Is there such a thing as a universal NOW?

Our concept of time was drastically altered by Einstein’s realization of relativity. He realized that the speed of light is the same, no matter what individual measures it and no matter that individual’s relative speed. This means that time passes by at different speeds depending on which individual’s perspective we are talking about. Before Einstein, we had a clear and logical sense that time ticks at the same speed everywhere in the universe, that an hour spent sitting on a couch (0 mph) was equivalent to an hour spent speeding down a highway at 70 mph. We now know that is not true. Despite the fact that our experiences in every day life lead us to believe that time ticks by at the same rate everywhere, it is simply not true.

What I am trying to wrap my head around is an idea similar to the question: does a tree in a deserted the forest make a sound, since no one is there to hear it?

I have always had an assumption, due to my mundane experiences, that when something is happening in one place at a particular time, at that exact moment everyone else is experiencing that exact moment (no matter what they’re doing) at the very same time. However, if time flows at different rates, what is this exact moment to me, when compared to everyone else? Compared to myself, is there a moment occurring at the same time at the other end of the room, the world, or the galaxy? This enters into the realm of questioning the existence of things outside my awareness, which I do not want to do. But, if everything is literally on a different time schedule because of relative motion, how can there be a NOW that every individual thing in the universe can agree upon? I like to believe that there is such an objective clock ticking away the TRUE time, whatever that may be, but this could be simply wrong, as we were back before Einstein.

Physically speaking, I wonder whether this cosmic clock has any truth to it because it all depends on observations. If I were traveling at half the speed of light towards the sun, and wanted to know what time it was back on earth, the information (assuming it traveled at the speed of light to reach me) would take time to reach me. Or if I were to turn around and head back, it would take time to get back to earth before I knew the time on earth. Since instantaneous transmittance of information is impossible, how then could I know if there truly was a single NOW throughout the universe?

Even events cannot transmit their implications instantaneously - if the sun were to vanish, it would take about 8 minutes for the earth to quit its orbit and sail into outer space, because even gravity is bound by this universal law of relativity.

My questions to you:
Is there some cosmic clock ticking the exact time EVERYWHERE in the universe, or does the fact that there is no NOW for everything mean that every individual is experiencing a different NOW?

If an event occurs NOW, at the other end of the galaxy, does it really happen NOW, if no one is there to observe it and the information physically cannot be known until light years later?

The thought and implications perplex me. ](*,)

I’m assuming you are referring to the old fallen tree adage. Yes, the tree still does make a sound even though nobody is there to hear it because sound travels at a certain rate of speed just the way light does and sound never completely disappears, it simply dissipates.

For proof of this, simply cut a tree most of the way down, and set up a recording device near the tree on a day there is a windstorm.

Everything that has not already happened is happening NOW because NOW is a constant, at least, until the end of time at which point whether or not there is/was even a THEN is questionable…not that there will be anyone to question it.

I believe that all individuals are experiencing a different NOW, if for no other reason, then simply because of time zones. Take my post for example, someone asks me when I made this post I’ll say, “Around 10:45p.m.,” ask someone in California when PavlovianModel146 made this post, “Around 7:45p.m.,” that’s a different now.

Of course, what I refer to is technically a then, but let us assume that someone in California can see my post simultaneous with my posting it, then we are talking a now.

I don’t know that every individual is experiencing a different now, two individuals who are at the same relative place at the same relative time partaking in the same relative events generally (if not always) experience the same NOW. Although, I do think that even light speed would play a factor here, if I am standing 3ft closer to a light source than someone and another person turns on that light source, technically, given the speed of light, I witness the light source being turned on faster than the other person does, just not perceptively so. So, maybe two people only have the same now if they are equidistant from the light source.

For them it is now, for us it is then, past. Although, and correct me if I am wrong, the majority of scientists recognize astronomical events (i.e. star burning out) to have happened in the past, even though we cannot see it until our NOW.

I suppose education might play a factor here. If a person is not educated to understand the concept of light speed and its influence on time, then that individual would believe that an event, such as a shooting star, is happening NOW, whereas an individual educated on the workings of Space understands that the event happened in the past, and an expert individual can tell you precisely when.

The recording device would act as another ear, in which one did hear the sound.

