animals
>and have most sophisticated models of time, some of which are
>formalized (e.g., in physics) and many of them are not
>formalized. I agree that we need more formal models of
>time. But first we need to understand what would be the purpose
>of these models. Models are tools; and time and space are tools
>too. There is no reason to develop useless tools. Can you
>formulate your problems that you are going to solve using
>non-standard models of time?
>
>-Alexei
>-------------------------------------------------
>Alexei Sharov Research Scientist
>Dept. of Entomology, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061
>Tel. (540) 231-7316; FAX (540) 231-9131; e-mail sharov@vt.edu
>Home page: http://www.gypsymoth.ento.vt.edu/~sharov/alexei.html
There is at least one major problem that should interest us.
In short it is the following: in 2000 the earth will carry 6.10exp9 people.
We already know that in 2040 the earth will carry at least 10.10exp9
people. Simple mathematics show that it is impossible that we can form the
teachers to give them a glimpse of our present scientific/.... worldview.
The mechanistic worldview indeed is questioned. The burden of this future
is felt by many of us as an urgent problem, and by some of us as a
fundamental challenge. The industrial side of our society already faces
this problem: more is being done globally and simultaneously, and products
are being redesigned to become easily understood and accessed even by not
educated people, and are redesigned to impose less burden on the
environment (a problem of simultaneous events that are unwanted...). This
is what I am doing now for the last 20 years... But for the last 25 years
now I work also on the following: can we come up with a fundamental
approach to simultaneity, and provide society with tools and formalized
models to deal with these time related problems?
Isn't that an interesting problem to solve using non-standard models of
space and time?
Walter Dejonghe
Tel: *32-3-3247685
walterdejonghe@glo.be