Broken Watches

ThazzarBaal

ThazzarBaal

Registered Senior Member
"Even a broken watch is right twice a day, " This much is obviously true. My question is are they right all day like a working watch and twice a day broken?

Time zones and 5:00 somewhere mentality seems relevant as does the pendulum swing, this time from right to left.
 
Seattle said:
No.



No question to respond to here.
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You see a little but there may be more - technically speaking in a somewhat philosophical way. The question pertains to the concept of infinity and how we relate to it via the concept of time. Why use a broken watch for this purpose? It's about time being illusory yet valid in terms of how sentient beings relate to a timeless existence, much like the broken watch being both right all day long, and only right twice a day, depending on how it's being viewed by it's observer.

Perspectives
 
ThazzarBaal said:
You see a little but there may be more - technically speaking in a somewhat philosophical way. The question pertains to the concept of infinity and how we relate to it via the concept of time. Why use a broken watch for this purpose? It's about time being illusory yet valid in terms of how sentient beings relate to a timeless existence, much like the broken watch being both right all day long, and only right twice a day, depending on how it's being viewed by it's observer.

Perspectives
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Well it is usually helpful to express oneself clearly, rather than in riddles. If you think time is illusory, I think you need to make your case. The dimension of time and the three spatial dimensions, between them, seem necessary to explain and predict the physical world. It seems peculiar to claim any of them is illusory.
 
exchemist said:
Well it is usually helpful to express oneself clearly, rather than in riddles. If you think time is illusory, I think you need to make your case. The dimension of time and the three spatial dimensions, between them, seem necessary to explain and predict the physical world. It seems peculiar to claim any of them is illusory.
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Necessary for an explanation does not, itself, make them real of non-illusory, though. It only makes the concept, as understood at the time, useful in that context.

Whether time is an illusion or not is a question that is not so simply dismissed out of personal incredulity. ;) To wit, some articles discussing the matter, from the first page of a Google on the subject:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04558-7
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-time-an-illusion/
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/16/1139780043/what-is-time-physics-atomic-clocks-society
https://www.space.com/29859-the-illusion-of-time.html

How it relates to broken watches, though, which utilise the current mainstream view of a passing time, I can not say. Nor to an "infinite time", as far as I can tell, as whether time passes or happens all at once, doesn't alter how much of it there is?

Anyhoo, maybe the OP will clarify the issue they want to discuss here? :)
 
exchemist said:
Well it is usually helpful to express oneself clearly, rather than in riddles. If you think time is illusory, I think you need to make your case. The dimension of time and the three spatial dimensions, between them, seem necessary to explain and predict the physical world. It seems peculiar to claim any of them is illusory.
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Making sense of an infinite existence to finite beings is not a simple case to make. The watch, for example, the tool utilized for the exercise. It's not about proving an infinite existence nor how time is both relevant and irrelevant, but rather it's about the exercise and brain activity of thought and thinking. Philosophy -

Or perhaps it's never been infinite, and it too temporal like ourselves.
 
ThazzarBaal said:
Making sense of an infinite existence to finite beings is not a simple case to make. The watch, for example, the tool utilized for the exercise. It's not about proving an infinite existence nor how time is both relevant and irrelevant, but rather it's about the exercise and brain activity of thought and thinking. Philosophy -

Or perhaps it's never been infinite, and it too temporal like ourselves.
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Infinity is a comprehensible idea in mathematics. I don't see the idea of infinite time, t ->∞, as any more troublesome than infinite space. One does not need to bring any particular measuring device, such as a watch, into it.
 
Sarkus said:
Necessary for an explanation does not, itself, make them real of non-illusory, though. It only makes the concept, as understood at the time, useful in that context.

Whether time is an illusion or not is a question that is not so simply dismissed out of personal incredulity. ;) To wit, some articles discussing the matter, from the first page of a Google on the subject:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04558-7
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-time-an-illusion/
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/16/1139780043/what-is-time-physics-atomic-clocks-society
https://www.space.com/29859-the-illusion-of-time.html

How it relates to broken watches, though, which utilise the current mainstream view of a passing time, I can not say. Nor to an "infinite time", as far as I can tell, as whether time passes or happens all at once, doesn't alter how much of it there is?

Anyhoo, maybe the OP will clarify the issue they want to discuss here? :)
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This seems to be the old chestnut about time "passing" or "flowing" - ideas that relativity avoids - rather than the dimension of time itself.
 
exchemist said:
Infinity is a comprehensible idea in mathematics. I don't see the idea of infinite time, t ->∞, as any more troublesome than infinite space. One does not need to bring any particular measuring device, such as a watch, into it.
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Infinity is certainly comprehendible in mathematics, but then we're not speaking about numbers, but human perception as finite beings who operate under the precepts of time, namely past present and future as they relate to personal life and experience.

Watches, broken or otherwise, a tool utilized for the keeping of, and for sake of organized routine. Is a broken watch infinitely correct, particularly as it relates to human concepts of keeping time and international timezones?

That's the point. This was meant to be a fun philosophical exercise for the prize of utilizing the mind creatively as it applies to the concept of infinity and time being illusory in that context.

The broken watch, I thought, might be a useful tool to convey and illustrate the premise itself, given it's always correct even when broken.




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Another contemplation of the premise involves understanding how the past, present, and future all take place simultaneously.
 
ThazzarBaal said:
Infinity is certainly comprehendible in mathematics, but then we're not speaking about numbers, but human perception as finite beings who operate under the precepts of time, namely past present and future as they relate to personal life and experience.

Watches, broken or otherwise, a tool utilized for the keeping of, and for sake of organized routine. Is a broken watch infinitely correct, particularly as it relates to human concepts of keeping time and international timezones?

That's the point. This was meant to be a fun philosophical exercise for the prize of utilizing the mind creatively as it applies to the concept of infinity and time being illusory in that context.

The broken watch, I thought, might be a useful tool to convey and illustrate the premise itself, given it's always correct even when broken.




.
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Fair enough, but those of us who have some mathematical training will probably find that mathematical concepts involving infinity spring to mind when we think of it in other contexts. The infinite extent of phenomena, whether in time or space, is fairly often used in physical science as well as mathematics. As to a clock, the concept of a clock or watch that goes on ticking and does not stop, is not particularly hard to get one's head round.

A broken watch is only correct for an infinitesimally short instant twice a day. At all other times it is inaccurate. "Infinitely correct" has no meaning.
 
exchemist said:
Fair enough, but those of us who have some mathematical training will probably find that mathematical concepts involving infinity spring to mind when we think of it in other contexts. The infinite extent of phenomena, whether in time or space, is fairly often used in physical science as well as mathematics. As to a clock, the concept of a clock or watch that goes on ticking and does not stop, is not particularly hard to get one's head round.

A broken watch is only correct for an infinitesimally short instant twice a day. At all other times it is inaccurate. "Infinitely correct" has no meaning.
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The concept of infinite correctness being broken and right both ways has meaning to those who ponder the point but not so much to those who fail to this way. With that said and stated, and time zones negated, here we are at present and past and future on spot. Ticking away the time given in perhaps a peculiar way but no less meaningful to the point than pointing out the point the other way, namely that the broken watch is quite obviously correct ( at face value) only twice a day.
 
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