Do you actually hear the sound waves or the sound of the tree? Because if it is the sound waves, then wouldn’t it be possible that there would be other noise around in which you will not be able to tell if it was the tree?

Possibly. How about this:

Set up a recording device and cut a very leafy tree most of the way down, then set up a recording device on a relatively windless day and have someone else come and push the tree down. When you hear the guy announce, “I’m pushing now,” followed immediately by the tree hitting the ground at which point you go and observe that the tree is no longer there, you still have heard the sound of the tree falling.

Well, the point of this post wasn’t really to debate the soundless tree falling. Obviously, the tree still emits what we call waves of sound, and regardless of whether a person or recording device is there to hear/record it, the sounds are theoretically there. But, such knowing the unknown is what I’m wondering about.

We take for granted the idea that the sound waves are emitted for a tree falling outside of ear-shot. But should we take for granted the fact that events are happening beyond our perception before we perceive them - despite that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, even information emitting from any event (like the sun vanishing). If it takes time for reality here (me) to acknowledge an event at a distance, does that mean that the event at a distance occurred NOW for me, or NOW for it? Both are true: the event occurred at different times depending on the individual observing the event. That said, is time objective or subjective? Is there a NOW occurring at the same time for all individuals or does the concept of NOW fluctuate in waves around the universe, with many versions of the truth?

Both. Please refer to the latter half of my previous post in this thread for specifics.

Someone in California can not see your post simultaneous with your posting it, because of the nature of physics. Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, which means they will know of your post some time after you posted it, no matter what. However, both views cannot be true. This is because if you believe there is a universal NOW, then it would nullify all the subjective, true observations by any individuals, but if you believe time is subjective, then there wouldn’t be any single authority on what time NOW is, nullifying the singular NOW view of the universe. Not both of these can be true, one must be false or else both are false.

You are incorrect. If they hack my computer and can view everything that I am doing on my screen as I am doing it, could even left-click to post it for me if they wanted to, then they would see my post simultaneous with my posting it. Besides, I was using a poor hypothetical situation to begin with, given the time and energy I probably could have done better.

Why?

Everything that is presently occurring at the moment that I have typed the following letter–a–had occurred at that moment whether I witnessed or not. Now, that moment took place at different times in different places to different people, but on the cosmic scale, everything that happened in that moment happened in that moment. If there was a way to look upon the entire Universe as one would look upon ants in an ant farm, then one would note that an event occurring at this exact second to me, has many corresponding events also going on.

Time is objective because if I take a sip of my drink NOW, which is 1:12a.m. EST and somewhere 30,000,000,000 miles away a super nova explodes, then the two events happened at the same time, I just will not become aware of the latter event until “my” future (provided I am still alive which is extremely doubtful) which also makes time subjective.

If I wish to take that subjectivity and turn it into objectivity, then with some mathematical scientific formula or another, I can determine how far away the super nova explosion was from the Earth at the time it happened and use light speed to figure out how, “long ago,” it occurred. So, I could say that this explosion which I am witnessing in my subjective NOW actually occurred in objective time at 2:14p.m. EST 425B.C., or something like that.

Please do not critique my numbers as I have no idea what formula would be necessary to do any of this or exactly how the times would relate to one another.

Whether or not a hacker posts your post for you, or sees what you are doing on your computer “as you are doing it”, time still passes in which information is being sent over wires, in waves through space, etc. Even if it amounts to a minuscule difference, the hacker’s view is still not simultaneous with your view.

As for mathematically figuring the “true” time of an event that took place long ago, the information must reach you before you calculate when it theoretically happened. I cannot, however, calculate the universe as I see it now using math to prove that at this moment there is a supernova occurring far away, because that information has not reached me yet, and therefore cannot be factored into my equations. As for proving that an event occurred in the past, the math may be true, or your observation may be true, and I don’t believe that those two are fundamentally compatible.

If relativity is true, then there may be no universal NOW. Unless there is some objective viewer who has that view from above, looking down at our universe as if it were an ant farm

That’s fair. In that event if we are to use light speed as a basis of comparison, for two different thinking entities to have an event occur simultaneously they must be perfectly equidistant from a light source, and a lot of other factors must also be satisfied, but it is theoretically possible.

