Phi Episode 2: A kerfuffle about time

The “Normal” Message:

Dear Pseudo-stranger,

I hope you have decided to waste your time on this encrypted message. You always find a way to procrastinate. It's apparent that you are dilly-dallying because you have nothing important to accomplish in your life. Destined to fall prey to self-deception, remember that your future is at stake, and your past must guide you. 

Moving on, you still need some clues to figure it out, but that's not my job right now. The council will be mad that I am texting you, but they are boring, and I don't care (and that's a lie ;)).

P.S.: I know I am rude to you, and it's because I kind of hate you, and it's also because I am supposed to act like this. So, peace out and sweet dreams (wink-wink).

Regards,

Pretending to be anonymous.

The person sending these emails sent them through an anonymous mail service, so there's no way I can figure out who they are. Also, this message is weird in so many ways. (But let's just ignore that part for now so that I can continue my inconsequential rant) 

The message bummed me out a bit, and I was kinda angry, but I realized I should learn to accept criticism. I am not sure whether this person is allowed to judge me like that, but still, I will try to behave rationally here. (Why? Is it because the social convention dictates that "not making a scene" is more important than expressing my genuine emotions?) This message suggests that I am wasting my time, and that I am doing so because I have nothing important to accomplish in my life. I am not obliged to respond to that, and I won't because it's pointless. 

(Divergence point 2A-Anxiety)

Honestly, I can't reply because interaction with people is one of the most stressful things for me. And, this discussion about the importance of time makes me wonder about the concept of time itself, and I don't know why but I can relate my stress with it.

Let's make a trivial statement; Time is what a clock measures. Time is a measure of consistent change around us from a specific viewpoint. For centuries, people believed that time was a constant, independent entity, thinking as if a single clock governed the universe. Time was considered to be a global parameter that constantly advances, at a uniform rate, throughout the universe.

This description changed with Einstein's theory of relativity which combined the notions of space and time into a single entity. The measurements vary depending on the relative motion or gravitational forces of objects within it. (A fancy way of saying that time is relative) This means time is not a constant universal unit. It varies as objects move faster or slower or as they're subjected to more or less gravity. Gravity curves spacetime, and the stronger the gravitational force, the more it curves the spacetime, the more time slows down. 

Now, it's believed that every individual learns at their own pace. 

Wait, what are we trying to learn? In my case, I feel I am trying to learn how to live. So, metaphorically, I am at a different pace, and time runs differently for me. Under ideal conditions, this is my comfort zone. 

In reality, I feel I am under the influence of a strong gravitational field of people surrounding me, and as a result, time slows down for me, and I am no longer in my comfort zone. I spend more time with my thoughts which should be a good thing, but I am not alone, and I start panicking because it's difficult to focus around them; it's difficult to hide what I feel, it's difficult to keep up my act. You can’t outrun your own self.

The panic encourages my pessimistic side to force my thoughts into the conversation. I start screaming inside, but all I can do is awkwardly pretend to enjoy my time around them. (In this worldview, are strangers ‘heavier’ than friends? Or is it the other way round? Something to think about.)

(Convergence point 2A)

(Divergence point 2B-Passion)

This discussion about the importance of time makes me think about my goals. I am passionate about learning physics, and I aim to understand everything I can about the universe. I feel I can relate my passion with the concepts of time. I think I can express how I feel when I am learning something using those concepts.

Let's make a trivial statement; Time is what a clock measures. Time is a measure of consistent change around us from a specific viewpoint. For centuries, people believed that time was a constant, independent entity, thinking as if a single clock governed the universe. Time was considered to be a global parameter that constantly advances, at a uniform rate, throughout the universe.

This description changed with Einstein's theory of relativity which combined the notions of space and time into a single entity. The measurements vary depending on the relative motion or gravitational forces of objects within it. (A fancy way of saying that time is relative) This means time is not a constant universal unit. It varies as objects move faster or slower or as they're subjected to more or less gravity. Gravity curves spacetime, and the stronger the gravitational force, the more it curves the spacetime, the more time slows down. 

