Does time exist?

Discussion in 'Pseudoscience' started by Asexperia, Sep 28, 2015.

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  1. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Perfect. Then there's nothing to discuss. We use dictionary definitions of words. Let's not debate whether time or age or nowness exist. We have all the information we need in the dictionary.
     
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  3. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Yes the information is in the dictionaries

    However there are different camps who contend time exist and the camp I am in contending time does not exist

    Hence pick any dictionary for the definetion of exist to resolve that bone

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  5. dr9090 Registered Member

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    disappointing, but not surprising.

    aka "thought process"
    aka the "idea"... the content of the thought process.

    You clearly get the idea. but by insisting on using a dictionary that intentionally confuses the two, you get the same nonsense as the Psychology Today author.

    Ask a simpler, "testable" question "ARE you thinking?" of somebody with a normal functioning mind/brain and you know that any answer except "YES" is a lie.

    The fact that nobody yet speaks any but their own though PROCESS in native biochemical machine code is hardly proof of non-existence.
    Though Process, Though Content (aka Idea) and Thought Content Expression (Statements and Gestures) are three related but different things. wadding them all up the same unenlightened vocabulary choice leads nowhere.

    I am Groot. I am Groot... duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...
     
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  7. dr9090 Registered Member

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    As long as all of the sciences are incomplete -- trivially easy to demonstrate that they are -- all the dictionaries based upon those incomplete sciences are necessarily incomplete, inaccurate and/or just plain wrong. So what you're arguing for is a standard of truth based on whatever is currently IN PRINT AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME? On Google??

    No, check that -- whatever YOUR LEVEL OF UNDERSTANDING IS of whatever is currently in print at this moment of time. Ironically all of you dictionaries are so useless when you or any reader doesn't understand the words he's reading. At least the Schoolmen felt obliged to have some understanding of what their words did and did NOT 'mean'. Your reading of these words are not standing up to scrutiny and referencing bad interpretations of dictionary defs is really not helping your cause.

    Specific case in point: you have yet to show us the dictionary which defines "real" as necessarily "physical". So you're constantly violating you own standard of validity.

    d.
     
  8. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Perfect. Now show me a dictionary definition that lists time as not existing.
     
  9. Asexperia Valued Senior Member

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    We know from direct experience what a minute, an hour, a day and a year are.

    We woild not know time by experience if it did not exist.
     
  10. dr9090 Registered Member

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    Eddington famously quipped that if Time did not exist, physicists would have to invent it. Infinite sets of discrete temporal "ages" isn't nearly as eloquent at traditional continuum notions of Time. But to get to "age" you have to assume something which looks and feels exactly like traditional "Time". So why not just call whatever it is that does clearly exist "Time" and be done with it? Either that to create some cutesy new word to express "non-existent-Time" and just let it die a natural death from epic non-use due to its irrelevance? "Un-Chron"? "Temp-No-Mo"? "The Beat-less"?

    In effect, QM is already a discrete temporal 'age' theory (the Planck seconds of the Quantum of Action); and properly stated, all Newtonian observables are large ensembles of quantum entities. So classical Newtonian time is most likely poor description -- even in the hands of Einstein -- born of the unavoidable limitations of human experience and of other imprecise mechanical measurement devices.

    This I do not say to mean that real continuum Time doesn't exist. But rather that IMO the only place where it could possibly exist is somewhere below inherently discrete Planck Time scale.

    d.
     
  11. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Word.
     
  12. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    How apropos: Today's XKCD:

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    Rollover text:

    You're saying that the responsibility for avoiding miscommunication lies entirely with the listener, not the speaker, which explains why you haven't been able to convince anyone to help you down from that wall."

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  13. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Love the cartoon

    I might annex to use as needed and reference credit back to you

    While I don't remember saying anything about communication breakdown being the fault of the listener I will contend both can be at fault for various reasons and at various percentages

    However in the cartoon not only is the listener totally at fault they are not even on topic

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  14. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Only if she presumes that what he means by all those words is what she thinks they should mean - and that would be an explicitly bad presumption on her part.
     
  15. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Precisely

    Humpty

    There's glory for you!'

    'I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.

    Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. 'Of course you don't — till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'

    'But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.

    When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'

    'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

    'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'

    Alice through the Looking Glass

    And as I noted in a previous post

    when I use a word I choose it to mean

    what the general concensous of

    dictionaries agree it means

    The stick girl in cartoon is well out of step

    IF IF IF I am being compared to the stick girl it would be very much a mistake

    Not often but if I am unclear of a word in a post I look it up

    Then as I say I go back to the post to see the word in context

    If I feel the word in context is incorrect I will call it

    No can do for the following reasons
    1. I'm lazy and I'm not going to search for something I have a strong suspicion does not exist
    2. Dictionaries provide definetions of what words mean NOT what they don't mean
    3. It's well above my pay scale to go to dictionary compilers and ask them to insert necessarily in front of physical when defining real. I'll accept the dictionary definition without out any qualifications
    As I have suggested to those who contend any definetion as
    • Being wrong
    • Not clear enough
    • Having a meaning not included
    contact the compilers, explain their position and give examples with a history

    There's a glory for you

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    'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'

    For me the dictionary compilers are the masters of their art

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  16. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Exactly. Which is why resorting to dictionary definitions is one of the weakest stances in a discussion. They are generic.
    And yet, that's exactly what you did.