Do the ants within the farm not continue to act if the owner of the ant farm stops watching it?

Now THAT is the real question. The obvious answer taken for granted is yes. But I question because of the fact that we were wrong about everyone experiencing time exactly the same. We may be wrong in our assumption that there is such a thing as the present, which is NOW in all places simultaneously. It sounds counterintuitive, but so does the concept of relativity in general.

As an individual within the greater universe, I am inclined to believe that my perception is true (especially when backed by state-of-the-art technologies and irrefutable mathematics), and others’ are false if they do not agree with mine. But I can also imagine a falling tree emitting sound waves when I am not there to hear it, I can imagine events taking place NOW that I will not know of until their effects can be known to me, and I can imagine some objective view point from which one could see the universe like I can view an ant farm.

I think it is a question with a dual answer, which does not make sense to me. I can’t know which is really right, though I think what I believe lies somewhere in between them.

I think that the answer simply is yes. Grab a Polaroid camera, or maybe just you cell phone these days, Yowsers! Anyway, grab your camera, face the ant farm and take a picture. Now, turn away from the ant farm for six days without looking at the picture for all six of those days. After six days has passed (number picked randomly, by the way) turn back to the ant farm and look at your picture and you will note that there are new tunnels that could not have been constructed in the time it takes you to look from your picture to the ant farm and back.

If there is a God, he probably gets tired of watching his silly little ants build their silly little tunnels every now and then and turns his attention to more immediate matters.

I sometimes visualize existence/time as a moving front of a tsunami wave. I think existence manifests throughout the universe simultaneously; everything is simply separated by space. If universe manifests (exists) and if it contains something then time must also manifest (that’s why I put the two together). So, “now” here is the same as “now” across the universe (unless you consider things that pop into and out of existence at random). Because perception of it is different for different things, I don’t think we can know it’s true “speed” (because there we have no one reference point, save perhaps for our own perceptions). An ant might not experience its “moment” the same way as a person does (because of their physiologies) but I think that they both exist in the same “now”.
It is possible that time might move differently if we consider the possibility of multiple dimensions.

The three tenses of time and their relatedness to the three levels of being.
1)The future is related to unconscious.
2)The intelect has to do with the past. (The future is unknown and therefore cannot be related to the intelect.)
3)Emotion is related to the present or Now.

Pandora,

Let me make sure I read your post adequately but I believe that you are also saying it is both objective and subjective, you are just expanding on the reason why.

Is this inaccurate?

This is just my speculation. I think that the perception of a moment/now does definitely vary, so in that sense, it is subjective; but it does not make sense to say that my “now” cannot coincide with the now, say, across the universe. If matter exists at the same time across the universe (all matter in the universe), then the “now” must also. (of course I could be wrong).

How about a new view:

Time is subjective, which means that NOW floats from place to place in a way similar to the tsunami wave described by Pandora, because for every individual it takes time for the reality of the universe elsewhere to affect its own reality. However, since the “individuals” that make up the universe are not actually people-sized, they are atoms, parts of atoms, or whatever the smallest unit is, the individuals’ perspectives make up a complete picture of times. This complete collage of subjective NOWs waving about gives an average of the present, coming together to equal a single NOW. To the individual, the single NOW has no truth, except in theory. But in taking all individuals into consideration, there can be a single moment that is the present, even if it’s not happening at the same time everywhere. This is a stretch, and a bit hard to explain, hence the bad explanation. I’ll post again when I figure out a better way to say it.

If the Universe had a begining like the big bang, wouldnt the now be right now, we are all the same age.

I think that the single now does have truth and already takes all individual atoms into consideration. For it is all existent individual atoms that partake in the single NOW as it is.

Thats all there is, Now! and Now! and Now! but simultaneously!

No. There is not anything occurring anywhere that is not observed. Observer and observed are one. Perceiver and perceived are One. There is no existence without observation/perception.

There is no ‘old’ information; what you see Now! exists Now!
Every Now! (Planck moment) is a unique and new universe! There are a tad more than one billion trillion trillion trillion such ‘moments’ in a second!!!
Every moment a unique tapestry of universe.
Nothing ever changes; everything is always different!