Does time exist?

Discussion in 'Physics & Math' started by Saint, Dec 10, 2021.

  1. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    It means that the brownness of your hair has no existence outside of, or independent from, your hair; the speed of your heartbeat has no independent existence from your heart, and the width, length and height (i.e. dimensions) of your various body parts can't be in the universe unless you first possess a body.
     
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  3. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    I see I think. You are saying without objects in the universe there would be no time or length. That may or may not be true. I think the same could be said in an opposite manner, if there was no time or length there could not be any objects. So to me this is just philosophical bullshit. There are objects in the universe and there are dimensions. Very simple and clear cut IMO.
     
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  5. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    The
    There are objects in the universe that have dimensions. A dimension, running free all by itself, has never been recorded.
    Conversely, it is also true that there are no objects without dimensions; that all objects have dimensions. Dimension is one of the attributes of an object.
    No, it's linguistic bullshit. Meaning is an attribute of words and other symbols. There are no symbols without meaning and meaning has no existence independently of symbols.
    Without meaningful words and symbols, communication is impossible, logic is impossible, understanding is impossible, abstract thought is impossible.
     
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  7. geordief Valued Senior Member

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    Maybe you can (really)have attributes and you can have objects but you cannot have one without the other?

    Which comes first?

    If there was an initial asymmetry in the universe was that the daddy or mummy of all chickens?...the first shape we know of

    Edit: cross posted
     
  8. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Neither. It is the defining characteristic of physical objects to have physical attributes: form, dimension, colour, consistency, texture.
    It is the defining characteristic of attributes to be adjectival descriptions of objects.
    Whether there was or not (I would guess not) an asymmetry in the forming of the universe, is one of the things we cannot know.
    Usually, the flexible, vaguely round wall of the amniotic sac and/or our own tiny fingers - but we only apprehend these shapes by touch until our eyes develop and we plop out into the light.
     
  9. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    The problem with space and time, of course is that these are dimensions - or, if you prefer, functions - of the entire universe, rather of any discrete objects within the universe.
     
  10. geordief Valued Senior Member

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    Well I was just going on something that I had heard quite often;that at first there was an equal ratio of matter to antimatter and that now it is overwhelmingly one sided

    Maybe I extrapolated subconsciously from that to assuming there must have been an initial asymmetry (although perhaps I also heard that claimed by someone I now forget)
     
  11. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    So, the asymmetry was not the initial situation, but one that developed later?
    Okay, if that is so - we can't know; we can only conjecture and theorize - that asymmetry formed between the quantity* of types of physical object (matter), not between the nature of their attributes (i.e. lightness and darkness; that is, the light matter didn't grow lighter; there was just less of it, and the dark matter stayed the same shade of dark, only there was more of it.)
    *Quantity is a whole 'nother ballgame. While 'Savoy blue', '2m in diameter', 'spherical' and 'medium firm spongy' are definite descriptors of attributes: a means of identifying a singular object, ' bigger, more, stronger' etc. are comparative ones, and require two or more objects to have any meaning.
    But then, you might want to ask: What happened? Where did the light matter go? Did it turn dark? Did it solidify into planets and suns, so that it now has less volume only because it's more dense? Did it turn into energy? If so, where and how is that deployed?*
    (They're wasting it on the holodecks of the Star Trek franchise starships, playing silly historical romance games.)
     
  12. geordief Valued Senior Member

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    I don't know if this has been said or implied but I imagine that attributes can only be applied to groups or pairs of objects and not an object on it's own.

    So"attributes," could be replaced by "relationships " and that make more fundamental sense.

    For example something I see as red ,you may see as blue.

    Shakespeare said something about "a rose by any other name" but that was artistic license I think
     
  13. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    Agreed.
     
  14. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Why? Once the concept of colour, shape, consistency and units of measurement have been established, you can have a single 2 inch hard yellow cube; it doesn't need the 2m blue sponge ball to compare to.
    The comparative ones - tall, long, fat, tiny - yes; those require another object or other objects to be related to. But the other object or objects don't need to be present for us to apply a relative descriptive term: we carry in our brains a data-base in which the category of object is associated with a range of attributes. So, when I say 'a tall woman', you picture a human female in the 5'6" - 6'3" range, and not the Eiffel Tower. If you say 'a very deep lake', I think of a body of water in which something can sink many meters down, not a demitasse of espresso.
    Length and height are funny terms, too: they both refer to the biggest spatial dimension of a single object - but which you use depends on whether the object is oriented vertically or horizontally. When someone says a person is 6' tall, you assume a standing man, but if they says a person is 6' long, you assume a dead man. All of these modifiers carry both overt (specific) information and implied (associated by category) information.There may also be emotional associations - personal or shared among a group - with a category of objects, e.g. 'flag', 'wife' 'hospital' or 'football'.
    If that were generally true, we couldn't have names for colours. You couldn't tell your young helper: "Hand me the Roberts screwdriver. Red handle." But we had names - a huge and imaginative collection of finely differentiated identifications (here are 144 names for blue : https://www.color-meanings.com/shades-of-blue-color-names-html-hex-rgb-codes/) - for colour, long before we knew about the spectrum of light. If one of us sees a colour very differently from the majority of us, it's because that one person has a defect in their vision. However, you can't tell a dog to bring the screwdriver with the rad handle; our words don't apply to his range of colour perception. If you have a canine apprentice, you'd be better advised to code your tools by scent. "Rex, fetch the oregano tool."
    He may have coined a lot of phrases, but that one is literally true. Objects do not lose or change their attributes when we change their names. Whether you can tell a dog rose from a damask rose, they will each continue to have the requisite number of petals, colour range, scent, growth habit, etc.
    If Romeo and Juliet had been sensible enough to grow up and get married, she would have changed her surname to Montague... Well, more likely, they'd have run away and both assumed false names, so she might be Mrs. Pirandello or something - but she would still be the same size, colour and consistency - at least until the first baby.
     
