Our notions of space and time figure prominently in our map of reality. They serve to order things and events in our environment and are therefore of paramount importance not only in our everyday life, but also in our attempts to understand nature through science and philosophy. There is no law of physics which does not require the concepts of space and time for its formulation. However, we have no direct sensory experience of four-dimensional space-time, nor of the other relativistic concepts. Whenever we study natural phenomena involving high velocities, we find it very hard to deal with these concepts both at the level of intuition and ordinary language. Are there fundamental limits to what can be said about the world? Do we need - as some physicists suggest - to extrapolate quantum theory to the elements of space-time?

The problem of relating the mental and physical sides of reality has long been a key one, especially in Western philosophy. What are the foundations of cognition and experience in the natural sciences? The eastern spiritual traditions show their followers various ways of going beyond the ordinary experience of time and of freeing themselves from the chain of cause and effect - from the bondage of karma, as the Hindus and the Buddhists say. Is Eastern mysticism therefore a 'liberation from time'? Can the same be said in a way of relativistic physics? What is the relationship between the observer and observed in both the Tibetan Buddhist and Western scientific/philosophical understanding? How does the material world come into existence? In what sense are the properties of an object inherent, or, alternatively, do they arise through the act of observation? Is consciousness a physical process and connected to physics? >from *5th Biennial International Symposium of Science, Technics and Aesthetics*, january 18-19, 2003.

related context
> the enigma of consciousness: symposium of science, technics and aesthetics. january 16, 2001

imago
> beyond the box : inside the screen

Does Time Really Exist
As A Fourth Dimension Of Space-time ?

Amrit Sorli, SpaceLife Institute,
Podere San Giorgio 16, 53012 Chiusdino (SI), Italy
spacelife@libero.it

Abstract
Regarding this question scientist should trust more his senses that his mind. Physical time exists only as a stream of change in physical space. Change does not "happen" in physical time -- change itself is physical time. This is a different and more correct perspective than the conventional view in physics, in which space-time is the theater or "stage" on which change happens.

Physical Time And Psychological time In the universe the passing of physical time cannot be clearly perceived as matter and space directly; one can perceive only irreversible physical, chemical, and biological changes in material media. On the basis of elementary perception (sight) one can conclude that physical time exists only as a stream of change that runs through material space. The terms "physical time" and "change" describe the same phenomenon. Physical time is irreversible. Change A transforms into change B, B transforms into C and so on. When B is in existence A does not exist anymore, when C is in existence B does not exist anymore.
The question arises: Why is it that irreversible physical time is experienced as past, present and future? The answer is obtained by analysing the scientific way of experiencing. The human senses perceive a stream of irreversible change. Once elaborated by the mind, the stream of change is experienced chronologically through psychological time that is a part of the human mind (1).
Let's look at the relationship between physical and psychological time by carrying out an experiment. Take a ball and allow it to roll down an incline. You can perceive only the movement of the ball in space, but you experience that the ball has also moved through time. How come? Perception passes first through psychological time and then the experience occurs. That's why you experience the movement of the ball in time. But on the basis of elementary perception (sight) one can only state that the ball has changed position in space.
By observing the continuous stream of irreversible physical change humans have developed psychological time through which we experience the universe. Psychological time is reversible. One can return to the past, in psychological time, through memory. This creates an idea that physical time also has a past, but this is not so.
Relativity Theory allows for speculation about time travel. It is possible for someone to travel through a black hole with a spaceship, go back into the past and kill his grandmother? The consequence is that he could never have been born (2). Travelling into the past through black holes is not possible because physical time is irreversible; the past exists only as psychological time through which it is not possible to travel with a spaceship.
The speed of psychological time does not always follow physical time, it depends on one's well-being. The more relaxed you are the slower the speed of psychological time is. In modern society time passes quickly, in so called primitive societies time passed slowly. In an altered state of consciousness, such as meditation, ecstatic dance, deep prayer, psychological time stops.
In abnormal state of health, there are aberration of subjective time such as acceleration or deceleration of lapse of time. Under several mental disturbances (like those characterising serious mental psychoses, drug-induced states, trances, mediations, as well as other deep "altered" states of consciousness), these anomalies / peculiarities become more pronounced. The flux of time may even cease completely (the sensations usually described as "time standing still", or "suspended", arrested" time or expand without limit (the feelings of "everlasting now, eternity") (3).
The understanding of physical time has changed over the ages. For ancient Greeks, Indians, and Mayans, time was considered a cyclic phenomenon; time moving in circles, with no beginning and no end. When Judaeo-Christian civilization arose in Europe, another understanding of time became prominent - time going forward in a straight line. According to this civilization, time has its beginning with God’s creation of the universe and will have its end with the Last Judgement. In Newtonian physics, physical time is an independent quantity (absolute time), running uniformly throughout the entire cosmic space (absolute space). In the Theory of Relativity, time is no more an independent physical quantity - it is linked with space in four-dimensional space-time. Here physical time is understood as a stream of irreversible change that runs through physical space.

