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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 2937933" data-attributes="member: 177">To my way of thinking, it is generally useless to think of it as &quot;orthogonal time&quot;, in that it does not pass the way time does.&nbsp; Setting the math aside for a moment - time is special because we perceive it differently than we do other dimensions.&nbsp; It is not useful to speak of other dimensions as akin to time unless they share that characteristic.I don't have time at the moment to discuss symmetries in full - one could write textbooks on the subject.&nbsp; However, I can say that not everything in our universe really is time-symmetric, especially on the quantum level.But, even staying away from particle physics - while it is true that Netwonian mechanics is time-symmetric, thermodynamics clearly isn't.&nbsp; Somewhere between dealing with individual discrete objects and working with large collections, time symmetry is lost.&nbsp; We don't know why, but it is true nonetheless.&nbsp; We can show that the order of events does matter, so causality is not an illusion.Whether you want to say time is moving forward, or we are moving forward in time, it amounts to the same thing.&nbsp; You can even consider a sort of Newtonian description - objects in motion tend to stay in motion.&nbsp; If everything in the Universe has been set in motion along the time direction at a particular speed, we have motion through time.&nbsp; If there are no &quot;forces&quot; that act in the temporal direction, we have a temporal arrow of a sort.That's not difficult - Newton's laws are such a science.&nbsp; Anything that doesn't include reference to time in a non-reversible fashion is such.&nbsp; The science isn't the problem - the philosophy that comes from it is the hard bit.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 2937933, member: 177"] To my way of thinking, it is generally useless to think of it as "orthogonal time", in that it does not pass the way time does. Setting the math aside for a moment - time is special because we perceive it differently than we do other dimensions. It is not useful to speak of other dimensions as akin to time unless they share that characteristic. I don't have time at the moment to discuss symmetries in full - one could write textbooks on the subject. However, I can say that not everything in our universe really is time-symmetric, especially on the quantum level. But, even staying away from particle physics - while it is true that Netwonian mechanics is time-symmetric, thermodynamics clearly [i]isn't[/i]. Somewhere between dealing with individual discrete objects and working with large collections, time symmetry is lost. We don't know why, but it is true nonetheless. We can show that the order of events does matter, so causality is not an illusion. Whether you want to say time is moving forward, or we are moving forward in time, it amounts to the same thing. You can even consider a sort of Newtonian description - objects in motion tend to stay in motion. If everything in the Universe has been set in motion along the time direction at a particular speed, we have motion through time. If there are no "forces" that act in the temporal direction, we have a temporal arrow of a sort. That's not difficult - Newton's laws are such a science. Anything that doesn't include reference to time in a non-reversible fashion is such. The science isn't the problem - the philosophy that comes from it is the hard bit. [/QUOTE]

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