    Last edited: Dec 16, 2021
  15. geordief Valued Senior Member

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    Rather than address you whole post can I explain what may be our main point of "disagreement"?

    My "second object" is just the object that is used to make the measurement that allows us to give any individual object an attribute.

    So ,a red object is red by virtue of a beam of light emitted by another object.

    So there are two of them in it -even more if we include the measuring equipment on the eye or machine.

    I hope my interpretation covers your other points.We seem to be approaching this from different angles.
     
  16. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Oh. That's an interesting perspective I had not considered. I was so focused on the meaning of words, I lost sight of the big picture.
    I see: the universe is a system of objects, processes and relationships, none of which could exist, proceed or interact without the others.
    The Really Big Relativity. I like that!
     
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  17. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    "Time" exists as a unit of symbols or vocal sounds, via multiple people agreeing that they see or hear such a phenomenon.

    Beyond that... "Time" is a label applied to various circumstances (partial list below). Do the latter exist, is what one should inquire or reflect about.

    And not as that ambiguous group subsumed under an umbrella category -- but each as a specifically discerned situation that is either signified by the word "time" or is involved with or associated with "time".

    As a somewhat crude analogy: If you ask someone if they like music, and they say yes -- then you may erroneously infer that they like all types of music. If you don't narrow down from that general concept or label.

    Similarly, an automobile is not going to be repaired with the understanding or general idea that "This automobile is in need of fixing." Specific details need to be addressed, both in terms of cognition and action, in order for that to happen.


    time (noun)

    1. An instance or single occasion for some event.
    "this time he succeeded"

    2. A period of time considered as a resource under your control and sufficient to accomplish something.
    "take time to smell the roses"

    3. An indefinite period (usually marked by specific attributes or activities).
    "the time of year for planting"

    4. A suitable moment.
    "it is time to go"

    5. The continuum of experience in which events pass from the future through the present to the past.
    "he waited for along time"

    6. A person's experience on a particular occasion.
    "he had a time holding back the tears"

    7. A reading of a point in time as given by a clock.
    "do you know what time it is?"

    8. The fourth coordinate that is required (along with three spatial dimensions) to specify a physical event.
    "The balloon was suspended a kilometer above the lone intersection of the only two roads on the small island at the time of 4:25 PM, July 8, 1989."

    9. Rhythm as given by division into parts of equal duration.
    - meter [US], metre [Brit, Cdn]

    10. The period of time a prisoner is imprisoned.
    "he is doing time in the county jail"

    11. The whole of all developmental changes, co-existing as different states. Time as a spatial-like fourth dimension.
    "There is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it." --The Time Machine
    _
     
  18. geordief Valued Senior Member

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    Take the proposition implied in the OP that "time does not ,or may not exist"

    What could we deduce from that proposition?

    If we can deduce nothing ,then it means the proposition is , even if true trivially so.

    If we can deduce consequences from the proposition,I am all ears.
     
  19. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    5,089
    1. Time. Y/N 2. Exists.
    1. Has been defined ^^^
    2. Has not been defined.
    The proposition cannot be assessed.
     
  20. Beer w/Straw Transcendental Ignorance! Valued Senior Member

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    What are you saying?
     
  21. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    The question is poorly posed.

    I believe a reasonable deduction from our experience with the function of time is that it is an emergent result of duration.

    All other colloquial uses are derived from the hard fact that there is only evidence of time emerging as a temporal accounting of duration of physical processes in the 3 spatial dimensions.
     
  22. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    that you can't discuss intelligibly a proposition made up of a noun and a verb, if you define only the noun and not the verb.
    What do you mean by "exist"?
     
  23. Beer w/Straw Transcendental Ignorance! Valued Senior Member

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    Um...

    Are you also putting words in my mouth?
     

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