Now, it's believed that every individual learns at their own pace. 

So, metaphorically, I am at a different pace, and time runs differently for me. To clarify, my pace changes according to the things I want to learn. But, that is not the only factor that decides the passage of time for me. I am also under the influence of a strong gravitational field of a massive object (and perhaps some other small objects too). In my case, that massive object is physics. I compare my mass with my passion, explaining why I am attracted to this massive object. Time slows down for me under the influence of this strong gravitational field, and I get to spend more time with equations, theories, and questions. It makes me happy. I believe anything that piques my curiosity makes me happy. Maybe that's the reason behind this story. 

(Convergence point 2B)

I was not sure if the Branch 2A analogy was relatable enough for everyone. This made me think that I could replace it with something else that I had in mind. But I really wanted that stress analogy in this episode. (I shouldn't suppress what I want to say for validation from my audience, right?) My uncertainty split the episode into two timelines, presenting both trains of thought with equal attention. Branch 2A between the labels "(Divergence Point 2A)" and "(Convergence point 2A)" and Branch 2B between the labels: "(Divergence Point 2B)" and "(Convergence point 2B)" helped me in creating this illusion of parallel timelines for you.

(Caution/Excuse: Splitting the episode timeline resulted in temporary abrupt transitions between paragraphs because it’s unclear to me how two different past events can lead to a common future. I guess the TemPad (a temporal monitoring device) detects the time variance to be zero. Hope this is not an apocalypse!)

(Coming back to the actual message)

I still can't figure out that encrypted message. I started reading about frequency analysis of classical ciphers etc., but this is just the beginner stuff. What if the message uses modern encryption algorithms? The person "pretending to be anonymous" mentioned that I would need some clues to figure it out, but where can I find these clues? Is “the council" a clue? And what do they mean by "your future is at stake, and your past must guide you"? This makes me wonder, what is the difference between the past and the future? 

"We know the past but cannot control it. We control the future but cannot know it."

-Claude Shanon

Philosophers divide time into two different domains: the past and the future, divided by an infinitesimal moment of the present. We experience time as a continuous sequence of existence and events that occur do so in a seemingly irrevocable order from the past, through the present, into the future. When we try to understand the universe through the laws of physics, almost all of them are time-reversible, which means they make no distinction between the past and the future. The second law of thermodynamics, on the other hand, is an important law that lets us distinguish these domains of time. It states that the total entropy of an isolated system can only increase or remain the same, it can never decrease. Entropy is a measurable physical property expressing the system's microscopic randomness or our inability to precisely determine the system's microscopic state at any one time when its macroscopic state is given. As time progresses, systems tend to evolve from more orderly arrangements to less orderly arrangements, and the entropy increases. The direction of increase in entropy is known as the thermodynamic arrow of time. So, if the universe's entropy is increasing, then the symmetry between the past and the future is broken. 

The future is a disordered past. 

We feel as though we are moving through time from the past to the future because we remember the past in the form of our memories. Our perception that the past is fixed and the future is unknown is the psychological arrow of time. So, I believe I understand the statement "your future is at stake, and your past must guide you." but I am not sure how it relates to the encrypted message.

My future is something that I can't visualize with precision, but maybe I can obtain the future that I want by using my past. My decisions guide me to a future that I desire, but why am I still so uncertain about my actions? Why is it that a three-dimensional being like me is worried so much about the fourth dimension? (There's a difference between being worried and being curious, right?) I don't know why it is difficult for me to live in the present without regretting my past actions or worrying about my future. All this self-introspection stuff is taxing and maybe I should take a nap. 

Let's continue my highly uneventful narration in the next episode, where you and I hope to get a breakthrough in my quest of decrypting the encrypted message.

Credits:

This was the second episode of a Sci-fi series I'm writing for Chrysalis, featured in their blog.

Written By: Manav Shah

Music By: Aaryan Shah

Editors: Vedant Bhutra, Anuprita Kulkarni

Special Thanks: Vivek Nathani