Linear And Cyclic Concept Of Time In Cosmology The understanding of time have been different over the ages. For ancient Greeks, Indians, and Mayans, time was considered a cyclic phenomena. In Judaeo-Christian civilization as linear phenomena. In current scientific thought the concept of linear time is still prevalent. Stephan Hawkins says: "The conclusion of this lecture is that the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago. The beginning of real time, would have been a singularity, at which the laws of physics would have broken down. Nevertheless, the way the universe began would have been determined by the laws of physics, if the universe satisfied the no boundary condition. This says that in the imaginary time direction, space-time is finite in extent, but doesn't have any boundary or edge. The predictions of the no boundary proposal seem to agree with observation. The no boundary hypothesis also predicts that the universe will eventually collapse again. However, the contracting phase, will not have the opposite arrow of time, to the expanding phase. So we will keep on getting older, and we won't return to our youth. Because time is not going to go backwards, think I better stop now." (4)
Some recent cosmological models describe universe is a self-renewing system. Big bangs are cyclic. Transformation of the energy of matter into the energy of the space and vice versa is in a permanent dynamic equilibrium, universe has no beginning and no end. It is made of one energy that appears as space and as matter. (5) In the cosmological model of dynamic equilibrium time is a cyclic phenomena, a permanent dynamics between matter and space. It has no beginning and no end.

Time Is Change We can measure with clocks speed and duration of change. By Newton and in Theory of Relativity time is an abstract physical quantity that can not be perceived clearly. Here time is visible. According to this understanding the "t" in physical formulas means "duration of change". For example:

d (distance) = v (speed of change) x t (duration of change)

In the Special Relativity the "theater" of the four dimensional space-time can be replaced with the three dimensional physical space. Lets imagine that a train is passing a station with the speed v. The observer on the train throws a ball that is rolling on the floor of the corridor. The duration (time) of ball rolling will be for him t' (regarding the fourth equation of Lorentz transformation, see below), for the observer on the embankment the duration (time) of the ball rolling will be t.


The doubt that "space-time" is the ultimate arena of the universe was raised by Dirac and recently by Julian Barbour: "On a beautiful October afternoon in 1936 I ravelled to the Bavarian Alps with a student friend, Jurgen. We planned to spend the night in a hut and climb to the peak of Watzmann at down next day. On the train, I read an article about Dirac's attempt to unify Einstein's theory of relativity with quantum theory. A single sentence in it was to transform my life: "This result has let me to doubt how fundamental the four-dimensional requirement in physics is". In other words Dirac was doubting that most wonderful creation of twentieth-century physics: the fusion of space and time into space-time." (6)
In his book "The End Of Time" Barbour discusses brilliantly about time, but his final conclusions are against the elementary perception and seems to be wrong: "In fact, 35 years on from that failed attempt on the Watzmann, I know believe that time does not exists at all, and that motion itself is pure illusion. What is more, I believe there is quite strong support in physics for his view. I have a vision and I have to tell you about it." (7)
In the rational and also in the conscious experience motion is real, not an illusion. The main difference is that in the rational experience past and future are consistent parts of the world; conscious experience brings awareness that the only existing physical reality is the one that can be perceived and measured, past exists only as a memory, future exist only as an imagination.
That time does not exist as a fourth dimension of space-time and that with clocks we measure only duration of change was also discussed in the author book "Konec casa" (The End Of Time). (8)

Physical Space And Its Mathematical Description Position of an object in physical space can be defined with three coordinates. That's why in daily life we experience it as three dimensional. Three dimensional Euclid geometry corresponds better the nature of the physical space than other geometries do. In cosmology physical space is experienced through different mathematical models: three-dimensional infinite Euclid geometry, four dimensional geometry of Minkowsky, four dimensional finite spherical Riemann geometry. Cosmologists should develop awareness that mathematical model and physical space are two different things.

Conclusion Scientific understanding of time and space should be revised on the basis of elementary perception. Einstein says: "Reality is a feature of theory used to understand the world, rather than a feature of the world itself. One is danger of being misled by the illusion that the "real" of our daily experience, "exists really", and that certain concepts of physics are "mere ideas" separated from the " real " by an unbridgeable gulf." (9)

References:
1. Sorli A. (2004). Physical Time And Psychological Time. Frontier Perspectives, Vol 13, Num 1
2. Davies P. (1995). About Time. Chapter 11, Time Travels: Reality of Fantasy? Orion Productions
3. Buccheri R., Saniga M. (2003), Endo-Physical Paradigm and Mathematics of Subjective Time.
Frontier Perspectives, Vol 12, Num 1
4. Hawking S. The Beginning of Time. Public Lectures. http://www.hawking.org.uk/text/public/bot.html
5. Sorli A., Sorli K. (2004). Evolution As A Universal Process. Frontier Perspectives, Vol 13, Num 1
6. Barbour J. (1999). The End Of Time. Oxford University Press, p. 2
7. Barbour J. (1999). The End Of Time. Oxford University Press, p. 4
8. Sorli A. (1990). Konec Casa (The End Of Time), Ljubljana, Slovenia, p. 93-96
9. Einstein A. http://www.edscuola.it/archivio/lre/manzelli.html