Does time exist?

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by Shadow1, Mar 31, 2010.

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Does time exist?

This poll will close on Sep 13, 2037 at 2:04 PM.
  1. Yes

    55.6%
  2. No

    44.4%
Multiple votes are allowed.
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  1. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Particularly if you do nothing but make assertions without backing them up.

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  3. John99 Banned Banned

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    Time exists due to the fact that things age.

    If i put an apple on a desk and count 1234, by the time i get to a certain number the apple will begin to wither and change color. Over time.
     
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  5. brennus Registered Member

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    No need to use linear logic or mathmatics, it's too abstract of a subject. They will only confirm the conjectural nature of the paradox
     
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  7. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    No need? Because it's too abstract?
    So you're making the claim and then saying it doesn't require mathematics OR logic?
    Way to go.

    In other words we should simply take your (unsupported) word for it.
    Riiight.

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  8. brennus Registered Member

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    So far all I've seen on this thread is opinions and vague conjecture using terms like age to explain time. If you have proof other than using that kind of circular logic then I will take notice because the subject of time fascinates me. It is the center piece for much of my poetic investigation. For the most part I have found that time is only used by humans as some sort of incremental vehicle to indicate one reference point from another.
     
  9. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Don't forget we've also got your unsupported (and apparently unsupportable) assertions.

    Oh wow! A poetic investigation. I can't wait...
    Yet time is a fundamental in may equations. How do you propose to do away with that aspect?
    And you'll also note that distance is used to indicate one reference point from another.
    Is that, too, an illusion?

    One more time: do you have anything to support your claim? Or are you simply being "poetic"?
     
  10. Anarcho Union No Gods No Masters Registered Senior Member

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    Time is just a unit to describe the countunies advancment and evoulation of the 'known' universe. Time itself does not exsist. There is no such thing as 'one minute' or 'ten seconds.' Thats just what we use to messure the known effects, advancements, devolpments, and evoultions of the universe.
     
  11. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    19,252
    Have you read any of this thread? At all?
    What evidence do you have for your claims?
    Are you also going to claim that length doesn't exist and is simply a measure?
    An inch doesn't exist? A millimetre doesn't?
     
  12. brennus Registered Member

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    73
    I have nothing to support my asertions, but can any body, either way? What are looking for? Proof? Sorry too abstract.
     
  13. Marsel Registered Senior Member

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    21
    Shadow what is your own meaning of time?
     
  14. John99 Banned Banned

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    why wasnt the apple example good?

    if you put out a piece of bread it will eventually get mold on it. if there was no time it would stay in the same exact state.

    if i walk all day long and in the daylight then towards the end it becomes dark, has time not passed? have i not aged?
     
  15. John99 Banned Banned

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    how about future time?

    how can you make plans for a day later, a week later, etc.?
     
  16. Doreen Valued Senior Member

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    4,101
    Possibly, but not necessarily. The most disturbing way of saying no is to say that the self that you are is only present in 1 now and not the others. From its perspective there is a past - but this sense of there being a past - or a specific memory if the self in question is 'remembering' - is merely a portion of a now. That self does not participate in any other now. These nows are not in some linear time link up but spatially related.

    Another way to challenge your challenge is to say that the word 'time' loses all meaning, since time is generally thought of as what underlies change. In fact you cannot measure time - I don't think - of conceive of time without referring to change. But if there is no change but simply a seeing of other portions of some thing that is already complete, the idea of time is no longer the same at all. Subjectively, the self seeing different portions experiences change, but really there is no change (in this model).

    This is not that far fetched either. Apart from fitting with some Eastern (and even Western mysticism) it also potentially fits with science.

    But notice, now you are justifying an objective thing/fundament - TIME - by saying that we experience it that way. But there are many things we experience that simply are not there.
     
  17. John99 Banned Banned

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    22,046
    Does a thought exist?
     
  18. Kernl Sandrs Registered Senior Member

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    All a matter of perception. Time is a man-made concept. It existed before us humans, but every living thing perceives it differently. If time didn't exist, we wouldn't. Simple as that. It's really not abstract unless you try to communicate it as that.
     
  19. Doreen Valued Senior Member

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    Sure.
     
  20. Doreen Valued Senior Member

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    4,101
    If it is not abstract how is it a man-made concept? If it is not abstract, how is it concrete?
     
  21. Doreen Valued Senior Member

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    4,101
  22. Kernl Sandrs Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    645
    It's man-made in the way we measure it, which is how we perceive it. A long long time ago some folk got together and said there were 365 days in a year, 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, and 60 seconds in each minute. And even then we measure it in smaller increments. When you were young and in grade-school, you were taught how to read a clock, time of the day, etc. You were taught all of those things. Time, the way we see it and think in it was created by us. I could just as easily create my own measurement of time with a whole new set of terms. Then teach that timescale to an infant, and that child would grow up perceiving time in the way I taught it to. We see this today in the form of the SI. International System of Units. Currently there are only three countries that don't use it; Burma, Liberia, and the United States. That's why in grade-school and some high school chemistry you were taught how to convert things like mass, volume, and speed. Because other people in other countries Perceive it differently than we do. Example: I take two people, one from the U.S. and the other from the U.K. I put them in front of a three story building. I ask them how tall it is. The American would look at it and say "It looks to be about forty-feet tall" The British would say "It's about twelve meters." Two different people with a different understanding of height can look at the same object and analyze it differently. It's the same with time. Time is man-made because of how we perceive ourselves to exist within it. That is to say, time existed before humans, but does it really matter if there was nobody around to count all the seconds? Sure the concept of time existed, but nobody was measuring it. Then we came along and created a whole system of how to measure it.


    Wow that's a pretty messy paragraph. I apologize for it being so ugly. I would revise it but I have to go for tonight. I'm not sure if I repeated myself in there or not, or if the overall point I was trying to get across was clear. If not I can always repost, but not now, I'm afraid.
     
  23. Doreen Valued Senior Member

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    4,101
    This is how they label the height (or measure it). But this is not perception, it is measuring. They could each be satisfied by measuring the height by dropping a length of rope from the roof and cutting it so it is the same length as the building. To me this is not a perception issue.

    With time, however, perception issues come into play in ways they do not with length, width, etc.

    It is also not clear what we are measuring.

    I am still not sure what the it is, that we are measuring.

    From my first link in my previous post....

    If you read the article you'll see that time is challenged in even more fundamental ways by other research. Then there were the objections I raised in my response to D, above.

    We think it is obvious that the past is somewhere else in time - we tend to use spatial metaphors for time. That it was and then it wasn't. But there is the possibility this is not the case.
     
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