    We can effectively roll back the last page or so of assertions.


    We all know X exists; we all experience it, we all measure it, all events depend on it.
    You have your own word for X. The rest of us call it time.
     
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  17. dr9090 Registered Member

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    1. "...I have strong suspicion does not exist".. To quote the Irish drill sergeant in the movie "Glory" -- "Now yer learnin', boy-o."

    2. Actually, dictionaries focus on acceptable word usage, not meaning. New words come -- from slang, technology; and old archaic words go -- even from unabridged editions. So when "time" gets classified archaic and then disappears, we'll all owe you a drink. And actually, dictionaries do make specific what they don't mean. Case in point is the very word "Exist" .. M-W makes clear that a thing does not need to be "physical" to be considered exist. I keep reiterating this because it seemingly keeps going right over your head.

    3. My use of 'necessity' (as in 'necessary and sufficient') is a function of my logical argument. M-W uses its own vocabulary to express, e.g., that it is not necessary to existent things be 'physical'. Which is fine with me. I'm not having any problems with how M-W defines them.. just how some people read their definitions and try to read into them things that are not there.
    The dictionaries are not supporting you aaaargument against the existence of Time or something very much like it. Maybe try encyclopedias?

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    d.
     
  18. Asexperia Valued Senior Member

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    DESCRIPTIVE CONCEPTS OF TIME

    To describe time does not suffice a single concept. It is also necessary to define the becoming and the duration.
    Time is the moment when events occur.
    Becoming is the continuous and irreversible succession of changes or phenomena.
    The duration is the interval between two moments in time.
    These definitions are true so the existence of time can not be denied. For example, the rain that begins to fall, lasts a while and ends has its effects. In one hour a point of the Earth rotates 15 degrees and moves a certain distance. These examples show that time is objective.
    The becoming-duration duality describes time.
     
  19. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I agree. but would like to modify the phrase to; Time is an emergent duality as a result of becoming-duration.
     
  20. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    6.4.1 Time Cannot Be Detected
    Time has never been detected: no physical indication of a manifestation has ever been identified. Clocks are neither time detectors nor time emitters. Clocks are more precise than Nile floods, but they are only passive human-made devices, in so far as their functioning requires energy. Moreover, their accuracy depends on their level of technology, and it also depends on their environment, including gravity. The error is common: gravity disrupts the clock mechanism, not time; this is confirmed by all experiments with gravity (Ch. 8, 4)

    6.4.2 Time Is Powerless
    No mark caused by any kind of physical time has ever been brought to light. The
    rust that gradually corrupts scrap iron is caused by oxygen, not by time: the aging
    process is interrupted as soon as oxygen is removed. Clocks are not activated by time. Neither the Earth/Sun configuration, nor clocks are chrono-generative. It has been shown that one Earth revolution, which makes us one year older, is the cause of the increase in our chronological age, as recorded in our personal records; but the Earth revolution is not the cause of the increase in our biological age, i.e., our aging.

    6.4.3 Time Has No Source
    No source of physical time has ever been detected in any place in the Universe,
    wherever it may be. No physical phenomenon can be identified as producing physical time. Locally, movements of the Earth relative to the Sun produce days, nights, and seasons, but these physical events are not time.
    A quartz crystal does not generate any more time than the spring of a watch: their oscillations just indicate that they are both seeking a state of physical equilibrium; furthermore, the time displayed on clocks depends inherently on laborious conventions, regardless of the technology they use.
    Therefore time is not a physical phenomenon. An additional confirmation is provided by the aging process.

    6.5 The Etiology of Aging
    In the common sense view, time is the cause of aging. But common sense knows
    nothing about either one or the other; to the extent that common sense confuses age and old age, breaking all the rules of terminological precision. Let us see why aging is in fact a consequence rather than a cause.

    ALL the above from

    The Invention of Time and Space by
    Patrice F. Dassonville

    If you wish to know about time I recommend this book. Very detailed in parts but understandably with the contention time does not exist

    My simple idea and description

    The is no "inbuilt inherent" unit of time within the Universe

    What is commonly called time is a measurement of change and is more correctly called AGE the units of which have been arbitrarily chosen

    The PAST is non existent
    The FUTURE is non existent
    Only NOW exist

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  21. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    But yet we can measure a chronology of events and assign a value of duration to this chronology. We have arbitrarily chosen increments of time to record this chronology, from nano-seconds, to millennia.
     
  22. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    And we are back to explaining it is a arbitrarily chosen
    NOW from which arbitrarily units are assigned until another arbitrarily
    NOW is reached and the
    AGE of
    EVERYTHING existing between those two
    NOWs has been arbitrarily measured

    There is NO time within AGE

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  23. birch Valued Senior Member

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    The past exists just like the present and future. It is one continuous timeline, it depends on what point you are on that timeline. In order to affect the future depends on what you do today, if you can.

    You can use info from yesterday to ascertain today and plan for tomorrow, albeit with unknown variables. So it all exists simultaneously. The point of observer just differs.
     
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