Can you answer the most fundamental question about time?

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by Speakpigeon, Apr 18, 2019.

  1. Capracus Valued Senior Member

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    If time is nonexistent, then so is existence. Existence as we know it always involves change, and as long as there is change, there is the associated aspect of time.
     
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  3. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    No, you tell me why two metre rules are close to the same length (assuming you accept it to be true).
     
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  5. Speakpigeon Valued Senior Member

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    I don't need to. In our usual view of reality, two different things will have correlated characteristics if there is a common factor for them to be that way. If not space, what? If not time, what?
    Suppose you flip two identical coins at the same time with your left and right hands and consistently get the same results for a good while. That the coins are strictly identical wouldn't explain anything.
    EB
     
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  7. Speakpigeon Valued Senior Member

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    The two clocks wouldn't stay synchronised if existence is inexistence. I think.
    Well, never mind.
    EB
     
  8. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Is time an illusion or is it real? That is my fundamental question about time.

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    We seem to be only able to sense time, in the context of the OP, after it has passed. May we discuss that?
     
  9. Speakpigeon Valued Senior Member

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    As I see it, we have a notion of time because we have a sense of time. Time as we think of it intuitively is therefore just what we so perceive. As such, we know it exists as we perceive it. Then we have a concept of objective time, essentially what is measured by clocks and, as such, I don't think anyone really knows objective time and whether it exists at all. But you'll find people to claim otherwise aplenty.
    EB
     
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  10. river

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    Both

    Time is an illusion in that it never effects , affects and nor causes anything ( physical objects to move , nor change position .)

    Real only because of time zones of Earth .

    Time does not control any movement , upon any physical thing .
     
    Last edited: Apr 25, 2019
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  11. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Is it real, do you think, because we apply a definition to it? Otherwise, what would it really be but an illusion?
     
  12. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    IMO, Time is a mathematical counting mechanism which emerges and records the duration of change. Human are able to apply arbitrary increments of measuring chronological "duration" of change or distance.

    In nature Time must emerge as change cannot happen at the same time in the same place and chronology can only become manifest when separated by spacetime coordinates, creating the emergence of measurement of "chronological duration" (time) in the process.
     
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2019
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  13. Marathon-man Registered Member

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    The best way to see the passing of time is to look at the stars. What you are looking at is the past by a factor of billions of years. Even though you are seeing them with your naked eye, some of those stars may no longer exist, consumed by a cosmic event billions of years ago.
    When you see these stars, you are looking at them in your present time. Another being living on a planet billions of light years away from earth may see earth when it was just forming.
    Time is measured by distance.
    In Hinduism Lord Shiva once stated, "Behold me for I have become Death the Destroyer of Worlds". However, Lord Krishna once said "Behold me for I have become Time the Destroyer of Death"
     
  14. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I would equate observation of time as emergent with "beginning, duration, end" of anything wich persists.

    The Higgs boson has no measurement of time. It exists just for an "instant" without chronology of duration?
     
  15. Speakpigeon Valued Senior Member

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    Reminder:
    This is the most fundamental question concerning time:
    If time doesn't exist as such, if the only reality of time is to be a mere convention, a convenience to ensure the necessary synchronisation of our activities across society, including the synchronisation of our machines and of our scientific instruments, then how is it at all possible to durably synchronise different clocks, among other things? Assuming a number of clocks are set to read the same as some master clock, and assuming time doesn't exist, why would the clocks stay synchronised at all?
    EB
     
  16. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    It's a mathematical universe. Things happen in orderly patterns.
    https://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae261.cfm
     
    Last edited: May 5, 2019
  17. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    This is an old thread but I ran across this article about Time and thought it might be of interest (belatedly...

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    Experience and perception of time
    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time-experience/#WhatPercTime
     
  18. just me Registered Senior Member

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    because the clock hands all have the same amount of change.
    and the same position in space.
     
  19. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    No they don't. Some clocks run fast, some slow and they all indicate a passage of time. My speedometer is stuck on 60 mph. Does that mean my car is always going @ 60 mph? What is passage of what as a universal constant? Time is arbitrarily measured as a rate of decay of the element caesium, IOW an arbitrary measurement of duration of disintegration.
    An arbitrary symbolic representation of duration.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesium_standard

    What I am saying that clocks are human artifacts indication arbitrary measurements (intervals) of duration. What is a "second" (of time)?
    Of these three periods, only the past is measurable, i.e. time is product of memory in the observer. A stopwatch is a devise with memory of start and finish of a past or continuing chronology.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time

    Today we can measure time in picoseconds and that is only half way down the scale to Planck quanta


    Can anyone answer me where the wavefunction occurs? I see a quantum, not a wave. The double slit experiment only shows a wave interference pattern, which is assumed to be the photon in its wave like form. This experiment clearly shows that the Quanta of photons is an object with defined boundaries and not anywhere near looking like a wave function.
    Any scattering is the interaction of photons with the medium (mixture of water and milk).

    David Bohm proposed that the interference pattern in a double slit experiment is evidence of the universal Pilot Wave which carries the photon in its quantum state and guides it in accordance to a "guiding equation", i.e according to the mathematics of the wave function. Thus eliminating the need for the mysterious particle duality!
     
    Last edited: Feb 20, 2020
  20. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    If God is all powerful and created the universe as it exists today, he would become "unnecessary" and "superfluous" regardless of his wishes. The universe runs itself in accordance to all the natural (mathematical) laws god devised to begin with.

    Prayer for God's intervention would become (and already is) completely useless. As George Carlin observed ;
    "If God had a Divine plan, how can you expect that ever schmuck with a two dollar prayer book could come along and change His plan?"
     
  21. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Time is a product of memory.
     
  22. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Time does not create change. Change is accompanied by emergent duration of change, which we named time.

    It's interesting that some see mathematics as a human invention, yet see time as a metaphysical dimension.
    I see the exact opposite.
     
  23. river

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    Because the clocks are mechanically synchronised . Its about mechanization . Nothing more .
     
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